A faint cry of alarm sounded from within the cell, and Jasper ran forward. “Miss Hartley!” he shouted, reaching for the door handle. It was locked. He pounded on the steel. “Open this door now, Miss Hartley!”
The chief warder arrived, the key on his iron ring already out. “Step aside,” he commanded, and a moment later the door to the cell swung open.
Miss Hartley had Geraldine Stewart in her grasp, holding her as she would a shield. Though shorter than her prisoner, the cell warder was plainly more powerful. Her eyes were wide and wild as she realized she’d been found out. She held a small, handcrafted shiv to Mrs. Stewart’s neck.
“Stay back!” she said, her voice high and cracking in fright.
“We know Emma Bates ordered you in here to kill Mrs. Stewart,” Jasper said, entering the cell with his hands raised.
With the shiv, easily crafted within prison cells, her murder could have been made to look like a suicide.
“Emma?” Mrs. Stewart’s eyes glistened with tears and stark terror as the cell warder’s brawny hold kept her pinned in place. “She wouldn’t.”
“Miss Hartley, stand down at once,” Mr. Vines commanded, no longer blustering with irritation. He’d gone calm and focused. “Think about what you are doing. If you harm that woman, you will be charged with murder. You will hang.”
Miss Hartley shook her head, the hand holding the small blade moving erratically, much too close to Mrs. Stewart’s throat.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said, her voice pleading as the shiv trembled. She was young, no more than twenty-five years old. And if she’d received an order from Clive Paget’s relation, she was correct: She hadn’t had a choice at all.
“Because you are associated with the Angels,” Jasper said. “And Emma Bates is Clive Paget’s…what? Daughter?”
A pack of prison warders, mostly men with a few women, had arrived at the receiving cell. Some streamed inside, while others crowded the open door.
Miss Hartley hesitated. Then gave a nod to Jasper’s question.
“Where is Emma now?” he asked. The warder wasn’t going to harm Mrs. Stewart. The cracks in her determination werealready showing. She would turn her over and surrender. “Emma Bates. Where did she go?”
“She…” Miss Hartley spluttered. “She’s waiting.”
As Jasper had speculated, the warder lowered the blade. She deflated, letting the weapon fall to the floor with a clatter. Mrs. Stewart was relinquished next, and she let out a sobbing breath of relief as she stumbled away, lost the strength in her legs, and landed on her knees. Mr. Vines ordered Miss Hartley cuffed and locked in a cell, and three male warders closed in on her.
“Waiting where?” Jasper asked as they pulled her arms roughly behind her back. “Miss Hartley, answer my question. Where is she waiting?”
She hung her head in submission. “The Chaplain’s House.”
Jasper stood aside as Miss Hartley was led away. The Chaplain’s House was outside the gate, where Leo had said she would wait for Lewis. A prickling of disquiet crawled along his skin, and he turned for the exit.
The porter’s gate closed behind her with a resounding clang. Leo exhaled a shaking breath. There had been no point in staying within the lodge, which had smelled of cooked onions and damp clothing, but she hated walking away from the prison when she knew that inside, Mrs. Stewart was in imminent danger.
As much as she had wanted to go with Jasper, arguing with Mr. Vines would have been petty and useless. It also could have dire consequences for Mrs. Stewart’s safety. Ten minutes had passed since Miss Hartley and her ‘sister’ parted ways, the guard had said. It was certainly enough time for the warder to access Mrs. Stewart’s cell and kill her, if she had gone in to carry out thetask straightaway. How did the warder possibly believe she was going to get away with such a thing?
Leo crossed her arms, clasping her elbows as she walked swiftly toward the entrance gate and main road. As soon as Sergeant Lewis arrived, she would direct him inside…and try to follow. By then, Miss Hartley might have been detained, the danger gone.
Leo walked between the governor’s and chaplain’s homes, the residences matching in their towering, crenulated design. They looked medieval and austere, which wasn’t, she supposed, entirely unfitting for a prison. A ripple of movement at the back corner of the Chaplain’s House snagged her attention. Leo slowed as she caught sight of a wine-red cape fluttering as it disappeared behind a tall hedge planted close to the house.
It was the same wine-red hue of the velvet cape hanging in the front hall of the Stewarts’ home the other day, when she’d called on Emma Bates.
With a skip in her pulse, Leo started for the hedge. If it was Emma, she wasn’t about to let the woman disappear.
The chaplain’s home had the shuttered, serene air of disuse. No sound came from within as she rounded the hedge and entered a small yard. The same tall brick wall that ran the perimeter of the prison grounds also bordered this side lawn. Leo took a few steps into the yard, where several young fruit trees were budding. But there was no one in sight.
She turned to retrace her steps—and jolted to a stop.
Emma Bates, her expression stony, stood less than an arm’s length from her. “Why are you here, Miss Spencer? Have you followed me?”
Leo blinked rapidly, her reply delayed by incomprehension. Emma had lingered here on the secluded side of the chaplain’s home. But why? Awaiting word from Miss Hartley, perhaps?
If that was the case, she might not have seen Leo’s arrival earlier in the company of a Scotland Yard detective.
