Page 4 of Method of Revenge (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #2)

Chapter Four

T he inside of Eddie Bloom’s club on Striker’s Wharf gave off a different atmosphere during the day than it did at night. Jasper and Detective Sergeant Roy Lewis entered the club after showing their warrant cards to the doorman, a meaty fellow with forearms the circumference of Jasper’s thighs. Without the brume of cigar and cigarette smoke, the riotous hum of voices and music, and the gasoliers casting everything in a hazy golden glow, Striker’s had a dejected, nearly forgotten quality to it.

Chairs had been flipped up and hung on the edges of the tables, but there were several men at the bar, Eddie Bloom among them. Bloom’s boys ran rackets all along the Lambeth wharves, mostly in stolen goods, protection, and of course, women. They weren’t as well known for violence as the East Rips were, but they were still criminals.

Bloom and his men turned their attention toward Jasper and Lewis as they approached the bar. Bloom raked them with an assessing gaze. Although there was no reason for the club owner to recognize him as anyone other than an irksome police inspector, a part of Jasper always tensed when meeting with someone from London’s underbelly.

Before his death, Gregory Reid confessed that shortly after taking Jasper in off the streets, a woman came to him at Scotland Yard. She was looking for her young nephew, and when she’d shown the Inspector a daguerreotype, he’d recognized the street ruffian living under his own roof. After some consideration, he’d made a choice. One that had weighed heavily on him for the rest of his life. He’d transferred Jasper’s old, ratty clothes, including the rosary his grandmother had given him, to the dead body of a boy roughly the same age that had been fished out of the Thames. The bloated remains had been impossible for Jasper’s aunt, Myra, to identify, but she’d recognized the rosary. Myra had left Scotland Yard believing her nephew to be dead.

The Inspector explained that he’d known who Myra’s husband was— what he was—and that he hadn’t wanted to send Jasper back to him. He’d asked for Jasper’s forgiveness, but there had been nothing to forgive. Jasper had left his previous life willingly, for damn good reasons—his uncle was only one of them—and Gregory Reid had simply helped him in his endeavor.

Honestly, the Inspector’s confession lifted a weight of worry from his shoulders. After sixteen years spent wondering and worrying that someday, someone might pass him on the street and recognize him, he now knew there was nothing to fear. Everyone from his past believed he was dead.

And yet, there was still a strain of guilt Jasper felt about his former life. The Inspector had not understood everything, as he’d thought he had. There were still secrets Jasper clung to. Secrets that could sink him, even now.

He showed his warrant card to Eddie Bloom. “Detective Inspector Reid, and Detective Sergeant Lewis.”

“I remember you, copper.” Bloom leaned an elbow on the bar as he sat on a tall stool. He looked entirely at ease as his sharp gaze evaluated Lewis in a brief sweep. “Suppose you’re here about last evening’s sorry event.”

The lines around Bloom’s eyes and the barest creases bracketing his mouth put him in his mid- to late forties, but his form was athletic and trim. Without a single gray strand in his boot-black hair, he could have passed for a man in his early thirties. The other men on the stools surrounding him wore cheap suits and unfriendly glowers. The bartender wiping down glasses behind the bar looked on with interest, his expression one of marked incredulity. As if to say, Can you imagine the cheek of these two coppers coming in here?

“The sorry event is now a murder investigation. We have some questions for you and your staff,” Jasper replied, tucking his warrant card away. “Is the waiter who served the Carters here?”

Bloom jerked his chin, and the bartender took it as an order. He went through a door into a back room.

“It’s a real shame,” Bloom said, his tone ingenuine. “I heard they was newlyweds.”

Jasper ignored the commentary. “What was a Carter doing at your club, Mr. Bloom?”

“You’d have to ask him,” he replied blithely.

“I’m asking you.”

Bloom pretended to laugh, but the sound broke apart quickly. “And I’m telling you, you’ll have to ask him. I don’t pry into my patrons’ lives.”

“Not even when they’re a known member of the East Rips?” Lewis asked. Bloom didn’t so much as glance toward the detective sergeant. Apparently, he didn’t consider Lewis to be worth it.

“I don’t have any barney with the East Rips, or with any other party, so long as they keep their business off my territory,” he told Jasper instead. “I made that clear to Mr. Carter last night when he put questions to me and my staff.”

It wasn’t unexpected that Andrew Carter had already interrogated Bloom. In fact, he’d probably done a better job of it than the constables from L Division.

