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Chapter Twenty-One

L eo had kept a brisk pace on the way to the Stewarts’ home, her mind flying as swiftly as her feet. Now that she’d arrived, she paused to take several breaths.

“Miss Spencer,” Jasper said, his tone stern with warning. The formal address was surely due to Mr. Stewart’s presence. “What is this about?”

On the way to Carlisle Street, she’d kept the image of the announcement for the Conservatives for Political Values in the front of her memory.

The newsprint was as clear in her mind as the actual article, which she’d folded and stuffed into her coat pocket.

It was the name Mr. Jos. Banford, MP that her attention had kept sliding toward, again and again.

It wasn’t until she’d crossed Shaftsbury Avenue that she understood why.

She turned to Geraldine’s husband. “Mr. Stewart, were you aware that The Times would reveal your political ambitions in today’s paper?

” Leo pulled the crumpled newsprint from her pocket and held it up.

His nostrils flared, and a flicker of panic brightened his eyes.

“Perhaps last week’s meeting of the Conservatives for Political Values fled your mind, what with everything happening with your wife. ”

Jasper gestured for her to hand him the paper. “Explain.”

She relinquished the paper, not needing it any longer. “Mr. Porter Stewart is listed as a new member of the conservative group and a future candidate for the party in next year’s general election.”

Sergeant Lewis whistled. “Conservative? They’re up in arms against women’s rights, aren’t they?”

“Most are, yes, but not all,” Mr. Stewart said, his cheeks flushing.

“Your wife told me that you weren’t political in the least. That you supported her and the WEA entirely,” Leo went on.

“Ah, but we’ve just learned that Mr. Stewart here has thoughts and opinions of his own, which he shared not with his wife, but with Emma Bates,” Jasper said, glancing up from the Metropolitan News column.

He cocked a brow, and Leo understood perfectly—not only did Mrs. Bates have a romantic interest in Mr. Stewart, but he had welcomed her attentions.

“It is not a crime to hold differing political views from one’s wife,” the man said.

“Views Emma Bates perhaps encouraged you toward,” Jasper said.

“Views your wife was in the dark about,” Leo added, her mind readily absorbing this new information. “When did you plan to inform her?”

He shifted uneasily, pulling at his ascot. “In due time, not that it is any of your concern. How are you even involved in this, Miss Spencer? Are you colluding with the police?”

Leo overlooked his questions, unwilling to let her attention be diverted.

“I couldn’t understand why the name Banford was familiar to me.

He’s a member of Parliament and the president of Conservatives for Political Values,” she said as an aside for Jasper and Sergeant Lewis.

“I knew I’d seen his name somewhere recently, but it took me some time to realize where.

You see, while reading through Niles Foster’s scheduling diary for Sir Elliot, I’d been so focused on the days immediately surrounding the bombing that I put the entries for the weeks before then to the back of my mind. ”

But the images of the earlier diary entries were still there, waiting for her to draw them up and re-examine them.

Lewis frowned. “You went through Foster’s things?”

Jasper held up a hand to silence him, though he would have to make some excuse for her prying later.

“It was written in the diary that Banford’s new member met with Sir Elliot Payne two Mondays ago, a day before the meeting in which your membership in a Tory party committee was announced,” Leo said.

“Was it during that meeting with Sir Elliot that you asked him to cancel his speaking engagement with the WEA?”

Mr. Stewart began to splutter just as the maid, Betty, entered the room to ask if she should bring tea. He shot out a hand to send her away.

“Or maybe you bribed him to do so,” Jasper suggested.

“Bribed him? This is offensive. You have no proof,” he spat.

Leo conceded. “Perhaps not, but I think Niles Foster did. He was either present or overheard your conversation with Sir Elliot.”

Lewis turned to Jasper. “An MP hopeful offering a bribe to a member of the opposite party and having it accepted. That could be the valuable information Foster told his lady friend he’d come into.”

Jasper slapped the newspaper into his palm. His stare burrowed into Mr. Stewart. “Foster came to see you at your bank to blackmail you.”

