“I’d planned to show it to him, thank you,” Jasper grumbled, reaching into his coat pocket while Mr. Henderson ordered Regina Morris’s employment file to be brought forward.
As soon as the secretary left on her task, Jasper turned the death portrait outward for Mr. Henderson to view.
“Any idea why your daughter would have had this in her handbag?”
The man tucked his chin and grimaced. “Absolutely not. Who are those children?”
“Someone may have given it to her the night she was poisoned,” Leo answered. Jasper gritted his molars and gaveup; the woman was unbiddable. “Possibly Miss Morris. She and Gabriela were friends, were they not?”
He tossed up a hand. “If she was friends with Miss Morris, it wasn’t brought to my attention. I say, if Carter gave my son’s secretary the old heave-ho, she would’ve had her nose out of joint about the marriage, wouldn’t she? And since you’re looking into her, you should also find Lawrence Wilkes. He and Gabriela were due to marry, but she threw the poor sod over when Carter started coming around. The man was furious.”
“I’ve already found and spoken to Mr. Wilkes,” Jasper replied as Miss Brooks came up beside him for a glimpse of the photograph. She gasped in dismay and quickly stepped away again. “I don’t believe he was involved. He also has an alibi for the night of Gabriela’s death.”
“Well, look into him again, Inspector. Wilkes hates this family. Tried to get my business shut down entirely.”
Jasper shook his head. “Mr. Wilkes was concerned about your business because of the complaints made against your wallpapers. It wasn’t about Gabriela’s rejection of him.”
Miss Brooks, who still appeared nauseated by the photograph of the two children, perked. “What sort of complaints?”
“The green pigments in the paper are toxic,” Leo explained. “They’ve made some people ill.”
“Utterly unfounded,” Henderson said. “Manufacturers have been using chemicals to brighten the color green for decades. If it was really as bad as they say, everyone would be ill and dying, wouldn’t they?”
Leo caught Miss Brooks’s eye. “Arsenic, specifically.”
Her friend raised a brow, understanding the link now.
“I’m telling you, Wilkes is your man. I don’t care what he claims; he never had a problem with the way this factory operated until after Gabriela threw him over.”
The photograph of the two unknown children on Mr. Henderson’s desk seemed to glow as an idea formed. Jasper asked, “Do you keep records of these complaints, Mr. Henderson?”
The man grumbled again. “My solicitor tells me I must, so I do. But you are wasting your time.”
Miss Geary returned with a piece of paper. “The address we have on file for Miss Morris, sir.” She handed it directly to Jasper. Her attention landed on the death photography, and her eyes widened with shock.
“Apologies, madam.” Jasper swiftly collected the photograph and pocketed it, along with the proffered address. “Mr. Henderson, I’d like all the complaints your business has received for the last five years.”
Mr. Henderson drilled him with a glare, then shot it toward his secretary. “Pull the complaints file.”
“The complaints?” Miss Geary asked, looking between her employer and Jasper.
“Yes! The company complaints, as I said. All the settlements and what have you. They’re on a shelf in here somewhere. If the Inspector would like them, he may have them, though little good they will do in finding my daughter’s killer.”
Miss Geary hurried to the wall of shelves as if her heels had been lit on fire. Jasper’s patience was quickly wearing thin with this man. It seemed to him that Gabriela may have had a good reason for not speaking to her father; then again, Jasper might have broiled with the same frustrated anger if he ever had a daughter who elected to marry into a crime family.
While Leo had stayed at Jasper’s side, Miss Brooks had turned to have a look around the small office. She’d come to a stop at one of the framed photographs on the wall. It was a panorama of what appeared to be employees gathered for a pose in front of the factory.
“Is Miss Morris in this photograph?” she asked. “Perhaps we can recognize her from it.”
Leo started for the framed photograph, as did Mr. Henderson while muttering under his breath. Looking greatly hassled, he peered at the picture, then tapped a spot on the glass.
“Right here.”
He dropped his hand, and Leo took a closer look. Her pointer finger rose to the glass. “Thiswoman is Regina Morris?”
“Yes, as I said,” he huffed before striding back to his desk.
Alarm brightened her hazel irises, and when she turned them onto Jasper, the small hairs along his forearms stood on end.
