Chapter 15

"He's alive."

I looked up as Munro came into the salon at Sussex Square.

"How do you know?" I finally managed.

"Those who still have connections into the MET," he replied. He came and knelt in front of where I sat now, in front of a roaring fire, trying to make the cold go away. He took hold of both my hands.

"Mr. Conner," he said then.

I nodded.

"No need to molly-coddle the girl," my aunt announced as she entered the salon with a maid in her wake. "Set the tray there, then you may leave, Tassy. And please close the doors after."

Then she poured three tumblers of her very fine whisky, and it wasn't even midday yet. She handed one to Munro, then one to me. My hands shook slightly.

"Of course he's alive," she announced. "I wouldn't have it any other way." She took a long sip from her own glass. "Drink up, my dear. We must discuss what is to be done next."

My aunt sat in her chair while Munro explained what had happened. She didn't interrupt him, but nodded from time to time.

"Morrissey is dead," he then announced with a look over at me.

That was the shot I had heard and had feared the worst. Now, the man who might have told Brodie more that he might have learned about the case was dead as well.

He had a family to protect! The words lay there like broken pieces of glass.

What about Ellie Sutton? What about her son? And Brodie, now imprisoned with charges of murder?

"I have contacted my lawyer and apprised him of the facts of the matter as well as the need for his services in seeing that these charges against Mr. Brodie are dropped," my aunt announced.

"It is not the first time that Abberline has run afoul of our family. This will not stand." She was like an admiral directing a military campaign.

"In the meantime," she continued, "what is to be done next to find this woman's murderer?"

I interrupted the campaign speech. "I want to see him."

"Of course, dear. In due time..."

"Today."

Sir Jamison Laughton, the Queen's Council and my aunt's lawyer as well, was able to make the arrangements.

"It required some persuasion on my part," he explained as my aunt and I met with him in his office at St. James's Park.

"I have been apprised of the charges against Mr. Brodie, as well as the history of the events. It would seem there is a strong case against him in the matter of the murder of the woman, Ellie Sutton. Still," he continued, "given your relationship with Mr. Brodie, I have been able to obtain a time when you will be allowed to meet with him at Scotland Yard this afternoon."

Not the Tower? It did seem as if Abberline was reluctant to have Brodie anywhere near the Tower and Sir Avery. Most interesting, I thought.

"What else?" my great-aunt reminded him.

"I will have people I know make inquiries in the matter. Still, I can make no promises. You do understand?"

I nodded, my thoughts already turning toward that meeting to come.

"I will note that I have received communication from his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, as well," he continued. "That is the reason I have acted quickly in this. And of course, on behalf of Lady Montgomery." He nodded to my aunt.

He then handed me a folded note. "These are instructions to the warder at Scotland Yard, that will allow you to see the prisoner. You do understand that you must conduct yourself appropriately, so not to jeopardize Mr. Brodie's chances of vindication."

This was for my benefit, however, I was aware that he looked directly at my aunt when he said this.

I took the note, and nodded once more.

Munro accompanied me at the appointed time.

I had been to Scotland Yard in previous inquiry cases, yet not when so much hung in the balance.

I knew the Chief Inspector well enough to know that he would no doubt be gloating at having Brodie his prisoner.

Motive, means, and opportunity? It was a frequent topic of conversation when attempting to solve a murder. And now?

Abberline had proven that he had the means, and most certainly Brodie's determination to speak with Morrissey had provided the opportunity.

The Chief Inspector's motive? Ambition, no matter the cost, no matter the lives it destroyed.

I thought about Morrissey on that long coach ride to Scotland Yard. He had a family to protect! And it had cost him his life.

If I could have questioned him, I would have demanded to know if they were protected now! But I didn't have the gift of communicating with the dead like my friend Templeton.

The MET had recently moved from their original building at Whitehall Place into a new red-stone building with conical towers at the Victoria Embankment and was now called the New Scotland Yard. Featuring, no doubt, a new office for Chief Inspector Abberline.

I remembered a newspaper article some two years earlier that a dismembered woman's body was found during construction. It caused all sorts of speculation, and, to my knowledge, the woman's identity was never known.

I suggested that Munro wait in the coach rather than accompany me as we arrived at the arched granite entrance in the embankment.

"There are no charges against me, miss," he replied.

"Do you trust Abberline?" I asked.

"I see yer point, miss. If ye've not returned in a reasonable time, I will contact her ladyship."

"You are a good friend," I told him as Mr. Hastings appeared at the door.

"And ye as well, miss."

