“Miss Hayes, I must insist you tell me where they’ve gone.”
Either their voices had carried, or the servant she’d dismissed had stayed close behind a door because Gerard returned to the foyer, a questioning glance thrown between Constance and Jasper.
“Is there a problem, Miss Hayes?” He likely hoped he might be allowed to show Jasper the door.
She held up her hand. “Everything is fine. But I do think the inspector will be leaving shortly.”
“Constance.” The use of her given name snagged her attention and her ire. Before she could rebuke him, he continued, “It is imperative I speak to them.”
She drew out the moment until Jasper expected that she would turn him out after all. But then she exhaled, and her tensed shoulders dropped as her resistance melted away. “My father and brother left for Beechwood, our home in Hampshire, yesterday. I arrived here an hour ago to learn that Mother had followed them. Her note to me said that she needed to take the country air.”
Why they had not all gone together stood out as odd to him. From the muddled expression Constance wore, she felt the same.
“They left unexpectedly without saying goodbye to you,” he presumed. When she nodded, Jasper looked to the servant still waiting to toss him out. “Did Mrs. Hayes leave here earlier today, alone, for an hour or two, and was she wearing a hooded blue cloak?”
“What an odd question,” Constance exclaimed. “Did someone see my mother out somewhere and tell you?”
He would not, under any circumstances, reveal who had seen her mother or where it had been. Constance already despised Leo, and Jasper didn’t want anyone in the Hayes family to know who had seen Mrs. Hayes. “I need an answer,” he said, deflecting Constance’s question.
Gerard sought instruction from Constance. She nodded, albeit reluctantly.
He replied tartly, “Yes. She was out, and she was wearing the cloak you describe.”
“What happened when she returned?” Jasper asked.
“She ordered her maid to begin packing and alerted the rest of the staff that she was leaving London posthaste. We are to send the rest of the belongings behind them.”
“Was there anything that happened that could account for her and her husband’s impulsive departures?”
Again, the servant sent Constance an imploring look. She gestured toward Jasper with an impatient flick of her fingers. “I’m curious myself, Gerard. Tell the inspector what you might know.”
What Gerard thought of the order was plain on his face, but he relented. “Two nights ago, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had quite a row. We could hear their shouting from where we were belowstairs.”
That had been the night of the benefit dinner. Stanley claimed they hadn’t attended because his wife was ill.
“What were they arguing about? Did you hear anything specific?”
The servant shook his head. But as with so many people Jasper had questioned in his career thus far, Gerard’s lie showed in the twitch of a facial muscle and the lack of eye contact with him.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Jasper asked.
“Gerard?” Constance said, her tone clear: He was to speak. And she appeared to be just as curious as Jasper.
“I did go up, but only to be certain all was well,” he confessed. “They were in Mrs. Hayes’s bedchamber, and when she raised her voice, I heard…” Here he paused, as if torn. But he sighed and went on. “I heard her ask,‘How could you lie to me?’”
“What else did you hear?” Constance asked, alarmed.
“Not another word. I knew straightaway that I shouldn’t be listening and returned downstairs.”
For once, Jasper wished the servant had done what many servants were wont to do: eavesdropped.
Constance dismissed him with a prim nod. Then, with a circumspect glance toward the retreating servant, she gestured Jasper toward the sitting room. Once they were inside, she lowered the haughty shield she’d erected around herself when he’d first arrived.
“I called on my mother yesterday afternoon,” she began. “She had been weeping. Her eyes were swollen and red, and though she claimed she was only feeling ill, I suspected it wasn’t that. Now, after what Gerard overheard, I know for certain it wasn’t.”
The argument between Stanley and his wife had been the cause, surely.
“And at the time of your visit yesterday, your father had already left London?”
