“I believe by Mrs. Hayes.”
Chapter Fourteen
Agrowl of thunder filled the pause that dropped between them. That afternoon, after Gavin Seabright’s departure, Leo had entered the morgue in a fog, her mind spinning over the beginnings of her theory. That’s all it was. She had no proof for any of it. And yet, the more she thought of it, the more confident she felt that she was onto the truth.
Jasper’s immediate apprehension wasn’t unexpected.
“You think Mrs. HayestookMartha Seabright’s infant? How in the world did you reach that conclusion?”
The back door to the office had been propped open most of the afternoon, and now, light gusts of wind and rain blew inside, wetting the threshold stone. Leo gravitated toward the fresh air as she gathered the reasons she’d accumulated during the afternoon. They were piteously few.
“Gavin explained that Edward hadn’t been sick when he and Paula had last seen him. However, he apparently died the next night of a mysterious fever.”
“Gavin and Paula were young, just children themselves. Maybe the baby was ill, and they simply didn’t realize it,” Jasper said, following her toward the open door.
It was something Leo had considered too and was a valid argument.
“And fevers can claim the very young and the very old quickly, I am aware,” she said. “But we can’t dismiss the fact that they never saw the infant’s body. Edward was buried before dawn of the following day before Gavin and Paula were even alerted.”
“If the nurse believed the fever could be contagious, she might have wanted the burial to be done as quickly as possible,” he said, citing another possibility Leo had weighed. But she’d found it unlikely. Unless the baby had been afflicted by smallpox or some other plague, there was no reason to bury the victim so swiftly, and a nurse would have known that.
“Mr. Hayes was a governor of the orphanage at the time, was he not?” she asked.
Jasper nodded as he eyed the storm outside. “He was.”
“As such, his wife would have also held a position of authority,” Leo said.
He crossed his arms. “And you think she ordered the nurse to give her the baby and tell Martha Seabright her infant son had died?”
“Sir Eamon said that Martha asked about a particular nurse at the orphanage,” Leo pointed out. “This could be the reason why.”
“What about the other employees, like the groundskeeper who would have dug the hole for burial? Surely, the matron, too, would have seen the dead child before he went into the ground.”
The quick barrage of reasoning battered her theory, riddling it with holes. And yet, she knew instinctively that something about Edward’s supposed death was not true.
“I can’t help but think of the cryptic note Mrs. Seabright had in her handbag at the time of her murder,” Leo began. “She was given a sum of money for a choice she’d made. It had been abusiness transaction, and the author had assured her she’d done the right thing.”
Jasper closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re suggesting she was paid in exchange for her son?”
“It is an awful notion. However, Esther Goodwin said her sister was eager to be rid of her children. If Martha was made an offer for her son to be taken in by another family, to be given a better life, maybe she accepted it. The note in her handbag would make sense if that were the case. And perhaps Mrs. Hayes sneaked into Martha’s home for a reason related to the baby.”
He shook his head, a stutter of lightning accentuating his disagreement. “That letter could have been about anything. There were no details, not even a name. Furthermore, what would Mrs. Hayes have wanted with a baby? She already had two children of her own.”
That is where Leo struggled too. Mrs. Hayes couldn’t have simply shown up at home with a baby and not been questioned. Still, Leo wasn’t ready to abandon her theory.
“Perhaps she brought the baby to someone else she knew. A friend. I don’t know,” she admitted, which felt too much like defeat for her liking. “But Paula always believed Edward was taken from the orphanage.”
“Mrs. Blickson identified Nurse Radcliff as the one who was caring for Edward when he died,” Jasper said, still shaking his head. “She never breathed a word about believing he was alive.”
“I think it would be prudent to speak to her again.”
Next to the sound of rain assailing the roof and splattering in the puddles along the dirt lane, Leo barely heard his grunt of assent.
There was nothing more to present to him regarding her theory. All she could do now was wait to hear what Paula said when he did question her. Tomorrow, most likely. And so long as they met here afterward, rather than at Scotland Yard, Leosuspected he would share the results of the interview. She’d brought him the lead, after all. Just as she had earlier, about Mrs. Hayes being inside Martha Seabright’s home.
“Did you go to Bloomsbury Square?” she asked, eager to know what the woman had to say for herself.
“I did. I spoke with Miss Hayes.”