“I’m sure you didn’t take kindly to that,” Lewis tacked on.

Mr. Stewart stalked to the other side of the room as if to get away from the accusations. “You aren’t seriously fitting me up for that man’s murder?”

“You have motive,” Jasper said. “Damn good motive. He tells you he’s going to expose you unless you pay him, but of course, you know he’ll just keep coming back for more.”

“No.” The man goggled, looking between the three of them. “No, that isn’t true. I had nothing to do with what happened to him.”

Unwilling to relent, Jasper followed Mr. Stewart to the other side of the room. “Then tell me what did happen because right now, you are my prime suspect for his murder.”

Leo was struck again by the livid bruising of Jasper’s eye and the healing gash on his lip. They were evidence of the very real danger these linked cases posed—and yet, he would not give in.

Mr. Stewart raised his hands, palms facing out. “All right. Yes, I met with Sir Elliot. Emma had encouraged me to run for Parliament, to speak up for what I believe in. I did, and soon, I was being courted by Banford. But I knew Geraldine’s antics with the WEA would put my acceptance at risk.”

Leo’s jaw loosened. Antics? His wife’s passion and purpose were far more serious than a silly lark. And yet, he was ready to reduce the value of her cause without a thought. Any admiration Leo had previously held for Porter Stewart was instantly obliterated.

“It didn’t matter if I mostly agreed with her, I couldn’t support Geraldine once I went public with my run for MP.

If no debate was brought to the floor, and if Payne—her only real support—turned her away, I thought she must surely see reason.

There would be no way forward. If I could convince her to put her support behind me, perhaps in time she would gain alliances among other conservatives. ”

The man’s manipulation and selfishness were stunning.

“So, you asked him to cry off. Not only from the WEA speech, but in his support of women’s suffrage when the vote was debated in the House,” Leo said.

“Asking did no good,” Mr. Stewart said bitterly. “He wouldn’t drop the debate. Not without incentive.”

“How much money did you offer him?” Jasper asked.

Mr. Stewart rubbed his forehead. “Does it matter? He was amenable.”

“But when Foster tried to blackmail you, you panicked,” Lewis said while jotting some notes down on a pocket notepad.

“Of course, I panicked. But I did not kill the man! I’m no murderer.” He appeared panicked now too. Leo found she believed him. He was readily confessing to all his wrongdoings and yet standing firm on this point.

She tried to align all the different moving pieces in her mind as they formed.

Whom would he have turned to after Niles Foster’s visit to the bank?

Surely not Banford, who would cast Porter Stewart out of the committee if he carried with him any potential scandal.

Not Sir Elliot either, who might return the bribe he’d accepted, if only to clear himself of any misconduct. That left one person.

“You turned to Mrs. Bates for help,” Leo said.

Mr. Stewart’s glare slammed into her and filled her with conviction.

“You told her everything. What you stood to lose,” she went on, speaking as the words came to her. “She’d already professed her support, her love. You trusted her.”

When he remained silent, Jasper nodded. “She wanted to protect you. She turned to her family?—”

“No.” Mr. Stewart barked the single word. “No. She had cut them off. She promised she had.”

“You knew about her criminal relations,” Lewis said. “Maybe hinted that she should turn to them.”

Mr. Stewart shook his head vigorously.

“So, she is related to Clive Paget?” Leo asked Jasper, who nodded, and it all came clear. “They went after Niles Foster to silence him.”

She dragged in a breath as another revelation struck.

“All to protect whatever leverage they might gain when Emma married Mr. Stewart, future member of Parliament. She was the one who encouraged him to run in the first place.”

Having a family member in the House would certainly have been beneficial for a criminal organization looking for favorable connections.

“Marry Emma?” Mr. Stewart scoffed. “Absurd. She knew I would not divorce Geraldine. For God’s sake, once my wife was arrested for that bombing, my sole focus was to clear her name. To clear my own name. I am ruined if she is convicted.”

Leo bit her tongue against calling him a selfish bastard. He was worried for his own reputation and political aspirations when his wife could lose her freedom, her very life.

