Chapter 13 #2
The man was likely in his late thirties.
Stephen Decamp, Jasper presumed. The body was slumped back in the chair, but the man’s head wasn’t thrown back to match.
Instead, his chin was tucked, his head drooping forward.
In the dead man’s left hand was a loosely gripped snub-nosed revolver.
It, and his hand, had come to rest limply in his lap.
Jasper stared at this for several moments, trying to picture what had happened. Decamp had lifted the gun to his temple, pulled the trigger, and then…his hand and the weapon had flopped down into his lap?
There wasn’t much of a fetid odor that met Jasper’s nose, just the faint tang of blood, and the unmistakable sour stench of gin.
Without any fires burning, the stone craftsmanship of the home had kept the interior cold, slowing the decay of the body.
Much like a morgue. The thought brought Leo to mind.
If she were here, she’d be able to estimate the approximate time of death.
Jasper would simply have to do his best on his own.
The congealed blood no longer appeared shiny or wet.
And when he reached for the man’s arm, trying to lift it, he found it was stiff.
Likewise, the man’s foot, when Jasper crouched and tried to lift it from the carpet, was difficult to move.
Based on what Leo had explained in the past about the increasing rigidity of a corpse, the man had been dead for some time. Perhaps half a day or more.
By all appearances, it looked to be a suicide.
On the table in front of the body, another uncorked, empty liquor bottle lay on its side. There was no label, indicating it was some homemade concoction. And underneath the bottle was a slip of paper.
“Inspector?” Constable Wiggins’s voice emanated from the back of the house.
“In here,” Jasper called, reaching for the paper.
The constable arrived a moment later. His coloring paled at the sight that met him.
“Oh, good Lord,” Wiggins said.
“It is Stephen Decamp?”
The constable nodded, still a bit ashen-faced. Jasper read the few words written on the piece of paper. The handwriting was practiced, slanted, and a bit rushed.
I cannot live with what I’ve done.
It wasn’t signed, but it was clearly meant to be Stephen Decamp’s explanation for having shot himself.
The note found in Helen Dalton’s possession was back at Scotland Yard. Jasper would compare the two handwriting samples when he had the chance. But the slanted script seemed, at least from his memory, to be a match.
“Have you ever come upon a person who has taken their own life?” Jasper asked as he crouched yet again next to the chair. This time he was looking at the hand limply holding the gun.
“No, Inspector,” was Wiggins’s reply. “Not in all my years.”
Jasper had found suicide victims before, and more than once. None had ever been as neat a scene as this. Still seated upright in the chair, head lowered, hand in his lap… There was something not quite right about it.
“I’m not entirely sure you have now,” he told the constable.
“Sir?”
Jasper straightened up. “Do you know of anyone in this area who could photograph the scene?”
Wiggins balked at him. “Why would you want to go and do something like that?”
“I know a coroner in London,” Jasper said, thinking of Connor Quinn. “I’d like him to see the body, as it has come to rest. I’m not convinced this was self-inflicted by Stephen Decamp.”
“Looks like it to me,” Wiggins said.
As the man had just admitted to never having come upon a suicide, Jasper did not give his opinion much weight. “A photographer,” he repeated, standing tall. “Is there one?”
The constable shook his head. “None I can think of.”
Jasper sighed. Of course, there wasn’t. He would have to commit every detail to memory, it seemed. If only Leo was here, he thought for the second time.
“Arrange for the removal of the body, Wiggins, if you would,” Jasper instructed. “Meanwhile, I’ll search the home and grounds.”
He would start with the gig in the barn.
Wiggins hurried off, eager to be gone, it seemed, and Jasper went out into the yard again. The dog, its shaggy neck looped with a rope and tied to a hitching post ring, had tired of barking. Its bright eyes were alert as Jasper approached.
“Who put you out here?” he mused aloud as he extended a hand to its snout.
He hadn’t much experience with dogs. Mrs. Zhao disliked them, as they caused nothing but messes, so Jasper and his father had never brought one into the house.
Oliver had a couple of hounds he used for hunts, but they were happy to ignore anyone who wasn’t their master.
However, Jasper knew to allow the dog to scent him before getting any closer.
The dog did so and, deciding it had nothing to fear from him, started to whine for freedom.
Jasper worked at the knot around its neck, loosening it enough to release the animal.
The dog yipped and pranced away from the hitching post but didn’t go far.
It was too interested in following Jasper into the barn, where he took a closer look at the unhitched gig.
The compact carriage would have been a light and fast option for a midnight ride to London.
Most gigs didn’t have hoods, but this one did, and it was currently raised into position.
It would only have protected Stephen and Helen so much from the rain, which would account for the state of Helen’s damp clothing and hair, even so many hours after her death.
The black-painted wood of the dashboard and the two shafts that would have attached to the harnessed horse, were covered in dried mud.
Some clumps had flaked off into a mess on the ground underneath the conveyance, but it was obvious the gig had been out along muddy roads.
It had not rained since the night Helen was killed, and by yesterday, the roads would have been mostly dry. The mud still clinging to the gig indicated that Stephen had taken it out during or immediately after the storm.
A pair of horses, one tan and the other a darker chestnut color, occupied two nearby stalls.
With a quick look inside each stall, Jasper saw the tan horse had not been groomed.
Its hooves and fetlocks were caked with dried mud, and its coat needed a good brushing.
By all appearances, when Stephen Decamp arrived home yesterday afternoon, he’d seen to the bare minimum of unhitching his horse.
He’d then downed a few bottles of gin. Presumably, in his drunken state of grief and guilt, he’d tied his dog up outside before going back into his house, writing the short note, and killing himself.
Jasper searched the gig for anything that might indicate that Helen had been a passenger. There was nothing. However, he was convinced Stephen had driven it to London with Helen, especially now that he knew Stephen had summoned her to their meeting spot the night of the storm.
If his theory was correct, why then would the viscount’s stables be missing a phaeton and horse? Unless Helen parted ways with Stephen after they met at their spot, then took the phaeton and pony on her own to London. Might Stephen have followed her there? Had they quarreled?
There were too many questions, and now, the only person left who might have been able to answer them was dead.