I had assured him that ‘Mr. Brodie’ was well aware of the training I had acquired while on one of my extended travels.
And then there were engaging conversations with Mr. Holmes over supper at one of his favorite restaurants when I accompanied Brodie. One of those conversations included the necessary use of a firearm from time to time with the nature of the inquiry business.
Rather than asking to be excused from the conversation I had listened attentively as they discussed the advantages and disadvantages of certain firearms.
Brodie usually carried the revolver he had become most familiar with in his time as an inspector with the MET. He had provided me with one imported from the United States after my friend Templeton returned with one.
“It’s not the model most of the men carry in parts of the country,” Templeton had claimed, “however it is very handy if a man…shall we say,takes liberties.”
She was somewhat notorious for her affairs, including one with Munro that lasted for some time.
The weapon fit quite well into my travel bag as well as the pocket of my walking skirts.
“I will warn ye that she is most proficient with it,” Brodie had cautioned Mr. Holmes.
“A woman with a revolver? A dangerous but exciting possibility,” Mr. Holmes commented at the time.
In the aftermath of the end of the Blackwood case, Brodie and I attended the funerals of those who had been his victims.
It was sad and a reminder of the seriousness of the inquiry business, that not all cases were resolved as easily as Lady Ambersley missing necklace, the only victim poor dear Bitsy, which I learned was banished to the solar by Lord Ambersley, rather than have access to the entire manor.
As for Blackwood, he was an escaped prisoner at the time of his death. His body was returned to Newgate, then buried within the prison grounds, we read in an exclusive notice on the crimesheet written afterward by Mr. Burke. Blackwood’s resting place, under the flagstones of the passage known as Dead Man’s Walk.
Quite dramatic that, I thought. But that was Theodolphus Burke, and I had promised that he would have the exclusive details from that last encounter at Victoria Station.
Rupert had recovered due to Mr. Brimley’s care, skill learned at university where he studied to be a physician. Not altogether different than working on a severed foot or hand that occupied the jars in the back room of his shop.
When Rupert finally returned to the Strand, he was well groomed except for a long scar across his side, where Mr. Brimley had been forced to remove his mangy coat in order to operate and sew him back together.
There was a full sponge cake waiting for him as a gift from Mrs. Ryan, who had moved back to Sussex Square. Temporarily, she informed us, only until Brodie and I found a suitable residence.
Aunt Antonia expressed the hope that it would be sooner rather than later, as Mrs. Ryan had taken over the kitchen at Sussex Square, much to the dislike of her own cook, who threatened to quit.
“I was forced to increase the woman’s wage to prevent her leaving,” she told me over a dram of Old Lodge whisky one afternoon when I called on her and Lily, a visit which had become part of my routine when Brodie seemed to become testy over some matter.
My policy in such situations? Best to not be there, I discovered. And truth be told, afterward was far more…interesting.
As for our search for a new residence? It was always possible to take one of the smaller residences at Sussex Square. Munro had moved into the one nearer the stables when it was decided that a room near the servants’ quarters was not appropriate.
I wasn’t certain what that meant, but I thought it might have to do with a particular maid in my great-aunt’s service.
I did not want to know and did not ask after Munro’s somewhat colorful relationship with my friend Templeton.
There had been that vivid mural discovered in her country home as Brodie and I pursued a previous inquiry case. While I considered myself to be an enlightened woman, that mural had been most…colorful. I would leave it at that if anyone asked. Brodie had merely smiled at the time.
As I spent more time at Sussex Square in the weeks following the conclusion of the Blackwood case, I did notice what my great-aunt had spoken of regarding Lily.
She did seem preoccupied with some matter. I often found her in the sword room practicing with the rapier. Or out at the stables where the report of a firearm could be heard. Recently I had seen her at the writing desk in her room where she had finished something she was working on—a thank-you note, she said at the time.
We shared company often, and I did appreciate the time spent together, much like a sister, or ‘daughter’ as Brodie pointed out.
“Ye are getting on a bit, lass. And she is more the young lady now.”
Getting on? I did not consider the age of thirty years to be ‘getting on,’ particularly since my great-aunt was a very young and spry eighty-seven. Although I might be tempted to adopt her response whenever the subject of her age came up.
She simply told whoever was bold enough to ask that she was not a day over fifty years of age.
“It doesn’t matter what they think,” she had announced. “Only what I believe.”