Jasper looked around the club. His eyes went directly to the table across the dance floor where he’d seen Leo and Miss Brooks in January with PC Drake and PC Lloyd. He wondered if that had been their table last night as well. The dance floor had a high polish to it, evidence that it had been swept and cleaned. Wherever Mrs. Carter had fallen and died, that area of the floor had been tidied. He cut his attention back to Bloom when the bartender returned, ushering in a nervous-looking young man.

“Harry, Scotland Yard has sent their finest to inquire about the poor lady from last night,” Bloom said, his sarcasm thick. “Answer whatever questions they have.”

The waiter, Harry, nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously.

“You served the Carters’ table last night?” Jasper asked. The waiter nodded again, his complexion pallid. He was either shaken up by the death or scared of Bloom. Probably both.

“What did she drink?” he asked next.

“A glass of wine, sir. Spanish claret.”

“And her husband, what about him?”

Harry blinked but knew the information right off. “Whisky sour.”

“You have a good memory,” Jasper said.

The waiter huffed a shaky laugh. “Have to get the orders right, sir. Besides, it was a Carter. You pay attention when it’s a Carter.”

Bloom cleared his throat, and the waiter ducked his head.

“So then, just the two drinks?” Lewis asked.

Roy Lewis was a few years older than Jasper and had joined the force as a recruit shortly after he had. If he’d taken issue with Jasper’s promotion to detective inspector while he remained a detective sergeant, he’d never let on about it. Still, Jasper was careful not to rub him the wrong way and didn’t mind him cutting in with questions. Saying less and listening more was often more effective than dominating the conversation anyhow.

“That’s right,” Harry replied. “Although, there was a glass on the table when I took the Carters’ orders. I’d cleared the table after the people before them left, so I didn’t know what it was doing there. Figured someone set it down without thinking. I offered to take it away, but Mr. Carter told me to leave it.”

“Could another waiter have delivered it to them before you got there?” Lewis asked.

“Not if he wanted to keep his job,” Bloom answered. “One waiter to a table. My guests want to know who to signal for another drink. That table was Harry’s and his alone.”

Jasper changed tack. “You keep an eye on your assigned tables, I presume?” When the waiter nodded, he continued, “Who else did you see with the Carters last night?”

Jasper already knew from Leo that Andrew Carter had stepped away for a short while, and a woman in a dark, hooded cloak had joined Mrs. Carter. He wanted to check the veracity of Harry’s answers. The young man proved to be reliable, explaining that the husband had left for a spell, and that shortly afterward, a woman in a cloak with the hood pulled up took the seat next to Mrs. Carter.

“Did you approach the table to take the woman’s order?”

He grimaced. “No, I was serving another table, and before I had the chance, Mrs. Carter was…well, she was sick on the floor.”

Lewis was rapidly jotting down the statement, his forehead creased in disappointment. So far, they hadn’t learned much more than what Leo had provided in her statement.

“Did you see the woman in the cloak after that?” Lewis asked.

Harry shook his head.

“Who cleared the glasses from the table?” Jasper asked. “I know it wasn’t the constables who arrived at the scene, as none of the glasses were taken in for testing. But we believe Mrs. Carter consumed a drink laced with arsenic. Their disappearance during all the commotion is suspicious.”

Harry blushed guiltily, and Bloom held up his palms. “Honest mistake, Inspector. The lad was only trying to do his job.”

“I’m sure he was,” Jasper replied, thinking it likely the waiter had rushed to follow Bloom’s orders. The club owner was no innocent, and according to Leo’s typed witness statement, which he’d read on the carriage ride across the river, she’d announced to Bloom that it looked like Mrs. Carter had been poisoned. Traces of arsenic found in a glass served at Striker’s Wharf would be bad for business. The man’s ability to think only of shielding himself from police scrutiny, even as a young woman lay dead on the floor of his club, was inexcusable.

“I’m going to need to speak to all your staff, Mr. Bloom. Even the ones not present last night. Names and addresses, if you will,” Jasper said. Harry might have been the Carters’ waiter, but that didn’t mean someone else hadn’t interfered.

“I’ll be sure to get you that list right away, Inspector,” he replied, his cynicism thick.

“See that you do by the end of the day. And how’s your licensing, Bloom?” He would have taken great pleasure in being able to shut this place down, if only for a little while.

The proprietor sniffed and rubbed his thumb against his cheek. “All up-to-date and aboveboard.”

“I’ll be checking with the magistrate on that,” Jasper said, though admittedly, to do so would be churlish. He just wished the trip to the wharves had turned up more leads. And now, he had to go visit the grieving husband, Andrew Carter.

“You do that, Inspector,” Bloom said. Then, standing from his stool, he added, “And so’s you know, you’re welcome back here at my place any time. I know I said coppers bring down the mood that last time you were in, but so long as you don’t arrest nobody, you’ll be fine as peach fuzz. Bring along your pretty little thing too.”

