Page 6 of Method of Revenge (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #2)

Chapter Six

T he London Polytechnic on Regent Street was not a fashionable institution, unlike Cambridge or Oxford or the University of London. Its students were generally middle or working class, their focus on attaining vocational skills rather than studying philosophy, law, history, languages, and theology. Had Jasper attended university after finishing at Cheltenham Boys School, the Poly would have been a good choice. However, he’d been rubbish at school and restless to do rather than to sit, read, learn, and read some more. So, he’d gone straight into the Met, determined not to cost the Inspector another penny—even though Gregory Reid had claimed to have enough set by to send him.

After the conversation with Mr. Stockton and the revelation of the Charles Street home’s obscenely high property taxes, Jasper could not fathom how his father had been able to afford the tuition for Cheltenham. If he’d been an alms case, the boys at school would have reminded him of it tirelessly, just as they had the two other boys in their year who were there on charity. A part of Jasper now wondered if the Viscount Cowper had not rescinded the whole of his daughter’s dowry. Or if there was some other way his father had held on to a portion of it.

Jasper put off the befuddling thoughts as he entered the Poly. He felt out of place in the halls. A bit long in the tooth too. The students rushing to their next classes appeared youthful and soft, even though they were likely no more than ten years his junior. They had a tender, untested look to them that he’d lost a long time ago, if he’d ever had it at all.

Jasper knew he was rough around the edges. He could be curt and impatient, and he couldn’t place the blame on being a police officer. It was simply how he was built. Leo, of all people, understood that, but she’d still left the house in a huff last evening when he hadn’t thanked her for the lead she’d supplied. He’d tried to ignore it but ended up stewing in a rare bit of guilt for the rest of the night. He should have said something, if not an outright thank you. Her exceptional memory had, once again, provided an avenue of inquiry, one that he wanted to believe would have shown itself during his investigation. However, it wasn’t at all guaranteed. The lead had been helpful, and Jasper knew he had to acknowledge it—and simply grit his teeth and bear her gloating.

With some assistance from a passing student, he found his way to Lawrence Wilkes’s office in the chemistry wing. After knocking, a voice from within called for him to enter. The office was small and cluttered, just as Jasper figured it would be. There were tables holding glass flasks and cylinders, racks and beakers and tubing. A few concoctions bubbling in crucibles above Bunsen burners gave the room a distinct sulfuric odor. A man in a worn tweed suit sat at his desk, busily writing. He was in his early thirties, with black hair swept away from his face and a liberal amount of pomade applied to hold it in place. He wore a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on the tip of his nose, and he kept his eyes aimed at his notebook.

“Yes, what is it?” he asked with the tone of a beleaguered professor.

“Mr. Lawrence Wilkes?” Jasper had his warrant card open and ready when the chemist looked up to see that it wasn’t a student who had entered his office.

He removed his spectacles and stood, wearing an instant expression of resignation. “You’re here to speak about Gabriela.”

Jasper folded the leather case holding his warrant card as the man came forward, gesturing for Jasper to enter and take a seat.

“I thought the police might come. Can I get you anything? Tea?”

“No, thank you, though I do have some questions to put to you.”

“I figured you would. I saw the newspapers this morning. They said she’d been poisoned.” He gestured to his table of chemical mixtures. “I am a chemist, after all, and I had every reason to be furious with her.”

“Were you?” Jasper asked.

Mr. Wilkes frowned. “Yes. At least, I was at first.”

Jasper took a few more steps into the office, still cautious. But this man wasn’t Gabriela’s killer. He was far too welcoming and eager to talk.

“Because she ended your engagement,” Jasper presumed.

Mr. Wilkes nodded, his wounded pride still plain on his face. “I’d been employed by Mr. Henderson for a handful of years, and I’d spent most of that time admiring Gabriela from afar.” He smiled sadly. “It was only when her father promoted me to his lead developer that she noticed me.”

“You proposed?”

“Not right away, of course. We courted for several months before I worked up the courage.”

“You thought she might refuse?”

Mr. Wilkes laughed at the question. “Of course, I did. She was the beautiful daughter of a wealthy businessman, and I was a lowly chemist. We weren’t evenly matched.”

A fleeting thought of Constance momentarily impeded Jasper’s focus. Their match was uneven too. But he suspected that if he were to propose, she would accept. That might have been the reason why he was putting it off.

“But she did accept,” Mr. Wilkes went on. “And we were happy. Until she met him .”

Jasper caught on. “Andrew Carter.”

