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Chapter Ten

W hen Leo finally arrived at the morgue after being sprung from Scotland Yard, grating thoughts of Inspector Tomlin and the humiliation of being held overnight so preoccupied her mind that she’d paid little attention to the body her uncle was standing over in the postmortem room: the dead man Jasper had discovered floating in Lord Hayes’s duck pond.

After assuring Claude she was perfectly well after her ordeal, he’d turned back to the task of removing the corpse’s clothing.

It was then that Leo saw the dead man’s face.

Immediately, her memory brought forth another image—one of this same man, identified as Niles Foster, though in her memory, he’d been very much alive.

Leo had seen him before inside Eddie Bloom’s club, Striker’s Wharf.

She’d held her tongue, but after noting the gash on the man’s cheek, his bruised left eye and ligature marks on his wrists for the coroner’s report, Leo had made a hasty exit from the morgue.

She’d cited hunger and a longing for clean, fresh clothes as her reasons to return to Duke Street.

And she had indeed gone there for those things.

But she had swiftly departed again, this time heading for Dita’s home.

Dita and her father, Sergeant Byron Brooks, resided on a working-class street in Covent Garden in a terrace house that had always seemed warm and cozy.

Several years before, when Leo had been on her way to visit Gregory Reid at Scotland Yard, she’d witnessed a constable outside the carriages department stepping into the path of a young, brown-skinned woman.

She hadn’t known Dita back then, and later, Leo learned that Dita had been attempting to deliver her father’s forgotten flask of tea when the constable had started to harass her.

Without hesitation, Dita had opened the flask and splashed it onto the hems of his blue woolen trousers.

He’d shouted, calling her a lunatic coolie , but Dita whisked past him and into the building without batting an eyelash.

Leo had waited for her to reemerge from the building, and when she did, she’d approached her.

“Was that tea you splashed onto that horrible constable’s trousers?”

Dita had grinned impishly. “Yes, though I wish it had been whisky so that his superior might smell liquor on him and give him the sack.”

Ever since then, they’d remained close friends.

Most mornings, Dita would collect Leo on her walk toward Whitehall Place and Scotland Yard, and whenever she could, she convinced Leo to go out to a music hall or assembly room.

Striker’s Wharf was their favorite haunt, and she, Dita, and John Lloyd had gone there often together.

Now, what Leo wanted to know was if Dita recalled Niles Foster from the club and if he’d somehow been acquainted with her beau.

Nearly a full minute passed after Leo knocked on the Brooks’ front door.

Finally, it opened, and her friend let her inside.

Dark smudges under Dita’s eyes and the red tip of her nose underscored her grief, as did her sluggish movement as she closed the door behind Leo.

It was as though all the lively fire that always filled Dita to the brim had drained away entirely.

She returned to what looked to be a well-worn spot in the corner of the sofa. The sitting room was draped in shadows, the curtains drawn to block out the sunlight.

“I should have come before now,” Leo said, realizing her misstep in staying away to allow her friend privacy to mourn.

But Dita shook her head, her fingers already grasping a linen handkerchief and pressing it to her nose. “I didn’t wish to see anyone. Not even you. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

It didn’t. Leo understood the desire for solitude with grief.

After the Inspector died, she’d craved the time to be alone, if only so that she would not have to speak of her feelings of loss.

Mere words could not do it justice. And after learning that Jasper had been the boy in the attic who’d hidden her and that he’d kept the truth from her all these years, she’d closed herself off wholly.

Not just to him, but to anyone who might have noticed their strained distance.

That had been a different type of loss. Jasper was still alive, of course, but he would never be quite the same again. Not in her eyes, at least.

“Perhaps we could take a walk along the Strand?” she suggested. Fresh air and sun might help lift her friend from some of the fog of heartache, although Dita would have to exchange her paisley dressing gown for proper clothing.

Dita shook her head. “I can barely get out of bed in the morning. Father forced me to at least make it to this room before he left for his shift today.”

Leo stood. “Then I’ll make us tea.”

She went to the kitchen, a room she was familiar with by now, and put the kettle on the hob.

Normally, Dita would not have allowed her to do any such thing.

