Chapter 19

Nineteen

#204 ON THE STRAND

Brodie and I had returned to the office after taking breakfast at the Public House.

I had updated my notes on the chalkboard the night before, after returning to find that he had been to the office, and had then left again. Mr. Cavendish had been present, minus the hound that had been sent along with Brodie.

I had now added what he had learned from his meeting with a man by the name of Brown.

Brodie knew a great many people from his time with the MET and before. Mr. Brown apparently operated a very lucrative business in smuggling, extortion, and everyday street crime, with a network of associates, as Brodie put it.

Just your everyday successful businessman. And exceedingly dangerous, according to what the Mudger had shared with me.

"Yet, you went to meet with him," I pointed out, and left that open for a response. That dark gaze met mine.

"Old business," he replied. As if that was an explanation.

"Did you consider that it might be dangerous?" Even as I said it, I thought that I might have sounded a bit like a nagging wife.

"What I mean is…" I started to explain. There was an amused smile behind that dark gaze.

"I know wot ye mean. The most dangerous part of it might have been the hound mistaking me afterward for one of Brown's men."

He then asked, "Wot time are ye to meet with Sir Laughton regarding the information he was able to obtain?"

"Ten o'clock."

He nodded. "I'll just go with ye. I may have some questions for him." He had grabbed a towel from the bedroom and went to the door with soap and towel in hand.

"I have a need to wash off the street," he explained as he left the office and went down the landing to the accommodation that had been added some time before and included a boiler for hot water, wash stand, and marvel upon marvels, a flush commode!

When he returned, he shook water from his hair, and smelled delightfully of soap.

"Can ye be ready by quarter past?" he inquired as he towel-dried his hair. It fell into waves about his neck. "That should leave enough time to reach his office."

"I am quite ready now," I replied.

I had already dressed for the day and my notebook was in my bag, while he stood there in trousers, bare of foot, without a shirt in spite of the cold and the rain—he was after all a Scot and they were quite used to such things. However, I was still not used to the sight of a half-dressed Scot with that light dusting of dark hair across his belly and…

I quickly went to the bedroom and retrieved a clean shirt and tie, then returned.

He handed me the dark-blue muslin shirt he'd worn the night before, then slipped his arms through the white shirt, which was far more presentable, and buttoned it.

When he would have tied the tie himself—always a frustrating endeavor that usually brought on several curses—I brushed his hands aside.

I felt that dark gaze on me.

"I never had anything that was truly my own."

I looked up. Everything I might have expected—some comment that I was taking too long, and I was, deliberately so. To his simply deciding not to wear the ‘bloody thing,' nothing could have surprised me.

For once, I couldn't think of anything to say.

"On the streets, wot ye find is wot has been cast off, that no one wants any more. In my time with the MET… we were always looked at with suspicion, even hatred, by those we came across in a crime.

"Here," he glanced around at the office before continuing. "There are things that are just… things. Pieces of furniture, the desk, yer chalkboard. Oh, there is the Mudger—Mr. Cavendish and that bloody hound. But they dinnae belong to anyone. At least not the hound."

"What about Munro?" I reminded him.

"Aye, and like a brother to me. But he doesna belong to me either." He reached up and wrapped the hair that fell over my shoulder around his fingers.

"For the first time, there is something that is truly mine." He pulled me closer and lightly kissed me.

I might have pointed out that I didn't belong to him either, although I suppose that was splitting hairs over it all as we were married, and that had meant making a commitment to each other. I understood what he meant. More importantly, I knew where it came from.

"We don't want to be late for our meeting with Sir Laughton," I reminded him. "We do have a case to solve."

We arrived on time for our meeting, and were immediately shown into Sir Laughton's private office.

"The legal community is actually quite small," he explained after his clerk left and closed the door.

"We know who the barristers are as well as other lawyers, the major firms in London, and very often most of their clerks as we often work together on cases, or across from each other in court.

"Through someone I know, I was able to learn the name of the firm that represented Harris Imports as well as Simon Harris, the owner of the import company. As you will see at the top of the copy of the trust document, his lawyer was Sir Elliott Mainwaring, Esquire, both in matters regarding the business and personally as well. And still is, according to provisions in the trust document, which he had one of his people copy and certified it to be exact," he added.

"Even though Simon Harris is dead?" I asked.

"As you will note as you read through the copy of the trust, it is what is called a living document , in that with certain provisions, the terms of the trust continue on even after the death of the person it was created for.

"I am certain that you are aware of the provisions of the trust that her ladyship has created for yourself and Lady Lenore. It is much the same here, with the particular provision that Mr. Carney, employed as manager of Harris Imports, is to continue certain responsibilities as outlined."

"We have learned that he is compensated," Brodie commented. "How might that happen?"

