“Blimey,” Lewis hissed. “Did Mrs. Blickson meet your boy at the dinner?”
At Stanley’s distracted nod, a deluge of answers fell into place. Answers, and yet more possibilities too.
Jasper signaled a nearby driver of a coach waiting for hire.
“Lewis, Warnock, with me. Drake, return to headquarters and request a judge’s warrant to search the Blicksons’ home. We’re going there now, but I want a warrant in case we are blocked from entry.”
They would search every nook and cranny of that home for George.
“I’m coming with you,” Stanley said as he started to climb back into his carriage.
“I cannot prevent you from following us, but youwillstand back and allow me and my officers to do our jobs when we arrive.” Jasper speared him with what he hoped was a warning stare. Stanley flared his nostrils in contempt, then disappeared into the carriage.
“Jasper.” Oliver stopped him before he could join Lewis and Warnock, who had already piled into the hired coach. “I think you should know that last night, Miss Spencer mentioned Paula Blickson.”
“She suspected Paula knew her brother had not died,” he replied. “It seems she was correct.”
“That isn’t all,” Oliver said with some urgency. “She mentioned that it would be beneficial to call on Mrs. Blickson. I said I would pass along the suggestion to you, but her expression was…well, I can only describe it asimpatient.”
It took no effort for Jasper to picture that expression of hers. And knowing Leo, her impatience could have led toinjudicious action. Like calling upon a woman he now suspected of kidnapping. Perhaps even murder.
He rushed to join Lewis and Warnock, praying Leo had not already found Paula Blickson and whatever danger came with her.
Leo slowed her gait as she strolled past the Epoch’s main entrance on Whitfield Street. She’d been moving at a leisurely pace, hoping to appear casual, and now stopped to read the theatre bill pasted to the sooty limestone façade. A production ofThe Pirates of Penzancewas set to debut in a week, though the derelict state of the theatre—its darkened, smudged windows, the limestone in dire need of a new coat of whitewash—left her doubting that the play would be of good quality.
It was barely noon, however, so the darkened windows weren’t too out of the ordinary. She contemplated trying the handle on one of the front doors but refrained. Going inside the theatre alone would not be wise. On her short walk to the area around Fitzroy Square, she had thought plenty about the false beards the masked robbers had all worn the night of the dinner. A theatre could provide access to such stage props. And a trained actor would have a commanding, yet mellifluous voice—just as the brutal leader of the intruders had possessed.
Her pulse spluttered when she considered Paula’s cousin, Felix Goodwin. She had only seen him in passing at the CID, but as Leo continued past the entrance to the theatre and across the street, she fetched the memory of that encounter effortlessly. The details of Paula’s mourning gown and her stylish black hat with the tulle veil attached to its brim, fluttering as she passed Leo, were all crystalline in her mind. Though she’d paid himless attention at the time, the details of the man escorting Paula were etched in Leo’s mind as well. His estimated height and weight, and his inflexible bearing were hers again to scrutinize. But more importantly, she recalled the small bob of his head, in acknowledgment, as he passed her, and his alert, dark, sapphire-blue eyes.
Held up in comparison to the pair she’d seen through the slits in the black cloth covering her abductor’s head, Leo shivered. They were the same. Felix Goodwin had murdered his aunt, Martha Seabright, and he’d been the one to abduct Leo and later release her.
Across the street from the theatre, she paused at a news stall. The older man working the counter finished a transaction with another customer before turning his attention to her.
“The Morning Chronicle, please,” she said, placing her coin on the counter. “And might you know when the Epoch opens today?”
The man handed her the newspaper and scoffed. “Won’t be openin’. Closed down fer good.”
“Closed?” Leo jolted with surprise. “The theatre bill says a play is opening next week. What happened?”
He gave an uninterested shrug. “One o’ the actors wot come around me stall says the manager pulled the rug out from under everyone. He’s movin’ up ter Scotland.”
Leo murmured her thanks as she rolled her newspaper and stepped aside. She glanced toward the theatre again, and its shuttered air made sense. With the production so close to its debut, everything at the theatre would have been arranged for weeks. The actors had practiced and memorized their lines, the stage design would be complete, the costumes nearly, if not already, finished. The funding for the play would have been in place too. For Felix Goodwin to have shut it down at the lastmoment like this was more than just suspicious. He was fleeing, and Leo had an excellent idea as to why.
Thwarted, she lingered by a lamppost while deciding what to do. She could not, under any circumstances, enter the theatre on her own. Jasper was endlessly complaining that she was too reckless, thoughtlessly putting herself in danger to follow some lead. Right now, however, she had no intention of risking her neck by chancing a meeting with Felix Goodwin.
There was a very good chance Felix and Paula had already left for Scotland, with George in tow. That image, however, did not sit right with her. A boy of thirteen could certainly have put up a fight if he didn’t wish to go with them. And why would he choose to run away with people he did not know well, to a life that would be far less advantageous and comfortable than the one in which he had been raised by Mr. and Mrs. Hayes? Of course, at his age, George might not be thinking judiciously of the future, reacting out of anger and injury over having been lied to his entire life. But the possibility that Felix might do George harm if the boy put up a fight sat foremost in her mind.
There was no other choice now: The only thing Leo could do was to go directly to Scotland Yard and speak to Jasper. He would be furious that she’d gone to the Blicksons’ home, but it didn’t matter. She would endure his scolding if it meant that he and his fellow detectives were finally put on the right path toward finding George Hayes.
Leo tucked her issue of theMorning Chronicleunder her arm and started toward the end of the street where she had seen an omnibus stand. She didn’t have much money in her purse, but she could not walk the distance to Westminster again; the blisters from yesterday’s trek still rubbed against the heels of her boots.
She was reaching into her purse for the sixpence it would cost when the driver of a dray shouted for someone to watch out. Leolooked up to see a woman in a dark purple skirt and short jacket crossing the street in a hurry. If not for her black hat, draped with a lace veil, Leo might not have looked twice at her.
Paula Blickson had her head down, her veil drawn aside, and she was walking quickly toward the Epoch. Leo stopped and stared as the woman passed the front door and continued toward the side of the theatre, where a narrow alley divided the Epoch from the neighboring building. In her gloved hands, she carried a small carpetbag, and in a blink, she disappeared into the alley.
Without stopping to think, Leo crossed the street again. She followed in Paula’s steps to the edge of the theatre. Peering around the corner into the alley, she saw a tall gate made of weathered wooden slats a few yards ahead. It was most likely there to keep theatregoers from accessing the back doors of the Epoch. Paula was no longer in sight.
If she had not yet left the city, then neither had George. Had the theatre been shut down and the actors dismissed to conceal that he was being kept here?
