Mr. Cavendish grinned. “There weren’t no use for ice at the time. Me legs were already gone, cut clean off when the cargo shifted and trapped me under. Beg pardon, miss.
“Old Benny, who shipped over with us, said they were still there when they hoisted that crate from the deck,” he continued. “Even now, I would swear I can feel me toes wigglin’ about, and I don’t have any. Me bride says it’s me imagination. But it happens whenever the woman comes near.”
For the first time since he’d been attacked, I caught the faint smile at one corner of Brodie’s mouth. Toes. A most amusing tale.
It did seem that he fared no worse the second night after the attack, even though he moved about in the bed, unable to get comfortable, then eventually rose with a curse and went out into the adjacent office.
I joined him, unable to sleep as well, ignored his comment as I set the coffee pot on the stove, and poured him a dram of my great aunt’stonic.
I then returned to the adjoining chamber and dressed for the day. Afterward, I sat at my desk and went through the notes I’d made in my notebook.
It was barely light through the windows when the service bell on the landing broke the silence and rang persistently.
Inspector Dooley appeared at the door. He frowned, with a look over at Brodie, but made no comment about the bruise below his eye.
Brodie had updated him on the latest developments the previous evening, including our visit to Portman Square, only to find that Mr. Jardine had not returned there nor to the shop on Savile Row.
“Come along then,” he said with a frown. “From the description you provided, it would seem that we’ve found the tailor.”
We rode with Mr. Dooley to the London Docks in a coach provided by the Yard.
A handful of constables were gathered there, along with a police van. It quickly became apparent what they had gathered round.
Inspector Dooley nodded to one of them. “Mr. Brodie and Miss Forsythe are here on my authority,” he told the constable, who stepped aside.
I had seen bodies before, admittedly an unfortunate part of our inquiry cases. In particular, the body of my sister’s maid,which had been pulled from the Thames, cruelly murdered in my sister’s disappearance.
I had asked Brodie then if one ever got used to such things. His silence in response was my answer, and I felt it now as I stared down at the body at the wharf and realized that I would never become used to it.
It was shocking, and at the same time enormously sad, that a human being would be reduced to nothing more than a bit of flotsam or garbage, thrown into a river to be gotten rid of.
Some were never found, while others often washed up against the pilings or floated among the dockside vessels, as if the person the body had once been was determined that others might know of their tragic end.
A day did not pass without another one washing up after suffering some misfortune—those who left taverns and were assaulted for a meager coin, a prostitute who had taken the company of the wrong person, most of them nameless and buried in a pauper’s grave after being retrieved from the water.
The body that lay at the dock had a name, or at least had at one time—Louis Jardine, the tailor’s assistant, whom we had hoped to speak with regarding that gold button.
I took a sudden deep breath as I stared down at the body with a combination of surprise and horror.
Brodie was there as he stepped between me and that ghastly sight, blocking my view of Jardine’s body, bloated and battered from being tossed against the pilings with the incoming tide.
“Go back to the coach,” he said gently. “There’s no need for ye to be here.”
“I’m quite all right,” I insisted as I took another deep breath and remained as Mr. Dooley commented.
“There’s a good deal of bruising about the torso and head,” he pointed out. “The body hasn’t been in the water that long. It would seem that someone had a go at him before he wasdropped into the river. The lads went through his pockets,” he added. “They were empty. It would seem to be the usual robbery.”
Brodie crouched down beside the body in spite of the pain it brought.
“So it would seem,” he commented as he inspected the injuries, then slowly stood once more.
“It’s the tailor’s assistant, but that is only for ye to know,” he told Mr. Dooley. “I ask that no information be released to the newspapers yet.”
Inspector Dooley grimly nodded. “What about Burke’s body?”
“Nor about Burke. If whoever did this is curious, it might draw them out when there is nothing reported in the newspapers.
“There is more to this than another body of someone who had too much to drink, then washed up in the river.”
