Chapter 14

I didwish that I had my chalkboard as I tapped the pen on the notebook, trying to see what wasn't there as I went back over what we did know.

"Ellie Sutton saw something that night when Stephen Matthews was murdered. She shared an intimate relationship with him, and we have to assume that she saw something that night, very likely the killer. She came to you, and you arranged for her to leave London to protect her.

"There were others at the club that night," I continued. "Guests, Iverson, as well as other employees, and Mr. Matthews.

"Ellie went into hiding for her own safety and that of her child. The murderer was never caught. Ellie returned to London almost ten years later, where she found work to support herself and her child. She lived in that flat at Charing Cross with her son and worked at the Brown Hotel.

"It was there that she encountered someone she believed was following her. She was afraid and contacted you; she was followed to her flat and murdered.

"The question is…why? Was it random? A potential lover who was spurned and followed her? By all accounts she did not know the man, but was afraid of him. Who was he? And why was he following her?

"She lived quietly in that flat at Charing Cross. According to the young woman she worked with at the Brown Hotel, she kept to herself and was never seen with a man, and seemed genuinely afraid of the man she saw at the hotel—a man who wore a bowler hat. She contacted you and then rushed home out of fear for her son.

"There was no robbery, she had little of value, living from week to week on what she made at the hotel. The only other reason…" I approached the possibility hesitantly.

"I realize that you might not know, but there have been other instances of women being..." I thought of that series of murders in Whitechapel, still unsolved. Butchered was the word for those murders. Not that this one was the same. Still…

That dark gaze came up and met mine.

"It was not like that. There was only the knife wound, and her neck broken," Brodie replied. "All of it was very quick."

"Then she was murdered for some other reason, and by someone who left that imprint in blood and drank brandy after the deed was done." I saw the surprise on his face at something I had not mentioned earlier.

"There was a residue in the glass I took from her flat. I had Mr. Brimley examine it. There was no bottle that she might have had, and it seemed as if the murderer might have been the one to drink afterward, almost as if…"

"I get your meaning," Brodie replied. "As if it might have been a toast..."

Gruesome as that was, I had to admit that I'd had the same thought.

"Afterward," I continued. "Someone wearing a bowler hat is seen outside the town house, quite possibly the same man that followed Ellie Sutton.

"Motive, means, and opportunity." I repeated what he had reminded me of countless times. Look first at the means and opportunity, then look for the motive.

"The question is, of course, what was the motive?"

"Ye believe that her murder is connected to the murder that she witnessed ten years ago." He said aloud what I had been thinking.

"Someone still in London, afraid that she might tell you or the police what she saw that night…"

"Has anyone ever told ye that ye have a peculiar nature, Mikaela Forsythe Brodie?"

"I have heard that a time or two."

"Aye, curious, stubborn, and I wouldna have ye any other way."

With the memory of my own childhood experience that had left its mark, having seen my father take his own life, there was another possibility that I was hesitant to mention.

"Might the boy have seen something that night that could be important to finding the man who killed her?"

His reaction was immediate and intense.

"No! The boy has no part in this! He cannot!"

"But if there's a possibility that he knows something that could solve this…"

"Ye doona know what he's been through!"

My reaction to that was just as quick and intense. "I know exactly what he's been through! It's not something one forgets."

I had shared that experience of finding my father dead, when I was very near the age of Ellie Sutton's son. As I knew only too well, there were things that stayed with you, that would always be there, until they were no longer the first thing you thought of, or the second, or...

Ellie Sutton had been a strong young woman. She had done everything in her power to protect her son. Because of it, I had to believe that he had some of that grit from her, that he was just as strong as I had discovered I had to be.

The expression on Brodie's face told more than words, because he knew that it was true.

"I apologize...I shouldna have said wot I did. I know that ye understand."

I took his hand, sprinkled with dark hairs, in mine.

"There is someone who knows something. We just have to find them."

Not that that was going to be easy with the warrant Abberline had out for Brodie, and the man's certainty that Brodie was responsible. Judgment clouded by revenge and ambition? I was determined to learn more. I wanted very much to speak with Adelaide Matthews. She'd had contact with Ellie Sutton. It was possible that Ellie had shared something with her in the hope of resolving the past and providing a family for her son.

As I had learned very early, family was often tenuous at best, often fragile as glass that could be broken, only as durable as those who were strong and true. And I had found that in a most unlikely man.

I stayed the night with Brodie, something I added to my list of adventures, considering the sounds that came through the walls of the rooms on that second floor—quite interesting and most entertaining.

More than once, I wakened to a voice or a sound, Brodie beside me, his expression in the meager light that slipped under the door from the hallway one of either the desire to throttle someone—or embarrassment. It was difficult to tell.

"I've never heard that before..." I whispered, and then, "Is that even possible?"

"Curiosity can get ye into trouble, miss."

I thought that ‘curiosity' might be most...interesting, as long as it was with Brodie.

"What time is it?" I asked as he left the bed he'd occupied the last few nights and listened as he pulled on his trousers.

"Ye are the only woman I know who would wake in such a place and ask the time."

"Always good to know," I replied and pointed out, "...when deciding what to charge for the night, of course."

There followed a different sound as he moved quickly and I was immediately assaulted by a warm, half-dressed, demanding Scot, who smelled of cinnamon spice and...

The persistent knock at the door precluded anything more than that delicious taste.

Brodie went to the door, peered through the narrow opening, and Munro stepped inside the room.

