“Just like you’re as good as my sister?”
Leo’s fingers slipped from the directory’s pages. It wasn’t just the comment that struck her, but how he’d said it, scoffing as if the idea offended him. They’d been lumped together by many at the Yard as ‘the Inspector’s wards’; he’d taken them both under his wing and into his home around the same time. But she knew what it felt like to have a brother, and she’d never felt the familial connection to Jasper that she’d felt with Jacob.
She closed the city directory and took the case folder from the blotter. “You’re right. It’s late. I’ll go.”
Jasper stood from the Chesterfield and held out his arm to stop her. “I’m sorry, Leo. That was unfair. I don’t…” He rubbed his eyes. “It’s something Bloom said today. It got under my skin.”
“Something about the case?”
He paused, seeming to falter over whether he should answer. He leaned down to fiddle with the newspapers Mrs. Zhao had fanned out for him on the table. Sliding them into a pile, he pushed them aside and stood tall again.
“Nothing about the case.” Jasper raised his glass to his lips. “He wanted permission to ask you to dance.”
Leo stared, utterly flummoxed. She hadn’t known what she’d expected him to say, but it most assuredly hadn’t beenthat. “Dance with me? But that is absurd; he isn’t interested in me in the least.”
Not to mention, he was a good decade or two her senior.
“I don’t think he is either.” Jasper’s agreement was a slap of insult, even if it was Eddie Bloom they were speaking of.
She scowled. “Oh, well, thank you very much.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Bloom wanted to needle me and knew to use you to do it.”
“He did see us together in January.” She arched her brow. “You were excessively protective that evening.”
He frowned. “I was not. I was the only one being rational.”
Leo shook her head. “You shouldn’t let Mr. Bloom get to you. Besides, you ought to know I wouldn’t step out with him or anyone like him. He’s a criminal, after all.”
Constable Elias Murray came to mind. She’d stepped out with him once and had all but agreed to do so again. But she bit back the information. There was no reason to share that with Jasper.
He tucked his chin and nodded before draining the rest of his drink. “There. I’ve told you something of my investigation today. Now, what is this thought you’ve had about Henderson & Son?”
“That wasn’t about the investigation at all,” she said, but as she was too impatient to reveal her discovery, she chose not to hold out.
She opened her handbag and retrieved the issue ofTheTimesfrom the twenty-second of November of the previous year, just about four months ago. The clerk at the archives had told her she couldn’t take it, but he’d conceded once she bribed him with a shilling and a hand pie from the costermonger across the street.
“In November, I read an announcement for the engagement of Miss Gabriela Henderson to a Mr. Lawrence Wilkes, a young man employed at Henderson & Son Manufacturing.” Leo opened the paper to the society pages and handed it to Jasper. “And yet, she died four months later as the wife of Mr. Andrew Carter.”
“What happened to Mr. Wilkes?” Jasper asked as he read the column, his honey-blond eyebrows furrowing in interest.
“That was my question.” She went back to the London City Directory and continued her search. “I think we should find him and ask.”
Jasper tossed the paper to the table, atop the other dailies. “We?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I think I do.” He came toward the desk. “You just happened to remember this announcement from November of last year?”
“Only when Constable Wiley mentioned Gabriela’s maiden name. You know I can’t help the way my memory works.”
Jasper leaned against the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, as she continued to flip through pages in the directory. “Speaking of Wiley, is there any particular reason he asked me if I thought his mouth was turning blue?”
Leo bit her lower lip against a grin. “I’ve no idea. What an odd man.”
He grunted. “Also, do I take it that you actually read thesociety pages?”
She peered sideways at him. “On occasion. Why are you turning up your nose? Doesn’t your intendedtypethem?”
