Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
J asper and Lewis eyed the narrow lane ahead. The driver of their cab had gone as far as Hanbury Street before bringing his horses to a stop. He wouldn’t be going any further. Too bloody dangerous , he’d said. Then, with a shake of his head, as if the two coppers were fools, he left them to go the rest of the way on foot.
This was a part of London Jasper had been all too happy to forget existed. The squeeze of the tenement buildings, the center gutters high with refuse from horses and humans alike, the laundry strung on lines overhead that even after washing still appeared stained and soiled. Beggars, children, and prostitutes all mixed in with costermongers, newspaper hawkers, and open-air butchers. The warrens were rife with criminals, and Jasper and Lewis were sorely out of place here.
They received suspicious looks as they walked toward Great Pearl Street. Lewis’s search through the city directory for Mary Stillman had turned up the address, and Jasper could only hope she would be at home. Now, as they reached their destination, vagrants skulked about the tapered backstreet, staring with unmasked menace.
“You sure about this, guv?” Lewis murmured as they entered, trying to appear confident.
“No,” Jasper answered. “We have our sidearms. Be vigilant, detective.”
Metropolitan officers weren’t routinely issued firearms; the truncheon was generally effective enough. But detectives could elect to carry a weapon, and Jasper knew too well the realities of the East End to have declined the offer.
A layer of grime nearly blackened the wooden shingle hanging above No. 10. The door was propped open, and he and Lewis entered to find a musty, dark space. Bare-board steps led to another upstairs hall. The floor groaned under Jasper’s boots, the wood soft. A pram had been left outside a closed door, and with mounting concern and disgust, Jasper saw a fussing baby within it. The poorly swaddled child thrashed its skinny arms and legs, its red face pinched in distress. With startling care, Lewis reached for the blanket the child had kicked off and covered him again.
“My missus would froth at the bit if she saw this,” he said.
The detective sergeant rarely mentioned his wife and young sons. Lewis had only married after joining the force as a constable, as married men with more than two children were not accepted as recruits. Some officers married after spending a few years on the force, but many more didn’t. Jasper had never given marriage much thought…until Constance. He still avoided thinking of it, mostly. The announcement of her parents’ upcoming visit to London, however, had put a rock in his gut.
The pram had been parked outside the room they wanted, and inside, a pair of voices were raised in a quarrel. Jasper brought down his fist on the door. The shouting ceased. The door swung open, revealing a glaring man equal to Jasper’s height though double his weight.
“Wot d’yer want?” He was a surly-looking bloke. Several of his teeth were missing from among the other rotten ones, and his head was shaved nearly clean. He had a faded bruise under one eye from a recent fistfight.
Jasper flashed his warrant card. “Detective Inspector Reid and Detective Sergeant Lewis from Scotland Yard. Is this Mary Stillman’s residence?”
If possible, the man’s countenance grew even more ominous. “Wot d’yer want wiv ‘er?”
Jasper kept his expression flat. “I’d like to inform her that her husband is dead.”
A high squeal came from behind the burly man, and a second later, a woman pushed her way forward. Face sallow, eyes sunken, she had a haunted, nearly starved look about her.
“Clarence is dead?”
Jasper couldn’t tell if her tone was one of hope or dread. If the baby in the pram belonged to her, it couldn’t be Stillman’s, not if he’d been in prison for the last three years.
“He is,” he answered, “and I’d like to know the last time you saw him.”
The bruiser shoved Mrs. Stillman from the doorway. “She’s got nuffink to say to yer mutton shunters.”
Jasper paid no attention to the insult but instead noticed that when the man had pushed her back from the door, his rolled sleeve lifted, exposing more of his wrist. A prison tattoo much like Clarence Stillman’s flashed into view.
“Mrs. Stillman,” Jasper said, addressing her even though she was hidden behind the man. “Your husband was murdered. Shot.”
She barged in front again, her coloring even starker. “Shot? When? ‘Oo did it?”
“I’m willing to share what I know, but I’ll need some answers from you as well.” Jasper lifted his eyes to the man. “And possibly from you. I see you’ve spent some time inside Wandsworth.”
He tugged down his sleeve. “Wot of it?”
“What is your name?” Jasper asked.
When he hesitated, Lewis said, “You might as well tell us. You’re in the prisoner directory anyhow.”
