Chapter 12

Twelve

I was not foolish enough to think that all of our issues had been resolved. We were very different people, who had come from different places.

Yet, at the heart of it all, in what truly mattered, we were very much the same.

We spoke of other things in the hours afterward until the gray light of morning crept around the edge of the drapes at the windows.

"Do ye want to continue?"

I suppose that was his way of showing that he trusted my judgment, and trusted me. It was something quite new between us.

I assured him that I wanted to see the matter done, so that the agreement I had made was fulfilled and done with.

It was obvious that he considered Sir Avery to be somewhat of the same consideration as Abberline. There were things he kept hidden and that obviously troubled Brodie.

As for himself?

"It is a partnership," I reminded him as I dressed in the morning. "What do you want to do?"

Early upon rising, admittedly with little sleep, I did check my toes with some amusement and they seemed intact. I had handed my notebook to him, to go over my notes in case I had forgotten anything when I made my latest entries the previous evening.

"We will see it through," he replied, but I heard the caution in his voice.

"You don't trust Sir Avery?" And with good reason, I thought, after that previous case that took us both to Edinburgh.

Brodie leaned over as I sat before the dressing table, brushing my hair before pinning it back. He gathered a handful and stroked it with his fingers.

"I am hopeful that we will have other information as well. Perhaps from Alex."

I looked up at his reflection in the mirror.

"You sent him a telegram as well?"

"Aye. Sir Avery is the sort who keeps things hidden. And that can be even more dangerous."

I understood his meaning and knew from the previous evening that Sir Avery wanted us to continue on to Brussels after the information we found at Monsieur Dornay's apartment.

There, we were to attend the latest art exhibition that was opening at the Royal Museum, according to that handbill we found at the apartment along with Dornay's travel papers.

He had obviously intended to see the exhibit, although we had no way of knowing as yet what that meant as far as Sir Collingwood's murder.

And now, Sir Avery had decided to send Alex Sinclair over with new information. It was obvious that he didn't trust the information to a telegram. We were to meet Alex in Brussels at the Hotel Castelan. I could only wonder what the information might be, so highly confidential that it was to be hand-delivered.

"We will need to make our travel arrangements," I commented as Brodie went to the door. "The hotel concierge can do that for us."

"The fewer people who know our destination perhaps the better. We should make the arrangements ourselves."

I did understand his meaning. Two people were dead. The two murders were somehow connected, but we had no way of knowing how. Not yet.

We agreed to meet downstairs at the restaurant that was open early to accommodate travelers eager to get on their way.

Brodie had already packed his few clothes into the leather valise he had brought with him. I carefully folded my clothes from the day before, then put them into my carpet bag along with personal things, and my notebook.

I had dressed for travel once more in a long skirt, shirtwaist, jacket, and boots. I slipped the knife Munro had given me down the outside of my right boot, then seized my umbrella and gloves. The gloves had been a necessity the day before. After all, one never knew when one might have to escape from a building.

At the restaurant I ordered breakfast for both of us along with coffee—black, and very strong. Brodie arrived just as the meals were being served.

"Any news?" I inquired.

"Alex left this morning for Dover. He is to travel direct from Calais to Brussels," he added in a quiet manner. "He should arrive in Brussels by early evening, and will meet us at the hotel."

"I asked the concierge for a rail schedule." Not an unusual request for travelers. "There is a train departing Gare de Nord for the north, including Brussels, three times daily. The next train today departs at twelve noon, and arrives just before five o'clock. I brought both of our bags. All that is needed is for us to sign out with the desk clerk."

He shook his head. "We will simply leave, as though for the day as other travelers. There is no need for anyone know that we have left the city."

"Do you believe that we are being followed?"

"It is safe to assume that whoever killed the artist may have also seen those travel papers and the handbill. The man had not been dead long. The blood from his wounds was still bright red."

I had noticed, but didn't know what that might mean, other than the fact that he was very dead.

"It is possible that he was interrupted by our arrival and would have returned, and also verra possible that he was watching the building, and then the police arrived."

Observations from years with the MET. I did see his meaning. Brodie stood and assisted with my chair.

"I am not an invalid," I pointed out.

"Ye certainly are not an invalid, but ye are my wife."

Even after our conversations through the night, and then this morning, I sensed the question, perhaps doubt that still remained.

During that conversation that drifted away then returned in the small hours of the morning, he spoke of having met with Sir Laughton, my great-aunt's lawyer, who had been instrumental along with Sir Avery in getting Brodie released from Abberline's custody in the previous investigation.

He had inquired how the marriage might be undone if one of us chose to do so. As it had taken place before the magistrate in Inveresk, in Scotland, it could be done by bringing a petition before a judge who would then simply nullify the marriage.

I was stunned that he had gone so far as to inquire...

"If ye wanted it undone, I would not stand in yer way," Brodie had then said as streaks of gray light slanted into the room from the balcony.

