“Where is Angus Brodie?”
In the very least, he knew that we worked together, there was no point in arguing the matter. I attempted to bury my hand with the ring Brodie had given me in the folds of my dressing gown.
“He is obviously not here,” I told him with disdain.
That sickening slow smile.
“Do you know where he is?” he demanded again.
“I have no idea.” It was not a lie.
Brodie was out there somewhere, searching for Blackwood. He might be anywhere. That drugged gaze narrowed. He reached out and seized me by the wrist, dragging my hand from the folds of fabric where it had been hidden. He stared at the ring on my finger.
“You are his wife!” he announced with something very near childish glee. “How very perfect. So much more than I could have hoped for.”
I jerked my arm away from him.
What was he talking about? Was he delirious from pain and the morphine?
He grabbed Mrs. Ryan and shoved her toward me. He aimed the revolver at her.
“You will dress warmly, then immediately return. You are going to deliver a message for me, and you will get rid of that cursed animal! Now! And if you do not return, I will kill her.” He aimed the revolver at me.
Mrs. Ryan looked at me, her expression pale. I nodded for her to do as he said, and she quickly left through the dining room, closing the doors behind her against any possible escape by Rupert.
His furious barking abruptly lessened, then ceased altogether. I could only assume that she had sent him outside.
She eventually reappeared, dressed ‘warmly’ as ordered, in one of her usual gowns, sturdy walking boots, with a coat over. The braid still hung over her shoulder. She had not taken the time to put her hair up as she usually wore it.
“What is the message?” she asked in a voice that steadily grew stronger. “How am I to get it to him when I don’t know where he is?”
“You are to take it to the cripple who occupies the alcove at the Strand. I believe you know what I’m speaking of?”
She nodded. “I know of it. What is the message he is to carry?”
“Tell Angus Brodie that I will take from him what he took from me. You’re to tell him exactly that. Brodie will know the meaning of it. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I do,” she replied, then with a look at me, left, slamming the door behind her.
It was a pointless gesture. Still, I admired her spirit as I watched through the leaded glass in the door when she left, with Rupert at her heel, to deliver that message for Brodie to Mr. Cavendish.
Blackwood would take from Brodie what Brodie had taken from him?
I could only guess what that might mean, and it seemed that I was now part of it.
“You will dress as well,” Blackwood said after she had gone.
He started toward me, the revolver aimed directly at me. He motioned me toward the stairs and followed.
My thoughts raced for some advantage. I was at a disadvantage as long as he had the revolver. I thought then of the blade I usually carried in my boot, given to me by Munro.
“Ye never know when ye might need it,” he said at the time.
Yet a knife was no match for a firearm, and it was obvious that Blackwood was clearly unstable due to the pain of the cancer or the effects of the morphine, perhaps both. Still, I needed to wait for an opportunity where I might be able to stop whatever madness he was determined to carry out.
I could hope that Mrs. Ryan would promptly deliver that message, but then Mr. Cavendish would need to get it to Brodie. There was no way to know how long that might take. My only weapon at present was my refusal to be intimidated and to wait for an opportunity to escape.
“I do not have any weapons in my rooms, and I am perfectly capable of dressing myself,” I informed him at the stairs.
