Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
T he detective department was sedate when Leo and Jasper, and their prisoner, Mr. Munson, arrived. Being past seven o’clock in the evening, she should have expected it to be quiet. Unlike divisional officers, the C.I.D. operated during daylight hours and closed each night.
After what she and Jasper had just been through in the morgue crypt, the placid greeting they received was slightly dissatisfying. Constable Wiley shot to his feet, practically catching his thighs on the underside of the desk, when they turned toward the detective offices. He spared Leo a skeptical glare before looking twice at Benjamin Munson, his wrists bound and his face bloodied. “Isn’t that the commissioner’s assistant?”
Jasper shoved the deputy assistant forward, and the man staggered into the chair next to Constable Wiley’s desk. He’d regained his senses, for the most part, on their brief walk to Whitehall Place, but he hadn’t uttered a word.
“Benjamin Munson, yes. I’ve arrested him for the murders of William Carter, Clarence Stillman, and Samuel Barrett. Book him and then put him in the interview room. Keep him guarded at all times,” Jasper said, forcing Mr. Munson to stay seated.
The man avoided eye contact, choosing to stare at a wall instead. He was acting far too complacent. Confident, even.
Detective Sergeant Lewis joined them, dressed in his coat and hat as if he’d been about to leave for the night. He eyed the commissioner’s assistant and frowned. “This is our killer?”
He didn’t sound convinced, and Leo had to admit, the man didn’t seem overly villainous at the moment.
“I need you to go to Commissioner Vickers’s home, Lewis,” Jasper said, looking ill as he said it. “Bring in his daughter, Miss Elsie Vickers, for questioning.”
Lewis looked at him, aghast. “The commissioner’s daughter? You sure, guv?”
When Jasper nodded gravely, Lewis left on his task.
“Wiley, when you’ve finished with Munson,” Jasper said, his tone flat and emotionless, “Miss Spencer will be in my office, waiting for you to record her statement.”
He held out an arm toward his office. She started forward but then remembered Mr. Munson’s pince-nez that she’d picked up from the crypt floor. She pulled the spectacles from her handbag, one of the lenses cracked from the scuffle with Jasper, and laid them on Constable Wiley’s desk.
“In case he requires them to sign his confession.”
She walked on toward Jasper’s office, a rock in the pit of her stomach. It had been there since the crypt. It stemmed not just from the insensitive remark Jasper had made about Elsie, but from something else.
“How would Elsie have paid Mr. Carter and the Barretts?” she asked as she entered Jasper’s office. “She wouldn’t have access to any of her father’s money.”
He left the office door open, likely to keep an eye on Mr. Munson, and shed his coat.
“They likely didn’t care how she got it, so long as she did.” He hooked his coat on the stand and then exhaled. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
Leo lifted her chin.
“About Elsie,” he clarified.
“I should hope not. Weren’t you the one who so recently told me that sometimes, people get caught up in things they regret afterward?”
Jasper nodded. He touched the corner of his mouth, where blood had crusted from his split lip. His hair was mussed, an unruly lock coming to hang over his forehead no matter how many times he raked it back. His tie had been yanked loose too, the top button of his collar popped free, in the brawl with Mr. Munson.
A strange, unexpected warmth expanded in Leo’s chest at his disheveled appearance. It dropped lower, into her stomach, as she observed him pulling two glass tumblers from a desk drawer and then a bottle of whisky. He poured a finger into each and held one out to her. She shook the notion from her head that Jasper somehow looked especially handsome after a fist fight and sipped the drink a little too quickly. She coughed, and he laughed.
“Punches harder than cherry cordial, doesn’t it?”
Leo wasn’t sure she liked it very much but kept it in her hand. Her nerves were buzzing, her mind racing. “Do you think Mr. Munson had been following us?”
“I suspect so. Since leaving the Barretts’ home, most likely.” Jasper shook his head. “I should have noticed.”
“Don’t berate yourself,” she said. “It all ended well.”
He stopped short of rolling his eyes. “You could have been killed.”