“And I’m willing to bet you and Clarence did your time together,” Jasper said. “But you were released first and made sure to check in on his wife.”
“Considerate,” Lewis said, with a wry nod.
“Angelic,” Jasper added.
“His name’s Tommy Welch,” Mrs. Stillman said with a huff. “Now tell me ‘oo did in Clarence.”
From Welch’s glare directed toward her, Jasper knew it was his real name. It wasn’t familiar, but he’d be sure to check through his convict record.
“This your baby?” Lewis gestured to the child kicking up a wild fuss again. It grated on Jasper’s ears and his patience. Mrs. Stillman huffed in vexation and scooped up the baby. She bounced the sad thing roughly on her hip as she waited for Jasper to answer her question. They remained in the hall; it was clear they weren’t to be invited in. From what he could see of the room from the doorway, it was a small mercy.
“We’re looking for his killer, Mrs. Stillman, but we’re curious about the people he’d been associating with since his release from prison.”
“People from his past, maybe,” Lewis said. “We know he was an East Rip.”
“ Were ,” she said, emphasizing the past tense. “He broke wiv ’em when they left ‘im ter be caught by the bloomin’ bobbies. It weren’t ‘im ‘oo killed that lady.”
“No, he only stood by and watched it happen,” Lewis scoffed.
According to the arrest record, Clarence Stillman and another East Rip had been at a German bakery, collecting for one of the gang’s protection rackets when the bakery owner—who was most certainly accepting this protection against his will—came up short with his monthly payment. When they started beating him, the baker’s wife stepped in to stop it, and she ended up bludgeoned to death. Witnesses outside the shop saw it all and named the other man as the killer, but Stillman had been there.
“Did you see him after he was released from prison?” Jasper asked.
She shrugged. “Once. But when ‘e seen wee Robbie,” she indicated the baby, “Clarence made ‘imself scarce.”
Welch stood with his arms crossed, his grimace fixed. Jasper peered at the baby again. There was no question of paternity there. Robbie had been cursed with Welch’s curiously short forehead and heavy brow.
“And you, Welch, did you see Stillman?”
“Sure.”
“I imagine he was none too pleased to see you’d taken up with his wife,” Lewis commented, the statement purposely leading.
Welch only shrugged. He seemed to take pleasure in answering vaguely.
“We believe someone hired your husband for a housebreaking and after seeing the job through, he was killed. I want to know who hired him.” Jasper’s statement was met with a blank stare from Mrs. Stillman and an unchanged grimace from Welch.
“I don’t know a ‘fink about that,” she said. “When ‘e found Tommy and me, right, ‘e went off ‘is top. Them two were too busy murdering each uvver ter say a word about a job.”
“You didn’t see him after that?” Lewis asked.
Mrs. Stillman insisted she hadn’t, and her expression was too open to be lying. Welch’s attempt to sever eye contact with them, however, was a clear tell.
“When did you see him again, Welch?”
He snapped his eyes back to Jasper. “’Oo says I did?”
“You did, without so many words. So, when was it, and what was said? I’ll remind you that impeding a criminal investigation is cause for arrest. I’m sure the chief warder at Wandsworth would welcome you back.”
“Ye can’t nick me for not talkin’.”
“Try your luck. I promise, you won’t like the result.”
He bared his sparse teeth, but Jasper wasn’t intimidated. His threat was working, so he stood patiently.
“Arright, I seen ‘im,” he began. “He were at the Jugger a week or so after our scrap.”
Jasper peered at Lewis, who met the revelation with a twitch of his eye. The tavern near the St. Katharine Docks was a known hot spot for East Rip activity. The Jugger was owned and operated by a woman named Bridget O’Mara, who also happened to be one of the C.I.D’s informants. She’d gotten herself into a tight spot a few years back, after a brawl with her menace of a husband ended with him at the bottom of a flight of stairs, his neck broken. In addition to feeling somewhat sorry for her, and being a touch sweet on her too, Chief Coughlan had seen an opportunity with Bridget. In exchange for her release from custody and all charges dropped, she would provide information on gang dealings when requested by the Yard. She’d agreed.
“When was this?” Jasper asked.
He shrugged. “Last week. Friday.”
