Jasper continued to shake his head. “No, equal retribution would be the poisoning of Henderson’stwochildren. Not just Gabriela. And yet, David is alive and well.”
He was also Jasper’s top suspect for Regina’s murder and Mrs. Nelson’s. ShewasEvelyn Nelson. Leo was certain of it.
Claude returned, and with him was Sergeant Lewis.
“Hoped you’d be here, guv,” Lewis said. “The address for Andrea Geary was a sham. The woman who runs the boardinghouse hasn’t ever heard of her.”
Vindication burst through Leo, and she nearly hopped with glee. Only the fact that they were in a morgue, investigating two murdered women, kept her feet planted to the floor. Jasper took the news with his usual subdued expression.
“And did you speak to David Henderson? Does he have an alibi?”
The other detective grinned impishly. “He says he had dinner with his father, then went straight home at eleven o’clock. However, when I spoke to Jack Henderson separately, he claimed to have dined out with friends at a club on Ludgate Hill. I asked for names. His boy wasn’t among them.”
Jasper started away from the table, taking out his fob to check the time. “The factory closes at one o’clock on Saturdays. We need to move fast if we’re to catch him there and bring him into Scotland Yard for questioning.”
Then, as if he’d been yanked by an invisible rope, he turned back toward Leo. His eyes cut to Mrs. Nelson, then away again. “We still need someone to identify her as Evelyn Nelson, but I think you’re right. Good work, Leo.”
The compliment stunned her, and she watched him and Lewis leave the postmortem room without so much as a peep from her parted lips. She couldn’t have asked to go with them.There was no reason for her to accompany them and no way to trick Jasper this time. Besides, a corpse needed seeing to. With Mr. Higgins engaged with another postmortem, Leo could at least serve as a barrier between her uncle and the medical student if his hands shook.
Claude began to remove Mrs. Nelson’s clothing, and Leo went to her feet to help with her boots. They had worked together countless times to strip a body in preparation for a postmortem, and now they moved in sequence easily, out of habit and routine. Mr. Higgins had voiced his censure about her assisting her uncle on his first day, but as he was a student, he didn’t possess the authority to order her away from the process. Not yet, at least. However, with enough complaints to his professor at the medical college, the chief coroner might have something to say to restrict her efforts.
“You’ve been busy with the inspector,” Claude commented as they rolled the body onto its side to shift her arm out of a coat sleeve.
“I suppose I feel attached to this case in some ways since I was there when Gabriela Carter died.”
But that wasn’t the only reason. The truth was she enjoyed unraveling the different pieces of information in an investigation, the challenge of deciphering which details were important and which weren’t, and the rush of exhilaration she felt when she figured something out. Just as she had now, with the brooch and the revelation that the dead woman was very likely Evelyn Nelson. With a twist of sadness, she thought of how much she’d have liked to tell Gregory Reid all about it. And how much he would have enjoyed listening to her recount her discoveries. She could even envision his proud smile.
“It was kind of him to invite us to dinner last night,” Claude said. While helping to roll the body onto its opposite side to slipthe other arm free from the coat, Leo caught a swift, searching look from her uncle.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I just wonder…is there any reason Jasper might have invited us to his home?”
Leo puzzled at the question. “How do you mean?”
No dinner had been prepared at their own home, and since Mrs. Zhao always made too much for one person, Jasper had kindly invited them. It seemed a straightforward reason. Yes, it had been out of the ordinary, especially for Jasper. He wasn’t the spontaneous sort. He also wasn’t overly hospitable. But what other motive could he have had?
The memory of his unexpected visit a few nights prior to their dinner and how he’d taken her wrist in his hand skittered through her mind. Jasper’s touch had left a prickling sensation on her skin, and she wasn’t certain it was due only to the coarseness of his palm. The moment had been…curiously intimate and slightly awkward.
Claude shrugged as if to dismiss the subject from further discussion. But as Leo rolled down one of Mrs. Nelson’s stockings, then the other, she continued to think about the gentle press of Jasper’s fingers against her wrist.
“Uncle Claude,” she said as she folded the wool stockings and set them on a table with the woman’s other belongings, “speaking of last night’s dinner, I meant to ask you about something Aunt Flora mentioned: the letters she’d received from my mother.”
Before she could go on to ask if those letters were real and if Flora still possessed them, Claude finished unbuttoning Mrs. Nelson’s blouse. A piece of paper could be seen at the top edge of her exposed corset. It rested between the corset and her cotton chemise, the corner of the paper sticking up from the center busk. Leo pulled it free.
“It appears she kept it there for safekeeping,” Claude said.
She unfolded the paper. A woman’s dainty handwriting filled the single page. As she devoured each printed word, Leo’s skin numbed. Her pulse escalated.
“Leonora?”
She peeled her eyes from the paper, which she gripped in a stranglehold. “Uncle, I need to go.”
“Go? Where?” he called as she folded the paper and slid it into her skirt pocket.
“Henderson & Son!” she called as she took up her coat and hat and hurried for the morgue’s front door.
Chapter Seventeen
