“You have much to answer for, Mr. Seabright. There was a dead man found in your lodging room,” she said. “This man was part of the criminal party that robbed the benefit dinner and killed your mother. How did you know him?”
As if recognizing he no longer needed the bottle, he dropped it onto the gravel path. “I didn’t know him from Adam.” He said it emphatically enough for her to believe him. “The first time I’d ever seen him was at Mrs. Beardsley’s door before breakfast. Said he had bad news about my mum, that he needed to speak to me alone.”
“You invited a stranger to your room?”
Gavin snorted. “What, and chum up an extra six pence to use Mrs. Beardsley’s private sitting room? No, thank you.”
Leo stepped closer to the exterior of the vestry, into the strip of cool shade cast by the roof’s eaves. From there, she saw the man much better. Smears of dirt on his clothing and face hinted that he’d slept outside overnight, perhaps in a park or cemetery.
“What did the man tell you?” she asked, then more eagerly, “His name, perhaps?”
“Said his name was Harry.”
“Did he give a surname?”
“No.” He checked over his shoulder, glancing toward the street. There was no one there, but it was clear he was worried about being followed. “Just said my mum had been killed. That he’d seen it and knew who’d done it.”
“Who?”
Again, he shook his head and shrugged. Leo reeled in a dash of annoyance. “How did he find you?” she tried next. “How did he know the victim was your mother?”
“He just said the man who killed my mum had asked him to keep an eye on my lodgings for a few weeks. When I asked why, he wouldn’t say. Just that he’d explain everything and thatI could go to the police with what he said,” Gavin said. “But first, I had to help him.”
“Help him how?”
“He wanted money and a place to lay low until he could get out of London.”
A bold request, coming from a stranger who’d just confessed to being present when Gavin’s mother was killed. How was Gavin supposed to trust what he said? But then, she worked it out.
“You came here to the morgue that morning for proof that your mother was indeed dead,” Leo surmised. “But why would you allow him to stay in your room meanwhile? He was a stranger.”
“I’ve nothing in there worth stealing. Got my money in a bank, where no nosy landlady or lodgers can sniff it out when I’m not about. In fact, the bank’s where I went after here,” he said, jutting his chin toward the vestry. “Took out a pound note and put it in my shoe, but I wasn’t giving it to him until he told me who killed my mum and why.”
“But when you arrived, Harry refused to talk,” Leo guessed. “And then you fought?”
He snarled, “No, I didn’t do a thing to him. He was already dead, lying there on the floor, when I returned.”
Leo cocked her head. “Mr. Seabright, all indications are that he fell and hit his head during a fight. It was an accident. There is no need to lie.”
Crimson flashed over his cheeks in a blink, and his muscles tensed. “I’m not lying. I didn’t push him! He was dead already, and that’s the truth.”
“Then why run?” she pressed. “Why not call for a constable?”
He grimaced. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? There was a dead man in my room. My landlady, the other lodgers at breakfast, they allsaw him go upstairs with me. Who do you think the police would accuse?”
His reasoning wasn’t entirely unsound. Jasper was a thorough investigator and would take into account the approximate time Harry had been killed, but there really was no solid evidence that Gavin had been gone from the lodging house at the time of the man’s death. Only a strong, distinct odor in the morgue could point to Gavin having been there. No one had seen him, least of all Leo. The evidence against him was condemning.
“Why have you approached me?”
He lowered his head in what might have been bashfulness. “Saw you yesterday morning. First here, when you nearly came upon me when I was leaving. And then later at Mrs. Beardsley’s, with that detective.”
Leo cocked her head. “You were watching the lodging house.”
He nodded. “You’ve got to tell the coppers I didn’t kill that man. That I didn’t have a thing to do with it!”
“It doesn’t matter if I believe you. Running away did you no favors, Mr. Seabright,” she said, annoyed by his request. What did he think? That because she was a woman she would be soft and willing to be his advocate?
“It also doesn’t look good for you since you chose to skip the disastrous dinner at the last minute,” Leo said. “Why didn’t you attend? You’d accepted the invitation but then changed your mind.”