“And what happened with Clarence when you saw him?”
“Tried ter talk ter him, right, but ‘e told me ter leave off. He were waitin’ for some bloke. Had ‘imself a job.”
“What job?” Jasper asked, becoming more intrigued. “Who hired him?”
“Didn’t ask. I told ‘im ter piss off and found m’self anuvver table.”
“Did his companion arrive?”
Welch nodded.
“What can you remember about him?” Jasper asked when he didn’t provide anything more.
He shrugged. “Some rum cove wiv specs and a mustache.”
The description wasn’t very distinctive. Almost everyone Jasper knew had spectacles and a mustache.
Welch licked his lips as if considering some new inspiration. “When they left, I might’ve followed. Might’ve seen sumfink.”
For the right price, he’d tell them too, Jasper imagined. He wasn’t averse to a bit of bartering.
“Tell us what you saw, and the next time you’re arrested—and there will be a next time—I’ll let the magistrate know you assisted us in an investigation. It might lessen your sentence.”
Mrs. Stillman glared. “He’s finished wiv that life and don’t need no promises.”
But Welch appeared to be a little more circumspect. He nodded to accept the deal. “Clarence followed the cove ter a fine carriage outside the tavern and got in.”
It wasn’t a lot to go on, and certainly nothing revealing.
“Did you see any markings on this carriage? The driver?” Jasper asked.
“All I know is when the carriage pulled away, I seen three men inside. Clarence, the rum cove, and some uvver bloke.”
“Can you recall anything about this third person?” Lewis asked.
Welch shook his head. “He were dressed fine. Top ‘at and all. They rode off,” Welch finished. “After that, I ain’t seen Clarence again.”
Detective Chief Inspector Dermot Coughlan dug his knuckles into his desktop and leaned forward, locking Jasper into a dead stare. “You want permission to exhume a casket ?”
The conversation with the chief was going just as badly as Jasper expected it would, but after returning to the Yard with Lewis and finding Leo in his office, giddy with what she’d learned at Hogarth and Tipson, he’d known it couldn’t be avoided.
“Barnabas Strange was the last person William Carter interred at All Saints in Nunhead,” he explained to the chief. “And the piece of paper he gave Miss Barrett for safekeeping and which she put in the locket?—”
“The locket that may or may not have been stolen by Clarence Stillman,” Coughlan interjected, reminding him that there was still a lack of proof.
“Yes, sir. The paper read Strange Nun and the plot number where Strange was buried. According to Mr. Barrett, Carter told his sister to ‘dig it up’, should anything happen to him.”
“And then he was killed by housebreakers,” Coughlan said. Though he’d recalled the order of events from Jasper’s first accounting, he wasn’t pleased. Neither was Detective Inspector Tomlin, who’d been the lead investigator on Carter’s murder.
“There is no evidence to suggest it was anything but a house break-in,” the other detective said, his arms crossed over his puffed-up chest. Tomlin was part of the Special Irish Branch, organized the previous year to focus on Fenian crimes and activity. Carter, being Irish and related to the East Rips, had qualified as a potential suspicious murder, and so Tomlin had been assigned to the case.
“What was stolen?” Jasper asked, though he was just goading the man. He’d read the report himself. Simple thieves wouldn’t have left behind the kitchen’s silver or the money in Carter’s billfold.
“The housebreakers were interrupted in the act,” Tomlin insisted. “They panicked. Carter was shot. That’s all there is to it.”
“Tomlin is still following leads on the identities of the housebreakers,” Coughlan said to quell the tension.
“That may be difficult, since I’m quite sure Stillman was one of them. I have a witness who says he saw Stillman with another man, a gentleman, last Friday. That’s the same night Carter was killed.”
Tomlin rounded on Jasper. “What witness?”
“An old prison mate of Stillman’s. It’s my belief Stillman and this unknown gentleman went to Carter’s home in search of whatever it was Carter had buried. That’s why he’d given the location to his fiancée the night before. He knew he was in danger.”
“ Your belief?” Tomlin grunted a laugh. “And what does Miss Leomorga have to say about any of this? All the men have seen her here over the last few days. You even brought her to a murder scene.”
Constable Wiley’s idiotic name for her had caught on among some of the men. Jasper gritted his molars. “She was there to identify a body.”
