Page 24 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)

“He wanted money and a place to lay low until he could get out of London.”

A bold request, coming from a stranger who’d just confessed to being present when Gavin’s mother was killed. How was Gavin supposed to trust what he said? But then, she worked it out.

“You came here to the morgue that morning for proof that your mother was indeed dead,” Leo surmised. “But why would you allow him to stay in your room meanwhile? He was a stranger.”

“I’ve nothing in there worth stealing. Got my money in a bank, where no nosy landlady or lodgers can sniff it out when I’m not about.

In fact, the bank’s where I went after here,” he said, jutting his chin toward the vestry.

“Took out a pound note and put it in my shoe, but I wasn’t giving it to him until he told me who killed my mum and why. ”

“But when you arrived, Harry refused to talk,” Leo guessed. “And then you fought?”

He snarled, “No, I didn’t do a thing to him. He was already dead, lying there on the floor, when I returned.”

Leo cocked her head. “Mr. Seabright, all indications are that he fell and hit his head during a fight. It was an accident. There is no need to lie.”

Crimson flashed over his cheeks in a blink, and his muscles tensed. “I’m not lying. I didn’t push him! He was dead already, and that’s the truth.”

“Then why run?” she pressed. “Why not call for a constable?”

He grimaced. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? There was a dead man in my room. My landlady, the other lodgers at breakfast, they all saw him go upstairs with me. Who do you think the police would accuse?”

His reasoning wasn’t entirely unsound. Jasper was a thorough investigator and would take into account the approximate time Harry had been killed, but there really was no solid evidence that Gavin had been gone from the lodging house at the time of the man’s death.

Only a strong, distinct odor in the morgue could point to Gavin having been there.

No one had seen him, least of all Leo. The evidence against him was condemning.

“Why have you approached me?”

He lowered his head in what might have been bashfulness. “Saw you yesterday morning. First here, when you nearly came upon me when I was leaving. And then later at Mrs. Beardsley’s, with that detective.”

Leo cocked her head. “You were watching the lodging house.”

He nodded. “You’ve got to tell the coppers I didn’t kill that man. That I didn’t have a thing to do with it!”

“It doesn’t matter if I believe you. Running away did you no favors, Mr. Seabright,” she said, annoyed by his request. What did he think? That because she was a woman she would be soft and willing to be his advocate?

“It also doesn’t look good for you since you chose to skip the disastrous dinner at the last minute,” Leo said. “Why didn’t you attend? You’d accepted the invitation but then changed your mind.”

He lifted his chin, covered in dark stubble and a smear of dirt. “I had my reasons.”

“It is suspected that you knew the robbery was going to take place.”

“That isn’t true! I didn’t go because…” He grimaced. “Because Paula said I’d be a traitor if I did.”

Leo stepped out of the shade. “Your sister?”

Esther Goodwin had said the two siblings had been estranged for years. So, when had Gavin and Paula seen each other? The answer came to Leo in a rush.

“Your landlady saw you with a dark-haired young woman recently. She picked you up and dropped you off again in a hansom cab.” Paula Blickson was pretty and young, with dark hair, as Leo had seen earlier at Scotland Yard.

The muscles along his jaw tensed. He nodded.

“She’d rejected the invitation extended to her,” Leo deduced. “Then she sought you out and implored you to do the same. Why would she have called you a traitor for attending?”

He clenched his mouth shut and hitched his chin, his expression turning chary. “What does it matter?’

“Every detail matters when nothing is known for certain,” she replied.

He backed up a few steps, his heels dragging through the gravel. “Because of Edward. Our little brother. He was a baby when he died at the orphanage.”

She nodded. “Yes, I know about that. What then? She blamed the orphanage for his death?”

His heavy brow furrowed as he pulled down the brim of his hat in a nervous gesture. “Paula never believed he died. She thought we were lied to.”

It was an extraordinary claim. Leo drew in a breath and wondered why Esther Goodwin had not thought to mention it.

“Lied to by whom?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Everyone. All the adults. They were all the same, treating us like troublesome pests.”

Leo couldn’t imagine what it had been like to grow up in an orphanage. She’d often considered that, if not for the Inspector and then Claude and Flora, she would have been turned over to one. Either that, or to a workhouse. She’d been enormously lucky.

“What did your sister believe happened to Edward?”

Gavin again looked over his shoulder. He’d tarried too long, and evidently, he was agitated by it. “That he was taken. Said she knew it in her gut.”

Leo gazed at him, appalled and confounded. To give away the infant, then lie to Martha Seabright and tell her the baby had died… It was too cruel and diabolical. Leo had trouble believing it.

“She had a point,” he said, as if seeing her doubt play out in her expression.

“We’d seen Edward the day before at Sunday sermon.

He seemed perfectly fine, babbling like always.

And then, Tuesday morning, we were told he died the night before of a fever.

Came up out of nowhere, though none of the other little ones were ill.

They’d already buried him, just to be safe, they said.

But we never saw him. His body, I mean.”

It was irregular that none of the other small children had been ill, as fevers were known to spread. There should have been at least a few others afflicted. And to not allow Edward’s siblings the chance to say goodbye to their infant brother was also strangely callous.

“Paula never got over it,” Gavin said, his frown pinching his brow. “Losing him haunted her.”

“Did she share her suspicion with your mother?” Leo asked.

Gavin bounced on his toes, then started to retreat. “What does any of this have to do with the dead man in my room? I’ve explained why I didn’t go to the dinner. Now, will you speak to the detective? Will you tell him I’m innocent?”

Her annoyance with Gavin increased. “You must speak to him yourself, Mr. Seabright. You must tell him everything you’ve told me?—”

“No. This was a mistake,” he growled and then, before Leo could plead with him not to run, disappeared down the dirt lane and into the street, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust in his wake.