“And you, as well?”
“I suppose she has been a strong influence,” I admitted.
“Then you are not angry about my decision?”
“The first of many, I suspect. I must admit that it might be far easier if you were a meek creature who simply said ‘yes, ma’am.’ However, you are not, nor could you ever be. I knew that when we were escaping the Vaults beneath Edinburgh.”
She was still quite serious. “I didn’t want to disappoint you, after everything you’ve done for me.”
“Now you are being a foolish chit.”
The first of more conversations, I hoped, as I braved the rapier and gave her a strong embrace.
“What do you think of Madame Sybille?”
That certainly took the conversation in a different direction. Madame Sybille was the spiritualist and medium my great-aunt had brought to Sussex Square for her ladies’ group.
“She seems to be quite entertaining,” I replied. “Aunt Antonia is fond of her. She insists that she’s very talented. As I recall, Madame Sybille helped one of her acquaintances find a ring her late husband had given her after it was lost. A good guess, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Lily replied.
I sensed there might be more, however did not press the matter. From my own experience and knowing Lily as I did, I was certain there would be more conversations. She was most curious about things.
“I would like to practice a bit longer,” she said then.
Of course, I thought as I left her to the demise of the sandbag.
“You have spoken with her?” Aunt Antonia inquired as I returned to the hall and collected my coat and umbrella. I nodded.
“It is remarkable how very much like myself she is, when I was that age.”
“No adventure to the Greek Isles?”
“Nor to Paris it seems,” I replied. “She has decided that she will not go.”
My great-aunt smiled. “Interesting, though I am not surprised. She does have a mind of her own.”
After leaving Sussex Square, I returned to the office at the Strand. Brodie had not yet returned from wherever he had gone with Mr. Dooley.
I straightened the bedroom as we had both left somewhat hastily, then the outer office as well.
There were notes I had made on the board regarding the Ambersley case, but only a handful regarding Brodie’s inquiries after learning of Constable Martin’s death.
The morning paper from the day before, with that article on the crime sheet about the death of retired Chief Inspector Dawes, lay on my desk. I read what Burke had written again. It was brief.
It noted that retired former C.I. Dawes had succumbed to injuries of a suspicious nature and was found by his housekeeper at his residence in Hammersmith. The Metropolitan Police were subsequently contacted, and a constable was posted to the residence.
I tucked the newspaper into my bag, put on my long coat against the rain, and seized my umbrella from the stand beside the door.
BRODIE
He crouched down beside the body and made a cursory inspection of the wound there, with his pen lifting the collar of the judge’s shirt.
A single wound there, barely more than a nick of a blade. But it was enough to open the vein causing the gradual death that followed, the judge’s eyes staring blindly after the horror that had been visited upon him.
That wasn’t all of it, though.
“The right hand,” Mr. Dooley informed. “Almost as if…”
