Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Leo noticed several things as Jasper approached the body.
While her heart had stuttered at seeing Helen Dalton lying dead on the bedroom floor, the ghastly surprise had not led to panic or fright.
Being accustomed to corpses, Leo didn’t feel the need to stare at the body.
Instead, she peered at a rug on the floor, which had been peeled back and left in a heap.
A short plank in the wooden floor, exposed by the lifted rug, had been pried up and set aside.
“It appears Helen knew about the hole in the floor that Francine Stroud described in her letter,” Leo said.
And she’d left Cowper Hall in the middle of the night to come here and retrieve the object hidden beneath the floorboard.
But how had she known about it, and why would she have rushed to London under the cover of darkness and in a terrible storm, no less?
It was just a glass vial, a trinket according to Mrs. Stroud.
“She appears to have been struck on the head,” Jasper said, inspecting the body by the light of the cab lantern.
With her blonde hair swept away from her forehead and pinned tightly into a high bun, a profound, bloody depression in her right temple was easy to see.
The skull’s frontal bone had received a blow too.
Leo wished to see inside the hollow in the floor, but she was more interested to know how long Helen had been dead.
She went to the body, careful not to step in the pool of blood.
She noticed someone already had done so by the smudging along the outer rim of the pool and the shoeprints marking the person’s retreat from the room.
“Let me have a look,” she said, removing her gloves. They were soft kid leather, and not only did Leo not wish to stain them, but she could better determine the approximate time of death depending on the corpse’s body temperature.
Helen Dalton was cold, of course, and in full rigor. Her head and neck could not be manipulated when Leo attempted to move them, and her arms and legs were equally rigid.
“Helen’s been dead at least twelve hours,” she estimated.
Jasper made a thoughtful noise in the base of his throat as he calculated the time. “So, she was killed before five o’clock this morning.”
Her skin was dreadfully pale and cold, and her clothing was damp too.
“She was last seen at Cowper Hall at eleven o’clock last night,” Leo said, recalling what her maid had told the solicitor, Mr. Corman.
“Without any trains running, she would have needed a carriage or some other conveyance to make the trip. How long do you think it took to travel here by carriage?”
“Two hours, perhaps longer, considering the weather,” he replied.
“She must have been drenched when she arrived,” Leo said. “The cold house and her lack of body heat have slowed the drying of her clothing.”
Jasper braced his elbows on his thighs as he crouched. “Her husband left much earlier than eleven.”
“But he was at home this morning,” Leo said.
Jasper shook his head. “Not necessarily. All we were told was that Mrs. Dalton had not been seen.”
He was correct, now that she recalled the conversation in the breakfast room that morning. Leo had only assumed Mr. Dalton had been at home, as no one had been concerned over his whereabouts as they had been his wife’s.
“You think he came here?” she asked.
“Maybe. He needs to account for where he was, that much I know.” Jasper stood, but Leo remained low to the floor and took another look at Helen’s bloodied head.
The poor woman. She had been nervous last night, and Leo suspected she had known what information her mother’s mystery letter contained.
But how had she known about the hollow in the floor?
And to take a carriage into London alone, at so late an hour, was dangerous.
Obviously, Leo thought, looking away from the body.
Jasper had left her the lantern to see by, but he’d found something a few feet away on the floor and picked it up.
“There is blood on this,” he announced, bringing a brass statue of a peacock into the light. It was about two feet tall, and there were streaks of blood on its tail feathers.
“So, her killer struck her, tossed the makeshift weapon, and ran?” She frowned as she peered again at the rim of the blood pool that had been disturbed by a shoe.
“A head wound like this would bleed profusely, but it would have taken at least several minutes for this amount of blood on the floor to accumulate. Either the killer stayed until she stopped bleeding, then tread into the blood, or—”
“A second person arrived afterward, rushed in close to the body, and accidentally stepped in the pool,” Jasper finished. It pleased her to know he’d formulated the same theory.
“Yes, exactly.” Leo turned now to the hollow in the floor.
Taking the lantern, she held it down close to the hollow in the floor.
The empty space was about the length of her forearm, and the width of it too.
