Chapter 19

I rose earlyafter a fitful night, the hound nudging my hand.

No one was yet in the offices of the Agency except for those Alex had referred to as the ‘night guard.'

There were occasional sounds that echoed down the passage from above, as the yeoman warders stationed during the day had arrived from their respective apartments or flats to begin the day.

The hound made a somewhat urgent sound, and I unwrapped myself from the blanket that had twisted about me. I swung my legs over the edge of the cot to the stone floor.

There was no window in Alex's office, and therefore little light except from the hallway. No doubt to prevent anyone escaping, I thought drily.

I found the electric light on the desk and turned it on. The marvels of electricity still amazed me, especially here—modern inventions in a thousand-year-old fortress. I did wonder what my ancestor would have thought of it all.

Considering stories I had heard from my aunt about that particular ancestor, he would have probably smashed the light bulb with his sword. After all, one could never be too careful when it came to one's enemies.

Rupert made another sound, and I decided we needed to go in search of hot coffee. I picked up the pot with only the dregs of coffee grinds, and turned toward the hall that led to the green.

He sounded quite urgent as we passed the infirmary and stone steps beyond that led into the upper level of the tower compound.

We encountered a warder, and I explained the urgency. He directed us to an outside area, and the hound bounded on ahead. When he returned, I retraced our steps back down into the area that contained the Agency offices.

I stopped outside the infirmary, my hand on the lever to the door, when it suddenly opened.

A lean man, approximately my height, with thinning hair and mutton-chop side-whiskers—I was always curious how that description came about, as he did not resemble a sheep in the slightest.

Obviously equally surprised at finding someone there at that time of the morning, he looked at me with a curious expression, grey eyes staring at me over the top of half-lens glasses.

"You must be Lady Forsythe," he said by way of greeting.

I did not recall previous introductions. It was obvious, however, by the stethoscope about his neck that he was a physician.

"It was late in the evening and we weren't properly introduced," he said at my obvious curiosity. "I'm Dr. Watson. I've been attending Mister Brodie. Dr. Daniel Watson," he added at my surprised reaction. "No relation to the gentleman in Sherlock Holmes stories, except for the coincidence of the name, and our profession of course. You're here regarding the patient." He angled the door open a few inches more.

"It was a long night after he finally settled. As you see, he is finally sleeping. He does have a formidable spirit."

Formidable. Now there was a word I had not thought of before.

"He'll be all right?" I inquired as I looked past him to where Brodie was lying quite still on one of those hospital beds.

"As I said, he is quite formidable. A broken rib can be most painful, and he appears to have at least two, possibly three. I managed to bandage him up to prevent too much movement on the van ride here last night.

"And then there are superficial wounds," he continued. "A deep cut over his left eye and a head wound. I stitched the cut. The head wound is the worst of it, still he doesn't seem to have any residual effect from that."

"You attended to his wounds at Scotland Yard."

He nodded. "He was in some difficulty then, from some sort of altercation on the street, I was told. Although it did seem a bit more severe than what I usually see."

An altercation on the street? It was not surprising that Abberline would have called it that, protecting himself against any suspicion that it might have been otherwise.

"I must say that Sir Avery was most insistent that he be given whatever care was needed. It was good that I was called in when I was. He had lost a good amount of blood."

Brodie had still not moved.

"When might I speak with him?" I asked.

"I gave him another dose of laudanum a short while ago. It's only now taken effect. It will be several more hours. Rest is best now, to let his body do its work.

"The human body is a remarkable thing," he went on to explain. "It has amazing restorative powers given a chance, once the bleeding has been stopped and wounds have been closed."

It was most encouraging.

"You've had experience with such things?"

"A bit of experience in Burma. You see most everything in war. It was there I met Sir Avery. We returned together, along with several others, and he persuaded me to join him in a new assignment he was taking on," he continued. "Hence the Agency," he said with an engaging smile. He gestured to the pot in my hand.

"It appears that you might be in search of coffee? Come along then," he said, closing the door behind him.

"With the hours I often keep, I have discovered where to find fresh, hot coffee. Is that fellow your escort?" he asked of the hound as he joined us.

Dr. Daniel Watson was most congenial and with a surprising sense of humor, a stark contrast to Sir Avery.

"One has to have a sense of humor when dealing with wounds, amputations, and very often death," he explained over hot coffee that did wonders for restoring my energy.

"I suspect the other choice might be to simply go insane. It can all be quite gruesome." He had looked at me, quite curious.

"It is most unusual to find a woman working for the Agency, aside from Miss Penworth, of course. She does have a special affinity for information-gathering. And then there are the ladies who come in to clean; several are wives of the warders. One doesn't usually encounter someone who actively pursues solving crimes."

It seemed that my agreement with Sir Avery had brought some attention.

"Mr. Brodie and I have a private inquiry firm," I explained. "He has worked with the Agency in the past, when a case has required it."

"Of course," he said with a gentle smile. "I didn't mean to speak out of turn."

Brodie still had not wakened when we left the ‘commissary,' as it was called. Another name borrowed from the military.

Dr. Watson explained that many things at the Agency had been set up in military fashion.