The pretty little thing that Bloom remembered was Miss Constance Hayes, the young woman Jasper had been courting since the autumn. Constance had brought Jasper to the club without knowing it was operated by a criminal. He’d met her through his friend, Oliver Hayes, a viscount Jasper had once arrested for drunk and disorderly, and whom he’d summarily clocked in the chin when the young lord tried to resist, claiming his status as a lord protected him from arrest. Once sober, Oliver’s entitled attitude vanished, and he’d admired Jasper for his powerful right hook.

He didn’t accept Bloom’s offer, nor did Jasper reject it. It would be better to simply leave. Anyhow, he needed to get to Carter’s address in Stepney. He thanked Bloom for his time, and he and Lewis turned for the door.

“You should bring along Miss Spencer too.”

The muscles along his spine tensed, and Jasper stopped. “You are acquainted with Miss Spencer?”

That Eddie Bloom knew her by name irked him. The criminal seemed to recognize it.

“Sure. Seen her here from time to time. And when a lady works in a deadhouse, people are bound to whisper,” he replied.

Jasper’s temper spiked. “How do you know where she works?”

“Guv,” Lewis said, attempting to redirect him toward the exit.

Bloom was baiting him, pure and simple. And yet, Jasper needed an answer.

“You mean to say you haven’t seen it yet?” Bloom asked, all too pleased with himself. He snapped his fingers again. “Harry, get me that paper,” he said, directing the waiter to the other end of the bar.

Jasper shifted his jaw in irritation as the waiter fetched it.

“Give it to the Inspector,” Bloom instructed.

The waiter handed it over— The Illustrated Police News . Jasper had not yet seen this week’s edition. As usual, there were numerous elaborate illustrations on the front page, all of them sensational and melodramatic. Police constables were shown placing a scantily dressed woman in handcuffs; a couple was drawn next to the small coffin of a child, the woman on her knees in anguish while the man bowed his head, his hat held to his heart; and a pair of thieves were shown smashing a shop window. The popular weekly paper was little more than shocking entertainment.

Jasper held it up. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Page three,” Bloom answered, his mouth curling into a smirk.

Grudgingly, Jasper flipped to that page—and saw it.

In the lower left-hand corner, a cameo-shaped illustration all but stopped his pulse. It was of a young woman in a gown of mourning black, standing in a deadhouse next to sheeted corpses. Her dark hair was down around her shoulders in a fashion she never wore, but the artist had captured most of Leonora Spencer’s facial features well. The salacious headline underneath read: Lady deadhouse worker knows all about murder!

Jasper gripped the paper’s edges, blood hammering in his ears as he scanned the first few lines of the short article. It seemed to be a profile on Leo, revealing that she worked in a deadhouse with her uncle, who’d taken her in after she’d been orphaned as a child. Her family had been brutally murdered “ right before her eyes ,” according to the author, while she was left alive “ for mysterious reasons .” And now, she worked with dead bodies, “ haunted by the Grim Reaper himself, ” while also being known to assist Scotland Yard in the solving of a murder or two.

Jasper searched for the name of the reporter, but the piece wasn’t attributed to anyone. Who the bloody hell had written this? And how had the illustrator known so well what Leo looked like? He checked the date. It had been printed just yesterday.

“It seems Miss Spencer’s making a name for herself,” Bloom said. “Sad story about her family though. I’d nearly forgotten all about it.”

Jasper slapped the paper onto the bar. “What do you know of it?”

“Only what everyone else who was around back then knows,” he answered, unconcerned. “A terrible thing. But it’s good to see she’s grown up into a fine young woman. Safe and sound.”

Jasper’s pulse had steadily increased as Bloom was speaking. “This article is rubbish. Unless there is something more you want to say about Miss Spencer, I think we are done here.”

Bloom only smiled, seemingly pleased to be working his way under Jasper’s skin. He’d wanted a reaction. Maybe a violent one. Any reason to sic his thugs on the two Scotland Yard officers. When Bloom spoke next, it took every ounce of Jasper’s self-control not to give it to him.

“There is, in fact. I hear you and the lady are like family,” he said. “I’m a gentleman. Old-fashioned like. Thought I’d check with you first before inviting her for a dance.”

A tight grin stretched across Jasper’s face. The bastard had no intention of asking Leo for a dance. He was just playing with him like a cat with a mouse.

Jasper sure as hell wasn’t letting him have this round.

“Ask the lady yourself,” he said as he gave his back to Bloom and walked toward the door. “She can reject you all on her own.”