It was empty. Leo lowered her hand and felt around and into the shadowy corners to be certain she missed nothing else that has been stashed there.
“The killer must have taken the vial,” she said. “Or the person who entered the room after the murder.”
Jasper rubbed his temple. “I need to summon a constable. Will you be all right staying here while I go out? I shouldn’t have to go very far.”
She nodded, unafraid of being left alone in the house.
He didn’t take the cab lantern with him but left it for her use, and once Jasper was gone, Leo took a turn around the room, peering at everything.
Over her dress, the same one she’d been wearing the previous evening at dinner, Helen wore a coat made of finely spun emerald wool.
She hadn’t discarded the coat before prying up the floorboard, but a lady’s hat lay on the dust-sheet-draped four poster bed along with a handbag and pair of gloves.
Picking up the handbag, Leo noted it wasn’t very heavy.
When emptied of its contents, she saw that Helen had carried the usual things, like an embroidered, kiss lock change purse, a lace handkerchief, and a small comb.
There was one unusual thing among the others, however. A small, folded square of paper.
She unfolded it, and though the inked scrawl had bled into the damp fibers of the paper, the writing was legible: Meet me at our spot. Wait until midnight. It wasn’t signed.
Helen had been meeting someone, then. She’d placed this note in her purse, where it had become waterlogged during the long ride to London. And then, she had been bludgeoned to death. Had this home on Craven Hill been the designated meeting spot?
There were too many questions, and many more possible answers.
It would be best not to speculate too much before Jasper had the chance to speak with Helen’s family.
He would have to return to Harrow right away.
Though the thought of returning so soon to the hall at Cowper Fields made her blood feel as if it was turning to lead, she still wanted to accompany him.
However, she knew she could not. There was no valid reason for her to go, and besides, a postmortem would be ordered.
Surely, the body would be removed to the Spring Street Morgue, and even though it interested her far less than investigating a case with Jasper, Leo had a job to do with Connor Quinn.
It did not take long for Jasper to find a constable out on his evening circuit, and that constable went directly to the local police station within Hyde Park to summon more officers.
Not more than a quarter hour had passed before they arrived, their lanterns brightening the bedroom to an almost garish degree.
Leo stood aside as the officers arrived and spoke with Jasper who, upon his return, had read the handwritten note from Helen’s purse that Leo handed to him, then tucked it into his trouser pocket.
He planned to return to Cowper Hall as soon as Detective Chief Inspector Dermot Coughlan agreed to assign him the case—Jasper was certain that he would, especially since he already had knowledge of the family and the situation.
“I will have to inform Coughlan about Francine Stroud’s request,” he told Leo as a few officers brought in a long wooden board, which they’d scavenged from the kitchen. They were going to use it to move the body.
“Do you think he will open an investigation into Theodore’s death?” she asked.
Jasper grimaced. “I doubt it. Our resources are stretched thin as they are, and he won’t be swayed by the contents of Mrs. Stroud’s letter. But he will want Helen’s murder investigated.”
“And I will not be welcome to assist, I imagine,” Leo said with frustration.
He sent her a remorseful look but did not disagree. While she understood, it still grated. She’d looked forward to working with Jasper on the inquiry into the boy’s fatal fall. Now, a new murder would be his priority.
At that moment, the officers gently rolled the corpse onto its back.
The rigidity of Helen’s limbs was such that her arms stayed in the same position as they’d been before splayed at the sides of her head in the pool of blood.
Now, the viscous blood stained her palms and sleeves.
But something else captured Leo’s notice as the officers lifted her onto the board.
“Wait a moment,” Leo said, stepping forward. Jasper held up a hand, signaling for them to wait, as she’d asked.
“What is it?” he asked.
Helen’s coat lapels had fallen aside, exposing the dress she wore.
Positioned as she was on her back, the drape of her dress defined a small but discernable abdominal bump.
On a larger woman, it might not have been noticeable.
But as Helen was quite thin, the bump was evident.
Leo turned away from the body and saw Jasper had answered his question himself.
He peered at the obvious protuberance with a furrowed brow.
“The postmortem will determine it for certain,” Leo said, “however, it looks as though Mrs. Dalton was with child.”