"You can take a man out of the war, but not the war out of the man?" I commented.

"That is quite good, Miss Forsythe," he complimented.

Alex and Lily had both arrived at the Tower offices when I returned to Alex's office.

He had decided to plot a time line of the events in the case of Ellie Sutton's murder. He then added a similar timeline for that ten-year-old murder of Stephen Matthews, while Lily set about transcribing my notes into what she referred to as "a case file that was required by Sir Avery." It included my earlier notes and the more recent ones from the visit Munro and I had with Mr. Iverson.

Munro had returned as well, with the item I had asked him to bring.

It was very nearly eleven o'clock in the morning when I placed a telephone call to the Matthews residence in Kent, to inquire if Mrs. Matthews was available. I was informed that she had left some time earlier.

"She's gone to the florist's shop, then Highgate, the same as every week," her housekeeper added. "She won't return for several hours. Do you care to leave a message?"

Highgate.

I declined by simply saying that I would call again another time.

According to the information Lucy found at the registrar's office, Stephen Matthews was buried at the western cemetery there, I thought as the telephone call ended.

And Mrs. Matthews went there ‘every week,' according to her housekeeper.

I wanted very much to speak with Stephen Matthews' mother, yet hesitated to go to Highgate, and intrude on what I could only assume was something very emotional for her.

However, a young woman was dead, a small boy orphaned, and Brodie's life very much hung in the balance.

I was determined to learn not only who was behind this, but the reason. And time was critical, with the murderer still unknown and still out there.

Highgate Cemetery was in the north of London.

Munro nodded when I informed him that I wanted to go there, and the reason.

"Aye, but ye'll not go alone."

It was midafternoon when Mr. Hastings guided the team through the arched stone entrance of Highgate. We drove down an avenue with trees and shrubs past Egyptian sepulchers, mausoleums, and Gothic tombs, then arrived at a small stone building where a black hearse had just departed.

It disappeared along an adjacent pathway, with several coaches following behind. A small man who looked much like a troll that had stepped out from under a rock turned and nodded a greeting.

Munro explained that we were looking for a site where another individual was buried.

"Stephen Matthews." I gave him the name.

"Matthews?" he replied, then his expression changed. "Ah, the grey lady. Comes here every week. Always dressed the same in a grey gown. Lewiston is the family name."

He then gave directions for us to continue along the path, then turn at the carriage path that had a tall oak tree with a weeping angel at the base. The Lewiston family plot and crypt were only a short distance on, a carved wood sign with the family name beside the main path.

With those directions, Mr. Hastings proceeded to guide the team to the area the little man had indicated.

"I don't much like these places," Munro commented.

I naturally had my own opinion of them—a boat, a torch, and a Viking sendoff seemed far more appealing.

Still, there was something peaceful about Highgate, with its winding carriageway and overhanging trees, much like a medieval forest.

Mr. Hastings drew the team to a stop behind another coach, and we stepped down.

"Do ye want me to go with ye?" Munro asked.

I could have sworn he was relieved when I told him I was quite all right on my own. I would never have imagined that he would be uneasy in such surroundings.

The hound had no such hesitation, but bounded off. I suppose it was a dog's paradise with abundant trees and bushes, and scents far different from the streets.

I had worn my split skirt and jacket with boots, my hair pulled back. I was not in the habit of wearing a black gown even if I owned one, which I did not.

My sister had declared me a heathen. "What will you wear when Aunt Antonia passes on?" she had once asked, quite serious.

I had promptly pointed out that our great-aunt would very likely outlive us both, hence no need to be concerned what we would wear.

However, in the remote possibility that we might outlive her, I had informed Linnie that I would wear gypsy clothes, bells about my wrists and ankles, and dance barefoot in the moonlight, as my friend Templeton had once described she wanted to be sent off. And I would set the torch myself to the funerary barge carrying my great-aunt's body.

"There are times," Linnie had declared in response, "when I am positively certain that we are not related at all."

So there we were, my aunt and I for a Viking send-off, my sister for an impossibly boring interment in a crypt where the insects and rats would have their way, or possibly someone in the greater London Planning Department would decide decades later that her crypt had to be moved to make way for a rail station.

It did conjure up all sorts of images.

I navigated the pathway quite easily that led to a clearing with an enormous crypt in the center, surrounded by other monuments. The crypt was of the granite Gothic design with a wrought iron gate and quite old—a Lewiston ancestor by the inscription over the entrance.

The setting was peaceful, surrounded by trees, those family names, and the sad, drawn features of the woman who sat there.

She came every week since then, her housekeeper said, and brought flowers for the son she had lost. A son who had fallen in love with a young woman and fathered a child, and then was tragically murdered. And who, strangely enough, was buried in his mother's family crypt.

I passed other Lewiston monuments that went back through at least three generations, and then slowly approached a woman dressed in grey who sat beside a simply carved headstone that read:

Stephen Christopher Lewiston

Beloved son

1860 to 1881

Not Matthews!

I couldn't help but feel that I had somehow stumbled upon another piece of the puzzle that was Ellie Sutton's death.

But what did it mean?