Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
T he photographs on the page turned blurry, and Jasper dug his knuckles into his eyes to clear them. He’d been looking through the pile of convict albums from Wandsworth Prison since coming into the office at dawn. The night before, Lewis had gone through just one of the thick prison albums from the early 1870s before Jasper found him asleep with his cheek propped in his hand. He’d sent him home, and Jasper had gone back to his own rooms on Glasshouse Street to read the file on Hannah Barrett’s accident.
Afterward, frustration kept him from sleeping well. Constable Richard Carey had written the report, in which he’d interviewed the omnibus driver, who claimed the woman had jumped in front of his team of horses. He hadn’t had time to pull them to a stop before she’d fallen under their hooves. However, a passenger seated high on the roof’s knifeboard had been recorded as saying that the woman had come toward the street at a run and that a man seemed to be chasing her. The only description of this man had been “rough, uncouth, patched sack coat, no hat, balding.” The morgue intruder had been found in a patched sack coat, though to be sure, thousands of other men in London owned the like. And the intruder had a widow’s peak, which could have been confused with “balding” in the report.
Constable Carey cited carelessness on the victim’s part as the reason for the accident, writing nothing more about the man whom the witness on the knifeboard had seen. It was lazy policework, and it would have to be remedied.
Leo’s theory that the intruder had been there and witnessed Miss Barrett’s death had kept Jasper restless into the early morning hours. The report noted that passengers helped pull the poor woman from underneath the chassis, but she’d already perished. With so many lookers-on, the intruder wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere near her—until, perhaps, she was alone at the nearest city morgue.
The intruder might have hung about, waiting for his opportunity. Then, after seeing the coroner leave, decided to go in. He would not have expected to find a young lady there doing the work of a coroner.
A single knock on his office door preceded Lewis, who entered without waiting for Jasper to respond. “Got it, guv,” he said triumphantly, holding up a photograph. “Our victim is one Clarence Stillman.”
Jasper had started to stand from his seat, but at the name, his knees locked. “Stillman?”
Lewis handed him the photograph. “You’ve heard of him?”
Jasper stared at the man in the photograph, his oddly cloudy eyes notable in the black and white image. It was indeed their gunshot victim from last night. Jasper hadn’t recognized him then and still didn’t.
“I might have, but I’m not sure in what capacity,” he answered.
“He’s connected to the East Rips.”
Slowly, Jasper lowered the photograph to his desk. His ears began to chime. Stillman. He’d thought the name had been familiar.
“Spent three years in Wandsworth for accessory to murder,” Lewis went on to say. “His file is what you’d expect it to be. Petty theft. Assault. Drunk and disorderly. Looks like he was some kind of East Rips underling, recruited out of Liverpool. Hired muscle. That sort of thing. No connection to the John Doe whose bag he stole. The silversmith, Longberger, remembered making that card case for a Mr. George Kendall. I ran the name down. He’s been missing for a few days. Looks like Kendall is our John Doe after all.”
Lewis handed him the thick file. Jasper held it without opening the cover.
“Good work.”
The moment demanded more of a response, but his mind had muddled at the mention of the East Rips. He’d known a position in the C.I.D. might someday lead to an investigation dealing with the powerful gang run by the Carter family, whose territory encompassed the East End from the St. Katharine and London Docks to Whitechapel Road. He hadn’t thought it would happen so quickly though.
“Stillman was released last month, given a ticket-of-leave,” Lewis said, oblivious to the uptick in Jasper’s pulse. Any time the name Carter or the East Rips entered a conversation, it was an untamable reaction.
“And he was already back to thieving,” Jasper said, getting on with it. He took a second look at the photograph. No. Stillman wasn’t a familiar face. Then again, it had been many years since Jasper had come off the streets.
“He might have fallen back in with the East Rips,” Lewis suggested. “Or maybe one of their enemy gangs. The Angels out of Spitalfields are recruiting hard.”
It seemed the most likely conclusion. The East Rips had strengthened over the last five or so years, ever since their original leader, Patrick Carter, died. His oldest son, Sean, took his place. Since then, their operations had expanded. Rumor was that, in addition to the usual protection rackets and prostitution rings, the Carters were making political connections.
