“I do not care whether they are the fashion or not,” she had exclaimed.
Linnie had then pointed out that she might need them when driving her motor carriage about the streets of London.
“Quite true. The streets are often quite mucked up and signs difficult to read,” Aunt Antonia had admitted. Which had raised another issue, about her adventures in the Benz motor carriage.
I had learned to pick the battles, and that was for another day. I found her glasses, wire-rimmed with a gold chain attached, and handed them to her.
“A button!” she exclaimed as she stared at it once her glasses were in place. “A man’s coat button by the look of it, and most certainly made of gold. Most interesting.” She looked up. “A clue in your inquiry, perhaps?”
Clever. Too clever at times, as she waited for more details, which I did not share at the moment.
“Of course, you cannot say at this time. I can tell you that it is well made, of the sort a gentleman might wear on his waistcoat, and...yes, just as I thought. It is undoubtedly real gold.” She tossed back the hearty dram of whisky in her glass.
“Come along to the sword room, dear. There are some fascinating examples among your ancestors’ costumes, including those of my father,” she announced.
“He insisted on gold with the family crest,” she explained as we rode the lift to the second floor.
“That is how you can tell authentic materials from those that are not, such as the ones that tailors use now for clients.”
Those clients undoubtedly businessmen, professional customers of lesser means than a duke, or a king?
The sword room had always fascinated me, a collection of all things in a long history of our ancestors that included weapons—most particularly a fascinating collection of swords and a half dozen suits of armor, along with costumes decorated with medals, ribbons, and gold buttons.
“Gold buttons.” She pointed to those on her father’s red wool ceremonial coat, the same as in his portrait.
“This fell off when I had his clothes moved from the old part of the place.” She picked up a button at a nearby table. “If you look on the reverse of the button you will find embossed letters...”
Three
BRODIE
He madea telephone call to Inspector Dooley and met him at a coffeehouse away from the Yard.
They had shared what both had learned following Burke’s murder outside the Old Bell.
“Our people questioned those we brought in. As to be expected, a good many of them didn’t see the attack, only after it, when Burke was down. But there was something one person saw, a bystander in the crowd. A man who seemed particularly interested when Lady Forsythe arrived.”
Brodie’s attention sharpened.
“He said the man approached where she bent down beside Burke, in a manner that seemed curious at the time.”
“How so?”
“Said it was almost as if the man knew her from the look on his face. The witness said it ‘could have turned water to ice,’ as he put it,” Dooley replied.
“Knew her?” Brodie suggested.
Dooley nodded. “It’s something to keep in mind.”
“The man who saw him, what is his name?”
“Fitch. He works on road construction nearby where repairs are being made. He had stopped by the Old Bell end of day, as he usually does before going on home to the wife. Lives in a walk-up in Burley.” He gave Brodie a meaningful look.
“Not that I shared this with you. Keep it to yerself.”
He appreciated it. “What more was he able to tell ye about the man he saw?”
“Said he was built like someone who just stepped off of the boxing stage. No lightweight, experienced, and not the sort you would want to come up on in a dark alleyway.”