“Are you so certain of that?” Leo asked. “Surely, with your wife arrested as a radical suffragist, it would allow you the opportunity to condemn her actions. Hold her up as an example of all that is wrong with women seeking the vote. You’d have sympathy among fellow conservatives.”

He glared at the suggestion but did not reply.

“And if Mrs. Stewart is convicted, it’s possible she would hang,” Lewis said. “If that is the case, Mrs. Bates would be rid of the obstacle standing between her and the husband she wants.”

As Mr. Stewart decried the sergeant’s theory as utter nonsense, Leo considered it.

Porter would only remarry if his wife was totally out of the picture.

Killing Geraldine would have been too risky for Emma.

A murder would have been investigated, and Emma might have been found out.

But if Geraldine was implicated in a treasonous crime and arrested, if she was convicted and hanged, well then…

Her path to Porter Stewart would be clear.

“Mr. Stewart, we need to find your sister-in-law,” Jasper said. “Where was she going from here?”

He again pressed his fingertips to his temple. “She did not say where she was going, nor did I inquire. Now, I am sending for my solicitor. I demand you all leave at once.”

He turned on his heel and left them. Jasper and Lewis exchanged a victorious glance.

“Let’s go back to her home,” Lewis said. “She’ll probably be there by now. We can bring her in for questioning.”

“She’ll never admit to anything,” Leo said. Not with so little tangible proof that she was involved. “Mr. Stewart has proven that he is easily persuaded and spineless. She isn’t, not if she’s orchestrated all of this.”

And for what? Emma’s plan had been to step into Geraldine’s shoes, to easily transfer Porter Stewart’s love from his wife to her. But he didn’t seem to be living up to her expectations.

The floorboards creaked behind them. Silent, the maid stood within the entryway.

“Betty?” Leo said.

The maid hadn’t appeared hesitant the few times she’d previously encountered her. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Is there something you’d like to say?” Leo pressed.

She came into the room, still cagey. “When it comes to that woman,” she said quietly, “Mr. Stewart has the wool pulled over his eyes.”

The maid had been listening to their conversation. Leo imagined she’d listened in on plenty of other conversations too. Jasper stepped closer, his interest clear.

“Is there something you know about Mrs. Bates?” he asked.

“She’s barmy, that one.” Betty tapped the side of her head with an index finger.

“I keep an ear to the door whenever she’s about, and she was furious earlier when he told her to leave.

I didn’t see anything, mind you, but I heard a scuffle.

Him, pushing her away, telling her it’d been nothing but a mistake. You should’ve heard her howling.”

“Did you know they were carrying on together?” Leo asked.

The maid gave a short nod. Servants usually knew everything that happened in the households in which they worked.

“What happened after that?” Jasper asked.

“Mr. Stewart had had enough. He hardly ever shouts, him. But his voice came clear through the door, saying that he would never love her, never choose her, even if his wife were lost to him. And then, that barmy lady says back to him: ‘She will be lost to you sooner than you think.’”

Leo’s stomach dropped. “’ Sooner than you think .’ She said those very words?”

The maid nodded. “Then came a loud smack, and Mrs. Bates stormed out.”

An ominous thought drifted through Leo’s mind.

Emma Bates had gone to great lengths to secure Porter Stewart for herself.

For her family too. How desperate and furious might she be now, faced with the knowledge that he would never love her, never marry her, even if Geraldine were out of the picture permanently?

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jasper said. “Lewis, return to Mrs. Bates’s home and see if she is there. If she is, take her into custody. If not, gather some constables and come to Holloway Prison. It’s where I’m going.”

Leo thanked the maid and followed the two men out onto the front walk.

Lewis peeled off at a run in the direction of Mrs. Bates’s street, and Jasper hailed an oncoming hansom.

As it approached, Leo waited to be told that she could not accompany him to the prison.

But he only opened the cab’s door and extended a hand to help her up.

“Nicely done with the newspaper article,” he said as she slipped her hand into his. A burst of pleasure helped propel her into the cab.