I had supper brought from the Public House across the Strand after Aunt Antonia departed, and put the portion remaining in the cold box she had insisted be installed when she gave ownership of the building to Brodie.
Brodie was quiet and moved about stiffly, in the way I had seen the past two days since his encounter with Steiner outside the Old Bell.
He had removed his coat and cap.
It was doubtful he’d eaten anything after leaving with Mr. Conner earlier.
“Mr. Cavendish was good enough to bring supper back earlier. There’s a plate in the cold box.”
When I turned to go into the adjacent room, he caught me by the hand and pulled me against him in spite of my reminder of his broken ribs. He said nothing, then lowered his face into the curve of my neck.
His hair and beard were damp even though it had not rained recently, and he smelled of soap—the same scent of shavingsoap that I had noticed Mr. Conner used even though he had a moustache.
With a full beard, Brodie rarely used shaving soap, or the Sunlight Soap for bathing in the shower compartment, as he refused to smell like the lavender soap that I used.
Although he had been known to break that rule when he had joined me in the shower compartment. That had been some time in the past, as that particular pleasure had ended with the fire at the townhouse.
He continued to tightly hold me, and I was concerned it might cause him further injury.
“What is it?” I inquired. “Has something happened?”
I had been concerned when he went off with Mr. Conner after learning where Steiner might be found.
“Mr. Conner?” I then asked. He was not a young man, and if there had been an encounter...
Brodie’s hold gentled, though he kept one arm about my waist. He brushed my cheek with his other hand.
“Do ye know how fine ye are to me?”
There was something in his expression, something dark and...wounded. That was the only word that came to me.
I knew the answer to that, improbable as it would have been before that first inquiry case a handful of years earlier.
I brushed his beard with my fingers in that way that had become a language of its own between us.
“Your hair and beard are wet,” I said as my fingers moved along the curve of his jaw.
“Mr. Conner allowed me to wash at his flat. I couldn’t come back to ye smellin’ the way I did after wot we found... I won’t let it touch ye.”
It seemed that my worst fears had come to pass, although not in the way I first thought.
“Steiner?”
“Gone, by a few days before we arrived.”
“And the woman he was with?” Although I was certain what the answer would be.
“Dead. Probably the last time he was with her.”
There was more, but for now it could wait.
“I’ll warm supper for you and pour a bit of Old Lodge.” But when I would have moved away, he pulled me against him once more and held onto me.
He had not touched the supper I placed before him on his desk. Instead, he poured another dram of whisky for both of us.
He eventually told me the rest of what they found at that crumbling tenement where a woman named Kitty had entertained Steiner exclusively. And the mark left on her body. He had then closed his eyes, his head on the chair back.
“I may have learned something about what is to happen tomorrow—Saturday evening, 18 April.”
