“Regina only said he was already yoked. Miss Putnam did suspect she was carrying a babe, though.There were signs, was what she said.”
Jasper sat down hard enough to send his swivel chair rolling backward. Coughlan had just finished telling him to forget Regina Morris’s murder and to focus on Gabriela. It would be impossible to do, considering the two were connected. He had no evidence of it yet, but he knew it in his blood.
“The chief is under pressure from the new commissioner to get this tied up,” Lewis said, as if to explain Coughlan’s harsh scolding. But that wasn’t what was weighing on Jasper.
Briefly, he explained to the detective sergeant what the complaints file had turned up, though he bit his tongue about the fact that it had been Leo who had done the footwork and memorized each report. He felt a pang of guilt for omitting it, but he was already under enough scrutiny as it was. To his astonishment, Chief Coughlan hadn’t brought up that sodding article saying she’d assisted at Scotland Yard. But he suspected it was on his mind and waiting in the wings to be tossed into Jasper’s face at just the right moment.
“The death portrait found in Gabriela’s handbag was unknown to everyone I questioned. No one could understandwho the children were or why she would be carrying such a thing,” Jasper said.
“You think they’re the tots that were killed by Henderson’s wallpaper?” Lewis asked, catching on.
“Possibly. I want you to find an address for Mr. and Mrs. Terrence Nelson. It wasn’t included in the complaint report, just that they were from Lambeth.”
Lewis nodded and stepped out on his task, but before he could close the door, Constable Wiley’s puffed-up chest filled the frame.
“Inspector, there is a woman here to see you?—”
Leo shoved past his shoulder and stepped inside the office. “Honestly, Constable, you know my name.”
Jasper got to his feet as the desk officer glowered. His unabashed dislike of Leo Spencer was as thorough as hers was of him.
“Thank you, Wiley,” Jasper said, gesturing for him to leave. The door shut, and Leo didn’t bother to hide her small grin of pleasure.
Jasper didn’t match it, even if he did enjoy seeing Wiley, a man who was bloated on his own unwarranted sense of self-importance, being hassled. Still, he didn’t need word of his visitor spreading around the Yard.
“Why are you here?”
Leo flicked him a look of reproach as she removed her gloves. “Back to being a scowling bear, I see. So much for the charming gentleman you pulled out of your magician’s hat last evening.”
Inviting Leo and the Feldmans to his home for dinner had been a spontaneous decision, and one he’d come to regret when Flora turned on her niece at the end of the night. Afterward, he realized he’d doubted Leo’s earlier claims that the cruel things her aunt was saying—casting blame on her for her family’s murders—were truly that bad. He should have known betterthan to assume Leo was exaggerating the truth, and now he felt like a horse’s arse for not believing her.
Before that, however, when they’d simply been dining, Jasper had enjoyed himself. It had been lonely at the dinner table since the Inspector’s death. He could not have Leo over for dinner, not alone, however her uncle and aunt’s presence had mitigated the impropriety.
“Answer the question, please,” he said as he retook his chair with a groan.
She slapped her gloves onto his desk. “Happily. I’ve been toTheTimesto speak with Mr. Fordham Graves.”
Jasper rubbed the back of his neck. “Do I want to know why?”
The reporter despised the police, and he’d made it his role at the newspaper to write pieces maligning them. Graves had, however, supplied Jasper and Leo with some helpful information during their investigation into the murder of Samuel Barrett and the accidental death of his sister, Hannah, in January.
“Trust me, you do want to know,” Leo replied. “I wanted to ask if he recalled any story similar to the one described in the complaint report involving the Nelsons. I’m aware they signed a contract of silence with Mr. Henderson,” she said, raising her hand to stave off what Jasper was about to remind her of. “However, I thought it entirely likely that before the contract was signed and the settlement reached the story might have made it to the papers.”
“And had it?”
Leo grinned and leaned a hip against his desk. Jasper’s attention went to the curve of dark purple wool. It lingered only a second before he came to his senses and got to his feet.
“A fellow reporter took the report from the grieving mother,” Leo explained, oblivious to his momentary distraction.Unquestionably, dinner last night had been a mistake. Even with the Feldmans there.
“I spoke to the reporter, who said Mrs. Evelyn Nelson was adamant that Henderson & Son must be held responsible. She wanted to warn other parents of young children about the dangers of installing wallpaper pigmented with Scheele’s green. However, before the reporter could even finish the article, it was pulled. He was told there wasn’t space for it, but he suspected that wasn’t true. He found out later that the publisher is an acquaintance of Mr. Henderson’s.”
And an article that could sully Jack Henderson’s name wasn’t going to make it into his publication, especially if Henderson happened to offer a timely donation to either the paper or its publisher. Sometimes, Jasper hated to be cynical. But he had yet to find a reason not to be.
“Anyway, the reporter had the address for Mrs. Nelson.” Leo took a small, folded slip of paper from her dress pocket and held it aloft between her fingers. Her goading grin conveyed exactly what it was she wanted in exchange for the address.
“You’re not coming with me this time, Leo,” Jasper said. “Chief Coughlan is currently fashioning a noose for me in his office and is ready to use it if I don’t get this case solved and do it by the books.”
Lewis knocked before entering. “Got the address for the Nelsons, guv.”