“So,” Lewis said after Jasper had stayed uncharacteristically quiet. “Are we investigating?”
The detective sergeant’s true question was clear: He wanted to know if they were going to waste police time and resources on investigating what would almost certainly amount to a gang murder. Along with the Spitalfields Angels, the Grims out of Stepney were the East Rips’ known enemies. One of them would likely be tagged with the blame.
Jasper looked at the piles of papers on his desk; robberies, disappearances, and a suspicious death had started to languish as leads dried up. Investigating Clarence Stillman’s murder would cause those cases to further wither on the vine. Besides, who cared if an East Rip had been wiped from the earth? Good riddance, most would say.
But then, there was the missing necklace. That and the inexplicable revelation that Miss Barrett had been running toward the street. Possibly being chased by Stillman. Most importantly, however, there was Gregory Reid. He would never approve of Jasper closing a case when he still had a shadow of doubt.
“Find a last known address for Stillman in his convict record,” Jasper told Lewis. “We’ll inform his next of kin and begin there.”
If he had one, Lewis kept his opinion to himself and left. A bare second before the door closed behind him, Constable Wiley began to shout, “You need permission, Miss Spencer! You cannot push your way in!”
Jasper opened the door just in time for Leo to come sweeping inside, her pace hurried to outstrip Wiley, who was once again chasing after her, red-cheeked. Jasper held up his hand to stop him from crossing the threshold. “It’s fine, constable, thank you.” He shut the door before Wiley could complain.
Leo struggled to mask a small grin of victory as she took off her gloves. He shook his head on his way back to his desk. “You’re a menace.”
She seemed to take it as a compliment, a grin breaking freely over her lips. But then, it disappeared. “I’ve come to let you know the postmortem on the intruder will be delayed.”
He straightened. “Why? What’s happened?”
Leo fiddled with her gloves and kept her eyes from meeting his. “It’s Aunt Flora. She needed my uncle today.”
Jasper frowned. “I thought a nurse came to the house to care for her.”
“Mrs. Shaw gave her notice, effective immediately.” She was still avoiding his eyes.
“I see,” he murmured. “Is there a reason you couldn’t stay with her while Claude performed the postmortem?”
The coroner’s report would surely declare that cause of death was a gunshot wound. But it would be nice to have the report to give to Chief Inspector Coughlan when he asked for it.
Leo’s gaze finally shot to his, full of defiance. “You know she doesn’t like me. And she was worse today. She was afraid of me, screaming nonsense when I tried to take her hand.”
“ Afraid ? Why?” Leo might have been a little odd, but she wasn’t frightening in the least.
Her eyes skated away from his again. “It doesn’t matter. She’s losing her mind and saying things that…well, things I hope she doesn’t mean.”
He was curious as to what had been said. Leo’s aunt had always been kind to him, but he knew that warmness had not been extended toward her own niece. He suspected Flora resented having to take in a child—a sentiment Claude had not shared.
“Fine,” Jasper said, nodding. “But I need that postmortem done first thing tomorrow.”
“It will be.”
He cocked his head. “And not by you.”
She soured, her hands clenching around her gloves. “Claude may have taught me some things, but I don’t have the skill to do a postmortem examination entirely on my own. Nor would I try.”
He wasn’t sure he believed her but let it rest. Standing next to his desk, Leo caught sight of the photograph of Clarence Stillman. She snapped it up.
“You’ve found him.”
Jasper came around the desk and took it from her. No sooner had he emptied her hand than she filled it again, this time with Stillman’s convict file. Leo whirled away, behind the desk as she opened it.
“Clarence Stillman.”
“That is police property,” Jasper said, following her. She tried outstripping him as she had Wiley, but his office was only so big. He cornered her against the bookshelves and took the file from her. She’d already seen the top page, however, and so it would be imprinted onto her brain. All she needed to do was look at something for a few seconds, and she was able to picture it again in perfect detail with her circus-trick memory.
“He was an East Rip?” she said with visible awe, her back still against the shelves. Jasper loomed over her, irritated. He held the file up.
“This is not meant for your eyes. Or that bloody memory of yours.”
“Why would an East Rip want to steal a worthless locket from Miss Barrett?” she asked.