Wilkes’s face twisted into a knot of enmity. “A friend took her to a party. He was there. He became obsessed with her. Gabriela…she did try to resist him. I could see it. But really, I was no match for him. He was suave, confident, handsome. Dangerous, too, which made him even more alluring, I’m sure. He could offer her so much more.”

And evidently, she’d given in to the temptation.

Wilkes had been leaning against his desk as he gave his account, his shoulders slowly drooping inward in defeat. But then, with a surge of determination, he pushed them back and stood taller. “As much as she hurt me, I didn’t want her dead. If I was going to poison anyone, it would have been that bastard, Andrew Carter.”

The thought had already crossed Jasper’s mind: that the intended victim might not have been Gabriela, but her husband, a man who’d already cultivated an abundance of enemies.

“I have to ask where you were the night before last, around half past ten,” Jasper said.

Wilkes slumped again. “Of course you do. I wasn’t out poisoning anyone. I was at my lodgings at that time. My landlady can attest to it, as can the man who rooms across the landing. He complained about my playing the violin.”

“At ten o’clock at night? I’d complain too,” Jasper replied. Then, “You said you were the lead developer at Henderson & Son. What were you developing?”

The abrupt shift in topic was intentional. The Inspector had once told Jasper when he’d been new to the Met that questioning a suspect was much more effective when you kept spinning the focus from one subject to another. There was more opportunity for them to trip up and fall on their faces.

Wilkes took a moment to adjust. “New pigments for wallpaper. That’s Henderson’s business, as I’m sure you know.”

He did, but only after reading the gossip column Leo had given him the night before. “Were you let go after Gabriela changed her mind about your engagement?”

Wilkes flipped his hand in the air, waving off the question. “No, I left of my own accord after a disagreement with Jack Henderson.”

“What was the disagreement about?”

The chemist went back to his chair and lowered himself into it as if exhausted. “It had nothing to do with Gabriela. It was about pigment. Scheele’s green, specifically.” Wilkes shifted in his seat as though thinking of something he hadn’t considered before. “Oddly enough, the problem with Scheele’s green has to do with arsenic. Jack refused to stop using it for his wallpaper. That specific green pigment is toxic, and some workers in the factory were being exposed to it and becoming ill. Customers too. Not that Jack cared.”

The tingling of a suspicion lit up the base of Jasper’s skull. He paid attention to it. The use of arsenic in things like paints and cleaning liquids, and for pest control was not unheard of, nor were the tales of accidental deaths. But for Henderson’s daughter to die of arsenic poisoning was a link he couldn’t overlook as coincidental.

“After several complaints were made against the company, none of which convinced him to change his mind, I knew I could no longer work for him,” Wilkes finished. “So, here I am.”

Jasper wasn’t aware if this was a step down from being lead developer at a wallpaper manufacturing business, but he did know Wilkes wasn’t lying. He could sniff out a lie like a hound might a fox. At least, he’d always thought he could. Sir Nathaniel Vickers had certainly fooled him. The man had been the Inspector’s closest friend, and yet he’d sent his deputy assistant-cum-henchman, Benjamin Munson, after Jasper and Leo. The man had cornered them in the crypt beneath the morgue, intending to kill them and take the evidence they’d discovered. In the several minutes he’d spent trying to talk Munson back from the ledge followed by the brawl that ensued between them, Jasper experienced a fury unlike anything he’d known before. Sir Nathaniel’s betrayal had cut him bone-deep.

He saw no such fury in Wilkes’s eyes. Only sadness and acceptance.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Wilkes,” he said. But as Jasper walked toward the door, past the bubbling crucibles, he thought of one last question. “Did you have any contact with Gabriela or Andrew Carter after she called things off with you?”

“No.” But he looked pensive, like he was thinking of something else.

“What is it?”

“It’s probably nothing. I’d forgotten about it until now, but after Gabriela chose Carter, a woman came to see me. She worked at Henderson & Son. In fact, she was the one who introduced Gabriela to Carter, and it so happened that he threw her over in favor of my fiancée. She was distraught, and I think she wished to commiserate. But I wasn’t inclined. I wanted nothing more to do with any of them.”

Jasper took out his notebook and pencil. “Her name?”

“Miss Morris. Though, I don’t know her first name. You should ask Carter. You’ve spoken to him too, I hope? The man is slime. A low-life thug.”

His hatred for Andrew Carter turned the tips of his ears red. If anything should happen to the East Rip in the near future, Jasper wouldn’t hesitate to put Lawrence Wilkes on his list of suspects.

“Trust me, I know what he is.” And in just a short while, Jasper would be coming face to face with him for the first time in sixteen years.