“You’ll need to be takin’ him out the back door, Inspector. I can’t have a dead body carted through the front, right, where everybody and their cousin’ll see it.”
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Beardsley,” he replied. “I might have more questions for you, if you can remain close by.”
The request was met with another aggravated moan, but she didn’t object. Jasper suspected a part of her was enjoying the unusual calamity, as it would give her plenty to carp about for some time to come.
Leo quizzed him with a look as he moved aside to allow her and Warnock to pass into the room.
“Sergeant Warnock tells me you believe I know this man,” she said, going directly to the body and squatting at his feet.
Her dark green dress was the somber, serviceable kind she wore to work, and as she assessed the body on the floor, she did so with the same concentration she would have shown any corpse at the morgue.
“Maybe not his name,” Jasper replied, crouching beside her. He lifted the man’s left hand. “But what about this?”
Leo inhaled sharply when her eyes landed on the long, curved scar on the man’s hand. As he’d hoped, she recognized it. Jasper had noticed the scar while going through the man’s pockets, searching for any identifying documents. He’d had none. But the scar had captured his attention.
“What is it?” Warnock asked, craning his neck. He stood further away, near the window, and wore the queasy look ofsomeone unaccustomed to dead bodies. He would get used to it in time.
“This man,” Leo replied, moving to the side of the body opposite Jasper. “He was one of the intruders from last night. I recognize the scar on his hand.”
She’d included a description of it in her statement. The scar, shaped like a C, ran from the knuckle on the man’s ring finger to the thumb.
“Are you sure?” Warnock asked. “Lots of men have scars on their hands, especially if they’re laborers.”
“She is sure,” Jasper replied, unwilling to explain to the newly promoted detective sergeant about Leo’s flawless memory. She, too, didn’t like to draw attention to it. “This room is rented by Gavin Seabright,” he went on, straightening to his feet. “But this isn’t Gavin. The body has no identification, and the landlady doesn’t know who he is either. She says he called on Gavin this morning around seven o’clock.”
Leo canted her head as she inspected the wound at the man’s temple, then peeled off her glove to touch his neck. “His body temperature is cool but not dramatically so.” Using her fingertips, she opened one of the man’s eyes wider. “Clouding of the cornea and rigor just setting in around the facial muscles. I’d estimate he’s been dead three or four hours.”
That would mean he died around eight or nine o’clock that morning.
Jasper called for Mrs. Beardsley. She whirled into the room as though she’d been waiting just outside the door, listening.
“Were you at home this morning?”
She crossed her arms and gave him a look of blamelessness. “I were here some. But I didn’t hear this racket, and I surely would’ve.” She gestured toward the upended shaving stand, the smashed pitcher and basin on the floor, and the overturned chair.
“When did you leave the house?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed in thought. “’Round half seven I set out for the Farringdon Market. I got me six lodgers who pay extra for chop with their tea, and Mondays are the best days for mutton. Must get there early for it. I were back by nine.”
“And when did Mr. Seabright return?” Jasper asked.
“Quarter past ten, I’d say.”
“You actually saw him? Didn’t just hear him come in?”
She sighed and nodded.
Leo moved toward the mess on the floor, crouching down to sift through some of the detritus. “Did you see either Mr. Seabright or this man leave the house before you set out for the market stalls?”
The landlady gave her a curious once-over, as if wondering who Leo was and why she was there. But rather than question her or give some longwinded answer, Mrs. Beardsley gave a pleasantly succinct one: “No.”
“Mr. Seabright must’ve left at some point though, if you saw him come back in just after ten,” Warnock said to Mrs. Beardsley. “Where does he work?”
“Last I knew, he were a caretaker at St. Bartholomew’s.”
Jasper nodded to the detective sergeant. “Go to the hospital and see if he was there at all this morning.”
“He wasn’t,” Leo said, stopping Warnock before he could take a stride toward the door. She was still near the floor and had picked up a brown cologne bottle made of thick glass. She had pulled out the stopper and put her nose to the opening.
