There had been a somewhat sheepish look from Mr. Conner as he suggested that a visit to the woman who worked for Mr. Brown could be useful. For Brodie’s part, there had been obvious amusement.
Not that I wasn’t fully aware that he was a man of some experience...there was that woman in a chartreuse gown I had encountered when I first inquired about his investigative services.
Or rather, I should say that she was more ‘out’ of that chartreuse gown than in it, spilling over in several places.
I was no prude. Still...
“Ye have that look,” he had commented as Mr. Conner waited at the sidewalk below and Mr. Cavendish secured a driver for their ‘visit’ to Covent Garden.
“What look is that?” I inquired.
“The look that says if ye still had the revolver ye might be tempted to use it. A good thing Alex returned just the one revolver.”
“I have no idea what you are referring to. Any information you might be able to acquire regarding Steiner would be helpful, other than his ‘preferences’ about certain things.”
Brodie was amused by it all.
“There could be something to be learned,” he said with mock seriousness. “And then shared.”
“And pigs fly,” I replied.
He laughed and paid dearly for it as he winced at the pain it caused in his ribs.
“It serves you right,” I told him.
He completely ignored that and his ribs as he pulled me against him.
“Someone I know insists that pigs do fly.”
He kissed me then in a way that it was undoubtedly best Mr. Conner waited on the sidewalk below.
And when it ended, far too quickly, he looked at me for several moments in that way that made my toes curl.
“Bloody damn, Scot,” I whispered.
That smile...wickedmight be the word for it.
I made good use of the time after they left, adding what we’d learned from Alex to my notebook, searching for something more in the information that might provide another clue that could be useful.
Based upon Alex’s information, we now knew that inquiries had been made about ‘Torch’ from a contact in Brussels.
The message had been extremely vague and provided no other information, except that it had been sent by someone who assumed the information was secure.
That raised questions in itself. What could possibly be so important?
A natural assumption was that it was something the man known as Torch was working on, obviously important enough to remain secret with the use of that alias.
Another assumption was that it might possibly be someone of high importance. If his true identity was known, it could possibly have serious ramifications.
And then there was the entry in Adele’s journal about B-10, which we now knew was the newest generation of the Royal Navy—a submarine.
By Alex’s own admission, once it put to sea, it would enable the crew to maneuver undetected under the surface of the ocean. The possibilities that would offer seemed endless.
Who were the men at St. John’s Wood who spoke of it? What had Burke intended when Adele went to him? Had he intended to write about it? Or was there another reason he asked me to meet him at the Old Bell that night?
‘What will you do now, Mikaela Forsythe?’
The ringing of the bell on the landing jarred me from my thoughts. And then there was someone at the door barely visible through the glass covered with the usual grime from coal fires and spring rain. Accompanied by Rupert who barked incessantly.