“So could you have been. Luckily, we’re now safe at Scotland Yard, and the killer is under arrest. On top of that, he’s concussed and sporting a broken nose—the least of what he deserves.”
Jasper sipped his drink as he walked to a small, mirrored stand holding a bowl and pitcher in the corner of his office. He poured out some water, then cupped his hands in the bowl and splashed his face, gingerly wiping the corner of his lip. His eyes met hers in the oval mirror’s reflection and lingered.
Leo raised her glass to her lips, slightly flustered. “What is it?”
“You returned his pince-nez.”
She blinked. “You’re right. I should have crushed them under my bootheel.”
He turned from the mirror. “It’s not that. I have a witness who saw Stillman at a tavern the night Carter was shot. He said a man joined Stillman. A man with spectacles and a mustache.”
“Mr. Munson possesses both,” Leo said, uncertain why Jasper looked concerned.
“This witness also saw Stillman and, presumably, Munson enter a carriage. There was a third person inside.”
Leo took a seat in front of his desk, resting her handbag in her lap. “Elsie?”
Jasper started to fix his tie, his head shaking. “The person wore a top hat. It was a man.”
“Is your witness certain?” she asked.
He fiddled with his tie another moment, and Leo nearly got up to help him. But she stopped herself. He didn’t need her assistance, and after the way he’d held her hand earlier in the crypt, she was oddly apprehensive about standing too close to him again. Not because she’d disliked his hand clasping hers. Because she hadn’t disliked it at all.
“He had nothing to gain by lying,” Jasper said. “Hopefully, I’ll get Munson to account for it when I speak to?—”
A loud voice came from outside his office. “You there, constable! Where is he? Inspector Reid!”
Leo stood up as Sir Nathaniel barged through the open door to the office, displeasure gleaming in his eyes. “What is this I’ve heard? Munson has been arrested? I demand to know on what grounds.”
“Sir Nathaniel.” Hesitation slowed Jasper. He’d need to tell the commissioner about Elsie, and Leo felt a pang of anxiousness for him. “I’ve arrested Munson for murder and attempted murder.”
The commissioner’s mouth, set in a grim slash, wavered into amused disbelief. “You must be mistaken. This is Benjamin we are talking about. What evidence do you have?”
The question struck Leo as odd. Shouldn’t he have instead asked whom his assistant was accused of killing? Stranger still was the timing. Leo glanced at the clock on the wall. She and Jasper hadn’t been at the central office for more than ten minutes. And yet, Sir Nathaniel had somehow learned of the arrest. He was wearing his coat and top hat, and carrying his walking stick, as if just arriving.
Leo’s eyes settled back onto the walking stick. Polished black, with a silver tip at the base and an ornate silver handle gripped in his palm. He employed it when his leg bothered him, he’d always said. Damp, cold weather made the old wound act up, worsening his limp.
“I know this must be difficult to hear, Commissioner, but your assistant attempted to kill me and Miss Spencer tonight,” Jasper said.
Again, Sir Nathaniel scoffed. “Why on earth would Munson do that?”
“To retrieve what we had found before we could bring it here, to Scotland Yard,” Leo answered, her heart beginning to pump harder than before. “Photographs.”
At the barest hitch of the commissioner’s chin, a notion began to swarm her mind. Her heart thudded faster even as it started to sink.
“What photographs?” His firm chin softened with an expression Leo could only describe as fear.
“Sir Nathaniel,” Jasper started, still reluctant. He was about to tell him about Elsie’s pictures.
Leo stepped forward abruptly. “Photographs of an unsavory nature.” Moving swiftly, she approached Jasper and reached toward his waistcoat. He caught her wrist as her fingers slipped underneath the panel and brushed against his inner pocket.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
She met his stare with imploring eyes. “We must show him the photograph, Jasper.”
His brow furrowed, but his hand loosened from around her wrist. She plucked the card-mounted portrait of Samuel Barrett from Jasper’s waistcoat pocket where he’d stored it earlier.