"Through a bank account established at Lloyd's Bank. They would have a copy of the trust agreement as well, for such purposes."

Somewhat familiar with the language of such documents after my great-aunt created her trust, I noted several similar provisions, one in particular made for the upkeep of the family burial sites at Hampstead, along with the provision that had established Lloyd's Bank as recipient for any additional funds through "Mr. Harris's business," and compensation for Mr. Carney to be distributed by the bank, with a record of account kept.

There were, of course, other legal provisions. There was the family home in Knightsbridge, which was to be sold, along with other holdings, and Harris Import ownership in four cargo ships.

Simon Harris had obviously been a very successful businessman. There was one other piece of information that drew my attention. The date of the trust was September 12, 1881, barely three months after the death of his wife, and only days before that tragic warehouse fire where he died.

"Might it be possible to obtain information from the bank regarding Harris Shipping?" I asked.

I wondered what Mr. Carney was paid the past years for ‘overseeing' what was left of the warehouse, along with possible other transactions with the information Brodie had learned about Mr. Carney's other enterprise downriver of the docks.

Sir Laughton handed Brodie a letter with a wax seal on it.

"I anticipated that you might ask," he said. "That letter is a legal notification instructing the manager at Lloyd's Bank to accommodate your request for that information. If there is any difficulty, I could provide a special warrant for the information, although that is most unusual."

I wasn't at all certain what we might learn as we left Sir Laughton's office and gave the driver instructions to take us to the bank.

We already knew from the information Brodie had learned that Mr. Carney was paid a small stipend to watch over the warehouse site at St. Katherine's Docks. The only part of what he'd learned from his meeting the night before with Mr. Brown was that Carney also had a smuggling operation, it was said, farther down river, south of the main London docks.

The manager of Lloyd's Bank was quite hesitant at first.

"This is most irregular. Our customers' information is private and held in strictest confidence," he first objected.

"We understand, sir," Brodie politely replied. "However, this is in the matter of a private inquiry of great importance. Yer assistance might very well aid in the resolution of a serious crime, which I am certain ye would not want to obstruct."

I knew he could be very persuasive and had seen and heard it before. I called it his polite forcefulness , which usually brought results from whoever was on the other end of the conversation.

Admittedly there had been that same forcefulness in that conversation in Scotland when he had proposed to me. Of course, there were various methods of persuasion. I listened to that now, along with the look Brodie gave the manager. I would not have refused if I had been on the other end of it. But then…

"Perhaps there is someone else we might speak with in the matter," Brodie continued. "The president of the bank, perhaps. And we are prepared to provide an official warrant for the information."

That decided the matter, as the manager very quickly withdrew his concerns and objections.

"That will not be necessary," he assured us. "I will have the information provided immediately, if you will wait in the private office we have for our customers."

He promptly showed us to that office, then quickly excused himself to retrieve the information we had requested.

"Very persuasive," I complimented Brodie. "You would have convinced me to cooperate."

That dark gaze was still quite serious.

"I can be, when I want something."

Were we still speaking of those account records?

The manager returned promptly with a bank clerk and two ledgers.

"These should provide the information you are looking for." He had the clerk deposit the ledgers on the desk.

"If there should be anything else, you have only to let this young man know and he will provide it." There was a stern look that passed between them.

I caught the frown on Brodie's face. Volumes of records, entries in ledgers, a stack of papers, receipts, and letters, were usually met with that same reaction. I rounded the desk in the office that had been provided, sat in the chair and opened the first ledger for Harris Imports.

"How did you ever manage to file reports when you were with the MET?" I inquired as I started through the entries that went back more than twenty years.

"I usually persuaded someone to make them for me," he confessed. "With me telling them the details, of course."

"Of course," I replied.

There were others who used dictation for their notes, particularly in the courts, where clerks recorded the details of a trial or hearing in official records.

My publisher, Mr. Warren, had recently explained a new invention used by another author, that recorded his voice onto a cylinder, which could be then be played back and transcribed by a clerk typist. It was very similar to the phonograph invented by Mr. Edison some years before.

I quickly scanned through the earlier entries. Harris Imports had been a very lucrative enterprise, with receipt of cargoes noted, bills received and paid with substantial profit. The entries notably changed at the time of the horrible tragedies for the Harris family.

There were entries for invoices paid and entered by a clerk for a funeral, then for a second funeral. There was a brief pause with only entries for payments received, which seemed reasonable, given Harris business.

The entries changed as I found those payments that were made to Carney. They were made regularly and in the same amount each time, no doubt for watching over the warehouse site, as he had explained to us. Then, there was a significant change in the dates and the amounts of transactions in the year following the tragedy.

"Ye found something?" Brodie asked.

