It did seem there were others out and about late in the day, possibly for an appointment with the lawyer, a rented coach with that metal license waiting nearby.
I stepped into the office and was greeted by his clerk.
“Miss Montgomery. I was informed you might be returning yet today.” He smiled, congenial as before.
“Sir McQuarrie is presently with someone. I will let him know that you are here.”
I didn’t sit in one of the finely upholstered chairs while I waited. Instead, I paced about that elegantly furnished office and pressed my fingers to my temple against the headache that had begun.
It was a reminder that I hadn’t eaten all day, along with other things, as I rehearsed my request to visit the morgue. Surely there would be no objection, I thought as the clerk returned with that engaging smile.
“He has asked that you join them, Miss Montgomery.” He waited to escort me as before.
Them?
I slowly nodded and then followed him, hesitant at whom he might be meeting with.
Inspector Landry? It was a possibility. I thought of that hired coach that I had seen.
Perhaps there was some news about the investigation into Dory’s murder.
I quickened my steps.
The clerk knocked lightly at the door, then opened it and stepped aside for me to enter.
“Sir McQuarrie,” I greeted him somewhat brusquely without waiting for his acknowledgement.
“Has there been some word about Dory Brown’s murder?” I inquired.
He rose from behind his desk. “Sadly, not as yet,” he replied. As he rounded the desk through the long shadows in the office, another figure I had not seen rose from a side chair and stepped into the narrow beam of light that fell across the carpet from the desk lamp.
“I believe ye are acquainted,” Sir McQuarrie said by way of introduction as I stared at the tall, dark-haired man in a black coat over black trousers, his blue gaze like ice above a familiar frown of disapproval.
“Miss Montgomery,” he finally acknowledged.
It took a moment to recover from the shock of seeing him there.
“What are you doin’ here!”
“I’ve come to take ye back to London,” Mr. Munro replied, his manner as cold as that blue gaze, as if I was nothing more than a package that had gone astray and now needed to be delivered.
Suddenly thrown into a situation I had not anticipated, I bluntly replied, “The devil ye will!”
The expression at Sir McQuarrie’s face was carefully guarded, then a sound as he cleared his throat.
“I will leave ye to discuss the matter,” he said then left.
As far as I was concerned there was nothing to discuss. I turned to leave as well.
“Sir McQuarrie has spoken of the situation ye found upon arriving,” Munro explained.
A situation?
Dory’s murder was now nothing more than a situation? I refused to turn back around.
“It is none of yer concern!” I informed him.
I wasna a child beholden to someone to take care of me or make decisions for me. I had made careful plans to return to Edinburgh. While the reason had now changed, I was not about to go back until the person responsible for the murder of my friend was found and made to account for it.
