Brodie nodded. “Start with the chalkboard and the notes ye see there. There is other information as well that we have chosen not to disclose there.”
“Of course,” Alex replied. “I understand after working with you previously.” He then went to the board and read through the notes I’d made.
“And admittedly, the matter is most serious. Still,” he grinned, “I would like very much to see a submarine. Even better, take a voyage in one!”
Over the next two hours, Brodie explained what we had learned, beginning with that note Burke had sent with the urgent request to meet, only to find him mortally wounded when I arrived. And then the bloodied note with Adele DeMille’s name.
Alex nodded. “The man does have quite a following, and now to have disappeared? There are rumors all over London.”
“Hadan extensive readership,” Brodie clarified, and then explained Burke’s death that night.
“Oh, I say,” Alex exclaimed, obviously surprised. “Sir Avery said nothing about that.”
“I doubt he knows of it,” Brodie replied. “The body is presently in the morgue at the Yard under another name, along with the body of Jardine.”
“Oh my, Sir Avery will not be pleased to learn that, with the Yard very nearby,” he commented then looked over at me.
“You say that Burke gave you a note that night?”
Brodie showed him that bloodied note.
“St. John’s Wood?” he commented.
I explained what we had found there, followed by our inquiries about that gold button. Our brief meeting with Jardine at Savile Row, his sudden disappearance, and then his body pulled from the river that same night.
“He obviously recognized it,” he frowned. “He then fled and encountered someone who didn’t want you to know what his part in this was, along with those he knew.”
Brodie had opened the safe and retrieved the button with that unique image embossed in the gold. He handed it to Alex.
He frowned. “We’ve seen this before.”
Brodie and I exchanged a look.
“Where?” I asked.
“A good part of my work at the Agency is disseminating information...”
He hesitated, no doubt instructed to reveal as little as possible.
“What sort of information?” Brodie asked, not to be put off over something that could be important.
“Sir Avery insists on ‘need to know.’”
“Two people are dead, the danger is still out there, I would say that is a need to know,” Brodie curtly replied.
“Yes, of course. You are quite right,” Alex admitted, then explained.
“We receive regular dispatches from the Continent from our people in other places, which I’m not at liberty to say. The wolf’s head is a very old symbol, particularly as shown here, quite crude actually...”
“What does it mean?” I demanded.
“In some cultures, it represents strength and power,” he continued. “It has been found on ancient war shields, the hilts of daggers, and that sort of thing. More recently, there have been similar symbols found in communications that were intercepted.”
“Which cultures?” Brodie then asked.
It did seem this was something more Alex was not to divulge. And then decision made.
“There is a particular group that operates in the shadows—underground, if you will. The first indication of their existence was discovered literally by accident in Hamburg. A roadway accident that involved a person one of our people was following over another incident.
