He then added, “I have spoken with her ladyship in spite of the late hour,” Sir Laughton shook his head. “I must say, she was not surprised, and I am reminded of some of her early ‘adventures,’ which I assure you are the cause of all my white hair." He bid us farewell.
“I will speak with the both of you afterward as regards Mademoiselle DeMille.”
Alex Sinclair, a Special Services agent, appeared at the doorway.
We knew Alex from previous cases. He was young, quite brilliant, and had invented an incredible code machine for the Service. It was all quite clandestine.
The Service had been created in the aftermath of several dangerous incidents in Europe and answered only to the Queen, or with increasing frequency to the Prince of Wales, who had been at the center of that first inquiry case with Brodie.
There were other incidents where a case we pursued had crossed paths with that of his Royal Highness and the Special Services Agency. And now?
It did seem as if we might have‘stepped in it,’ as my great aunt frequently commented. That, of course, was a reference to her association with horses since childhood and at Ascot, where her horses regularly appeared.
I was more than familiar with that from my own childhood and the stables my father kept, as well as the usual refuse one had to be careful of in the streets of London.
It was an appropriate description of the present situation. The question was, what had Brodie and I stepped into?
“Straightforward answers,” Brodie reminded me in a quiet voice as he slipped a hand under my arm, and we entered Sir Avery’s office. Alex closed the door after having obviously been disinvited to this part of the inquiry.
Sir Avery was not at his desk as in the past in this sort of meeting, but instead stood before one of the few windows that looked out onto the green and that scaffolding where several notable persons had been hanged for a variety of crimes or possibly on some royal whim in the past.
He was as tall as Brodie, thin under his worsted suit of clothes, hand thrust into the pockets of his trousers in the way I had seen before in others when they either didn’t know what to do with their hands, or perhaps to prevent strangling someone.
Sir Avery was a precise, decisive man with gaunt features behind a full beard that had once been the color of his dark hair but was now streaked with white. I did wonder if Brodie and I might be the cause of that. It was an interesting thought.
When I would have spoken, Brodie shook his head—the wisdom of a former police inspector.
He had once explained that silence was often an advantage. Wait out the other person, since there was a great deal to be learned from their first statement. Therefore, we waited.
“I have the authority to have both of you brought up on charges of trespass and interfering in highly secret activities.”
That dark gaze met mine.‘Wait’ it said, and we continued to wait.
“There are those who have faced a firing squad for what you have done.”
He slowly shook his head.
“But for the grace of the Almighty, and the intervention of his Royal Highness, I can do neither, due to your connections to the Prince of Wales.”
I was certainly relieved to hear that.
He continued to stare out that window with that steely gaze.
“I will hear your explanation of the situation now.” He slowly turned about, that sharp gaze fixed on Brodie.
“What the devil were you doing in Portsmouth? Trespassing into a secure area at the naval yard where no one is allowed other than workers.” His voice rose with each statement.
“And then entering a site that is off-limits to everyone except essential personnel!”
Then before either one of us could respond, that sharp gaze fastened on me.
“Lady Forsythe. It does seem as if you refuse to keep to your inquiries about missing jewels and hysterical wives whose husbands have strayed.”
Brodie’s fingers closed sharply around my wrist. I could almost hear his warning not to let my temper get the better of me at Sir Avery’s belittling comments.
“It is our understanding that Sir Laughton has presented the facts to you,” he calmly replied. “They are as he explained them.”
“I would hear them from you, Mr. Brodie!” Anger exploded, but Sir Avery was not finished.
