Page 31 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)
Using her chatelaine again, she opened the door to her office.
A lamp was still lit, and the dim light gave the small room a snug atmosphere.
It was different from what he’d seen of the orphanage so far.
Matron Westover went not to her desk, but to a pair of striped cushioned chairs near a small hearth, inset with a coal stove.
A half-full cordial glass of spirits—sherry, if he were to guess by the golden chestnut color—had been left on an occasional table next to one chair.
The matron retook her seat and held out a hand to indicate he take the one across from her.
Jasper preferred to stand when asking questions related to an inquiry. However, realizing it might be too intimidating for him to loom over her, he perched on the edge of the chair’s cushion after relenting.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he offered.
She accepted his condolences with a pert nod and then picked up her small glass of sherry.
“Sergeant Tinsdale mentioned a damaged cellar window that appeared to have been pried open,” Jasper said. “Did your groundskeeper find anything of note in the cellar? Or elsewhere on the grounds?”
She shook her head after sipping her drink. “He must have gotten in through that window. There is no other way he could have entered the building. I keep all the doors locked at all times.”
“He?”
“I’m assuming the intruder was a man,” she replied.
The physical strength needed to pry open a window and to violently attack a woman led Jasper to suspect a man as well. The violence was itself a clue, too.
“Whoever killed your aunt, they seem to have targeted her specifically. No one else was harmed as a result of the break-in, correct?”
The matron nodded, her throat working against another sob.
“That tells me that the killer had a grievance with your aunt. Or perhaps needed to silence her for some reason.”
Leo’s theory—that Edward Seabright had not died of fever but had been taken—played well here.
He’d dismissed it earlier, thinking it too far-fetched.
However, the orphanage nurse had been killed just days after Martha Seabright.
And he could not discount the fact that the letter Leo found in Martha’s handbag, the one indicating a sum of money had been enclosed and that she’d made the right choice, had been signed with the initials NCR .
Nurse Charlotte Radcliff, possibly.
“I cannot fathom who would have had such a grievance against my aunt,” Matron Westover replied.
“How long had she worked at the orphanage?”
“Since its inception. This was her home.” Her voice broke on the last word.
She turned her head, covering her lips and nose with a trembling hand.
It was only when she fought tears that the fine lines around her eyes and on her forehead became visible.
Jasper found himself wondering if she’d ever married, and if not, why.
She was the sort of English rose men would have flocked to and women would have been envious of.
“Tell me about your groundskeeper,” he said after allowing her a moment to compose herself. He was again thinking of Gavin Seabright and the accusation that he’d killed the groundkeeper’s dog as a boy. Jasper also considered how the man would have needed to dig a grave for Edward Seabright.
“Virgil Clooney,” she answered. “And before you ask, no, he would not have heard anyone breaking into the cellar. The window in question is on the opposite side of the grounds from his cottage.”
He raised a brow, impressed by her perceptiveness. Or perhaps she had merely asked Clooney the same question earlier. “I’d like to speak to him nevertheless.”
“Tomorrow, Inspector. Virgil is quite old and has been abed well before now,” she replied.
As he and Lewis were staying the night in Twickenham, he wouldn’t complain. He would speak to the elderly groundskeeper in the morning.
“Did your aunt ever speak to you about her time here, when the orphanage first opened?” he asked.
Matron Westover’s eyes narrowed on him. “Why do you ask?”
“Have you heard about the events at the orphanage’s benefit dinner a few nights ago in London?”
Her trembling sorrow seemed to clear for a moment.
“I don’t often have time to read the London papers, but Sergeant Tinsdale mentioned that there was a disturbance.
It was a robbery, wasn’t it? And a woman came to some harm?
” Matron Westover shifted in her seat, crossing her ankles.
“What does that have to do with my aunt’s murder? ”
“Are you familiar with a woman named Martha Seabright?” he asked the matron instead of answering.
