Chapter 4
Chapter Four
S itting in the chair behind his desk, Jasper flipped open the silver card case and then shut it again. C.S. Longberger might not be their John Doe, as Leo had so smugly revealed, but if Longberger made this card case, he might recall the person to whom he’d sold it.
That the bag had been found so near to Spring Street, with its most valuable contents still inside, certainly hinted the thief’s interest hadn’t been in the bag. Leo had been coming around to that theory earlier too, when she’d barged into his office, but agreeing with her would only have put more bees into her bonnet. Enough of them nested there already.
Jasper could easily envision the stubborn woman trying to involve herself in an investigation. He couldn’t stop her from visiting with Miss Brooks, the young matron upstairs, in the canteen from time to time, but Leo didn’t belong here in the C.I.D.’s central office, and he wouldn’t encourage her presence. It was as much for her own good as it was for his. The last thing Jasper needed was for gossip to set in that he was going to be just as soft and accommodating toward Leo as Gregory Reid had been.
She didn’t seem to realize that she was an object of fascination at the Yard—and not the good kind. With her family’s infamous, unsolved murders, the Inspector’s unswerving adoration and support, and her position as a morgue assistant, it was never long before new constables on the force learned about Leonora Spencer. Some found themselves sweet on her for a time. Her glossy dark hair, intense hazel eyes, and pretty looks were more than enough to hook a green constable’s attention. But sweet on her or not, the men kept their distance for three reasons: First, she worked with the dead, which was hardly normal for a woman. Second, she was as good as the chief superintendent’s daughter. Which then, thirdly, made her as good as Detective Inspector Jasper Reid’s sister.
The coiling in his stomach was always there whenever that phrasing ran through his mind. Leo was not his sister, and he wasn’t her brother, no matter how much the Inspector might have wished for it, once upon a time. He’d never voiced that wish, but then, he hadn’t needed to.
A perfunctory rap of knuckles on Jasper’s office door preceded Detective Sergeant Roy Lewis, recently promoted into the department and now working under Jasper’s supervision. Lewis was several years older than Jasper, which made for a nice bit of tension.
“Guv, there’s a man here who says his sister was run over by an omnibus yesterday. Wants to know if we’re investigating.”
Jasper scrubbed his bristled jaw. There were few coincidences in life, he had learned, and this man was almost certainly the brother of the woman in the Spring Street Morgue. The one whose necklace had been taken.
“His sister’s name is Barrett?” Jasper asked.
“Aye.” Lewis winced his surprise. “How’d you know?”
“Long story.” Jasper got to his feet and tossed the silver card case toward Lewis. He caught it after an initial fumble. “Find C.S. Longberger, a silversmith in Lambeth, and ask him who he sold that case to. I’m trying to identify a John Doe.”
The detective sergeant looked less than pleased with the order, but he held his tongue.
“And this bloke out here?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Should I send him over to the carriages department to file his complaint?”
“No, I’ll take care of him.”
Jasper ran his palm over his cheek again before taking up his coat and hat. The short bristle made him feel unkempt. While Mrs. Zhao kept his old room prepared, he hadn’t had his shaving kit that morning.
He kept a kit in his office on a small, mirrored stand, but he’d been out straight since arriving at the office. Briefly, he considered letting it grow in. It was the fashion, after all. But a few years ago, when he’d grown a mustache and beard, Leo had teased him, scratching her fingers through it a few times and telling him how much he resembled a grumpy golden walrus. He’d lost patience and finally shaved the bloody thing off. Being likened to a walrus hadn’t been flattering, but mostly, he’d done it to stop her from touching him.
She had no idea what it did to him, and he wasn’t about to tell her.
“You are Miss Barrett’s brother?” he asked the man waiting by the department’s front desk. Constable Wiley looked pleased with himself that he’d at least managed to stop this fellow from barging in.
“I am,” he answered. “Samuel Barrett.”
Jasper held out his hand. “Detective Inspector Reid.”
Mr. Barrett held up his right hand, which was bandaged. “If you don’t mind, I won’t shake. I injured my hand last night while preparing supper. Hannah, she…she always did the cooking.”
His voice pulled low as emotion squeezed his throat. Jasper nodded. “My condolences, Mr. Barrett. Have you been to view her yet?”
The man shook his head and looked somewhat peaky.
“I’ll walk with you then. The morgue’s a short distance from here,” he said, then led the man from the department.
“My sister was probably on her way home from the hospital,” Mr. Barrett said on their way out of the building. “St. Thomas.”
“What would she have been doing there?” Jasper asked.
“She’s a nurse’s assistant.” The use of present tense was normal. He’d not yet become accustomed to thinking of his loved one as gone.
It seemed unlikely his sister would have been wearing a mourning dress while at work. Unless she was accustomed to changing out of her nurse’s uniform before leaving for home.
“Was your sister in mourning, Mr. Barrett?”
The man, who looked to be in his early thirties, waited until they’d crossed the street to answer. “Yes, quite recently. Her fiancé.”
It would explain why the brother wore no black armband, as he might have done had the death been a member of his own family.
