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Chapter Twenty-Two

J asper had instructed the driver to be aggressive and move along as quickly as possible, but though the cab rattled toward Holloway Prison with noticeable speed, it wasn’t nearly fast enough to put him at ease.

A rock sat in his gut, growing larger as a premonition of what they would find at the prison took shape in his mind.

“The chief warder allowed us in before, but you’re a police inspector.

I got the impression he wouldn’t have permitted me inside if you hadn’t been there.

He won’t allow an unaccompanied woman to visit Mrs. Stewart,” Leo reasoned, sitting rigidly on the opposite bench.

She rubbed the center of her right palm with her thumb, massaging the scars through her glove.

She did it without noticing, a habit whenever she was tense.

“It sounds like Mrs. Bates can be quite persuasive,” Jasper said. “If she is desperate, there’s no telling what she might do.”

If she’d orchestrated this entire situation—everything from convincing Porter Stewart to turn political, to arranging for Geraldine’s implication in a bombing scheme, to protecting Porter from Niles Foster’s blackmailing attempt—then she might very well feel it all unraveling.

Months of work, of carefully laid plans being carried out, had come down to one remaining barricade: Mrs. Stewart herself.

“How can he profess to love his wife and then betray her as deeply as he has?” Leo asked. “And not just by taking up with her sister-in-law, though that is wretched enough. He sabotaged her work with the WEA and doesn’t seem the least bit remorseful.”

Jasper had met men like Porter Stewart before. Shallow men with shallow hearts. Easily persuaded, led by compliments, and lavished with doting attention, all to instill a confidence in themselves that they lacked.

“He’s intimidated by his wife’s strength. By her depth. He probably feels emasculated by her,” Jasper replied.

Fierce annoyance flashed in Leo’s eyes. “So, she must be weaker than him? Pretend to be incapable so that he might feel more manly?”

He sat forward, arms on his thighs. “I didn’t say that. Your argument isn’t with me; it’s with Porter Stewart. Who is, I’ll add, a vain man and a fool.”

She dropped her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you. In fact, I should say thank you for not telling me to return to the morgue.”

Jasper sat back and crossed his arms. “If I had, you would have just hired a cab for yourself and followed me to Holloway.”

She shrugged. “That is true.”

Still, he wasn’t exactly eager to take her into the prison. His best guess was that Miss Hartley, the cell warder, had been the one to alert the Angels to their visit and questions the other day. If that was the case, she would likely report back to the Angels that he’d ignored their warning.

“Don’t ask me to wait in the cab while you go in,” Leo said a mere second before he opened his mouth to do just that.

“And if the Angels learn that you were there when I apprehended Emma Bates?” he challenged.

“If you won’t bow down to threats made by a criminal gang, then what makes you think I will?”

The stubborn woman drove him mad. Jasper scrubbed a hand over his jaw, forgetting to be cautious of his split lip. He had no reply for her, so he let the jarring throb of pain ebb in the silence.

Their driver delivered them to the outer gate of the prison, and Jasper helped Leo down. Once they’d come through the gate in the porter’s lodge, the chief warder was summoned. Mr. Vines remembered them.

“Back to see Mrs. Stewart?” he asked, his walrus mustache twitching in displeasure as he glanced at Leo.

“Has anyone else come here today to visit her?” Jasper snapped the question without a care for civility.

The chief warder frowned, taken aback. “Today? No.” He eyed the gate warders. “Correct?”

The two uniformed men shook their heads in answer. Then one said, “Haven’t seen anyone here for a prisoner. Just a sister, for one of the lady warders.”

Alarm shuttled up Jasper’s spine at the mention of a female cell warder. Jasper stepped forward. “For Miss Hartley?” At the guard’s surprised nod, he then asked, “When was this? What did the sister look like?”

The guard looked flummoxed. “It were ten minutes ago or so. The lady were pretty. Blonde hair.”

“What did she want with Miss Hartley?” Leo asked eagerly.

The guard appeared even more baffled. “I didn’t hear. They just talked for a short stretch, then Miss Hartley went back into the prison.”

Jasper turned to the chief warder, his pulse rising with suspicion. “We have reason to believe Geraldine Stewart is in grave danger. I’ll ask you to take us to her now.”

“Danger from whom?” he asked.

“From her cell warder. I don’t have time to explain. Just take us to Mrs. Stewart at once.”

The man didn’t move. “I will take you, Inspector, but the lady stays here. I cannot have female civilians in my prison if you think there is a serious threat of danger afoot.”