He had been pacing the office, then took a seat in the other chair, but had begun to pace again.

"Just over a year after the death of his daughter and wife, and the fire at the warehouse, there were substantial withdrawals from the account."

He rounded the desk to see what I had found. I had written down several entries on one page alone and quickly added them up.

"These alone come to almost four hundred pounds." I showed him the list. "And there are more on the next several pages. There must be several thousand pounds that were withdrawn from the account just with the ones I've found, and there are more, including those made just the week past."

"The question is, who made them?" Brodie commented on the obvious.

"This says they were made by Carney, but for what purpose?" I added.

"I don't know anything about that," the bank clerk who had brought the ledgers and stood guard as if we might steal something replied.

At least one of our questions was answered.

"The cash withdrawals were made to a man by the name of Carney, according to the document the bank has for Harris Imports. It's been in place for some time."

According to a copy of the same trust document we now had.

"The first transactions were quite small, and then increased substantially," Brodie pointed out.

"Yes, it does appear so. I handled some of those myself. You can see my initials in the last column."

"And you didn't question them?"

"We have the document authorizing the withdrawals. There didn't seem to be any reason to question them."

"Why was the amount increased?" I asked.

"It was explained that it was necessary for maintenance of the estate properties. Our manager, Mr. McDaniels, approved the change, and it continued thereafter."

Brodie and I looked at each other. Maintenance of the estate properties?

"And these other transactions to M. Stevens each month?" I asked.

That most certainly couldn't be the warehouse site, as all that remained was the storeroom. Admittedly there had been cleaning of the site after the fire, but that was several years in the past.

"Mr. McDaniel approved those as well."

"And it seems that Mr. Carney continued to receive his usual stipend of one thousand pounds per year."

"That is correct," the young man replied.

It made no sense, I thought, as we left with the new information we now had. But what did it mean?

"M. Stevens?" Brodie commented as we found a coach and climbed inside. "Ye know of it.?"

"Moyses Stevens Florist, in Belgravia," I replied. "One can order floral arrangements for special occasions. Aunt Antonia has used them for years. They make deliveries and decorate as well. I would imagine she will have them provide flowers for the wedding."

It was not all that unusual, particularly in the case of a death. However, it did raise the question, who ordered the flowers? And whom were they for?

Mr. Carney had been authorized to make certain banking transactions based on the trust document. I suppose it was possible that he had ordered the flowers, however it hardly seemed something he would be concerned with. And then there was the information Brodie had learned from Mr. Brown.

And what of that very generous stipend he continued to receive? Through my great-aunt's various business interests that Munro handled for her—apparently similar to Mr. Carney's position with Harris Imports—I was aware that substantial amounts of money often exchanged hands with trusted employees.

"A large enterprise such as Harris Imports wouldn't have been able to cease operation overnight," I pointed out as we left the bank. "I imagine it would have taken some time to end operations, with cargos still arriving and bills to be paid for those.

"Perhaps," Brodie replied.

He sat across from me in the coach, arm braced on the open window in spite of the rain, chin propped on his fingers in that way when he was deep in thought.

"Or perhaps not," he commented. "Most transactions could have been handled with a draft to the bank, much the same as Munro makes for payment of her ladyship's bills.

"I have heard him complain over the number of drafts he is forced to write each month." There was a faint smile. "No easy task for someone who learned to count on his fingers."

He was thoughtful once more. "There would be no reason for cash to pay transactions, unless…"

I finished the thought. "Unless, it was something illegal? Mr. Carney's business enterprise downriver, perhaps?" I suggested.

"Aye, it would not be the first instance of an employee to take advantage of his employer."

"Even so," I pointed out. "What does that possibly have to do with the murders of Charlotte Mallory and Elizabeth Cameron?"

We returned to the office on the Strand. I added the information we had learned that morning at the bank, then stood back and stared at the board.

"What are ye thinking now?" Brodie asked.

"We need a new list."

"Yer almost out of room. We may need to acquire another board."

I ignored his sarcasm as I began a new list of the names of those we had spoken to and each one's connection to either Charlotte Mallory or Elizabeth Cameron.

It was late afternoon when I finally stood back from the board. I had a headache that was beginning to throb quite seriously, my back hurt from bending over as I made the last part of that long list, and I hadn't eaten since a pastry early that morning as we left for our meeting with Sir Laughton.

I had made the list in the order we had met with each person we'd spoken with, including Sir Mallory and his wife, Judge Cameron, and Daniel Eddington.

What did that list tell us? Something? Anything?

"Come along," Brodie said as he rose from the desk. "Ye have that look on yer face."

I turned from the chalkboard "What look is that?"

"That look as though ye might take the next man's head off. I've seen yer temper, and dinna want to be that man."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," I replied, more than a little put off that he thought he knew me that well.