"But no words from a judge could undo what I promised ye, or ye to me. "

Bloody stubborn Scot, I thought at the time. Yet I knew that he was right.

While I hadn't known how there could possibly be a way forward for us with all that anger and pain between us, I did know that there would never be anyone that I would give myself to as I had Angus Brodie—a man who was intelligent, handsome, honest and true...a man I could trust.

"I'll leave before ye, and wait for ye across from the hotel," he told me now. "Then ye follow as if yer off to do yer shopping."

"We'll need a carriage."

"We'll find one away from the hotel," he replied. "So that we can be certain we are not followed."

"Our travel bags?"

"Ye always have yours with ye, so it should not draw any attention. I will simply be discreet."

Discreet? Over six feet tall, a handsome figure of a man—particularly in the suit that fit perfectly over that white shirt that any gentleman at the Westminster might wear—and then the contrast of that overlong dark hair and the dark beard…

I watched as he approached the desk, made an inquiry, nodded, then left the hotel. I waited a suitable amount of time, finished my coffee, then also left.

He was waiting outside a flower shop across from the hotel.

I was curious. "What did you say to the desk clerk?"

"I inquired if there is a tonsorial parlor near."

I looked over at him as we departed in the direction I was most familiar with near the Westminster.

"What is that look I'm seein' on yer face?"

"Tonsorial parlor?" I repeated.

"Where a man might get a haircut and a shave," Brodie replied.

"And something more in the room behind the front of the shop?" I casually mentioned what I had heard of in the past.

I could tell by the expression on his face that he knew exactly what I was talking about.

"Perhaps a shine for a man's boots," he suggested with just a slight curve at one corner of his mouth.

Shine his boots? Indeed.

Our conversation had returned to that easy exchange we had often shared, but there was a difference now. Perhaps due to that conversation the night before.

Admittedly we were different after that argument and our time apart. But now we were together again with that banter we had always shared and the exchange of thoughts and ideas.

I had no illusion that someone who had been through what he had and with that strong Scottish identity was now a changed man. He had said as much, that he would always protect me, in spite of myself.

I had lived the past twenty years of my life determined that I could protect myself, and my sister if need be. I told myself that I didn't need anyone else. Yet, these past months apart, I had learned that it wasn't so much that I needed Brodie. I wanted to be with him. Married or not.

Scandalous as that thought might be, I didn't give a fig. I wanted the arguments over an inquiry case, that exchange of ideas that no other man had ever considered I could provide.

I wanted the quiet moments after at the office on the Strand over my aunt's very fine whisky, and when he slowly loosened the braid from my hair, then took my hand, and...

We found a driver very near the Westminster and gave him instructions to take us to Paris Nord station. We arrived in good time to purchase our travel vouchers.

The next train was to leave for Brussels in less than an hour. We then made our way to the platform for the north-bound train.

Very near the platform, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder once more, searching the passengers who had arrived and, like ourselves, were soon to depart.

"What is it?"

"I thought I saw someone that I recognized." Although I wasn't certain.

"Man or woman?"

"I'm not certain." I know that sounded ridiculous.

"It was just a glimpse, and with so many people about…"

He looked past me, searching the faces of those who now crowded the platform as our train arrived and passengers departed. I looked back once more at the faces of people around us, but whatever or whomever I thought I had seen wasn't there.

"I must have been mistaken."

We boarded the train and found our compartment.

I had taken the Nord express from Paris on an adventure trip, on a route that had taken me to Munich, Vienna, Budapest, then Istanbul. On the return we had taken a more northerly train route that had stopped briefly in Brussels before returning to Paris.

I could not say that I was familiar with all of Brussels, yet my travel companion at the time and I had spent three days there.

When in Brussels…

My great-aunt was familiar with the city and had provided a list of places that I absolutely must see. And then there was chocolate, Belgian chocolate to be precise, unlike anywhere else in the world.

My great-aunt had provided the name of a shop we were to visit in order to bring back the finest chocolate. Jean Neuhaus and his wife, with their shop in the Galerie de La Reine.

It had been somewhat disconcerting when we entered the shop and discovered that Monsieur Neuhaus was quite familiar with the ‘English Lady Antonia Montgomery.'

My great-aunt had property in France where she used to travel frequently. Until that adventure trip, I was not aware of her wanderings into Belgium, and beyond.

"I was once young like yourself ," she had told me. "The difference is that when I traveled then, it was often necessary to travel dressed as a man. For protection you see. It did account for some very interesting encounters. And monsieur's chocolate? Exquisite.

"It does have aphrodisiac qualities, you know."

Actually, more than I wanted to know at the age of seventeen years at the time, as I shared the story with Brodie.

"Aphrodisiac?" he repeated with a lift of that dark brow with the scar through it as we sat across from each other in our train compartment for the trip that would take between four and five hours.

He did resemble some dark, mysterious, nefarious character with that one look. It was apparent he knew the meaning of the word.