“Inspector, I really must ask if the driver will be arrested. I’ve seen the way they charge along their routes, without a care for any pedestrians. Why, just last year, I heard about a young boy getting trampled under the hooves of a driver’s team. His mother was quoted as saying the driver had plenty of time to stop but simply didn’t care to.”
He breathed deeply after his heated comments and, despite the cold January air, took a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, under his hat. He was upset, and rightfully so. His sister, who had apparently still lived with him, had died an awful, likely very painful death.
“I haven’t yet had the chance to look over the constable’s report from the accident, but I will do so before the end of the day. There were bound to be witnesses who can help shed light on what happened.”
The man stopped in his tracks just outside the door to the morgue. “Now hear this, Inspector. I refuse to allow my sister’s death to be swept under a rug and forgotten.”
Jasper understood the man’s frustration. With over five million people in London and fewer than three hundred detectives, too many deaths went unsolved every year. It wasn’t a matter of care; it was a matter of manpower. Namely, the lack of it.
It also wasn’t a secret that the police weren’t held in high regard by those of the poorer classes, whose losses, it was felt, weren’t valued as much as those of the wealthy or the influential. And after the dismissal and reorganization of the entire detective branch a decade ago due to criminal corruption, regaining the public’s trust had been a long slog uphill.
“I am not the sort of man to sweep any death under a rug,” he told Mr. Barrett. “If there is fault to be found with the driver, he will be held accountable.”
Jasper opened the front door to the morgue, setting off the trilling of a brass bell. The lobby was small, with just a few chairs for those waiting to be summoned into the viewing room. Someone long ago, most likely Flora, had thought to hang a painting on each of the walls to cheer up the space, but it was unlikely the attempt ever worked.
Through the closed door leading to the postmortem room, Jasper heard whistling; a jovial sound that had no place within a morgue.
“Give me a moment, Mr. Barrett,” he said, then quickly slipped inside.
The vast room had accumulated three more bodies since the previous night. Claude, with his nearly bald pate circled by neatly combed wisps of gray hair, was standing over one, the sheet drawn back to reveal the man’s open torso. Bowls filled with organs and intestines were within Claude’s reach, and under the autopsy table, a large bucket had amassed a sickening amount of liquid as it dripped through the opening at the base of the angled table.
Jasper averted his eyes. Bodies, he didn’t mind. The innards, however, were a different matter.
In addition to the whistling, there was the steady striking of a typewriter’s keys originating from the back office.
Claude glanced up, and his whistling fell off. His spectacles, thick as bottle glass, enlarged his eyes to an owlish state. “Oh, hello, Inspector. I didn’t hear the bell. How may I be of service?”
The clacking of the typewriter stopped.
“I have Mr. Barrett here to view his sister, Miss Hannah Barrett.”
Leo emerged from the back room, and Jasper couldn’t help but stare—she had the gray tabby cat draped around her shoulders, its tail lolling languidly, and its crystalline green eyes half-closed in contentedness. Jasper shook his head, trying to picture Constance wearing a cat like a mink stole, and failing.
“He is here? May I accompany you in the viewing room, Uncle Claude?” Leo asked, with a touch too much eagerness.
“Not with Tibia on your shoulders,” the assistant coroner replied as he shed his bloodied canvas coat and gloves. He removed his shin-high rubber boots and stepped into a pair of black Prince Alberts before going to a covered body on a wheeled table. Hannah Barrett, Jasper presumed, as Claude unlocked the wheels. He pushed it toward the viewing room, which connected to both the postmortem room and the lobby. To bring the grieving in here, where multiple bodies might be lain out, would be uncouth. In Paris, morgue surgeons might think nothing of laying out bodies in glass windows for passersby to view like carnival show specimens, but at least here in England, there was some respect for the dead.
Leo set her cat onto the floor and picked up a small, covered box, the kind that held personal possessions, to be returned to the deceased’s family.
Jasper held up a hand to stay her. “The man is grieving. Mentioning anything about the missing necklace or the morgue intruder would only upset him more.”
“Thank you for your advice, but I know how to handle family members,” she said. “I’m not going to say a word about either of them.”
She pushed past him and followed her uncle into the viewing room. Jasper gritted his teeth and joined them, opening the door to the lobby to summon Mr. Barrett.
Like most people in the brother’s position, he hesitated before doffing his hat and coming in. His eyes went straight to the sheeted figure. Though Jasper couldn’t read minds, he always saw what he thought might be a small flare of hope, that the one laid beneath the sheet would not be their loved one. That it had all been some terrible mistake. But as usual, when Claude drew back the sheet to reveal the face and neck, Mr. Barrett’s hope scattered, and sorrow flooded in.
“It is Hannah,” he whispered, his fingers gripping his hat’s brim.
He removed his spectacles to press the heel of his palm to his eyes, clearing tears. It would have been better for him to leave the spectacles off. Though his sister’s skull was still misshapen from the killing blows of either the horse’s hooves or the omnibus wheels, the blood and gore had been cleansed away. Her hair had been arranged to help cover the indentations as well.
“I…I suppose I’ll require a funeral service to collect her?”