There was no time to argue, and Leo seemed to understand as much.

“Go on,” she said. “I’ll wait by the front gate for Sergeant Lewis. I’m sure he’ll be arriving shortly.”

Jasper nodded, and the chief warder, summoning one of the guards to accompany them, started immediately toward the prison’s main entrance.

They hastened across the gravel courtyard and entered the prison through the wicket gate. In the reception hall, Mr. Vines snapped his fingers at the receiving warder, Mr. Smythe. “Have you seen Miss Hartley?”

Mr. Smythe gestured toward the back of the hall. “Just now. She went back to her station.”

Jasper picked up his pace, outstripping the chief warder. When he reached the receiving cells, the door to Mrs. Stewart’s cell wasn’t open. Miss Hartley wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

A faint cry of alarm sounded from within the cell, and Jasper ran forward. “Miss Hartley!” he shouted, reaching for the door handle. It was locked. He pounded on the steel. “Open this door now, Miss Hartley!”

The chief warder arrived, the key on his iron ring already out. “Step aside,” he commanded, and a moment later the door to the cell swung open.

Miss Hartley had Geraldine Stewart in her grasp, holding her as she would a shield. Though shorter than her prisoner, the cell warder was plainly more powerful. Her eyes were wide and wild as she realized she’d been found out. She held a small, handcrafted shiv to Mrs. Stewart’s neck.

“Stay back!” she said, her voice high and cracking in fright.

“We know Emma Bates ordered you in here to kill Mrs. Stewart,” Jasper said, entering the cell with his hands raised.

With the shiv, easily crafted within prison cells, her murder could have been made to look like a suicide.

“Emma?” Mrs. Stewart’s eyes glistened with tears and stark terror as the cell warder’s brawny hold kept her pinned in place. “She wouldn’t.”

“Miss Hartley, stand down at once,” Mr. Vines commanded, no longer blustering with irritation. He’d gone calm and focused. “Think about what you are doing. If you harm that woman, you will be charged with murder. You will hang.”

Miss Hartley shook her head, the hand holding the small blade moving erratically, much too close to Mrs. Stewart’s throat.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said, her voice pleading as the shiv trembled. She was young, no more than twenty-five years old. And if she’d received an order from Clive Paget’s relation, she was correct: She hadn’t had a choice at all.

“Because you are associated with the Angels,” Jasper said. “And Emma Bates is Clive Paget’s…what? Daughter?”

A pack of prison warders, mostly men with a few women, had arrived at the receiving cell. Some streamed inside, while others crowded the open door.

Miss Hartley hesitated. Then gave a nod to Jasper’s question.

“Where is Emma now?” he asked. The warder wasn’t going to harm Mrs. Stewart. The cracks in her determination were already showing. She would turn her over and surrender. “Emma Bates. Where did she go?”

“She…” Miss Hartley spluttered. “She’s waiting.”

As Jasper had speculated, the warder lowered the blade.

She deflated, letting the weapon fall to the floor with a clatter.

Mrs. Stewart was relinquished next, and she let out a sobbing breath of relief as she stumbled away, lost the strength in her legs, and landed on her knees.

Mr. Vines ordered Miss Hartley cuffed and locked in a cell, and three male warders closed in on her.

“Waiting where?” Jasper asked as they pulled her arms roughly behind her back. “Miss Hartley, answer my question. Where is she waiting?”

She hung her head in submission. “The Chaplain’s House.”

Jasper stood aside as Miss Hartley was led away. The Chaplain’s House was outside the gate, where Leo had said she would wait for Lewis. A prickling of disquiet crawled along his skin, and he turned for the exit.

The porter’s gate closed behind her with a resounding clang.

Leo exhaled a shaking breath. There had been no point in staying within the lodge, which had smelled of cooked onions and damp clothing, but she hated walking away from the prison when she knew that inside, Mrs. Stewart was in imminent danger.

As much as she had wanted to go with Jasper, arguing with Mr. Vines would have been petty and useless.

It also could have dire consequences for Mrs. Stewart’s safety.

Ten minutes had passed since Miss Hartley and her ‘sister’ parted ways, the guard had said.

It was certainly enough time for the warder to access Mrs. Stewart’s cell and kill her, if she had gone in to carry out the task straightaway.

How did the warder possibly believe she was going to get away with such a thing?

Leo crossed her arms, clasping her elbows as she walked swiftly toward the entrance gate and main road. As soon as Sergeant Lewis arrived, she would direct him inside…and try to follow. By then, Miss Hartley might have been detained, the danger gone.