“When did they leave?”
Predictably, the door to the cab opened, and Leo emerged.
The boy kept quiet, holding Jasper’s gaze in what could only be described as an enterprising manner. Sighing, he reached into his coat pocket. No sooner had he held out the threepennybit than it vanished from between his fingers, the boy pocketing the loot in a blink.
“Two nights back,” he answered.
“You’re certain?”
The boy nodded. “’Course, I’m certain.”
“You saw them leave?” Leo asked.
He nodded again. “Heard the missus and mister shoutin’, then they come out with a couple o’ bags and scarpered.”
“What were they arguing about?” Jasper asked.
The boy shrugged. “Just regular shoutin’. The missus says they got to go now, and the mister started cursin’ worse than my Uncle Jim, and he’s a sailor.”
Leo started for the house. Jasper thanked the boy, who was already running off, and overtook her before she could push the door open the rest of the way.
“No one is even at home,” she complained as he stepped inside first.
“Unless the boy was lying or wrong.”
Inside, the interior was just as bland and uninspired as the exterior. The furnishings were spare, the carpets hadn’t been swept, and the walls were unadorned except for faded, out-of-date wallpaper. There was a raw chill to the air, what with no stove having been lit to warm the rooms in at least a day. A shawl and a coat, a couple of large, waxed canvas bags for the market stalls, and a few hats still hung on the pegs of a coat stand. At its base, a lone blue glove lay on the floor.
Jasper glimpsed into a sitting room, then a small dining room. A darker spot on the wallpaper indicated a piece of furniture had been there for some time before being removed.
“They were selling their belongings,” he observed, noticing just two chairs at the large table, rather than the six it should have had.
“Even after being awarded a hundred pounds?” Leo opened a hinged door that led to the kitchen. “What did they do with the money?”
The kitchen was also nearly stripped bare. The only thing there seemed to be an abundance of were empty ale jugs and spirits bottles.
“There are any number of ways one could lose that sum of money, especially if Mr. Nelson had been drinking heavily,” Jasper replied.
“Or Mrs. Nelson,” Leo said.
He nodded. It was possible.
“Two days ago, Henderson’s secretary gave us the complaints file,” Jasper said as they returned to the front hall and started up the stairs. “It contained the Nelsons’ report, which pointed us toward them as suspects.”
Leo reached the top stair, her hand lingering on the carved ball of the newel post. Her lips parted in awe. “You’re suggesting Mrs. Nelson somehow found out about it?”
“Miss Geary could have informed them that the file had gone with the police.” Jasper peered into rooms as he cobbled together a theory. “They may have panicked, thinking their motive for murder would be evident and fled before we could arrive on their doorstep.”
The first two bedrooms he peered into were sad and desolate, but the third was utterly forlorn. It was a nursery, and unlike the other rooms in the house that had been whittled away at, this one was untouched.
Two small beds were made up with blankets and pillows; a rag doll laid atop one and a wooden soldier upon the other. A mobile hung from the ceiling, with paper cutouts of rabbits, sheep, and cows dangling from the arms. This room’s carpet was swept, the furnishings polished. The green pigmented wallpaperthat had poisoned the two young occupants had been scraped loose and taken down. The walls remained bare plaster.
Leo wandered toward a low chest of drawers, painted a pale buttery yellow. “This room is like a memorial to them.”
It reminded Jasper of the two rooms on the uppermost floor of his Charles Street residence. They had belonged to Beatrice and Gregory Junior, the two children his father had lost. Out of curiosity, Jasper had only visited the rooms a few times over the years, and only when his father wasn’t present. They were much like this one, with beds, toys, and a dresser full of clothing. The drapes in each room had been pulled shut, permanently.
“I cannot bear to go in,”his father had confessed when Jasper, newly arrived at Charles Street as his ward, inquired about the rooms.“I know it is maudlin, but I also cannot bear to clear away their things, their childhood. Parting with their clothes, the toys they so loved…”His eyes had shone, his chin trembling, and Jasper had regretted asking.
Even now, their rooms remained untouched. His father’s wish to preserve what he had left of his children had been transferred onto Jasper’s shoulders. Perhaps that was why he could feel Mr. and Mrs. Nelson’s pain still lingering in every room of this house, even though they had left it.