I might have been embarrassed, however I had shared accommodations with an assortment of people on my travels to remote places where there wasn't even a word for modesty or embarrassment.

One either slept in their clothes or got on with the task of dressing as quickly and discreetly as possible.

I had not slept in my clothes. Therefore I quickly and discreetly pulled on the trousers and shirt I had worn the night before.

Munro on the other hand, didn't appear to have dressed quickly or discreetly, wherever it was that he had spent the night.

I thought of my friend Templeton, then dismissed it. Whatever their relationship was or was not, was definitely not for me to question or ponder.

I did briefly consider that it might have been advantageous to have Wills' insights. I had never had that connection. I would simply have to rely on instinct.

"A man Mac knows may have information on the man yer lookin' for," Munro quietly informed Brodie. "It seems there was someone—spaideil," he said in obvious Gaelic. "The sort we've encountered on the streets that seems to fit the description."

He said something more in Gaelic. Brodie glanced over at me and I caught the frown amid that dark beard.

It was still dark beyond the window as I caught the rest of their conversation.

"Where?" Brodie asked.

"Tobacco Dock," Munro replied. "Mac will let us use his wagon."

"Aye."

Some other communication passed between them, one of those things that men shared—a look, a nod, obviously meant to exclude myself. Munro nodded, then left the room.

"What is it?" I asked. "And that word Munro used." I tried to say it, however failed quite miserably.

"Spaideil," he repeated.

"What does it mean?"

"A fancy dresser."

"In the East End?"

"Aye. They're employed by others to handle...certain things."

Such as terrifying a young woman? And possibly murder? I thought.

"And the rest of it? I asked.

I gave him a long look, and waited.

"It seems the man wore a round hat with a narrow brim," he finally replied.

"A bowler hat?"

"Ye need to finish dressing," he said then. "And put yer hair up. There's no need to draw attention, even with few about this early in the day."

"Where are we going?"

"I need to find Morrissey and learn what he knows. Munro will see that ye get back to Sussex Square."

I ran my hand through my hair, loosening the tangles, then tucked it under the cap.

"I'm going with you."

I grabbed my jacket and left the room. I found Munro waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I caught his look over my shoulder as Brodie followed. I ignored both of them.

Hudson's on Regent Street was the tobacco shop where Brodie hoped to find Morrissey. The streets were empty for the most part as we arrived nearby, except for lamplighters, who extinguished the streetlamps as we passed.

Munro guided the horse around the end of the street and into a narrow alley that ran behind the shops that lined Regents Street, where we hoped to speak with Mr. Morrissey. Brodie had telephoned the shop earlier and set the meeting.

A wagon, with barrels still to be unloaded, sat in the alleyway behind the shop, and the back entrance was open. There was obviously someone inside the shop.

Munro stepped down as well. "Ye'll not go alone."

"Ye dinna trust the man," Brodie commented.

I wondered what was behind that comment. Munro simply nodded.

"Stay with the wagon," Brodie told me. There was a look as if he thought I might argue the matter. I didn't.

He knew Morrissey, and considering their history together and the event of that night ten years earlier, the man might have information he'd learned afterward that could be useful now.

I would only be in the way, not that I particularly cared to be relegated to the wagon. And Munro was with him. The two of them could be quite formidable. Still, there was Brodie's question and what wasn't said. Munro didn't trust Morrissey.

I had an uneasy feeling as I waited, questions racing through my thoughts.

It wasn't instinct or even a warning from the ‘other world,' as Templeton called it. It was the way the ears of the horses at the wagon suddenly perked up—a sound they picked up, a movement through the shadows at the other end of the alley, and a brief glimpse of a dark blue uniform. And then another.

I stepped down from the wagon and quickly entered the back of the shop. I found them there, with the man I assumed was Morrissey.

Munro was nearest as Brodie spoke with Morrissey. I caught only a few words, but an unmistakable undertone.

"I don't know anything," the man insisted. "After ten years? Did it occur to you that the woman killed the man? A lovers' quarrel, and her from the streets?"

"You walked away..." he added. "I have a family to protect."

Havea family to protect? Not had?

Did that mean that he had contacted the police after Brodie arranged to meet him?

"The police are here!" I warned as shadows moved along the front of the shop.

"Ye've betrayed me," Brodie accused Morrissey as he grabbed him by the neck of his shirt.

"I had no choice," Morrissey fired back. "Abberline threatened my family."

The glass in the door at the entrance to the tobacco shop shattered.

"We have to go," Munro shouted at Brodie.

"What do ye know!" Brodie demanded. "Who else was there that night?"

"It doesn't matter," Morrissey shouted. "The woman is dead and he'll have his pound of flesh."

I was certain he meant Abberline.

"Brodie..." I pleaded with him. He didn't seem to hear.

"What did ye learn afterward?" he demanded. "Why did someone want her dead?"

Morrissey simply shook his head and repeated what he had already said.

The door at the front of the shop shattered and was then kicked open as the police forced their way inside.

Brodie looked back at Munro. I had never before seen the expression I now saw on his face.

"Get her out of here!" he shouted to Munro.

Then, everything was in chaos. There were shouts from the police as a dozen or more charged inside as I was dragged to the back of the shop.

I yelled at Munro to let go. Unable to break his hold on my arm, I fought and kicked. If I wasn't being dragged behind him, I would have punched him in the face…

The sound of a gunshot stopped us. Munro glanced past me to the front of the shop as the shouts and chaos subsided.

"No…!" I cried.

Munro's hand tightened around my arm and I was dragged out the back of the tobacco shop.