Leo walked toward the commissioner, taking time to watch his face before presenting it to him. With trepidation, he took the photograph. He jerked his head back in surprise or disgust, and then exhaled. The sound was poorly concealed relief.
“Goodness, Miss Spencer, what are you doing with material of this sordid taste?” He handed it to Jasper, rather than to her. Jasper kept his lips sealed. He was waiting for her to explain herself.
“This was a photograph we discovered in the morgue crypt tonight. One of them, at least. There was a box that had been stored there, in connection to William Carter’s murder. I managed to pick up this one from the top before Mr. Munson arrived.”
Her plan was still forming as she lied—something she was becoming rather proficient at, she admitted. It was hasty, probably reckless and stupid too, but this was the only way to find out if her suspicion was correct.
“Tell me what you know,” the commissioner demanded. It came as no great surprise when he looked to the other man in the room for an answer rather than to Leo. Jasper cut his measuring stare from her, and she held her breath.
“Samuel Barrett, his sister Hannah, and William Carter were operating a blackmailing scheme,” Jasper began. “They seem to have targeted Munson, who I believe hired Clarence Stillman to retrieve a stock of explicit photographs featuring your assistant.”
Leo released her pent-up breath. Thank God, he’d understood. She wasn’t sure anyone else would have, but his mind had always been incisive and quick. Just like the Inspector’s.
“I had reason to believe Samuel Barrett used the morgue crypt as a hiding place for these photographs after his sister and Carter were both killed. He wanted them as leverage, with plans to go to the newspapers.” He gestured toward Leo. “I asked Miss Spencer to show me into the crypt. That is where Munson set upon us, demanding we hand them over.”
The commissioner’s expression had pinched as he’d been listening. “And where is this box of photographs now?”
Leo wasn’t sure if she was pleased that he’d asked or heartbroken.
“Still in the crypt, I’m afraid,” she said. “We got rather caught up in fending off Mr. Munson and then bringing him to the Yard.”
“There is plenty to do here tonight. Lewis and I will collect the box tomorrow,” Jasper said. “Give it a thorough looking-through.”
Sir Nathaniel tapped his cane against the floor. “Very good. It sounds as though you have your man, though I’m sorry to learn that it is Munson. I was fond of him, and I know my Elsie was keen for a betrothal.” He grimaced sadly, and it looked so genuine that momentarily, Leo questioned herself. Though only until the commissioner said, “I’m sure the man will say anything now to avoid the noose. But evidence is evidence. Good work, inspector. As you say, you’re busy here, so I will leave you to it.”
He tipped his hat and left. Once alone, Leo let her tensed shoulders droop. She turned to face Jasper and his inevitable displeasure at her deception.
He crossed his arms over his broad chest and peered down at her. Then said: “The walking stick.”
Leo canted her head, taken aback. “Yes. The walking stick.” Pleasure that he had come upon the same conclusion rippled through her. “It wasn’t the bird keeper who left those impressions in the ground around Mr. Stillman’s body. Sir Nathaniel was there when Mr. Munson shot him.”
“He was there for Samuel Barrett too. Barrett muttered a word— Father —before dying. Not his father, as I’d assumed. The father of the girl from the photographs.”
Leo’s skin prickled. “He was telling us who killed him.”
Jasper swore under his breath and stalked toward the office door, staring after the commissioner. “Stillman and Munson joined a third man in the carriage outside the Jugger. A man in a top hat.” He grabbed his coat. “It wasn’t Elsie who was being blackmailed. It was Sir Nathaniel.”
Even though everything about this theory felt right, Leo couldn’t be happy for it. Or relieved. Sir Nathaniel was the Inspector’s finest friend. She’d thought she’d known him. Had trusted him. The betrayal was immeasurable.
“Don’t bother to tell me to stay here. If you are following him, I’m coming with you,” Leo said.
“Oh, I’m following him,” he replied. To her relief, he gestured toward the door. “And if we’re right, I’ll need a witness when he confesses.”