But several minutes later, when Leo reappeared with two beakers of strong black tea, her friend was still curled up in the corner of the sofa, her expression slack, her eyes distant.

She placed the cup in Dita’s hand and sat beside her again. “There is something I need to ask you.”

Holding the cup to her lips, letting the steam drift in front of her face, Dita’s attention sharpened for the first time since Leo had arrived.

“The answer is no. I still refuse to believe John would have carried that bomb toward Scotland Yard. I don’t care what the evidence shows; I know him.

” She took a shaky breath and turned her face into the steam. “ Knew him.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” Leo said.

Dita’s smooth brow crinkled. “It wasn’t? Forgive me. My father has been relentless. Though not half as relentless as Inspector Tomlin.”

Sergeant Brooks must have been acutely mortified that his daughter’s beau stood accused of being a traitor. And Tomlin was a tactless brute.

“No, I wanted to ask if you recognize the name Niles Foster.”

Dita blinked and tucked her chin. Before she could answer, a heavy rapping on the front door interrupted them. Leo set down her tea. “I’ll see who it is.”

She had every intention of turning away the caller, but then she opened the door. Jasper loomed over her on the front step, his expression stern.

“How do you know Niles Foster?” he asked, forgoing a greeting altogether.

It appeared he’d been to the morgue and that her uncle had observed her reaction to the body and mentioned it to Jasper.

Leo stepped aside, allowing him in. “How did you find this address?”

He’d never been there before.

“I am a detective inspector, Leo,” he grumbled, whisking off his hat. “I have resources. Now, tell me, how are you acquainted with my dead body?”

She peered at him, taken aback by the odd wording. He sighed. “You know what I mean.”

Closing the door, she gestured toward the sitting room and led the way. Jasper slowed upon entering and nodded to Dita. “Miss Brooks. Forgive me for intruding, but I have a few questions for Miss Spencer.”

“And they are related, I believe, to my question for you, Dita,” Leo said, retaking her seat.

Dita sat forward, placing her slippered feet on the carpet. “About this Niles Foster fellow?”

Jasper stepped around the sofa but remained standing, his hat clutched in his hand. “You know him?”

“No. Leo just spoke his name now.”

It was time for her to explain.

“I did not know him personally, but I did recognize his face when I saw him in the morgue.”

Dita gasped. “Do you mean to say he is dead?”

“Yes,” Leo replied. Then cautiously added, “Murdered.”

The stab wounds to his chest had been the cause of death, and the dumping of the body in the viscount’s pond, an attempt at a ruse.

“Where did you see Mr. Foster before today, Leo?” Jasper asked, returning to his line of inquiry. He never was easily put off a topic.

“Striker’s Wharf,” she answered, expecting the souring of his gaze. He disliked the club because it was operated by a criminal named Eddie Bloom. And he especially disliked that she and Dita went there often.

“Of course it would be there,” he grumbled. “How is it that you recall him?”

“Not the man who approached our table last time? The handsome one who asked you to dance?” Dita said, her alarm increasing.

Jasper peered between them. “You danced with my murder victim?”

Leo held up her hands. “Not him, Dita. This was the man we saw being tossed out of the back room.” Reluctantly, she explained to Jasper, “It’s where Mr. Bloom operates a casino.”

His chest inflated as he drew a deep breath. “Please tell me you do not visit that part of the club.”

“I’m not a fool, Inspector Reid. And what would I gamble with anyhow? My vast riches?”

He only deepened his glare. Swiftly, she translated the silence: There were more treasures to gamble with than just money. Especially for a woman.

“I do remember him,” Dita said, her melancholy seeming to clear. “This was just last week, wasn’t it? He crashed into a server, upending a tray of drinks.”

“John was with us at the time,” Leo added. “He laughed and called the man a fool for trying to cheat in Bloom’s casino.”

After finding the heron and fox token in John’s pocket and then hearing his brother speak of his new, expensive purchases, she’d presumed his vice had been gambling.

Now, she wondered if John Lloyd and Niles Foster had one more thing in common besides having been bound and beaten just hours before their deaths, with matching gashes on their cheeks.

“Dita, did John ever gamble in the back room at Striker’s Wharf?” she inquired.

Leo had never seen him enter the casino, but she also had not always accompanied the couple to the club on the Lambeth wharves.

