“As I’ve said before,” Brodie commented, “ye would make a good thief.”
“Well, certain circumstances call for certain measures,” I replied. “According to a former thief I’m well acquainted with.”
While Brodie made certain to watch for the return of the manager, I scanned the ledger for entries made in the guest book over the past several days.
I abruptly searched no further.
“What is it?”
“A. Burke, in room eight?” I looked up. “Is it possible?”
“Is there any other name that looks familiar, a woman’s name perhaps?”
There was not.
At a sound from the hall, I tucked the guest book back into the desk and we left.
“The outside stairs to the second-floor landing,” Brodie reminded me.
We had used those stairs during that previous inquiry case. We left by way of the door at the entrance to the coffee room, found the outside stairs and climbed to the second floor, where we encountered an older man and woman leaving their room.
Brodie smiled congenially, and we moved down the length of the hall to the door to room eight, waited until they had departed down those stairs, then knocked lightly. There was no response and I knocked again. There was still no response.
I looked over at Brodie. He nodded then tried the latch at the door. It was locked.
It took little effort to open, which I was certain would not have been comforting to other guests. Brodie called out. When there was no answer, he stepped inside the room. I followed and closed the door behind me.
It was simply furnished with a bed, table, and washstand, with clothes hooks on the wall beside the door for coats and umbrellas. The bed was neatly made as if waiting for the next guest, with a portrait of a country scene on the wall.
I gazed about the room, far from what Adele had known in that manor house at St. John’s Wood, a memory just there at the edge of my thoughts.
“It’s the same.”
Brodie looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses.
“The name might be a coincidence.”
He didn’t believe it, nor did I.
“She’s been here and quite recently.”
It was the perfume that still clung to the air in the room.
“Perfume? Are ye certain?”
“It’s the same scent I discovered in her bedchamber at St. John’s Wood. It’s very expensive,” I then explained. “The sort of perfume a man might give a lover, and,” I added with no small amount of sarcasm, “I would guess not usually found among travelers at the George Inn.”
The question was, where was the woman who wore that perfume now?
We returned to the manager’s desk. He had returned and looked up. I provided the same information we had given the bar man.
“Your sister, you say?”
He retrieved the guest book from the drawer, searched for that name A. Burke, then looked up.
“It’s here, miss, room eight. Five days paid in advance.”
This was the fifth day.
