He slowly looked up. “What do you want? Tell me, so that you will then leave.”
I retrieved the morning edition from my bag and laid it on his desk.
“A most interesting article about the murder of Constable Martin and now the suspicious death of the retired Chief Inspector,” I commented.
“Considering your talent as a reporter,” I continued, “you undoubtedly have additional information that you have learned regarding the two situations.”
“Situations?” he repeated. “You always put everything so very proper that no one could possibly detect the threat behind it.”
“I have no idea what you are speaking of,” I replied.
“The fact that your great-aunt is Lady Antonia Montgomery and an acquaintance of long-standing and some influence with Mr. Walter, who is now owner of the Times.”
There was that, of course. Something I had learned after my first inquiry case. Her opinion of Theodolphus Burke was much the same as my own.
“Pompous, arrogant little man with hardly a teaspoon of talent,” she had commented in that particular conversation. “All he is capable of writing about are sensational crimes like thosepoor women murdered in the East End. And those have yet to be solved.”
Aunt Antonia was an avid patron of the Times. Still there was Burke’s point about her acquaintance with Mr. Walter.
“There is little known at this time about the murders,” he informed me. “You, above all, should know that you cannot divulge everything you know.”
His tone brought a low growl from Rupert.
“I do not know which is the more threatening, Lady Forsythe. That scroungy beast or yourself.”
I took that as a compliment. However, I wasn’t so certain about Rupert. His hackles were still raised on his back.
“How is it that you learned so quickly about what had happened to the chief inspector?”
“I have my sources, just as you and Mr. Brodie.”
I gave him a long look. “Someone within the MET no doubt.”
“When the call came in from the constable on duty nearby, a ‘friend’ contacted me. I will not share his name, even under risk of peril.”
This was said with a look in Rupert’s direction. It was too tempting.
“Was there a particular reason you were contacted?” I replied.
He made a sound, very much like a groan.
“I had met recently with the chief inspector about a project he was pursuing and had met with him at the old Scotland Yard, months past.”
“Might I ask, what sort of project?”
“You might ask.”
I waited.
“He wanted information about an old case that I had written about. He asked to see the newspaper archive about the case, and we had struck up an acquaintance.”
I couldn’t imagine that, yet to each their own.
“What was the case?”
“It was a case that I covered regarding one of your own, Sir Edward Blackwood, who was convicted of murdering a fellow gentleman, Sir Andrew Sark, in a duel. It caused quite a sensation at the time.”
I could imagine, since dueling had been outlawed years before.
