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Chapter Seventeen

T he clock in the front sitting room chimed the nine o’clock hour. Impatience crawled along Jasper’s skin.

“Mrs. Zhao, are you ready?” he called, raising his voice for the housekeeper to hear from her rooms off the kitchen, where she had disappeared earlier in a fine temper.

She wasn’t pleased with his decision, but he wasn’t going to change his mind. Not even when she came around the corner in the back hall, her mouth fixed in a scowl.

“I’m made of tough stuff, Mister Jasper. I won’t be chased out of my home,” she said, even as she carried a large carpetbag and wore her hat and long coat.

He took the bag from her. “The Angels are dangerous people. Since I’m not going to be deterred from my duty at the Yard, I won’t have you here alone if they come back to see their threat through.”

Speaking pained his swollen bottom lip as well as the tender bruise that encompassed most of his jaw.

His ribs, though wrapped in cotton linen, smarted something fierce if he drew breath too deeply.

He’d consented to tea and porridge when Mrs. Zhao insisted it would help the ache in his head. It hadn’t—much.

“I don’t like to leave you,” she said as he ushered them outside.

“You’ll be safer at your sister’s home for now,” he replied. “And I’ll feel easier knowing you’re there.”

He’d never forgive himself if something having to do with his work brought harm to Mrs. Zhao. Last night had been too close.

“Very well,” she said as they walked toward a cabstand near St. James’s Square. “But make sure you eat. And use the salve on the kitchen table for your cuts and bruises.”

He assured her he would. “Don’t worry about me. As soon as the danger has passed, I’ll send for you.”

A cabbie near the stand noticed his signal and urged his horses forward. The housekeeper patted Jasper’s cheek. “If you’re anything like Mr. Reid, I have reason to worry. He was relentless too.”

He made no reply as he gave her the money for the fare, handed her into the cab, and saw her off.

Perhaps he was like his father, even if they weren’t of the same blood.

Gregory Reid wouldn’t have allowed a vicious beating to keep him down.

If anything, it would have spurred him on more persuasively.

After Leo left that morning, he’d allowed himself just five minutes of frustration and feelings of impotence before shaking them off.

He had a lead to follow up on and a murder to solve.

Signaling another cab, he directed it to Leicester Square.

When he entered the lobby inside Seale and Company Bank, the alarmed looks he received seemed to only make his bruised face throb more intensely.

He waited in line for one of the clerks to summon him forward to the tall, granite counter.

An arched opening allowed an unobstructed conversation.

The man eyed him with a touch of skepticism until Jasper introduced himself and showed his warrant card; his skepticism then increased.

“What is it you require, Inspector?” the clerk asked.

“I’d like to know if a man named Niles Foster kept an account with your institution.”

“That would be private information, I’m sure you understand. I cannot divulge?—”

“Mr. Foster is dead. I’m investigating his murder, and I need to know why he would have come to this bank, as I have evidence that he did.”

The clerk looked apprehensively over Jasper’s shoulder to the line forming behind him. “Please lower your voice, Inspector. I do not wish to alarm our patrons.”

“And I do not wish to have to return with constables and a police search warrant, which would be a much more chaotic scene,” he replied.

The clerk lifted his chin with understanding. He stepped away, moving to a long desk behind him with shelves and thick, leather-bound ledgers. He plucked down one and began to thumb through the pages. A minute later, he returned.

“There is no Niles Foster listed among our clientele,” he reported with a smug arch of his brow.

It wasn’t surprising, considering the aide had been in reduced circumstances.

Jasper took the photograph he’d pocketed from the boxes of Foster’s things, a bit creased after the attack last night, and placed it on the marble counter.

He tapped it. “This man, standing behind the chairs. Do you recognize him?”

The clerk sighed and leaned forward for a look. There was a second clerk assisting another line of patrons; Jasper would ask him next. But the first clerk straightened and made a small sound of interest. “I believe I do recall this man.”

Jasper pocketed the photograph. “When did you last see him?”

“Last week,” the clerk answered. “Thursday, it was.”

Oliver had last seen Niles Foster either Monday or Tuesday. So, he’d come here after his request for money had been rejected by the viscount.