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived in Brussels. It was almost another full hour before we were able to find a driver to take us to the Hotel Castelan very near the center of the city where we were to meet with Alex Sinclair, and very near another hour through late afternoon traffic on the street before we arrived.

Brodie paid the driver, with some exchange of conversation. It seemed the driver attempted to take advantage and charge almost twice the fare quoted when we left the train station.

It was amusing to watch. I almost felt sympathy for the driver as he couldn't possibly know that he was quibbling with a man whose people were known for being frugal and a former police detective as well.

I could have intervened, but I was curious to see who would win the difference of opinion. In the end the driver acknowledged the fare he had quoted, arguing that he was losing additional fares arguing over the matter.

"What was the last of it?" Brodie asked after the driver made a comment in French, along with a gesture.

I waited until he was well away before sharing that bit of information. The gesture needed no explanation.

"He welcomed us to the city and hoped that our stay would be a pleasant one."

"Ye are a magnificent liar, Mikaela Forsythe Brodie."

"Only when absolutely necessary."

There was something in his voice, soft and low at my name that was now part of his. At the same time, my throat tightened. I did very much like the sound of it as if I was now complete somehow, connected to this man whom I respected, trusted, and loved . In a way that I had thought never possible.

The word came so easily. Not to say that we didn't have our differences, perhaps would always have them, but there was the feeling that we had confronted something and come out of it with something that was deeper, truer, and as he told me when we exchanged those few words in Scotland...forever.

The information Brodie had received from London indicated that we had accommodations at the hotel.

It was also where we were to meet with Alex Sinclair, who was hand-carrying a dispatch from Sir Avery with new information he'd been able to learn regarding Sir Collingwood's murder.

The Castelan was a four-story former private residence, built in the seventeenth century, that included other private residences along the Rue Neuve at the edge of the city center, and only a short distance from the Royal Museum and that exhibition of fine art which was to open the following day.

The main entrance might have been the entrance to the apartments of a titled nobleman, the front desk to greet arrivals on one wall of the main foyer with a staircase that rose to the floors above, and a ground floor salon that had been transformed into a dining room for guests.

We were informed that Monsieur Sinclair had not yet arrived and were then shown to our room. The attendant handed Brodie the key and informed us that the dining room would open at seven that evening.

The room was in the style of the private bedroom that it had once been with an entrance to the small sitting room with a fireplace, and an ‘accommodation,' as it was called, off the adjacent bedroom.

When I returned, Brodie asked if I would like to accompany him with a tour of the hotel.

"Bring yer notebook," he told me as I followed him from our room. He stopped just outside the doorway.

"Tear off a bit of paper from yer notebook."

I handed him the piece of paper and then watched with growing curiosity as he inserted it inside the edge of the door as he closed and then locked it.

"If anyone should enter the room before we return," he explained.

It was so simple and quite ingenious.

"I suppose you learned that in service with the MET, or on the streets as a boy." I was quite impressed.

"I'm not of a mind of escaping through the window from the third floor."

He did have a point.

Our ‘ tour' included the fourth floor where we discovered a door with a short stairway that led up to the roof. We then toured the second floor, then down to the ground floor.

In addition to the foyer and the adjacent dining room, there was a flower shop beside the main entrance that fronted onto the street and a door in the hallway opposite the street.

It was discreetly marked— Personnel Seulement.

I nodded toward that door, then stepped inside the flower shop as a distraction if anyone should be watching as Brodie waited until the front desk attendant was occupied with another guest, then quickly stepped inside and closed the door behind him .

He was gone for several moments, then just as quickly reappeared, closing the door after him.

"It appears to be the laundry room for this hotel and the next building beside. There is a connecting door and the things one might expect to find."

It well after seven o'clock and the first guests had begun to arrive at the restaurant.

We'd had only coffee that morning before leaving Paris.

"Aye," Brodie agreed when I suggested that we join the other guests.

"No escargot," he added. "It's disgusting."

"So said the man whose people eat the contents of a sheep's belly," I replied.

Brodie requested a table in the corner with a window out onto the Rue Neuve and full view of the entrance to the restaurant.

It was, of course, a habit from his time with the MET in London, the ability to see everyone who entered the hotel or restaurant.

"Ye have the appetite of a grown man," he commented as I ate a piece of fresh baked bread, my third after a meal of roast chicken—escargot was not offered for the evening. I sat back with my glass of wine.

"It's climbing out of third-story windows," I replied. "I've heard that scientists are now saying that exercise can create quite an appetite."

The only thing missing was dessert. Chocolate perhaps.

When he would have made another comment, he looked past me, then set his wineglass to the table.

"Alex has arrived." He nodded toward the entrance to the dining room. Then that dark gaze narrowed.

I turned and saw what had caused that reaction.

Alex Sinclair was not alone. He was accompanied by a tall man with thick brown hair and a blue gaze as sharp as glass that swept the room, then reached our table.

I looked over at Brodie. He was equally surprised.

"Munro?"