Constance nodded. “And George, with him.”
Her younger brother. By a good ten years, if he wasn’t mistaken.
“Did she say anything of note to you yesterday? You must have asked why your father and brother had gone without saying goodbye.”
“I did, of course,” she said. “Mother said Father had unexpected business to attend to and that George yearned for the country and his horses.”
She shrugged, as if she had easily believed her mother’s reasoning. Jasper, however, did not.
“Where is your family’s home in Hampshire?”
She balked. “You’re not going there, are you?”
If he did, he would have to take the train. It would be several hours of travel. However, he needed to speak to Mrs. Hayes; he needed to know what she was doing in Martha Seabright’s house, and if the argument the servants overheard had anything to do with why they did not attend the benefit dinner.
“Your mother may have information that is crucial to my inquiry,” he said, “so if I must go there, I will.”
Constance relented and gave him the address in Hampshire and directions.
“Jasper,” she said, slowing him as he reached the front door. “Are my parents in any sort of trouble?”
He held his tongue against the truth: He was becoming ever more certain that they were. The last thing he wanted was to give Constance a reason to send a telegram ahead of him, alerting her parents to his interest in them. It was what he would have done if his father were alive, and a police inspector came calling.
“I only want to put some questions to them,” he said, then tipped his hat and left.
The day’s hazy sky and oppressive heat broke as Jasper was stepping down from a cab outside Scotland Yard. The windows in headquarters were bright with gaslight, the warm glow welcoming as rain began to fall in earnest.
Jasper started for the doors, and as he went, he swept a look around the courtyard for the stranger in the orange bowler. There was no sign of him, and he could only hope that would remain the case when he went to pick up Leo for their evening out. However, with or without Leo, should Jasper set eyes on the man again, he would confront him, come what may.
He rushed inside the lobby as the storm intensified with a reverberating clap of thunder.
“A lad delivered a message for you, Inspector,” Constable Woodhouse said from his place at the front receiving desk.
Jasper took the familiar buff-colored envelope, sealed with black wax—stationery used by the Spring Street Morgue. He was walking toward the CID while breaking the envelope’s seal when Sergeant Warnock came upon him.
“Frank’s Best Livery and Cab was shuttered a few years back,” he said, his excitement evident. “Francis, or Frank as he was known, was the original owner, and when he died, his son, Philip, inherited the business but closed the place almost immediately, according to neighbors.”
Jasper lowered the envelope. Philip Green, the server who ran from the dinner. “He’s our link. Philip provided the getaway carriage and was the inside man at the dinner, informing the robbers of the details they would need.” He clapped the sergeant on the shoulder, impressed again by Warnock’s good police work. “Put out a notice for Philip Green’s arrest, then go to thecatering service again. Get people talking. Someone may know something about Philip that could lead us to him.”
Warnock dashed off toward the telegraph room, where the operators would send notice to all divisions, along with a description of the suspect. Jasper returned to opening the envelope, elated by the break in the case. As he took out the notepaper folded within, however, his pleasure dipped. For a bare second before reading the inked handwriting, he wondered if Leo had changed her mind about having dinner with him. But then, he stopped in his tracks as he read the note:Come to the morgue. G.S. was here.
He crushed the paper in his hand and swore under his breath.G.S.Gavin Seabright. Turning around, he pulled up his coat collar, passed Woodhouse, and went straight back outside into the rain. Without an umbrella, his coat and hat were soaked by the time he arrived at the morgue. He entered through the front lobby door, setting off the bell that hung attached to it.
“Is that you, Jasper?” Leo called, her voice raised to be heard from within the postmortem room.
He pushed open the door and slammed into a wall of stink. The day’s heat had quashed the scant cool temperature the vestry held onto during the summer. The warm weather had sped up the decomposition of corpses, and the resulting odors were more than a little unpleasant.
Leo stood at a large steel sink, rinsing a pair of elbow-length rubber gloves he’d seen Claude use during examinations. A calico kerchief, tied at the back of her head, covered her nose and mouth. She twisted to see him.
“Oh, good, you received my note,” she said with perceptible cheer.
Leo usually only sounded cheerful when she’d figured something out and was eager to tell him.
He took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and placed it to his nose. It didn’t help much. “When was Gavin Seabright here?” he asked, then looked around the large room. “And where is Quinn?”
There was no sign of the new coroner.
“Gone for the evening,” she replied as she shook off the rinsed gloves and clipped them onto a line of wire for drying. “And Gavin was here earlier, just after I left you at the Yard.”
