Reilly Leaves For London

After tending to Yrjö’s wound and satisfied there would be no lasting ill effect, Reilly and Yrjö finally fell into a fitful sleep.

There would be no more intrusion to mar that night, nor any the next day as Reilly was ready to board The Merenneito.

“Well, my Finnish friend, we seemed to have had a bit of an adventure.”

“My arm says so,” Yrjö said. “But, Roland, you are now on your own. I won’t be there to take any more bullets for you.”

“Now that’s a comforting thought.”

“I wish you luck with what you must do, and to find the peace you deserve once you have done it,” Yrjö said.

“That’s practically poetic,” Reilly said.

“I guess you never read Kalevala.” Yrjö said.

“Yrjö, before I leave, I want to ask a question. Personal courtesy. Do you know who I am?”

“Personal courtesy?” Yrjö made a show of rubbing his chin as one does when in deep thought. “Roland, we have no such thing as personal courtesy in what we do.”

Reilly shrugged, and after a gentle handshake so as not to disturb Yrjö’s wounded arm, he went up onto the deck. He turned to see Yrjö with a very broad smile and waving slowly, with his good arm, of course.

“You see, Sidney, what good friends we Finns can be?” he shouted as Merenneito carefully left the dock.

So Yrjö knew his name, after all. Of course, he’d know.

“I doknow now, I most certainly do,” Reilly shouted back. And in short order, the ship pulled out of Yrjö’s sight.

Also out of sight of both Yrjö and Reilly, hidden from view, near the far right bow, stood the man who stood hidden in the dark and the rain the night before.