Friend. And then there was Brodie. Most certainly a friend in the beginning.

I had needed him to help find my sister—a man I could trust, my aunt had said of him at the time.

I stepped down from the coach and entered the New Scotland Yard, a massive four-story building. Brodie was somewhere inside.

I signed in at the ground floor desk, presented the note from Sir Laughton, and waited.

The constable at the desk returned, and I was escorted into the office of Chief Inspector Abberline. The note Sir Laughton had given me lay on the desk before him. He did not stand but indicated the chair across from him.

"Sir Laughton," he commented. "I should have known that you would use your name and title to persuade others to assist in your efforts. Not that it will do any good. The case against Angus Brodie is strong."

I had learned previously that it was pointless to argue with the man. That was not the reason I was there.

He studied me, chin resting on steepled fingers. "I have waited a long time for this," he said with a self-satisfied expression.

"If there is some irregularity with Sir Laughton's request, I will make a telephone call to his offices," I replied. "He did insist that I contact him once I've seen Mr. Brodie."

That gaze sharpened. Did I mention weasel?

"Yes, of course. A very thorough man, not that it will do any good. However, by all means you may proceed, Lady Forsythe. Or should I say, Mrs. Angus Brodie."

I waited, but did not respond. He eventually summoned one of his constables.

"You will escort Lady Forsythe to the holding area. There, she will be allowed to speak with the new prisoner—Brodie." He held up a hand as the constable waited at the door.

"She has been known to be most proficient with a firearm. You will see that she has no weapon."

"Yessir."

Not that I would have brought a weapon with me. Then again, I did experience a small moment of satisfaction that it was of some concern to Abberline.

Munro had seen to ‘disarming' me as we arrived.

"The man would like nothing better than to have a grievance against ye as well, miss. I know Brodie has seen that yer armed, as well as carrying the blade I gave ye when yer out and about on yer inquiry cases. I willna have my friend thinkin' that I sent ye in there like Daniel into the lion's den. Ye will give me both."

A quote from the Bible? That surprised me more than his insistence that I turn over both weapons to him. Who might have expected that? And when I commented on that?

"A woman I once kept company with was fond of the verses," he said with a frown. "She was far better at the verses than at…"

I had quickly handed both weapons over to him, before he went into greater detail.

Now, as I followed the constable to the door of Abberline's office, I said, "I assure you, if I had a weapon, you would already know of it."

The young constable stared at me as he finally understood my meaning.

"You may carry on," I told him and closed the door to Abberline's office rather sharply.

I had experience with someone incarcerated in the past—Templeton came to mind. It had been a somewhat bizarre experience. Detained in the matter of the dead Ambassador at the old Scotland Yard, she had proceeded to give a performance to the staff as Cleopatra—the play she was in at the time.

Then there was the situation with my sister's former husband, who made a series of catastrophic choices that ended his marriage, his career, and almost his life. He had been imprisoned for high crimes against the Crown. I emphasize the word ‘former.'

I had paid him a visit at Newgate in the course of our investigation, an experience never to be forgotten, with its dank stone walls and the certainty that the lives of those within were over. A place of the living dead, I had once heard it described.

But even those previous situations could not prepare me for what I saw as I was escorted into a part of the New Scotland Yard referred to as a ‘holding area.'

I followed the young constable down a hallway at the ground floor, lined with a half-dozen rooms with stout doors and bars set into the small openings at each one.

"I will have to search you, miss," he announced politely enough.

I opened my bag to reveal that I carried no weapon. He nodded, then hesitated, his face coloring.

"The Chief Inspector did say that I was to search your person as well."

"And what precisely does that entail? As you can see," I turned about for his inspection. "There is hardly a place where I might conceal a weapon."

I had worn a gown and jacket from a previous stay at Sussex Square. The gown clung to me, while the jacket, when I opened it, left nothing to the imagination nor did it reveal any weapon.

"That is quite sufficient, miss," he stammered and promptly unlocked the door at cell number 1-B.

I stepped inside, and the door closed behind me with a startling finality.

It was quite dark inside the cell and almost suffocating with no outside window, in the event that a prisoner might attempt to claw and scrabble his way through thick stone walls, and then escape.

Furnishings were at a minimum, so as not to provide the prisoner in question anything that might be used as a weapon. What appeared to be a metal frame bed was attached at one wall, and was nothing more than a rack with a thin blanket that was still folded. A shallow basin had been attached at the opposite wall. Food, untouched, sat on a metal plate at the floor.

