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Chapter Twenty-Four

L eo had built a fire in the hearth, and though it had warmed Jasper’s study, she couldn’t stop shivering.

The house had been dark and quiet as she’d climbed the front step earlier.

Belatedly, she remembered Mrs. Zhao had gone to stay with her sister.

Without her presence, there had been a hollowness to the house when Leo unlocked the door and let herself in.

She blushed remembering the image that had, like every other, been trapped in the amber of her mind.

Jasper, lying on his stomach in bed, unclothed.

The expanse of his muscled back on display, the bed linens resting at his tapered waist. Perhaps that was the state in which he slept every night, but she imagined that he’d been airing out the gash inflicted from the previous day’s explosion at a wallpaper factory.

The wound had been the only blemish on his back’s otherwise pale, smooth skin.

Leo was slightly ashamed of how often she’d summoned that image in the months that followed.

Thinking of it had been a betrayal of her own pledge to loathe him forever.

But she could not deny the truth. He was handsome, ruggedly so.

Now, as it did then, thinking of him in any romantic way left her feeling turned upside down. And slightly breathless.

After he’d left her at the morgue, Leo had entered the postmortem room and utterly sidetracked Claude and Mr. Quinn from the corpse they’d been attending. At the sight of her bloody shirtwaist, they’d swarmed her in alarm.

“It is a shallow cut,” she said to calm them.

“My God, Leonora, have you been mugged?” Claude asked.

“It’s a long story,” she said, and after closing herself in the supply closet to partially undress and clean her wound with carbolic acid and surgical gauze, she recited the tale while her uncle and Mr. Quinn listened on the other side of the door.

The light of the lamp showed that her wound was, as she’d thought, relatively minor. She wasn’t in dire need of sutures.

When she redressed and opened the door, she found the two men waiting for her. Claude appeared utterly baffled. Mr. Quinn, his arms crossed over his chest, stared at her with a loose jaw.

“I thought you were a typist for the morgue, Miss Spencer, not a police detective.”

He was only being sarcastic, and she shouldn’t have been irritated by the comment. But she was, just the same. “You well know I am not a detective. Nor can I be.”

“Then why would the inspector allow you to be present?” he’d replied. “I think it’s damned irresponsible of him, in fact.”

Leo had pushed past him. “It is a very good thing then that what you think doesn’t bear weight on the situation.”

It had been harsh, and she hadn’t looked to see how he’d reacted. Nor had she much cared. Leo announced she was going home to change her clothing, and she spent the quarter-hour walk in a thunderous mood.

She wasn’t a morgue typist or assistant any longer, thanks to the arrival of Connor Quinn.

She couldn’t be a detective or anything having to do with the police at all.

Apparently, because she was a woman, she wasn’t qualified to do the things at which she was quite good.

She found herself on the edge of uncertainty.

The last several days, the investigations had occupied her mind, but now, with Mrs. Bates having been taken into custody, there was no avoiding the question: What would come next?

She hadn’t yet settled on an answer, or anything close to one.

The fire in the study now blazed. Leo uncapped the bottle of cherry liqueur she’d given the Inspector in January.

But eyeing the cut crystal decanter of whisky beside it, she capped it again.

Jasper had once poured her a glass of the amber liquid in his office after they’d thwarted Mr. Benjamin Munson, a deputy assistant-turned-murderer who’d tried to kill them four months ago.

Drinking it had been like swallowing fire.

She poured herself a splash with the hope that it might douse her shivers.

The hinges on the door to the study squeaked. Leo turned to see Jasper aiming his Webley at her. Her heart stuttered.

“Jesus, Leo.” He immediately lowered the revolver. “I thought the Angels were in my house again.”

She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’m sorry to have alarmed you.”

He holstered his revolver, then as he came into the room, shed his coat and hat. He tossed them onto the Chesterfield, his attention hinging on the drink in her hand.

“No Grants Morella?” he asked, arching a brow.

Leo swirled the shallow pour of whisky, the sharp fumes reaching her nose. “I decided I needed something stronger tonight.”

He joined her at the sideboard and poured himself a heavy splash, then tapped his glass against hers.

“Cheers,” he said before taking a sip.

Fire coated her throat as she drank, and she was grateful she didn’t cough this time.

“So,” Leo began, her voice tellingly hoarse. “What happened with Mrs. Bates?”

Finding out how things had gone at Scotland Yard was why she’d come. Partially, at least.

