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Chapter Five

T wo more bombs, both planted at St. James’s Square, exploded roughly around the same time as the one at Scotland Yard.

The blasts came one after the other, the first at a gentleman’s club and the next just outside the home of a Tory member of Parliament.

By some miracle, no one was dead, though numerous injuries had been reported, and a horse that had been attached to an unmanned carriage had been killed.

It was near to midnight by the time Jasper was able to return home.

The shallow cuts along his cheeks and forehead from the shattering windows at the Rising Sun had started to throb.

The wounds were minor compared to the deeper slices Warnock and LaChance—and anyone else seated nearer to the windows—had received.

He’d barely felt them at all as gawkers and news reporters surged into Whitehall Place.

The fire brigade arrived within minutes to douse the scattered flaming debris, which included desks, chairs, and filing cabinets and their contents from the offices of the CID and Special Irish Branch.

The two departments had received the brunt of the damage, and it seemed to have been intentionally so.

The timer-set device that had detonated the dynamite was found in the cellar of Scotland Yard, directly underneath the Special Irish Branch section.

How it had been placed there, and when, had yet to be determined.

As it was so late, Jasper expected Mrs. Zhao to be abed when he let himself in through the front door at 23 Charles Street. He shed his coat and hat, envisioning the heavy pour of whisky he’d toss back before tending to his cuts.

“Mister Jasper?” Mrs. Zhao appeared at the back of the entrance hall, near the corridor to the kitchen.

The sixty-something Chinese woman had worked for his father for nearly thirty years, and though her official role here was housekeeper, she was more of a grandmother or kindly aunt to Jasper. She came toward him quickly.

“You were hurt in the bombs.” Her eyes, framed by fine lines, widened with concern. “We heard them from here when they went off at the square. We went and saw men stumbling around with bloodied faces, but you weren’t there.”

He held up a palm to calm her. “I was at Scotland Yard. There was an explosion there as well.”

Two bombs in one day at Scotland Yard seemed an odd choice for Clan na Gael.

Especially since three had detonated around the same time that night, while the fourth, the one that killed Constable Lloyd, had occurred earlier in the afternoon.

It was possible that the bomb Lloyd had carried accidentally went off before he could plant it, fouling the plan and requiring another bomb to be brought in.

But how had it been done? Security around headquarters had been impermeable after the explosion that afternoon.

No one would have made it inside with a suspicious package.

And then there was the discrepancy between the construction of Lloyd’s bomb and the twisted remains of the one found in the cellar of the Yard: Lloyd’s had been made using gunpowder, whereas the clockwork-timed device in the cellar seemed to have been rigged with dynamite.

Jasper rubbed his forehead, then winced when a small cut reopened.

Belatedly, he considered what Mrs. Zhao had said to him. “You said we heard the explosions?”

Motion at the top of the stairs drew his eyes. Leo stood there, her hand gripping the newel post. “There was another bombing at headquarters?” she asked.

The stutter of his heart and the instantaneous burst of pleasure that followed anchored his boots to the faded burgundy carpet. The physical reaction brought forward Constance’s voice, accusing him of ending things because of his “precious Leo.”

Shit.

“Miss Leo arrived earlier,” Mrs. Zhao explained as Jasper forced his heart rate to even out. “I didn’t think you would mind her waiting in the study.”

He came to his senses and started up the stairs. “Of course not.”

Leo stood aside at the landing, inspecting him as he ascended.

She noted the blood on his face but said nothing.

He looked her over too. The blood from her left ear had been cleaned away, her hair re-pinned.

But she still wore the same dress as earlier, and she carried with her the barest odor of gunpowder.

He started toward the study, and she followed.

“How bad was it?” she asked.

“There’s a new door to my office,” he quipped, thinking of the hole, roughly twenty feet in diameter, that had been blown into the corner of the building.

She didn’t laugh. “Was it another suitcase bomb?”

He shook his head. “This one was a clockwork-timed bomb, constructed with dynamite. The damage to the Yard was much more severe this evening.”

“Were people harmed?”

“Luckily, the front offices were already closed for the day, and the men in the other departments were far enough away from the blast to go unharmed.”

