“He’s fine.” She clasped her gloved hands together and tensed her arms. “George is exhausted but safe. Mother and Father are beside themselves with relief. It’s an ugly business, of course. I’m sure once it all gets out, we’ll be skewered in the gossip pages.”
She referred to her brother’s adoption. The police reports would not gloss over the motive for Martha’s murder, nor George’s kidnapping, and the information would make its way into more than just the gossip pages. The scrutiny would be severe. Leo doubted the Hayes family would stay in London to weather it.
“I don’t wish to sound rude,” Leo said after waiting for Constance to speak again. “But is there something I can do for you, Miss Hayes?”
“You can accept my gratitude,” she answered swiftly. Though she was visibly uncomfortable, she held her chin proudly. “I know Oliver has already offered his thanks, and I want you toknow I’m not so bitter that I cannot be grateful to you for your part in my brother’s safe return. I have been made aware that you played a significant role in making that come to pass.”
Stunned, Leo wasn’t sure how to respond. Constance had come here just to say thank you?
“I…I’m glad I could help,” she finally replied, though it seemed inadequate. “But I’m not sure I understand—why would I think you are bitter?”
She and Constance had never gotten on, but it had seemed like she disliked Leo more than usual yesterday when they’d met. Then again, Leo had been questioning Mr. Hayes and unearthing a painful secret that probably had changed the way Constance viewed her whole family. Perhaps that was what she was referring to. But then, with a scoff, the other woman’s stare grew incisive again.
“Truly, Miss Spencer? You cannot imagine why, after Jasper called off our courtship because of his feelings for you, I might dislike you?”
She stared at Constance, dumbstruck. Jasper had ended their courtship in May, but he’d never been explicit about the reason why other than he didn’t want to marry her. It shouldn’t have surprised Leo, not really. Deep down, she suspected that he must have cared for her for some time.
“He is in love with you.” Constance stated it casually without an ounce of emotion. It gave Leo another unexpected jolt.
This time, however, she knew exactly how to respond. “Jasper isn’t in love with me.”
He had kissed her. Ardently, yes, and not just a chaste peck, but surely, that wasn’t so out of the ordinary. He’d asked her to dinner, too. Neither of those things were declarations of love.I care for you. That was what he’d declared. Not love.
However, the burst of pleasure it gave Leo to consider hemightfeel that for her nearly lifted her feet from the floor.
Constance only shook her head and pressed her lips into a disheartened grin. “Do open your eyes, Miss Spencer. As I can no longer bring myself to hate you, I have no wish to see you trip and fall on your face.”
She went to the door and let herself out, leaving Leo to stare after her, her mind spinning.
Jasper closed the door to the interview room, glad to be finished. He’d spent the last few hours questioning Felix Goodwin, his mother, and Paula Blickson. At the close of each interview, he’d felt like punching a wall.
Felix had no remorse for what he’d done; he was an actor, and yet he hadn’t even tried to make a show of it. When Jasper pressed him on the killing of Martha Seabright, a smug grin twitched the man’s lips, as if the memory of her death amused him.
“She was a bitter old whore who deserved worse than she got,” he’d said with simple finality.
After delivering Leo to the morgue, Oliver Hayes had come to the Yard. He’d explained the finer details of his uncle’s underhanded adoption of Edward Seabright, including how Martha had continued to blackmail him over the years. Everything Jasper knew about Martha led him to believe that she was, indeed, a despicable woman. But Felix Goodwin was no better.
“And Nurse Radcliff?” Jasper had queried. “Did Paula send you to kill her?”
“Paula?” He’d sniffed dismissively. “All she cared about was getting Edward back. When her conniving mother told her everything, she came to us.”
“You and Esther Goodwin,” Sergeant Warnock clarified as he was taking notes at the table. Lewis would have usually sat in with Jasper during these interviews, but the young sergeant needed more training now that he’d earned a promotion.
“Yes,” Felix answered with a sneer. In his arrogance, he appeared to hold himself up above all others; it was what had given him license to do as he pleased. “Paula told us it was Nurse Radcliff who sold my son. How was I to know the old lady wouldn’t be the same one from back then?”
As Jasper was concluding the interview, he realized how little it would have meant to Felix to kill the woman he’d abducted from the dinner. He could have pulled Leo from the coach in Battersea Park and shot her dead right there. It chilled Jasper to his bones, enraging him to the point of feeling ill.
“Why did you allow Miss Spencer to walk away?” he asked just as a pair of constables arrived to escort the prisoner to a Newgate Prison cell. There was ample evidence against him to secure a conviction and, undoubtedly, an execution.
The man had only smirked. Holding the detective inspector’s stare, he seemed to know how Jasper felt for the woman in question and the power he’d held in his hands for that short amount of time.
“Luckily for Miss Spencer, I’d already shocked my mates enough for one evening. Had I done for her, more than just one of them would have turned on me.”
The one who had, Harold Yardley, had been among the four actors at the Epoch who agreed to join their manager for the planned benefit dinner robbery in exchange for a cut of the profits. The sixth actor, Philip Green, had been picked up by constables at a pub he was known to haunt, and he’d cracked under the slightest pressure. The theatre had been struggling, he’d explained, their jobs at risk. When fenced, the jewels they stole would provide a nice payday. But the other actors, forwhom Jasper now had names and addresses, hadn’t known the job would involve a cold-blooded murder and an abduction by their leader. They’d been too nervous afterward to go out and fence any of the jewelry.
In the interview with Esther Goodwin, which Jasper had conducted while allowing Felix time to stew, she’d admitted to visiting a few pawnshops and posing as a wealthy widow who had fallen on hard times. The very same widow described by the pawnbroker at the jewelry shop Jasper had visited, it turned out.
Esther had also described Harold Yardley’s agitation the night of the robbery when the troupe returned to the theatre. He’d made comments that, to Esther’s ears, sounded as though he was considering turning traitor. She’d followed him the next morning, curious as to what he planned, and when, low and behold, he’d gone to her nephew Gavin Seabright’s lodgings, she decided to have a word with him. She entered Mrs. Beardsley’s home through the back, and when she confronted Harold, or Harry as he’d introduced himself to Gavin, their discussion turned into an altercation.