"It's that look," he pointed out. "The one ye get when ye've gone too long without food. Ye have the look of the hound."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. I had a soft spot for the hound, to be certain. He was very intelligent, but he was also an independent sort who might take himself off at any moment. Admittedly, he did have an enormous appetite, mostly sponge cakes and biscuits with an animal carcass thrown in for good measure.

"You are mistaken," I told him and summoned my most indignant expression. "I am nothing like Rupert. I am far cleaner in my personal habits and not given to biting one's leg off just for sport."

"Both which I am grateful for."

We locked the office, then set off across the Strand toward the Public House. Mr. Cavendish was not about, and I fully expected to see him there with the hound.

The smell of food reached us as Brodie held the door for me, not wanting to make me wait further for food as he explained it.

The fare of the night was stew with an assortment of vegetables, and fresh baked bread.

"It's good you are here early," Miss Effie commented as we took a table very near the bow windows that looked out onto the Strand.

"With the dockers' strike and their meetings, we were out of food last night by half past six in the evening. I heard they're back at it tonight as well. If they don't settle their grievances, we won't have any food to serve.

"If you need Mr. Cavendish," she continued, "I convinced him and the hound to take the room at the back with the weather out."

"Not at all," Brodie assured her.

The stew was hot, just the sort of food that warmed one through on a cold evening. However, Brodie barely touched his.

It was often like that when a case was most perplexing. I recognized it now in the expression on his face, the way those dark brows sharply angled together and his frown showed, surrounded by that dark beard.

"What is it?" I asked as Miss Effie returned and refilled our coffee cups.

"There's more to this, something we are missing," he replied.

I set down my cup. I felt the frustration as well, along with a growing uneasiness. I had made certain that I included everything we had learned since taking the case.

Yet, I had learned from Brodie's experience from his time with the MET that some cases went unsolved, like the Whitechapel murders.

He had warned me about it from that very first case we undertook to find my sister. I had refused to accept it then, and refused now. I was not of a mind to tell Lily that we had failed to find Charlotte Mallory's murderer.

We returned to the office.

The coal fire had burned low and it had grown cold with that sharpness that usually came before snow.

Brodie put on more coal as I removed my coat, then went to the board.

"Motive, means, opportunity." Chalk in hand, I repeated what I had learned early on in our investigations.

According to Brodie it was always there, it was simply a matter of discovering each one and that would reveal who had committed the crime. And in trying to find each of those during an inquiry case, we were able to solve the case. Usually.

"Yer talking to yerself, lass," he pointed out as he came up beside me and studied the board.

"There are times when it is helpful. It helps me think. It has to be there," I replied. "It's just a matter of going back over everything. We already know what means were used to kill both Charlotte Mallory and Elizabeth Cameron.

"The opportunity was quite obvious, when each was alone, returning from an appointment or having met earlier with friends. Not robbery, nor assault," I continued.

"What then was the motive ? Who would want to kill two young women, and why? And a red rose, like a bloody calling card! What does that mean?"

We then went back over everything we had learned about the murders:

Two young women encountered alone and then murdered.

Two families devastated by those murders; Daniel Eddington left to mourn the loss of the woman he hoped to wed.

The letter Charlotte Mallory had received from Cora Walmsley.

The discovery that Johnathan Walmsley had been paid a substantial amount of money to leave London years before.

The fact that the Harris warehouse manager, Mr. Carney, had been paid a stipend each year since the tragic death of Amelia Harris.

Rumors from a man Brodie knew that Carney had built a smuggling operation at Queen's Dock on the tidal basin not used by the larger cargo ships.

That bank ledger with those entries for transactions, current as of the last month.

"It's here. I know it is," I insisted with growing frustration as I stared at the board.

The question was, what was it?

The dram of whisky Brodie had poured for each of us when we returned to the office, along with the heat from the fireplace, had begun to have its way with me. He took the tumbler from my hand.

"Ye'll not find it tonight. Yer tired. Go to bed," he told me.

He was right, of course. I had never been able to solve a problem by chasing it down. It was often necessary to leave it, then come back at it.

"And yourself?" I asked as I gave in to the fact that I wouldn't find the answer that night and that Brodie knew me so well.

"I'll be along straight away," he replied.

‘Straight away' turned out to be several hours, as I wakened and discovered the bed quite cold beside me.

A light glowed under the door to the adjoining office. I pulled the comforter around me and left the bed.

Brodie was at his desk, a thoughtful expression on his face as he stared at the chalkboard.

The fire in the coal stove had burned low and the room was quite cold. I glanced at the clock on the wall next to the desk. It was well after three o'clock in the morning.

"Have you found something?"

"There is no such thing as a coincidence," he replied.