Coughlan cocked a brow. “Keep her involvement limited, Reid. You are on thin ice here as it is. I don’t dispute your success last month in solving that parliamentary aide’s murder and the Lloyd bombing. It was good police work. But it won you no favors among some of your colleagues.”
“Those colleagues being Tomlin,” Jasper replied, referring to the Special Irish Branch detective inspector who’d arrested Geraldine Stewart based on negligible evidence. Under scrutiny and challenged by Jasper’s own investigation, Tomlin’s case against the suffragist had fallen apart. “It is my job to solve crime, sir, not dance around the egos of other detectives.”
“Careful not to get too self-righteous,” Coughlan warned. “This department functions best when my detectives work well together. Put plainly, Reid, if no one likes you, what makes you think they’re going to do their best work for you?”
Jasper clenched his jaw and took the hit on the chin. It was no secret, especially not to him, that he wasn’t overly popular with some of the men there. Many believed he’d risen to the rank of detective inspector by riding upon his father’s coattails. In all honesty, he’d often wondered if they might be correct. Maybe that was why Jasper tended to work longer hours and delegate fewer tasks to the team of detective constables than his colleagues, and why he was apt to bring work home with him on his days off. He’d made his life revolve around Scotland Yard, and yet…it didn’t seem to have changed how others there perceived him.
“Understood,” Jasper answered the chief, if only to move the conversation along. He had work to do. “I’d like the case. As I was present at the time of the robbery and shooting, I have an advantage.”
Coughlan assented with a nod. “Price and Drake were sent to Sir Eamon’s home last night to take witness statements and collect any evidence. Speak to them and get their reports. The victim, Martha Seabright, was brought to Spring Street Morgue.” Here, he cocked his brow again, relaying yet another warning to Jasper, albeit silent, about Leonora Spencer.
“It goes without saying,” Coughlan went on, “that we need this case solved and the murderer arrested fast. This was a strike against some of our own. Don’t get distracted, Reid.”
He dismissed Jasper with a jerk of his chin, and Jasper suppressed a scowl as he turned to leave.Distracted? He did not become distracted while investigating any case, especially a murder. Most murders were simple to solve, as most killers were not diligent enough in covering their tracks. But there were some cases, as with a few of Jasper’s more recent investigations, that diverged from the straight and narrow path the chief inspector would have preferred.
Detective Sergeant Roy Lewis, seated at the desk he no longer had to share now that Jasper had an office again, bounced to his feet as soon as Jasper cleared Coughlan’s door. He followed the detective inspector into his new, though still small, office.
“You’ll need this,” Lewis said, dropping a manila folder onto the desk blotter. “Price and Drake spoke to the guests still there when they arrived, though Sir Eamon said quite a few had already left.”
Jasper flipped open the folder and started to read. He had rushed off to search for Leo without stopping to order anyone from the Met or City Police to contain the guests until they could be questioned. Apparently, no one else had thought to do so either.
“Miss Spencer had quite a fright, I hear,” Lewis said. Jasper drew in a long, slow breath; it helped to fight the knot of tension cramping his chest whenever he thought of Leo’s abduction.
“Thankfully, she is unharmed.” The succinct statement felt piteously insufficient for what Leo had endured. And Jasper hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to stop it. He’d been powerless during the intrusion as well as afterward, when launching a search for her. That futile state had left him charged, ready to explode. When the telegram had come in that she was at Battersea station, a sob of relief had lodged in his throat.
Leo had assured him that she hadn’t been interfered with, but it maddened him that she’d been subjected to the possibility. Five men. One of them, a murderer. Though, from what she said on the cab ride home last night, the other four had not expected anyone to die during their bold break-in.
“That’s a relief,” Lewis said. “Did I hear right that she got herself locked up in Battersea station by confessing to a murder?”
A grin broke out on Jasper’s lips. He shook his head in awe of her ingenuity. “Thank you for reminding me; I need to arrange an upbraiding for the station sergeant there.”
“Do I want to know why?” Lewis asked.
“Let’s concentrate on what happened at Sir Eamon’s dinner,” Jasper replied, trying to divert his sergeant’s attention away from Leo and back to the case.
He read the reports on the victim quickly. Martha Seabright had been a widow some thirteen years. Her husband, Sergeant Daniel Seabright, a former corporal in the Queen’s army who later became a policeman, had been killed while on patrol. He’d been stabbed while foiling a mugging in Clerkenwell. It had taken two days for him to die. Jasper winced, thinking of the suffering the man likely had endured. Mrs. Seabright had been left with three children, and as the Metropolitan and City PoliceOrphanage had just opened its doors the previous year, in 1870, the Seabright children were among the first the orphanage had taken in.
“Mrs. Seabright was invited to the benefit dinner to stand as an example of the orphanage’s goodwill,” Jasper read aloud, then lowered the file. “She didn’t look happy about something just before dinner was announced. I saw her in a terse discussion with Sir Eamon.”
“I didn’t read anything about that in the report,” Lewis said.
“I’ll need to talk to Sir Eamon to find out why their conversation left her in a fit of pique.”
The older woman had still been wearing her scowl when taking her seat next to Leo at the table. Briefly, the image of the blood spatter on Leo’s face after Martha Seabright had been shot rose to the front of his mind. At least, the woman had not seen it coming. A blessing maybe, but it did nothing to soothe the curl of loathing he felt for the nameless, faceless man who’d so callously shot Mrs. Seabright in the head. Jasper pushed the memory aside and returned to reading the file on his desk.
The witness statements that Police Constables Price and Drake had collected weren’t overly illuminating. Everyone had seen and heard the same things. Except for Marcus Gibson, the footman who’d been positioned at the front door. His statement, taken by Stephen Warnock, newly promoted to the rank of detective sergeant, was brief: At the light rap of the knocker, he’d opened the front door. The five masked men pushed their way inside, the first of whom struck the footman on the head before he could sound the alarm. He claimed not to remember anything after that until he woke, which was after the men escaped with the stolen jewels and their hostage.
“Were the kitchen staff questioned?” Jasper asked, flipping through the pages, searching for their statements.
“Drake said they were barred from the dining room,” Lewis replied. “After they heard the gunshot, one of them left through the back door to summon the police. A constable came, but only after the intruders had left.”
“Go to the Giles house and speak to the footman, Gibson,” Jasper said. “These men targeted the dinner, and they knew when to strike, too as soon as we were all seated at the table. It’s possible someone on the chief coroner’s staff knows something.” Perhaps even gave important information to the masked men to help them plan the robbery.
Lewis nodded. “Sir Eamon’s housekeeper hired extra servers through a catering service. I’ll talk to them as well.”
It was a good thought. However, it would be shortsighted of them to only look at the staff. Jasper shuffled the papers again until he found the guest list that he’d glanced over a moment ago. At least thirty names filled the sheet. Jasper’s eyes paused on a few in particular: Gavin Seabright, a relation no doubt to the victim, though Martha had appeared to be there alone; and two more, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Hayes. Constance’s parents. Jasper had never met them, as he’d ended his courtship with their daughter before having the chance. It was possible they had been in attendance, and he simply hadn’t recognized them, nor they him. But they hadn’t been interviewed by either Price or Drake.
“They took a risk in letting Miss Spencer go, don’t you think?” Lewis observed, drawing Jasper’s attention from the guest list. “Why not just shoot her, like the one did the old woman?” Belatedly realizing the crassness of his question, he muttered, “Sorry, guv.”