“Why do you recall him with such specificity?” Jasper asked the clerk.

Behind him, a man in line coughed loudly to indicate his growing impatience. The clerk looked around Jasper’s shoulder and politely told the gentleman he’d be right with him.

Less politely, he returned his attention to Jasper and said, “It was his manner that was quite memorable. The man in your photograph asked to speak to our manager. When he was told that the manager was in a meeting with members of the board of governors, he insisted upon waiting.” The clerk pointed to a row of chairs against the wall behind Jasper.

“He sat there for nearly half an hour before the meeting let out. Fidgeting and coughing and tapping his foot incessantly. Rather a nuisance, as it does echo in here. High ceilings and marble, you see.”

“He then spoke to the bank manager?” Jasper queried.

“Yes. However, he spent no more than five minutes with Mr. Stewart before coming out again. In quite a fit of pique too.”

Comprehension stole down Jasper’s spine. He stared at the clerk. “Stewart?”

“Mr. Porter Stewart, yes,” he replied. “He is our manager.”

Banking . Sir Elliot had informed him that was Mr. Stewart’s business. Niles Foster had come here to speak to Geraldine Stewart’s husband? His mind tumbled over the revelation for a prolonged moment, though the lingering throb from his concussion slowed him considerably.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Stewart,” he said. The clerk shook his head.

“He isn’t in today.”

Without a doubt, the clerk knew of Mr. Stewart’s predicament with his wife.

The story had been in numerous newspapers, and surely, the bank’s board of governors were scrambling to protect its reputation.

They would likely sack Porter Stewart to cleanse themselves and their institution of any connection to her purported crime.

Jasper took down the clerk’s name and thanked him for his time.

As he left, the lingering nausea from his head injury cleared.

With a witness now who could place Niles Foster with Mr. Stewart, there was no longer any doubt—the connection between his murder case and Inspector Tomlin’s case against Mrs. Stewart was solid.

He went on foot to Whitehall Place rather than hire a cab or catch an omnibus.

Though his ribs regretted the choice as he approached the Yard, the extra time gave him the opportunity to clear his head and prepare for Tomlin’s certain displeasure.

Ignoring the startled looks and questions lobbed at him as he entered the building, he made his way to the detective department.

The bricklayers had made good progress on the reconstruction of the wall, but the clamor of their work hammered at his brain.

“Hell’s bells, guv,” Lewis said, standing up. “What in the blazes happened to you?”

Jasper removed his coat and tossed it onto his chair, longing for his office and some privacy. “I’ll explain later.”

A shrill whistle pierced the department.

“Look at you, Reid,” Tomlin called from the collection of desks in the corner of the room dedicated to the Special Irish Branch detectives.

He had his boots on the blotter, hands laced behind his head.

“Did you lose to one of the toffs at your fancy boxing club?”

Tomlin and a few other detectives around him snickered, including Constable Wiley.

He looked to be socializing with them rather than doing his own job.

Jasper’s membership at Oliver Hayes’s boxing club had become common knowledge, and some men, like Tomlin, mentioned it at every opportunity, if only to draw a line in the sand between them.

Jasper was, in their opinion, reaching beyond his station.

He braced himself and walked toward them. Passing over Tomlin’s goading remark, he got to what needed saying.

“I’m investigating the murder of a man named Niles Foster.

His postmortem showed the same bruising patterns on his wrists as were on Constable Lloyd’s and matching gashes on their cheeks, most likely inflicted by the same ring.

Both men were bound and beaten in the hours before their deaths, and it appears their assailant was one and the same. ”

Rapidly, Tomlin’s smug grin fell. Jasper pressed onward.

“I have a witness who says my victim approached Geraldine Stewart’s husband last week, before his death and before Constable Lloyd’s.

I have another witness who can place Foster in some sort of tussle with a Spitalfields Angel, and yet another witness who says PC Lloyd had some interaction with the Angels, too. ”

Tomlin took his feet from his desk and stood up. “What is all this you’re spouting, Reid? I’ve closed the Lloyd bombing case. We’re now centering our attentions on Clan na Gael for the other three explosions.”

They didn’t look especially industrious at the moment, but Jasper kept that observation to himself.

