The Deacon Brodie Moment
To Edinburgh this morning for a staff meeting and, at lunchtime, a stroll up the Royal Mile in search of a cafe. I settled on a little tearoom that also served all-day-breakfast...perhaps the most beautiful expression in the entire English language. Opening a copy of The Scotsman, my eye was drawn to the infamous Deacon Brodie. This piece was based on a forthcoming edition of our Case Reopened series.
Brodie was the famous cabinet-maker who lived a double life...playing the civic-mindded gent by day while robbing his clients homes by night. He is said to have inspired the take of Jekyll and Hyde.
Now historian Owen Dudley Edwards believes that Brodie cheated death by escaping the gallows and being spirited away to America by friends.
As chance would have it, I find I'm sitting just a few hundred yards away from the Deacon Brodie pub. I consider nipping inside an ordering one of those stange brews that often alter my own personality.
Lager, I think it's called.