The matron’s posture stiffened, though only for a heartbeat. “The name sounds familiar.”
“She was the wife of a police sergeant killed in the line of duty. Her three children were taken in here in 1871.”
“ Was ?” the matron echoed, having astutely latched on to his use of past tense when speaking of Martha.
“Mrs. Seabright was the woman shot and killed at the dinner,” he explained.
Matron Westover’s ankles slipped free, uncrossing. Her wariness subsided to shock. “She was shot? Gracious.” She blinked and looked at her nearly empty cordial glass. She drained it in a backward toss of her head.
“Are you aware that Mrs. Seabright’s youngest child, an infant boy, died here less than a month after arriving?” he asked.
The matron set down her glass, her hand trembling before the base met the table with a hard clink .
“No, I was not aware,” she replied after clearing her throat. “And I’m not sure what an infant’s death so long ago could possibly have to do with what happened to my aunt today .”
“The two crimes could share a connection,” he allowed.
The matron let out a huff of air as if flabbergasted. “What sort of connection?”
As he wasn’t going to answer the matron’s question, he pivoted again. “I would like to see Martha Seabright’s file as well as any records the orphanage might have on her children, Paula, Gavin, and Edward.”
If he could, he wanted to try to match the handwriting on the note Leo had found in Martha’s handbag to any writing made by Nurse Radcliff in the files.
Matron Westover’s sad, weary welcome quickly evaporated. She braced her hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up to standing. Jasper rose as well.
“The records of the wives and children we assist are confidential. I cannot just hand them over to you, and besides, are you not here to solve the murder of my aunt?”
“I am, and that is why I need that file,” he replied evenly, intrigued by her sudden change in demeanor.
The matron held firm. “I will need permission from the orphanage’s Board of Governors to release it to you.”
That would require contacting the president of the board, Sir Eamon Giles, with the request. A telegram would need to be sent, and then, Jasper would have to await a response. Considering the late hour, he imagined he’d have to wait until morning anyhow.
“Very well, if that is necessary,” he replied.
“It is,” she said brusquely. Then, she moved toward the door. “Now, it is quite late, and it has been a wretched day. I will allow you to collect your detective sergeant, and then I ask that the two of you take your leave.”
The hasty dismissal might have meant nothing, but as he left the matron’s office and went back toward the infirmary to see how things were coming along with the removal of the body, he couldn’t help but suspect Matron Westover had wanted to shuffle him out of Wellesley House for another reason altogether.
Instinct told him that the matron had known the surname Seabright right away. If she knew the family’s history, including the death of little Edward, why lie and claim that she didn’t?
He passed the blanket-wrapped body of Nurse Radcliff in the bleak corridor. PC Landry had returned, and he and the constable who had been napping outside the infirmary were carrying her.
“The chap’s arranged for rooms at that inn, as he said he would,” Lewis said as he joined Jasper, following him downstairs.
“I want to stop at the public stables first,” Jasper said. “Stanley Hayes left London late yesterday, and I’d like to know if anyone matching his description was seen here in town. His driver might have stopped in for fresh horses.”
He and Lewis reached the bottom of the stairs. “You think Hayes came here to kill the nurse?”
Jasper couldn’t quite see the man sneaking in through a cellar window, but his unexpected departure from London was suspicious. If what Leo theorized was true, and Edward Seabright had been given to Mrs. Hayes, Stanley may have wished to tie up any loose threads.
Or perhaps Gavin Seabright, who’d been on the run for over a day, had come here to speak to the nurse his sister had accused of taking their baby brother.
A discussion between them could have turned into a violent attack.
Gavin might have known of a way to sneak into the building since he’d once lived here.
He could have taken the first train back to London that morning and arrived in time to meet Leo at the morgue.
“I don’t know what happened to Nurse Radcliff just yet,” Jasper said as they left the orphanage. “But it’s connected to the Seabrights; of that, I am sure.”