Jasper went to the Chesterfield and eased down onto the corner cushion so as not to jar his aching ribs.

He looked worn to the bone. “She’ll be arraigned tomorrow, charged with conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and bribery.

It appears Mrs. Bates was with Porter Stewart when he met with Sir Elliot to bribe him; Payne is admitting to the meeting.

He claims he rebuffed the offer and did not attend the WEA meeting due to discomfort with Mr. Stewart. ”

Leo settled herself in the opposite corner of the Chesterfield. The worn leather creaked softly.

“Did Mrs. Bates name any of her accomplices?” she asked after a moment of quiet. “Lester Rice, for example?”

“No, though we did bring him in, along with the Olaf fellow from Bloom’s casino room. Both are claiming innocence, of course. But Mrs. Bates will stay quiet. It won’t matter that she is a Paget by blood; if she turns on them, she’ll be dead. So, she’s keeping names to herself.”

He swirled his whisky and took another sip as a question continued to nag at her.

“How did the Angels get the idea to put Mr. Foster’s body on Lord Hayes’s property? Clearly, they meant to implicate the viscount, but Mrs. Bates couldn’t have known about their family connection.”

Jasper raised his pointer finger from his glass. “I’d thought of that too. Sir Elliot introduced his aide to Mr. Stewart and Mrs. Bates before their meeting, and when I pressed the subject, he admitted to explaining to them that Foster was a sympathy hire. A favor to his friend, Lord Hayes.”

That would account for it then. Not only had Emma wished to silence Mr. Foster, but she’d also wanted to arrange for a suspect in his murder. Oliver Hayes had been the perfect scapegoat.

“And Lord Babbage?” Leo asked, recalling the anti-women’s suffrage MP whom Geraldine was accused of targeting at the Yard. “How did he play in?”

“He didn’t,” Jasper replied. “His appointment at headquarters that day seems to have been a useful coincidence. On the surface, at least.”

Like Jasper, Leo didn’t wholly believe in coincidences.

“What did Porter Stewart know about all of this?” she asked. “Earlier at his home, he seemed utterly oblivious to Mrs. Bates’s machinations.”

Jasper released a long and weary exhalation.

“I think he is trying to convince himself of his own obliviousness, though anyone with even half a brain should have been able to work it out.” Shaking his head, he went on.

“When I interviewed him at the Yard, he added to his statement that he’d turned to Mrs. Bates after Foster’s visit to the bank.

Allegedly, she told him not to worry, that she would take care of things. ”

“And did he ask how she intended to help?”

Jasper sent her a bemused look. “What do you think?”

Leo knew the answer. She eyed her drink. The whisky had warmed her chest and alleviated her shivering. Or perhaps that could be attributed to something else entirely. The shivers had subsided after Jasper’s arrival.

“I think Geraldine Stewart should have married a better man.”

He chuckled. “No arguments there.”

“What will happen to her?” she asked. “Will the charges against her be dropped?”

“As the only evidence against Mrs. Stewart was her ownership of the valise, Tomlin won’t have a choice but to rescind the charges. Superintendent Monroe has already ordered him to do so.”

Leo well imagined Inspector Tomlin’s resentment and fury that his own sewn-up case had been picked apart and correctly solved by another detective. She also knew Jasper would suffer a fair amount of enmity from Tomlin and his team for having interfered with their investigation.

“Her reputation won’t recover quickly. There’s a chance it might never,” Leo said, thinking of the ladies who had attended the WEA meetings.

Most were wealthy and well-connected, and though they supported suffrage, they might not wish to be associated with someone who’d had scandal attached to her name.

“At least she’ll have her freedom,” Jasper said. “Besides, something tells me she isn’t going to be dissuaded from her mission.”

Leo agreed. It was nice to know Jasper could see that determination too and didn’t seem to dislike her for it.

She drew her legs up onto the sofa cushion beneath her, though the motion pulled at her bandaged waist. She tried to mask her gasp of pain by bringing the glass to her lips, but he still heard it.

“Did Claude place any sutures?”

“I was right; I didn’t need them.”

He made a face that said he didn’t believe her. “He didn’t even look at your wound, did he?”

“How is your head?” she countered, wishing to get away from the topic of her injury.

He muttered under his breath and slouched further into the couch. “Fine.”

Leo didn’t believe him either. But he was too stubborn to complain. She supposed she was too.

“When will Mrs. Zhao be home?”