“That is customary,” Claude answered. “I can recommend a few respectable companies we often work with, if you like. Unless you’d prefer to have her removed to your own residence?”
“No, no. I know of a service, thank you.” Mr. Barrett replaced his spectacles and blinked rapidly to clear away his welling tears.
“We are very sorry for your loss,” Leo said, then presented the small, lidded box to him. “These are your sister’s belongings. Would you be so kind as to confirm the contents for me?”
She removed the lid, and Jasper braced himself for whatever her plan might be. Claude’s forehead wrinkled with curiosity. It wasn’t standard practice to have the family member go through the deceased’s personal possessions at the time of viewing.
With a furtive look at Jasper, she made an unspoken plea for him to stay silent on the matter. He rolled his eyes but said nothing as Mr. Barrett searched through the belongings, albeit distractedly. A gown and underclothes, a beaded purse, a pair of heeled boots, lace gloves, a ruined bonnet, and a woolen shawl, all black as a mark of her mourning, were within the box.
“Yes, these all look to be hers,” he said after a moment.
“We just want to be certain you have all of her belongings,” Leo said, her eyes drifting toward Miss Barrett’s still uncovered face and neck. Trying, no doubt, to draw Mr. Barrett’s attention to the fact that something was missing.
“We try to be as organized as possible here,” Leo went on when the man continued to look helplessly between the contents of the box and his sister. “However, there are times when possessions are left behind or are accidentally misidentified as another person’s property, and then there is nothing to do but to store them in the crypt.”
Mr. Barrett blinked. “The crypt?”
“Yes, the crypt. The cellar here at the morgue, which was originally a church vestry, you see.” Her rambling was wearing on Jasper and visibly concerning Claude. “We hardly ever go down into it—the crypt, I mean—and all the items there are collecting dust, so it would be a pity if any of your sister’s possessions found their way there.” Again, her attention drifted toward Miss Barrett’s bare neck.
Jasper had endured enough. “Thank you, Mr. Barrett. As I said before, I will go through the report filed by the constable who attended the scene. I’ll be in touch.”
Claude gestured toward the exit into the lobby and then stepped out with him. He shut the door, and Jasper turned to Leo.
“What was that ridiculous charade?”
She pulled the sheet back up over Miss Barrett’s face. “I wanted to see if he realized the necklace was missing, and if so, what his reaction would be.”
“Anger, I imagine. Perhaps he would even accuse someone in this morgue of stealing it.”
“But I keep thinking,” she went on, returning to the postmortem room and ignoring his comment. “What if there is something important about it? The writing on the paper must be significant. What if the intruder broke in here, not for the bag but for the necklace?”
“Then why ask for the bag?”
“I’m not sure, maybe as a decoy. He clearly didn’t want it,” she replied as she walked to the back office. The door to the alley running behind the morgue was ajar, allowing in fresh, if chilled, air.
Jasper had already considered the same scenario, though he didn’t plan to admit it to her.
“If Mr. Barrett asks about the necklace at a later point, you can direct him to me. Until then, kindly allow the man to bury his sister in peace. You’re not involved in this case, Leo.”
She yanked the paper in the typewriter free and slapped it onto the desk, scattering a few other papers in the process. “I think you are forgetting that I am the one who was put into a closet at the point of a knife.”
“I think perhaps you’re forgetting that I am the detective here, not you,” he retorted, his temper sparking. He swallowed an order for her to stay out of it. Telling her that would only inspire more hostility. Instead, he exhaled. “I haven’t forgotten you were in danger.”
Her hard glare softened into one of mere annoyance. She collected the scattered papers, her temper cooling. “Very well, Inspector Reid.”
He cocked his head. “Why do you sound teasing when you address me as Inspector?”
She balked. “I do not.”
“You do.” And it pricked just under his skin too.
Contrition wasn’t one of Leo’s common expressions, but as she clasped her hands in front of her, it spread across her face. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound mocking. I suppose I’m just not accustomed yet to calling you Inspector .”
He nodded, his pulse evening out. “To be honest, I’m not entirely accustomed to it either.”
There had never been any doubt in his mind that he wanted to join the Met and follow in Gregory Reid’s footsteps. But it wasn’t until he’d been promoted to detective inspector that he recognized the weight of having the same surname.
After an awkward beat of quiet, Leo said, “I’m going to pay the Inspector a visit tonight. Will you be there?”
Jasper grimaced. “No. I have a dinner with Miss Hayes.” He’d sent a messenger first thing that morning to her boardinghouse with the invitation. He needed to make up for the previous evening.
“Oh, yes, of course.” Leo pressed her lips into a thin line, the way she usually did whenever Constance’s name was mentioned. The two had met just twice, and they were as different as night and day. Leo thought Constance too high in the instep, and Constance thought Leo peculiar and her work at the morgue disturbing.
“He might not be himself tonight,” Jasper said. “You know what day is approaching.”
“Yes, I am aware of the date,” she said, again peeved. She crossed her arms at her waist and looked toward the open door to the alley.
Guilt flushed through Jasper’s veins. This time of year was difficult for her too. In just a few weeks, her own dreaded anniversary would arrive. And for the first time, the Inspector might not be there for it.