“Was anyone harmed?”
“The guards around the Duke of York had been increased. One of them got in a blow before the man managed to escape with the aid of another.”
“Was either man seen?”
“There was not enough light with the weather and the late hour of the night. But the man who attacked the duke had an obvious impairment of one leg.”
“What of the man who helped him escape?” I then asked.
I was certain I already knew the answer—a tall man and thick set.
I explained the feeling there was someone outside of the church’s library. And my decision for Lily to return to Sussex Square. Rupert was quite insistent in the graveyard as if there was someone there.
“Aye, it was right ye did so. She is headstrong, that one.”
I then told him what we had learned from the church records.
“St. Mary’s Church?” he remarked. “That could tell us more, but not tonight,” he added as he pushed aside the heavy drapes at the office window.
“No one will be out and about, wot with the weather.”
The lights in the office flickered and then went out leaving us in darkness except for the fire in the coal stove.
He attempted to place a telephone call to Sir Avery to tell him what I had learned. But it appeared that, along with the electric, the service for the telephone had also become a victim of the weather that had steadily worsened after I left Sussex Square.
Rain beat against the office window and filled the street below, a risky enterprise for anyone who ventured out as traffic thinned.
It did appear that a good part of the rest of The Strand was without electric as well, except for gas streetlights in the theatre district in the distance.
Then the sound of the rain eased and turned to snow.
I retrieved an oil lamp from the cabinet, left from somewhat more primitive conditions only the year before, and lit it as Brodie set the lock on the door. He then added more coal to the fire in the stove.
“The mornin’ will be here soon enough,” he said, as he poked at the fire. I sat at my desk and opened my notebook and made notes in the pool of light from the stove.
It was sometime later that he added more coal to the fire, then went to the cupboard adjacent to his desk.
“Stale biscuits and whisky,” he announced.
I set my pen down. It wasn’t the first time we had only biscuits and some of my great aunt’s whisky.
“Yes, please,” I replied.
He poured us both a dram, handed a tumbler to me, then set the carton of stale biscuits on my desk.
I munched—it was good that I had strong teeth—then took a sip of Old Lodge whisky.
“Is it possible that Reverend Chastain is behind the murders?” I asked him. “Revenge for what happened to his daughter, even though that was over thirty years ago?”
A strong motive, as we had seen in previous inquiry cases.
“Perhaps,” Brodie replied as he bit off a piece of biscuit.
“I suppose it is possible that the man who’s been doing this might be the husband of Mary Chastain,” I said as I thought of what we knew.
“Aye, perhaps.”
“She could be living somewhere here in London and her husband learned of it…”
