I did not question that.
Before the accident that had taken his legs, he had spent years aboard a merchantman. It was not the first time he mentioned pitching someone overboard.
“And I see the hound is no worse for the experience.”
“Ye should have been here,” Lily chimed in. “He was magnificent. Sir Avery will have more than a few bruises.”
“Good lad,” he replied, then spun about and headed for the lift.
“I’ll be at the Public House,” he called out as he entered the lift. “It’s cold out tonight.”
No explanation needed there.
After sharing supper, I telephoned my great aunt to let her know that Lily would be staying with us, then returning to Sussex Square in the morning.
“So good of you to let me know,” she exclaimed through the earpiece.
She did hate the thing and much preferred an embossed formal note sent round—possible evidence she had once commented, should it be needed.
She hadn’t provided details of that and I didn’t ask. However, with true Montgomery fortitude, she used the“damned thing”as she called the telephone.
She then went on to tell me that she had spoken with Lady Walsingham whose son had died in that riding accident and the grieving mother would be expecting me to call on her.
“I have asked Madame to inquire with her sources in the matter as well,” she added. “No stone unturned.”
Oh my.
“Who the devil is Madame?” Brodie asked when I explained that I would be meeting with Althea Walsingham after ending the conversation.
I had not previously spoken of Madame Sybille, as I knew Brodie’s thoughts regarding such things.
“She is the lady who speaks to spirits,” Lily explained. “She has been to Sussex Square several times.”
“Speaks to spirits?” Brodie commented as he set more coal in the box of the stove. “Is she perhaps acquainted with Miss Templeton?”
It was not that he didn’t think it was possible. I had to admit that my good friend, Templeton, who was currently off on tour with her latest play, was a trifle eccentric. Yet, then, many people considered Aunt Antonia to be eccentric. Precisely what she let them believe.
As she had once explained it to my sister and me, people were often very accommodating, and one could get away with a great deal if they thought one was eccentric or a bit off as she put it. I had seen her use that to her advantage more than once. And it was possible the same was true of my friend.
“You have to admit,” I told Brodie, “Templeton has provided information in the past that we might not have learned otherwise.”
Lily smiled as Brodie slammed the iron door shut on the stove.
Sixteen
I setthe telephone earpiece back in the cradle. It was early in the morning, yet Althea Walsingham had responded to my note.
Her husband had left for his office at the Exchange for the day, and she had just sent her housekeeper off to the market in spite of the rain. She had been expecting a telephone call from me.
We spoke briefly. I heard the way her voice softly caught as she spoke of her son, then the way she took a breath and then carried on, speaking of the time after the horseback riding accident at Hyde Park.
Aunt Antonia had spoken of her strength in the aftermath. She truly admired her, and my great aunt rarely admired other persons.
I could count them all on one hand. Others were simply wastrels—a somewhat antiquated term—or in her own words, those with feathers for brains.
Never one to mince words, she’d declared, “You live long enough, travel enough, and you realize there are few truly intelligent and good people in the world. Most others are simply cluttering the place up.”
I had seen some of that as well in the cases Brodie and I took, where good people were made to suffer for others.