Jasper tossed the file back onto his desk. “Before you try to take it again, I’ll just tell you what is in there: He was released from a three-year stint at Wandsworth in December. He has a history of thievery and violence, and with his connection to the East Rips, it isn’t surprising he ended up shot to death.”
“But if he didn’t have the locket on his person, and if he couldn’t have fenced it on his way to Duck Island, then it stands to reason the person who killed him took it.”
“For the last time, Leo, we have no proof he even stole the locket from Miss Barrett’s corpse.”
She threw up her hands, as exasperated with him as he was with her. “I know that he did, proof or no proof. Miss Barrett’s death and Clarence Stillman’s murder are connected. I can feel it.”
Jasper bit his tongue against imploring her, once again, to leave the investigating to him. He’d have had better luck telling a goat to stop bleating.
“And you should also be aware that there is something suspicious about Miss Barrett’s dead fiancé,” Leo added.
He held still, his mind spinning back to his conversation with Mr. Barrett on the way to the morgue the previous day. The man had revealed his sister had been mourning her fiancé, but Jasper had not shared as much with Leo.
“How did you know about the fiancé?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You knew about him? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because he had nothing to do with her accident.” But then, he reconsidered. “How is he suspicious? And how did you learn of him to begin with?”
Digging around on her own could have been dangerous, not that it would have stopped her.
“On top of dying just a few days before Miss Barrett, it appears she was extremely secretive about who he was with her fellow nurses at St. Thomas. She didn’t even reveal to them how he’d died.”
“You went to the hospital?” Jasper recalled the letter of character listed among her possessions in the morgue register.
“I did, and I learned that Mr. Barrett and his sister had been in some disagreement over her mysterious fiancé. They were at odds before her death, according to a nurse there.”
The more Leo said, the more his muscles hardened with irritation. She’d investigated on her own. The untrained, bullheaded woman had followed a lead without his permission or knowledge—and instead of turning up something worthless, she’d brought him something that lit his interest like a lucifer match.
He didn’t want to resent her, but she was making it damn difficult.
“Furthermore, she’d worn the locket for a long time,” Leo went on, oblivious to his surly mood. “Which means Mr. Barrett should have noticed it missing.”
Jasper held up a hand. “People who are in shock aren’t always observant.”
“But he should have noticed it missing by now,” she pressed. “Clarence Stillman went to great lengths to take her necklace. You know it’s true.”
Christ . Yes, he did. Especially now that he’d read the constable’s report and knew she’d been running toward the street, possibly because she was being chased.
He sighed. “You said her fiancé died just a few days before her accident?”
Asking Mr. Barrett at the time for more details on the fiancé’s death hadn’t crossed his mind. But now, after learning about the animosity between brother and sister, Jasper needed to find them out.
“Yes, isn’t that a bit odd? And I keep thinking of the writing on the folded piece of paper inside the locket: Strange Nun B17 R4 ,” Leo recounted. “What if it has some importance?”
“I can’t think of how it would,” Jasper replied, raking his hand through his already ruffled hair. But if Stillman was the one who chased Miss Barrett into the street, then came to the morgue to steal the locket, it stood to reason the paper was important. The lock of hair inside surely couldn’t be, and the locket itself wasn’t worth the risk.
“All right,” he said, still inflamed. “I will pay Mr. Barrett a call.”
“Right now?” Leo started for the door. “I’ll come with you.”
He caught her arm. “On what grounds?”
She cocked her head and pressed her lips thin. “On the grounds that you wouldn’t have wanted to speak to him if not for what I learned at the hospital.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised by her tenacity. She was more like Gregory Reid than she knew.
“That’s not necessarily true,” he replied. “I told Mr. Barrett that I’d look at the accident report, and I have.”
Interest brightened her eyes. “And?”
Jasper sighed and grabbed the photo of Clarence Stillman from his desk. “And there is a witness to Miss Barrett’s death that I would very much like to speak to.”
She bit her bottom lip and grinned hopefully. The incessant gnat.
“If I don’t take you, you’re just going to turn up at Mr. Barrett’s on your own, aren’t you?” he asked as he plucked down his coat and hat from the stand next to the door.
“Excellent foresight, inspector,” she said with a prim smile.