The woman’s eyes widened. “But Inspector, I have orders to?—”
“She is coming with me,” Jasper said, more slowly this time. After biting her lip, the matron nodded. Jasper held out an arm, indicating for Leo to leave the room. She did so, with great relief.
“Go home,” he said, passing her in the corridor on the way to the stairs. “I need to speak to Tomlin.”
She caught his elbow to slow him. At her touch, he stopped moving, and his eyes lowered to her hand. With a dart of panic, she released him.
“Tomlin was out of line,” he said, his voice tight.
“The man is galling,” Leo said. “But I am fine. It is Mrs. Geraldine Stewart I’m more concerned about; he’s arrested her for conspiracy in the bombing. The first bombing, that is, involving Constable Lloyd.”
“The suffragist. Yes, I’ve heard.” He grimaced and began down the stairs. “Are you really a part of that group?”
“Do you disagree that women should have the right to vote?” she shot back. “Am I not intelligent enough to decide for whom to cast my own ballot?”
Jasper stopped on the bottom step and turned, his arm still on the railing, barring her from passage. “I am not in disagreement. And I am well aware of your intelligence, Leo. But therearesuffragists who are radical enough to plot a bombing.”
“Not the WEA. Not Geraldine Stewart. She is being set up.”
He sighed and turned to take the next set of stairs down. It was then that she noticed how disheveled and exhausted he appeared. Golden bristle on his jaw, in want of a razor; clothing, rumpled; and several holes in the back of his jacket.
“What happened to you?” She regretted the question right away. What he did wasn’t a concern of hers. Not anymore.
“There was an incident this morning,” he answered as he kept on toward the detective department. She followed, her stomach twisting with hunger again.
Police Constable Horace Wiley, whose desk guarded entry to the CID, sneered at Leo from his seat. “I understand you’re here for booking.”
“Miss Spencer is free to go,” Jasper said.
“That’s not what I’ve heard, Inspector.”
“Well, you are hearing it now,” he barked. For a change, Leo held her tongue against provoking Wiley as she and Jasper swept past the tedious man.
She wanted to ask Jasper what the incident had been, but doing so would display an interest in his affairs, and she wasn’t certain that would be wise. They came to a desk—Sergeant Lewis’s. Currently without an office, Jasper seemed to be sharing the space with him.
“Tell me why you think Mrs. Stewart is being set up,” Jasper said as he removed his holey coat and tossed it over the back of a chair.
She glanced over her shoulder toward Constable Wiley. He was watching and clearly trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“I wish you still had an office,” she said.
“So do I.” He scrubbed his scruffy jaw. “My shaving kit was in there.”
Leo kept her voice low. “The valise belonged to Mrs. Stewart, but she says it had been in her attic for years. Why would she put a bomb in a suitcase that could so easily be traced back to her?”
“Maybe she thought it would be completely destroyed in the blast.”
“Why take the chance, when she easily could have purchased a nondescript case from a secondhand shop and used that? And how could she have forced Constable Lloyd to deliver the bomb? She didn’t even know him.”
“Or so she says,” Jasper argued.
Leo clenched her fists. “You agree with Tomlin then?”
Jasper leaned forward, bracing his hands on the desk. “Tomlin is a horse’s arse, and I’d like to crack him in the jaw for arresting you and leaving you locked up all night for no reason.” He took a breath, and Leo’s fingers loosened. “But he is right toconsider that Mrs. Stewart is lying. The valise belonged to her. It is evidence. And after the second wave of bombings that same night, he has no choice but to consider a link to Clan na Gael.”
That notion hadn’t yet crossed her mind. If possible, her worry for Geraldine increased. The Metropolitan Police would wish to solve the bombings swiftly, place the blame upon someone’s shoulders, and laud their accomplishment to the press. Tomlin likely believed his investigation was now over.
“She isn’t connected to that group,” Leo said.
