He leapt down from the coach and went straight to the front door. It was locked.
Oliver and Stanley’s carriage drew to a stop along the curb. “Why have you led us here?” Oliver asked as he descended to the pavement.
“I have reason to believe Paula Blickson is associated with this place,” Jasper explained as he peered through one of the theatre’s filthy windows. He couldn’t see far inside but made out a ticket booth, queue posts, and ropes.
“Help! Somebody! Police!”
Jasper turned away from the window to see a woman running out of the alley next to the theatre—it was Paula Blickson. And with her was an adolescent boy.
“George!” Oliver shouted, breaking into a run toward them.
Paula’s chin quivered. Reluctantly, she released George’s arm so he could hurry to meet his cousin, and then, as Stanley shot like a bullet from the carriage, his father. As relieved asJasper was to see the boy unharmed, the knot of dread in his stomach remained.
“Where is Miss Spencer?” he asked Paula as he took swift strides toward the corner of the building.
Paula’s tear-filled eyes were wide with fear as she pointed toward an open alley gate. “In the theatre, under the stage. I’m supposed to be sending a constable. I’m so sorry. Felix, he’s in there too, and my aunt has a gun, and?—”
“Lewis, with me. Warnock, detain Mrs. Blickson in the carriage. Oliver, stay with George,” Jasper ordered before darting through the alley gate.
“He’ll have gone in through the rear door!” Paula called after him.
Jasper would sort out why the woman was helping him later, but clearly, it was Felix Goodwin and his mother who were the dangerous parties. Jasper sprinted down the alley, Lewis’s footfalls directly behind him. They came first to an open door in the side of the building.
“Go in through here. Find your way to beneath the stage. We’ll come at him from two sides,” Jasper told the detective sergeant. “Have your Webley at the ready. And watch out for the old woman.”
Lewis withdrew his police-issued revolver and disappeared into the building. Jasper kept moving to where the alley forked, his revolver already drawn. As Paula had advised, he found another door at the back leading into the theatre. It had been left wide open. Jasper approached, and an indiscernible voice emanated from within.
He crossed the threshold into a narrow corridor, his revolver raised; to his immediate right, a stairwell of curving steps led down into a darkened space.
“I shouldn’t have been so generous the first time we met, Miss Spencer.”
Felix Goodwin was down below. No reply came. Jasper deduced Leo was either incapacitated or hiding.
Light from the open rear door poured down the stairwell, but it wouldn’t stretch far. Descending the steps would put Jasper directly into view, making him an easy target for Felix. But he could not stay up here when Leo was in danger down below.
“Imagine my surprise when I saw you at Scotland Yard,” the man continued, his voice having drifted further away. Leo was hiding, Jasper was now certain.
He drew a deep breath and started down the spiral stairs. He kept his footfalls as light as possible to prevent the iron steps from announcing his presence.
“My mother warned me. Said you were meddlesome,” Felix called out, masking an errant squeal of the iron steps.
“You may as well come out from wherever you’re hiding,” he went on. “I know I am close. I can trace your scent. Honeysuckle, is it?”
Jasper reached the bottom of the staircase, still bathed in light from the open door above. His eyes latched onto movement ahead—the back of a man’s head and shoulders, the rest of his body blocked from view by a couple of stacked crates. As if sensing another person’s presence in the space below stage, Felix whipped around to see Jasper, already aiming his weapon.
“Hands in the air, Goodwin!”
The man darted from his view. Jasper sprang forward in pursuit, though as he left the pool of light from above, he knew the dark would be dangerous. Felix was familiar with this space; he would know where to hide or how to escape.
“The theatre is surrounded, Goodwin,” Jasper called loudly. “We have Paula and George in police custody.”
He stepped carefully, slowly, toward what appeared to be a two-person sleigh. The stage grates above allowed in some light from the main house, but more light came from farther ahead.The guttering light of a gas lamp. Felix’s figure darted from behind a large object and toward this source of light.
“Goodwin, stop!”
He didn’t—not of his own volition, at least. Jasper heard a resounding crash, followed by a cry of anguish. Rushing forward, he found Felix trapped beneath what appeared to be a heavy, wooden hearth mantel. Repurposed as a stage prop, it had been tipped over. On the floor, a handful of yards away, was the gas lamp. The place where the mantel had been stored stood empty. It seemed unlikely the mantel had fallen over on its own, but Jasper didn’t have a moment to spare thinking on it. Beneath the stage prop, Felix Goodwin moaned and stirred.
“Guv, have you got him?” Lewis called from the top of the other circular staircase that led below stage too. Lewis tapped down the iron steps quickly, shaking the whole thing and making a ruckus.
