“And ye didna get caught all that way?” Murdoch asked.
“Of course I did.” Farah laughed. “I was a terrible stowaway. But I told the post carrier who caught me that my name was Farah Mackenzie and my brother and I were orphans and I needed to find him in Glasgow. The man took pity on me, bought me a meal, and let me sit up front for the rest of the way beneath a blanket.”
Blackwell snorted from across the car. “You’re lucky that’s all he did.”
“I know that now,” Farah conceded. “I was rather naïve at the time.”
“I can’t believe you were foolish enough to strike out on your own,” he continued darkly, flinging a letter to his table. “It’s a miracle that—”
“I thought ye were having none of this conversation,” Murdoch quipped, winking at Farah.
“I’m not. But the idea of a tiny, sheltered ten-year-old girl on the streets of Glasgow—”
“If ye want to be involved, come over here and involve yerself, otherwise, kindly shut it and let the lady finish her story.”
Farah was certain Murdoch had signed his death warrant, but Dorian only muttered a foul blasphemy under his breath, dipped his pen in ink, and resumed his work.
“Ye were saying?” Murdoch prompted.
“Oh, yes, um, where was I?”
“Glasgow.”
“Right. I found the same story at Glasgow that I did at Fort William. The Burgh was only built to house forty people and currently incarcerated over a hundred. So they’d already shipped Dougan off to Newgate to work on the railways. The post carrier, Robert Mackenzie was his name, told me he had a cousin in London who worked as a grocery delivery man. He said that he couldn’t leave a little one from his clan undefended, so he bought me a ticket on the train and sent me to London. Sweetest man,” Farah recalled. “I sent him letters every month for a decade until he passed from a heart problem.”
“And his cousin was kind to ye?” Murdoch asked.
“Oh, yes. Craig Mackenzie and his wife, Coleen, were only ever able to have one child, a rather sickly girl named Agatha. Seeing as how I boasted the same last name, no one particularly questioned my presence in their home. He needed help with his deliveries, and so I made certain my rounds took me by Newgate, where I left food and such for Dougan which was subtracted from my own wages. I worked with Mr. Mackenzie for seven or so years, and didn’t mind it so much. Until the year Dougan—died. Everything seemed to change after that. Craig left Coleen for a Spanish dancing girl. They ran off to the Continent and so his business went under. Coleen’s sister said she’d heard that they were hiring maintenance staff at Scotland Yard, and so, at seventeen, Agatha and I went to work there as maids.”
Dorian’s quill scratched to a halt on his desk, but he still didn’t look at her. “I was searching all over the damned Scottish Highlands for you, and you were scrubbing the cesspool floors of Scotland Yard?”
“Not for very long,” Farah announced proudly. “Before Carlton—”
Dorian’s head shot up and he skewered her with his glare.
“I mean before Chief Inspector Morley took office, a man by the name of Victor Thomas James held his post. You see, because of Agatha’s poor health, I often stayed late to finish her chores, as well. One of which was laying all the fires for the Yard offices. Chief Inspector James was one of the most decorated detectives in the history of the Yard; however, his eyesight had begun to fail, but he wasn’t ready to retire. One night, while tidying his office and stoking the fire, I helped read a particularly untidy document. The next night, he had a stack for me to read and an extra ha’penny for my troubles. Over the course of two years, I became indispensable to him, and he installed me as a widowed clerk at twenty.” Farah lifted her shoulders. “The nature of the work at the Yard is rather transitory. Men come and go, are transferred, sacked, killed, or promoted. After maybe five years, Agatha had married and no one who knew me as a maid still worked at that office. I was merely Mrs. Farah Mackenzie, a widowed bluestocking. Chief Inspector James retired six years hence, Morley took his place, and there I have remained until, well, until a few days ago.”
The two very differently featured men shared identical expressions of abject disbelief for long enough to make Farah want to squirm.
“To think of the trouble we went through to find ye this wee fairy, Blackwell, and all this time she was right under our noses. All ye would have had to do is the one thing ye swore ye wouldna.” Murdoch turned to toss his employer a pained and ironic look.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Get arrested.”
“That is how you found me.”
Murdoch chuckled. “Aye, but we orchestrated that, so it doesna count.”
Farah thought a moment, wondering whom they had on the inside who would have helped with said orchestration. “Inspector McTavish?”
Murdoch laughed and slapped his thigh. “Dougan always said ye were a witty lass!”
She remembered the beating Blackwell had taken whilst locked away in the strong room. The echoes of a bruise and the all-but-healed cut on his lip reminded her of the lengths he must have gone to. “I am sorry you were mistreated by Morley,” she offered. “I don’t know what got into him.”
Dorian’s gaze touched her in places that made memories dance along the nerves of her skin until she was overwarm and aching. “I do.”