“It was underneath the coat on the stand,” she answered with a nod. “You were right—Mrs. Nelson was the cloaked woman from Striker’s. And I think I know where we can find her.”
Chapter Sixteen
Leo entered the morgue through the back door, along the dirt lane behind St. Matthew’s Church. During the summer months when temperatures rose, she would prop the door open in the hope that any breeze might carry in fresh air. The vestry had been chosen as a site for a city deadhouse in part because of its proximity to Scotland Yard, but also for its stone foundation and exterior. It kept things icy during the winter months and at least partially cool during the summer. However, nothing could prevent corpses from more rapidly decomposing during the warmest times of the year or snuff out the odors that arose from them.
She was grateful for the persistent chill of the morgue right then as she hurried through the back office and into the postmortem room. It cooled the heated flush of her skin, compliments of her racing pulse and Jasper’s contrary nature.
“There is no proof to support your theory,” he said—again—as he entered the room behind her. He’d argued against her possible discovery during the entire carriage ride from Lambeth.
“No, there isn’t…yet,” she replied. Seeing her uncle at one of the autopsy tables occupied by a corpse, she called, “Is that Andrea Geary?”
Claude peered at them from over the top of his spectacles. “It is.” He frowned. “Inspector Reid, you’ve quite a contusion there.”
Jasper rubbed his jaw, which had begun to purple on the way to Spring Street. Luckily, Mr. Nelson had not had anything other than his fist to swing at him, although Jasper was certainly furious that the debilitating strike had prevented him from apprehending the suspect. He might have been slightly humiliated too, but Leo suspected he’d never admit to it.
Shedding her coat and hat, Leo tossed them onto an autopsy table along with the hooded cloak she’d found at the Nelsons’ home. Tibia, the morgue’s gray tabby, had been sleeping upon it in a tightly curled crescent. The cat meowed a complaint, then hissed at Jasper as he passed by.
“It’s nothing,” he told Claude, scowling at the tabby. “What have you noted about the body so far?”
Leo was glad to see the corpse had so newly arrived that it was still clothed. Her eyes went straight to the brooch pinned at the woman’s throat. In the factory yard in Wapping, the checkered pattern had looked to have been done with two colors of fine thread. But now, after taking a second look at the children in both the death portrait and the photograph found inside Mrs. Nelson’s bedside book, Leo believed otherwise.
Mr. Higgins exited the supply closet, and she suppressed a groan. Everything about him was thin and long, from his frame to his face to his mustache, the tapered points of which stretched to the edge of his chin. As usual, he looked perturbed to see her.
“Miss Spencer,” he greeted with a sniff of disdain, then, cocking his head, “Inspector,” with a touch more respect. Theyoung man was unbearably morose and clearly did not wish for his appointment here as an apprentice to her uncle.
For his part, Jasper ignored him. So did Claude.
“I’ve yet to complete a thorough inspection, but from what I can see,” her uncle noted, as he moved aside clumps of hair matted with blood, “there is significant injury to the parietal bone, inflicted by a heavy object. The impression in the skull is round, indicating the shape of the object used. A single strike.”
“That alone would have killed her?” Jasper asked.
“Instantly,” Claude confirmed. “But I will look for further injury and evidence, of course.”
“Uncle, does this injury remind you of another body that came in recently?” Leo didn’t want to lead him too much toward the answer she sought.
Claude furrowed his brow and looked again. “Hmm. Quite. I believe the expecting Jane Doe from last month had a similar skull wound.”
Leo exhaled, relieved. She then unpinned Andrea Geary’s brooch.
Mr. Higgins, who had returned to his work on another corpse that was open and in the process of a postmortem, sighed heavily at her handling of the body.
Leo held the brooch out to her uncle. “Can you confirm that this is human hair?”
He took it, his hand quivering. Leo shot a look over her shoulder at the apprentice, but he was busy removing a spleen, nearly dropping it back into the open abdominal cavity in the process.
“It is,” her uncle said, returning it to her. “The texture is fine and smooth, most assuredly from young children.”
Leo offered the brooch to Jasper. He shook his head, not needing to hold it. Or perhaps not wanting to. It was mourning jewelry. Many thought it a fashionable accessory, a way tomemorialize a lost loved one. But like death photography, Leo thought it macabre.
“Look again at the hair of the children in the photographs,” she urged. Impatiently, she reached into Jasper’s coat pocket, where he’d stored them, but he caught her wrist before she could retrieve them.
“I can get them myself, Leo.”
Jasper released her and took out the photographs.
“The little boy is fair, and the girl’s hair is somewhat darker,” she said. Holding the brooch next to the photographs, she touched a light blonde square, then a darker one woven in. “I don’t believe this woman is Andrea Geary. I think she is the dead children’s mother, Evelyn Nelson.”
Jasper scrubbed his jaw, agitated. But at least he wasn’t still disputing her theory.
