I yanked the door open and caught the clerk’s startled expression. He had obviously been positioned nearby to let Sir McQuarrie know when our conversation ended. As far as I was concerned that was now.
“It is a concern to Lady Montgomery,” Munro replied. “She has a care for ye, and rightly so. And I know that ye respect her.”
That stopped me.
I deeply cared for Lady Antonia. I owed her and Mikaela a great deal...everything, truth be told, or I might well have shared the same fate as Dory.
“I am not going back to London until I find who killed my friend,” I finally managed to reply. “You would do the same if it was Mr. Brodie.”
I was angry as I walked past the startled clerk and returned to the front entrance.
I hesitated as I reached the sidewalk, then abruptly made another decision and approached the coachman who appeared to have been told to wait and the person who had asked him to wait.
“Do you know Albany Street?” I inquired.
“Aye, miss...” he replied, hesitant.
I gave him the address for Elizabeth Cheney’s flat, then climbed aboard the coach.
“I will pay what the man owes you plus the additional fare.” And the devil take Munro. He could well find another driver.
It was late when I returned to the flat. I let myself in with the key Mrs. Cheney had provided.
Bloody hell!I thought, and leaned back against the door as if Mr. Munro might have followed to break the thing down and drag me off to Waverly Station.
The flat was darkened, with a single electric light at the table in the kitchen. Elizabeth had set out a supper plate for me, but I had no appetite.
I set the plate in the cold box, turned out the electric, and crossed the flat to my room.
I was not a child to be watched over or dragged back to London, I thought, as I undressed, then slipped into bed. That child ceased to exist a long time ago...
Munro
“The young lady seems to be particularly strong-minded in the matter,” Sir McQuarrie commented as he sat across from the man he’d met several years before. A man of similar strong-mindedness who stood at the window of the office.
“What will ye do now?” the lawyer inquired.
Munro let the heavy drape at the floor-to-ceiling window fall back into place. His first meeting with Lily had not gone as hoped for, though admittedly not surprising.
“I will find a tavern with an ample selection of ale and spirits, and decent fare for supper.”
“Old Lodge whisky perhaps?” McQuarrie suggested. “And wot will ye tell her ladyship?”
“I will send a telegram that I have found her and she is safe.”
McQuarrie nodded. “Then ye will not be returning to London as yet.”
“Not as yet.”
“I hold a room at the Caledonian for clients who travel for business purposes. It is not being used presently. Ye are welcome to it.”
The Caledonian, one of the finer hotels in Edinburgh. He knew it well from the past, and certain ‘activities’ as a youth on the streets. Guests were an easy mark with sympathy for a lad whoappearedto have been run-down by a coachman on the street.
A young man had then appeared with ‘perfect timing,’ assisted, and assured the well-heeled guest there was no harm, at the same time the poor injured ‘lad’ lifted coin and paper money from the man’s pocket.
With the assurance there was no injury, the guest then went on about his way none the wiser, although with lighter pockets, and the lad in question jumped up and fled with his partner in crime.
That was a long time ago, not that such enterprises had changed. But the lad’s circumstance had changed. Still, the old places were familiar, and he visited them from time to time with business dealings for Lady Montgomery.
