She flushed the evidence away and leaned weakly against the wall, staring at her reflection in the mirror, but not seeing it. Instead, she saw the astonishment in Pureton’s eyes. The flicker of pleased surprise.
He had spoken to her as an equal, right there at the end. And he had looked at her directly, with sharp interest.
Adele began to smile.
ADELE THANKED THE GARDA OFFICER when he showed her to the row of chairs sitting along the green wall, buried deep in the basement of the Garda station. She wasn’t sure which station it was. The King’s footman who had escorted her here had offered no explanations short of Sir Godfrey insisting she come with him.
She settled on the chair and arranged the skirts of her day dress around her ankles and studied the green-painted iron door opposite the upright chairs. She had worn a full-length skirt, for today she would join the King’s entourage for their second visit to the International Exhibition. Once the formalities were over, the royal yacht would be leaving Dublin to return to Holyhead by nightfall. The night train would return them to London by morning, a day earlier than had originally been scheduled.
At least, that had been her plan when she rose this morning. The footman from the royal yacht, wearing a normal coat over his formal wait jacket, had found her in the dining room at the Shelbourne and insisted she go with him.
She had barely managed to gasp out a request to the desk clerk that her trunk be delivered to the yacht before the footman had shepherded her out to the waiting cab and brought her here to this dockside Garda station.
Adele had only been sitting a minute when footsteps made her look along the corridor to see who approached.
It was Torin Slane. He raised a brow as he drew closer. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Said Alice.” Adele raised her own brow. “You quote an Englishman? Shame on you.”
Slane grinned. “It sounds better in Gaelic,” he admitted.
“You got marching orders and no explanations, too?” she asked.
He nodded. “A Garda at my door, with the Chief Inspector’s compliments.”
The green painted iron door opened and Chief Inspector McDermott stepped out. He glanced at Slane. “I thought that was your voice. Well, step in, both of you.” He moved back into the room beyond the door himself.
Adele rose and moved through the door, Slane behind her.
It was a front room with a desk and chair behind it, with another room through a door at the back. McDermott moved through the other door.
Adele followed and found herself in an echoing stone-walled chamber with high windows, a concrete floor, and glass and steel cabinets. A table in the middle of the room told her where she was. It was a mortuary, and there was a body beneath the sheet on the table.
Pureton stood at the head of the table, leaning on his cane. He looked very tired. A man in a white coat stood beside him.
“Sir Godfrey,” Adele acknowledged.
“Show them,” Pureton told the man in the white coat.
The man moved over to the table and pulled the sheet down until the head of the body was revealed.
“Is that the man?” McDermott said. “Cranston?”
“It is, although when I last saw him, his throat had not been cut,” Adele said. She leaned closer. “Very sharp, whatever it was, too. Although he’s very clean, for a man who must have bled dry.”
Slane swallowed. His throat clicked dryly. “That be him,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“He’s clean because he was fished from Dublin Bay very early this morning,” Pureton said. “Whoever dumped him there didn’t know local tides and currents.”
“Calf,” McDermott said to the surgeon.
The man moved down to the other end of the table, and pulled the sheet back to reveal the lower right leg. “I canna lift it. Rigor is still in,” he said, his tone apologetic.
“That’s quite alright,” Adele assured him. “I can bend.” She bent and studied the gouge through the flesh on the calf. “Hmm, deeper than I thought.”
“It would have incapacitated him,” the surgeon said. “He wouldna been able to even limp for a good day or two.”
“Someone found him to be a liability,” Adele said.
“There were two of them,” Slane added, straightening from his inspection of the calf wound.
“Yes,” she agreed, meeting his gaze.
“Thank you, you may go,” Pureton said shortly.
“Me or the lady?” Slane shot back.
Pureton turned away and McDermott moved up to speak to him in an undertone.
Slane offered his elbow to Adele and lead her back through the green corridor to the outside of the station.
He paused upon the footpath to look up at the bright July sun and breathe in a great breath. “What are they hatching back there, do you think?” He looked at Adele as if she would know.
She blinked. “I…suspect they are agreeing to continue with the story that your brother died in a robbery gone wrong, now their mess has been cleaned up for them. I removed any of the evidence from Cranston’s room that would have everyone looking for German agents, and the other one, whoever he is, made sure Cranston could not talk about himself.”
Slane nodded. “So everyone will stop looking for the other one now, won’t they?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Slane. That isn’t how it works at all. Now I and…others will be able to continue looking for such people, without the world tripping us up with tiresome questions.”
“So you did make it go away.” He sounded impressed. “Did you twist Pureton’s arm, somehow?”
“I merely explained to him what I told you. That he could go on letting the world think it was a robbery. That he could call off his dogs for nothing else would emerge to embarrass anyone.”
Slane rubbed the back of his neck. “‘tis a different way of doing t’ings,” he admitted.
“For a start, it does not involve shouting at people,” she admitted, with a smile.
“Is it a
