“And wot of the dozen or so others who are no doubt about the place?” Brodie commented with a bit of dark humor. “A few more than we might prefer. Let us see what Mr. Brown has learned.”
Ives cursed as Munro finally released him. “If I had me way…”
“If you had yer way, you would be dead,” Munro told him.
They followed Ives down to the second floor where Brown sat at his desk, the sky pale with first light through a window beyond.
Had Brown received word where Blackwood could be found?
“Your man, the one who goes about on that platform like the devil was chasing him. He sent word that you need to get back to the Strand straight away.”
“What’s happened?”
“He didn’t tell my man the purpose, only threatened to take his legs out if he failed to get word to you.”
Mr. Cavendish had spent twenty years at sea until an accident aboard ship took his legs and left him land-bound. But, if need be, he could be quite dangerous, and had been known to use the deception of his infirmity to catch others unaware.
He was quick and strong, in great part due to the physical demands of his own personal transportation. He had seen the man take another man three times his size off his feet at the knees. The rest of the lesson was administered with the knife he carried but was rarely forced to use for such encounters.
Mikaela was fond of the man and always called himMr. Cavendish, a sign of respect. Now, with the need to find Blackwood, if Mr. Cavendish said that the matter was urgent, it was urgent.
“I thank you, Mr. Brown.” Brodie then nodded to Munro and left the boxing house as the first participants arrived for a morning bout.
“We’ll be seein’ each other, my friend,” Brown called after them as they left the boxing club, found a driver, and promised twice the fare as they left Bethnal Green.
Brodie cursed the weather and the traffic on the street, even at that early hour of the morning. Still, they arrived at the Strand in quick time, Mr. Cavendish rolling out from the alcove as the driver pulled to the curb. He had the driver wait.
“I used the key Miss Mikaela gave me and put a woman upstairs,” Mr. Cavendish informed him. “Mrs. Ryan… She brought word from Mayfair.”
#204 THE STRAND
Brodie quickly took the stairs with Munro a short distance behind. He threw open the door to the office.
Mrs. Ryan rose from the chair across from his desk.
“Saints be praised, you’re here Mr. Brodie!”
“What’s happened? Tell me!”
He listened to all of it—Blackwood’s threats reaching back across the years, what’d he’d lost—his family, his home, the family fortune. Threats that were made when Brodie, with the help of others, finally tracked him down.
Then the murder charge against Blackwood, the trial that followed. He’d avoided the hangman’s noose and was sentenced to Newgate.
Never once did he show the least remorse for the life he’d taken, claiming he was innocent and had been wronged, protests and bold threats he made from the dock at the Old Bailey.
After the trial, articles filled the crime sheet of the Times. Even then, Blackwood refused to claim responsibility for the mistakes he’d made or the man he’d killed.
Instead, he blamed those who caught him—for tracking him down that last day, and for the loss of everything, the mistress he kept, the club he belonged to, the loss of his home and family fortune, the divorce that followed, and the loss of his son, as his wife took the child and fled the scandal.
He swore revenge.
Mrs. Ryan hesitated.
“Tell me all of it,” Brodie told her.
“He said that he would take from you, what you have taken from him. Oh, Mr. Brodie… Miss Mikaela is strong, but I’m afraid for her!”
“Aye.” He comforted her as best he could.
