I couldn’t help but think about that message he’d given Mrs. Ryan to deliver to Brodie.
Had she reached the office? Even if she had, would Mr. Cavendish be able to find him to deliver that message? What did it mean?
‘I will take from you what you’ve taken from me.’
His freedom, lost twelve years before, when Brodie was an inspector with the MET and had been given the case to find Blackwood after that duel that had taken the other man’s life?
Or was there more to his deranged plan, and I was now the helpless lure in his trap for Brodie?
What part did Victoria Rail Station have to play in this? Did he hope to escape, perhaps taking me with him? Where?
Dover seemed the most likely, since the Victoria line connected there, and then take a ferry across the channel? To what? Freedom?
What was there for him now, after all this time?
Ever since leaving the townhouse, I went through everything I had learned from Burke at the Times from the articles he had written about Blackwood. Columns written at the time of the murder in the aftermath of that duel, and the trial that had followed.
Blackwood had lost everything according to Burke’s account—his family home, his position in society, his wife and child when they fled the scandal, what was left of his life to be spent in Newgate prison, a place as good as death, some said.
I thought again of that message he’d given Mrs. Ryan:‘I will take from you what you have taken from me.’
He had to be deranged, perhaps insane, considering all that had happened since his escape, but what he intended was clear…to take from Brodie what had been taken from him.
Did that included killing him, since Blackwood was now dying of cancer, the morphine only delaying it long enough to come here…?
If he received that message, Brodie would come after me. I was certain of it as I scanned the faces among those we passed.
And he would die.
I continued to watch the faces of the passengers who departed the train that had arrived at the platform, people atthe ticket counter we passed, and those around us as we moved along the platform to the next train that waited.
Was Brodie already there, somewhere amidst those who chatted amongst themselves, some not even passengers, perhaps escaping the weather and usual gloom of London in winter?
Would he be able to find us? There were at least a dozen platforms and an equal number of booking offices with the names of the rail companies serviced by the rail station.
The answer was there as Blackwood jerked painfully at my arm and pulled me from the crowd before the booking offices for the Dover line.
“Here!” he said, a sharp sound as he winced with pain. “We will wait here!”
I thought of alerting the clerk at the ticket counter as he assisted an elderly man and woman with their tickets, but decided against it. I would not endanger anyone in Blackwood’s mad scheme.
I glanced about for any sign of Brodie. It was possible he never received that message.
It was obvious that Blackwood was suffering. I felt no sympathy. The man was a murderer, and he was dying.
What would he do if Brodie failed to appear? How long was Blackwood willing to wait?
The answer was there in that message.
He would wait here, or some other place known to both of them, and then take what had been taken from him.
The crowd that moved about us began to thin as passengers boarded their train. While others entered a nearby shop or one of the refreshment rooms that served tea and meals while they awaited their own departures.
Might there be a means of escape at one of the shops, I thought, as I felt once more the weakness in the hand that gripped my arm.
Blackwood was weak, however, not dead. He had sensed my movement, and his hand tightened, immediately alert once more.
“Not yet, Lady Forsythe!” he snarled. “But soon enough. I want Detective Brodie to feel what I felt when I lost my family. I want him to watch you die! And then it will be his turn!”
