Two more bombs, both planted at St. James’s Square, exploded roughly around the same time as the one at Scotland Yard. The blasts came one after the other, the first at a gentleman’s club and the next just outside the home of a Tory member of Parliament. By some miracle, no one was dead, though numerous injuries had been reported, and a horse that had been attached to an unmanned carriage had been killed.
It was near to midnight by the time Jasper was able to return home. The shallow cuts along his cheeks and forehead from the shattering windows at the Rising Sun had started to throb. The wounds were minor compared to the deeper slices Warnock and LaChance—and anyone else seated nearer to the windows—had received. He’d barely felt them at all as gawkers and news reporters surged into Whitehall Place. The fire brigade arrived within minutes to douse the scattered flaming debris, which included desks, chairs, and filing cabinets and their contents from the offices of the CID and Special Irish Branch. The two departments had received the brunt of the damage, and it seemed to have been intentionally so. The timer-set device thathad detonated the dynamite was found in the cellar of Scotland Yard, directly underneath the Special Irish Branch section.
How it had been placed there, and when, had yet to be determined.
As it was so late, Jasper expected Mrs. Zhao to be abed when he let himself in through the front door at 23 Charles Street. He shed his coat and hat, envisioning the heavy pour of whisky he’d toss back before tending to his cuts.
“Mister Jasper?” Mrs. Zhao appeared at the back of the entrance hall, near the corridor to the kitchen. The sixty-something Chinese woman had worked for his father for nearly thirty years, and though her official role here was housekeeper, she was more of a grandmother or kindly aunt to Jasper. She came toward him quickly.
“You were hurt in the bombs.” Her eyes, framed by fine lines, widened with concern. “We heard them from here when they went off at the square. We went and saw men stumbling around with bloodied faces, but you weren’t there.”
He held up a palm to calm her. “I was at Scotland Yard. There was an explosion there as well.”
Two bombs in one day at Scotland Yard seemed an odd choice for Clan na Gael. Especially since three had detonated around the same time that night, while the fourth, the one that killed Constable Lloyd, had occurred earlier in the afternoon. It was possible that the bomb Lloyd had carried accidentally went off before he could plant it, fouling the plan and requiring another bomb to be brought in. But how had it been done? Security around headquarters had been impermeable after the explosion that afternoon. No one would have made it inside with a suspicious package. And then there was the discrepancy between the construction of Lloyd’s bomb and the twisted remains of the one found in the cellar of the Yard: Lloyd’shad been made using gunpowder, whereas the clockwork-timed device in the cellar seemed to have been rigged with dynamite.
Jasper rubbed his forehead, then winced when a small cut reopened.
Belatedly, he considered what Mrs. Zhao had said to him. “You saidweheard the explosions?”
Motion at the top of the stairs drew his eyes. Leo stood there, her hand gripping the newel post. “There was another bombing at headquarters?” she asked.
The stutter of his heart and the instantaneous burst of pleasure that followed anchored his boots to the faded burgundy carpet. The physical reaction brought forward Constance’s voice, accusing him of ending things because of his “precious Leo.”
Shit.
“Miss Leo arrived earlier,” Mrs. Zhao explained as Jasper forced his heart rate to even out. “I didn’t think you would mind her waiting in the study.”
He came to his senses and started up the stairs. “Of course not.”
Leo stood aside at the landing, inspecting him as he ascended. She noted the blood on his face but said nothing. He looked her over too. The blood from her left ear had been cleaned away, her hair re-pinned. But she still wore the same dress as earlier, and she carried with her the barest odor of gunpowder.
He started toward the study, and she followed.
“How bad was it?” she asked.
“There’s a new door to my office,” he quipped, thinking of the hole, roughly twenty feet in diameter, that had been blown into the corner of the building.
She didn’t laugh. “Was it another suitcase bomb?”
He shook his head. “This one was a clockwork-timed bomb, constructed with dynamite. The damage to the Yard was much more severe this evening.”
“Were people harmed?”
“Luckily, the front offices were already closed for the day, and the men in the other departments were far enough away from the blast to go unharmed.”
“Then how did you get those cuts?” she asked.
“I was at the Rising Sun, near the windows, when the blast occurred.”
“Mrs. Zhao told me you’d gone to the theatre this evening,” Leo said as she entered the study on his heels.
There was evidence that she’d already made herself at home—a fire burning in the coal brazier, the wide, leather swivel chair behind the Inspector’s desk pushed aside, unsolved case files spread out on the blotter, and a crystal cordial glass with a sip of cherry liqueur left at the bottom. Seeing it all loosened a kink in his stomach that he’d grown accustomed to in her absence.
Hell, he didn’t want to have missed her as much as he had.
Jasper walked toward the decanters and the whisky he’d been dreaming of for the last few hours. “I was at the theatre earlier. Then, I went to the public house,” he explained. He didn’t mention Constance.
“I’ve only come because I need to tell you about what happened during the postmortem examination for Constable Lloyd.” Leo kept her tone direct and businesslike. Jasper swallowed the smoky spirits and grimaced.