I caught the movement from that bed, and then a hoarse sound that I wouldn't have recognized if the constable hadn't checked the ‘guest register' as we arrived and confirmed that this was in fact where Brodie was being held.

I then heard the distinctive sound of chains...as he slowly emerged from the shadows in one corner of the cell.

Knowing Abberline...knowing his obsession with Brodie, I had tried to prepare myself for what I would find. Nothing I had imagined could have prepared me for what I saw.

He wore the trousers and shirt from the day before, however, the shirt was torn and stained with dried blood.

My first thought was that he must have been wounded as the police entered the smoke shop. There had been that one gunshot. But it seemed that it was Morrissey who was dead. Then I looked at his face.

His hair was tangled and matted, a cheek badly swollen and bloodied above the dark beard, and he shuffled forward in a way that had little to do with the chains on his ankles.

He moved like a very old man, bent and stooped, one arm held against his mid-section.

I had seen injured people before, even bodies in the course of our inquiry cases. But nothing compared to this. He had been beaten and quite savagely.

"Brodie…?" I almost didn't believe that it was him—didn't want to believe it.

"Wot…!" he said, in a thick rasping sound, "are ye doin' here!"

I gathered my thoughts and my emotions. It would have been so easy to become hysterical at what I saw...and I was not a hysterical person. But this was Brodie, and as with everything else about the man, everything I had known before went right out the window. Still…

It would do neither of us any good to give into what I was feeling, and I was fairly certain that he would have made some disparaging comment if I were to fall into a weeping fit.

It was ridiculous to ask how he was or how they were treating him. That was obvious.

"I'm here to see you…"

He cut off anything more I would have said.

"I dinna want ye here!"

"I can help you..."

"I dinna need yer help!"

"I might argue that...There are things that can be done, people who can assist. I've already contacted Sir Laughton…"

"No!"

There was something of the old Brodie in that angry response that brought on a fit of coughing. I held onto that, having dealt with it numerous times in the past.

"If you know anything that might be helpful, if Morrissey said anything before...a question you asked that he responded to before Abberline's men broke into the shop…"

"I dinna want ye part of this."

"That would seem moot at this point. I am part of it…"

"Mikaela!" The effort it took to speak brought on another spasm of coughing, and he looked as if he might drop to the floor.

All my resolve disappeared, and I went to him, holding onto him...holding him up. I didn't care about the blood or the bruises…

I could only imagine the strength it took as he pushed away from me. When I took a step toward him, he only shook his head.

"Abberline has waited ten years for this. I willna have ye part of it. Will ye once do as I say? Stay away!"

"Bloody hell, I will," I replied.

"I dinna want ye here!"

I had seen him angry countless times, at times directed at me, but never like this. When I reached out to touch him, he pulled away sharply.

"You need to trust me," I told him then. "I will find the man responsible for Ellie Sutton's murder." It was the only way to clear him, and seeing him bloodied and bruised for Abberline's cruel pleasure, perhaps save his life.

"I shouldna ha brought you into any of this…" he whispered.

He turned back to that corner of the room and slowly disappeared into the shadows.

"Trust me," I told him once more, then knocked at the door to let the constable know that I was ready to leave.

Munro took one look at me as I returned to the coach.

"Aye."

The rest of the trip back to Sussex Square was made in silence.

There is something to say regarding someone who knows you so well because they are very much like you.

At first, my great-aunt said nothing when we returned, waving away the servants as well as Lily and Mrs. Ryan.

I say at first, as she left me to my anger, my frustration, my thoughts, and the fear—not something I usually allowed. Then...

"We could storm the gates and break him out. It would be quite an experience," she suggested as luncheon was served, for which I had no taste whatsoever.

"I could call in a favor for that. Or we might simply have Mr. Munro take care of Abberline when he leaves Scotland Yard for the day, self-satisfied that he has Brodie in his clutches."

She seemed to have a healthy appetite for luncheon and her proposed scheme. She eyed me thoughtfully.

"Or have you decided to leave Brodie to his fate? I do suppose an arrangement could be provided by Sir Jamison, an annulment rather than a divorce, and be done with the man."

I looked at her sharply. Although by the brief and painful conversation with Brodie it did seem that he regretted my involvement.

"Or not," she added. "If you have set upon a plan? If you have not…"

I suddenly rose from the table, threw down my napkin, and went in search of Munro.

"Sir Avery made it clear that he wouldna be involved in the murder case," he said when I explained what I intended to do.

It did not include storming the gates of Scotland Yard, or having Munro assist Mr. Abberline in simply disappearing. Although that was tempting…