“Leave Miss Spencer out of this, Tomlin,” the chief barked. “I mean that for you as well, Reid. I know she is like family?—”
“Sir, that isn’t the case,” Jasper said, frustrated enough to interrupt. He received a chastising beady eye for it.
“You will keep her out of this. Do you have a problem with that, Reid?”
“No, sir.” Unless Jasper wished to lose his post, there was no other answer Coughlan would accept.
“Good.” He stood tall again, his knuckles white from where he’d been leaning on them. “I will arrange the exhumation for tomorrow morning.” He rubbed his temple and checked his watch. “I have a blasted dinner with the Home Secretary tonight, and I’ll still have to get the paperwork completed, then alert the Strange family. So, Reid—you’d best hope you find something in that casket that leads to an arrest.”
Jasper’s pulse knocked in his neck as he threw open the door to leave Coughlan’s office—and practically trod upon Constable Wiley’s toes. The constable cleared his throat and scuttled away, pretending that he hadn’t been listening at the door. Jasper glared at his retreating figure. The man was a gossipmonger and would surely repeat what he’d just overheard.
Should nothing be found once that casket was opened, Jasper would be a laughingstock. Comparisons were already being drawn between himself and Gregory Reid. Opinions regarding whether he’d earned his detective’s warrant card or had it handed to him were also being settled upon. He couldn’t afford a fiasco.
Back in his office, he found Leo pacing behind his desk. She spun around, biting her lower lip in a hopeful expression.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said.
She exhaled and formed a rare grin. But it faltered. “What is wrong?”
Jasper braced himself. “You cannot come.”
Leo balked. “Why not? I’m the one who worked out where Mr. Carter buried his mysterious treasure. And I spent all afternoon hunting down cemetery plot maps at the city records office.”
“And I thank you for it. But Chief Coughlan is firm on this,” Jasper said, still slightly irritated that his interview with Stillman’s wife and Tommy Welch had turned up little, while hers with Mr. Tipson had been a triumph. Not that it was a competition. At least he now knew Stillman had met with two men, both of whom belonged to the upper classes.
Leo tossed up her hands. “Once again, you take my discovery and leave me behind to twiddle my thumbs.”
“Or you could take care of your uncle and aunt, who need you,” he retorted—and instantly regretted it. Her eyes flared with insult and, worse, guilt. Hell, why couldn’t he keep his damn mouth shut?
Leo sealed her lips tight and lifted her chin. “I’m getting tired of being told to stay home. If I had, you’d still be running in circles.”
“You give yourself too much credit.” The lie tasted bitter, even as he said it.
Leo had been the one to suggest Carter buried the item by means of his employment at the funeral service. She’d been the one to successfully question Mr. Tipson, and after looking closely at a hand camera in Carter’s studio, she’d also suggested that the strange peephole in Miss Barrett’s bedroom wall could have been just large enough for the camera’s lenses.
“I am sorry.” The words stuck in his throat for too long before releasing them. “This is out of my hands, Leo.”
“Very well,” she said tartly, then took up her handbag and the dark purple coat she’d hung on the peg stand. “Best of luck tomorrow.”
As she started for the door, a foreboding slid through him. Jasper followed her, catching up in time to shove his hand against the door before she could open it. Leo stared up at him, incredulous. “What are you doing?”
He tucked his chin and met her challenging glare. “You gave up too easily. What are you planning?”
“Nothing at all. I’m going home to make supper for Claude and Flora.”
“You’re hurrying home to cook?” he scoffed. “Now I know you’re hiding something.”
She pursed her lips and tried to peel his hand from the door, finger by finger. He kept it firmly on the jamb, preventing her.
“Don’t be daft. Let me go,” she insisted.
“I’m not sure I should. In fact, I’m hesitant to take my eyes off you.” The moment the words left his tongue, he heard how suggestive they sounded. Leo’s hazel eyes pinned his, her lips popping open.
He tried to make up for it, fast. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash or dangerous.”
Her eyes slid away from his as she answered, “I promise. Now let me out. Or I’ll scream, and Constable Wiley will come running with the notion I’m murdering you.”
Jasper huffed a laugh and lowered his hand. “I’m sure that tempts you.”
She cut him a wry look as she opened the door. “You’ve no idea.”