Her friend twisted the handkerchief between her fingers and cast her eyes down to her lap. “Yes.”

Jasper straightened. “So, PC Lloyd and Niles Foster both frequented Eddie Bloom’s casino. Were they acquainted?”

“I don’t know. John never mentioned his name.

And really, he said he’d only gambled there a handful of times.

” Dita tried to flatten the hankie, her fingers trembling.

“I didn’t like his habit. We had cross words about it, but…

He did win often, and you know how meager a constable’s wages are.

John just wanted to put aside enough for when we…

” Her voice cut off, and Leo reached out to cover her hand with her own.

Inspector Tomlin had already questioned Dita extensively, and she didn’t want to inflict any more strain on her friend. But the connection between the two men needed to be resolved.

“John’s brother said he’d been associating with men of low character,” Leo began. “Did you ever see him with people like that? Men you were concerned about?”

Dita shook her head firmly. “No. Never. You can’t believe anything Charlie says. He simply hates that John chose to join the Met.”

It was what Leo had sensed too.

“Odds are that PC Lloyd and Niles Foster met while gambling at Striker’s Wharf,” Jasper said.

As the daughter of a police sergeant, and a matron at Scotland Yard, Dita was attuned to the workings of an investigation. She was also naturally clever. “You believe their deaths are somehow related.”

Jasper sighed and nodded.

She sat forward. “Why?”

“Miss Brooks, when was the last time you saw PC Lloyd before he died?”

He was clearly avoiding having to explain about the matching marks on the bodies, which might further upset her. Leo appreciated the care Jasper was taking with her friend.

“The previous afternoon, I think.” She furrowed her brow in thought. “Yes. He met me for tea.”

“What did he do that evening?” Leo asked.

Dita’s brow smoothed. Her dark brown irises met Leo’s gaze, her pupils narrowing to pinpricks. “He mentioned he might go out. To Striker’s Wharf.”

A current of possibility straightened Leo’s spine. She and Jasper exchanged a meaningful glance.

“I don’t know if he truly did go, though,” Dita said.

“Thank you, Miss Brooks,” Jasper said, moving toward the front hall. “I’ll take my leave.”

Leo got to her feet and followed him out of the room. Softly, she said, “Mr. Bloom would know if John was there that night.”

Jasper opened the door. “I am aware of that.”

“And he might know more about why Niles Foster was thrown out of the back room.”

He slapped his hat onto his head. “Astoundingly, I’d already considered that too.”

As usual, she ignored his bit of sarcasm. “Are you going there now?”

He stayed on the threshold of the door. “You are not coming with me, Leo.”

A knot kinked her stomach. She’d expected that response, and the impulse to argue was on the tip of her tongue. But then, she remembered that she shouldn’t want to be near Jasper. Not even for a curious twist in an investigation.

She hitched her chin. “I have no wish to accompany you, Inspector.” Oh, how it galled her to fib. “I was merely going to inform you that the man who threw Mr. Foster from the gambling room was tall, fair-haired, and had a drooping left eyelid. He may work for Mr. Bloom. Best of luck.”

She made to shut the door, but Jasper put out a hand to block it. She relented and waited for him to speak.

“Lewis said you didn’t want him to fetch me this morning when he discovered you were being held at the Yard. Why?”

She kept her hand on the knob, eager for him to be gone.

If only so she wouldn’t change her mind and beg him to take her with him to Bloom’s club.

He was so desperate for her to speak to him that he might even allow it.

But it would be too unscrupulous of a ploy, and she refused to truly consider it.

“It wasn’t necessary,” she said with a nonchalant shrug. “I was perfectly fine.”

“No, you were not. You were being held without cause.”

“I’m sure Inspector Tomlin would disagree.”

“Admit it, Leo. You were being stubborn,” he said.

Her patience snapped, and Leo pinned him with a glare. “I did not need to be rescued. Not by you.”

Guilt instantly doused her temper, which had kindled far too quickly. Jasper moved from the threshold onto the front step, his expression flattening. She nearly parted her lips to apologize when he tipped the brim of his bowler hat and replied, “That’s not what it looked like this morning.”

He turned on his heel and walked away, and Leo slammed the door.