“Then how did you get those cuts?” she asked.

“I was at the Rising Sun, near the windows, when the blast occurred.”

“Mrs. Zhao told me you’d gone to the theatre this evening,” Leo said as she entered the study on his heels.

There was evidence that she’d already made herself at home—a fire burning in the coal brazier, the wide, leather swivel chair behind the Inspector’s desk pushed aside, unsolved case files spread out on the blotter, and a crystal cordial glass with a sip of cherry liqueur left at the bottom.

Seeing it all loosened a kink in his stomach that he’d grown accustomed to in her absence.

Hell, he didn’t want to have missed her as much as he had.

Jasper walked toward the decanters and the whisky he’d been dreaming of for the last few hours. “I was at the theatre earlier. Then, I went to the public house,” he explained. He didn’t mention Constance.

“I’ve only come because I need to tell you about what happened during the postmortem examination for Constable Lloyd.” Leo kept her tone direct and businesslike. Jasper swallowed the smoky spirits and grimaced.

“It isn’t my case,” he reminded her.

“As I am very well aware,” she said. “However, there is something more that happened at the morgue, which I couldn’t include in the postmortem report, and Inspector Tomlin will most certainly never listen to me should I try to tell him.”

Jasper fought the sparks of intrigue that she’d successfully stoked. “What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”

“You’re a fellow detective; he must listen to you.”

He chuckled, then took another sip of whisky.

Tomlin was a pompous prig who not only believed the main CID was inferior to the Special Irish Branch but that it was poorly managed.

After today’s fiasco with Leo barging into his interview with Miss Brooks, he would likely dismiss Jasper just as quickly as he would have her.

When he didn’t reply, Leo let out an exasperated sigh and hurried back to the desk.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come,” she huffed as she pulled the folders she’d brought out from the Inspector’s drawer into a messy pile. She stuffed them away again and slammed the drawer shut.

The unsolved cases stored there were ones that had haunted Gregory Reid.

Whenever he started to feel particularly melancholy, he would take them out and read through them again, hoping for some new stroke of inspiration.

No case had been more important to him than the Spencer family murders.

That thick folder, however, was no longer in the desk.

As one of his father’s final requests, Leo had taken it with her to review when she felt ready.

“Leo,” he said softly, but she tossed back the rest of the cherry cordial she and his father had loved, then set the glass down on the desk.

“Don’t concern yourself, Inspector. I thought you might help by passing this information along to Inspector Tomlin, but that’s a mistake I won’t make again.” She started for the door.

“Stop. Leo, please.” He moved to intercept her, but she was too far away. She would reach the door first. “All right, if it is that important, tell me what happened with Lloyd’s postmortem.”

If it would get her to stay, then he would concede. She stilled, though she appeared disgruntled when she turned and crossed her arms over her middle. “If I didn’t think it was important, I wouldn’t have come. There is no other reason I am here.”

He sighed, thinking that she had looked at least a little concerned for him when she’d stood at the top of the stairs, inspecting him for injuries. But now, he kept his mouth shut and gestured with a wave of his hand for her to get on with it.

She did.

“When Constable Lloyd’s family arrived at the morgue, his brother commented that he’d suspected his brother would get himself into trouble. He said John was mixed up with the wrong sort.”

“The wrong sort being Clan na Gael?” Jasper shook his head. “Lloyd wasn’t Irish.”

She let her arms fall back to her sides, and her combative edge softened. “No. I don’t think he was involved with them directly. His brother said that John had recently begun buying new clothing, posh hats, and boots. Things he couldn’t have purchased on a police constable’s wages.”

A man couldn’t purchase much more than necessities on a constable’s wages, Jasper knew.

He had lived sparely for some time, too, until he’d been promoted to detective inspector and received a raise in his income.

It still wouldn’t be enough to keep a house located on as affluent a street as this, nor a housekeeper.

But now wasn’t the time to worry about those things.

“He thought Lloyd was on the take?” Jasper guessed.

“He did. But I also found this.” As she came toward him, Leo reached into her skirt pocket. She opened her palm, revealing what appeared, at first glance, to be a coin. “It was the only item in his pockets. Other than his warrant card.”