“Other than a monogrammed suitcase, you have no evidence Geraldine Stewart was behind the Lloyd bombing. No motive, either,” he said. The gloves were coming off, and he was ready for it.

“She’s a radical suffragist, and Lord Babbage was due to be here that day—an appointment Miss Spencer, with her many contacts here, could have easily gleaned and shared with her fellow political shrew.

Not to mention that the suitcase belonged to the woman.

She admitted to it,” Tomlin said. “I don’t need anything else. ”

Jasper disregarded the absurd insinuation against Leo. The man was reaching.

“The Stewarts say they had a break-in a month ago. You didn’t consider that the suitcase could have been taken then to set Geraldine Stewart up as the culprit?”

Tomlin’s flat stare hardened. “The Stewarts never made a report because it didn’t happen. They’re lying.” He then cocked his head. “What is it you’re doing, Reid? Are you falling short with your own investigation, so you’ve decided you need to desperately leap into mine?”

“The two cases are linked,” Jasper replied, aware they were drawing attention from around the department room.

“It warrants a deeper look. Both Foster and Lloyd were connected to the Angels; Foster was connected to Porter Stewart; and Mrs. Stewart informed me that her sister-in-law, Emma Bates, may be related to Clive Paget of the Spitalfields Angels.”

Tomlin crossed his arms and came forward. “When did you question my suspect?”

“Yesterday.” He rubbed his jaw. “And then the Angels paid my home a visit last night to warn me off their scent.”

The other inspector’s pasty coloring reddened. “I’m going to bet Miss Spencer’s had a hand in your meddling.”

Jasper kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t confirm or deny it. Though it bothered him that Tomlin had so easily suspected as much.

“You’d be better off putting that harridan in her place instead of indulging her,” Tomlin said.

Behind him, Constable Wiley grunted his agreement. “The previous Inspector Reid made a fuss over her too. Now she thinks she belongs here.”

“She got a taste of reality the other night, didn’t she?” Tomlin said, forming a malevolent grin. “A holding room upstairs is the only place inside this building that woman belongs. A few hours locked up will have put her right, I expect.”

Jasper inhaled evenly, careful not to overstretch his broken ribs. He clenched both hands into fists, then relaxed them again. He would not rise to Tomlin’s bait, or Wiley’s, no matter how profound his desire to knock them both flat.

“Did you find any other connection between PC Lloyd and Geraldine Stewart?” he asked instead. “How did she get him to transport the bomb?”

“That isn’t your concern, Detective Inspector,” Tomlin barked.

“So, you haven’t found another connection besides the valise.”

Tomlin came toe-to-toe with Jasper, using his beefy frame and height to bear down on him.

The intimidation tactic might have worked on others, but Jasper wasn’t afraid of this man.

He was a geyser of hot air and speculation and showed a complete deficiency of comprehensive investigative police work.

He wasn’t resting on his laurels; he was floating through the air on them.

“Lloyd’s lady friend, Miss Brooks, is one of Mrs. Stewart’s radical followers,” the Special Irish Branch inspector said, chewing off each word.

“As is Leonora Spencer. There is my connection, Reid. Now, stay out of my case. And I don’t care how pretty she is or how much you want to get up those skirts of hers; you keep that snooping woman out of it too. I won’t tell you again.”

A vision of cracking his knuckles into the bridge of Tomlin’s nose was so vivid, for a half second, Jasper thought he’d done it.

His pulse slammed hard in his neck, his blood rising at the lewd suggestion.

The whole department watched, waiting for a fight.

Even the clanging of the bricklayers had fallen off as they looked on with interest. Just barely holding his temper in check, he allowed reason to win out over temptation.

He was already a battered mess; one strike from the Special Irish Branch inspector would likely leave Jasper unconscious on the floor.

“My investigation is crossing with yours, Tomlin. There is no doubt about it, and I’ll follow wherever it leads.

” He started back for his desk, where Lewis was pulling on his coat.

He tossed Jasper his. It seemed the detective sergeant understood that they needed to pay a call on Porter Stewart right away.

“And as for Miss Spencer,” Jasper said, taking stock of the seething inspector over his shoulder. “Speak of her in that manner again, and I promise this department will get the bloody fight they want to see.”