Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
It was unsettling to be inside Jasper’s office at the CID now that it no longer belonged to him.
It was Sergeant Lewis’s hat and coat hanging on the stand, and his half-eaten lunch languishing on the desk.
Boxes of casework and evidence had piled up next to the desk, as well as in the chair that Jasper had always kept empty.
As Leo paced the small office, she noted another stack of papers on the mirrored stand that Jasper had often used to shave or tidy himself up when he’d been out all night and couldn’t make it home before the next workday began.
While she knew Sergeant Lewis had only been placed into this office temporarily while Jasper was in Liverpool, she did wonder how the sergeant would feel when he was shuffled back to his desk on the department floor—if he even had a desk to return to.
When Leo arrived, there had been a few new faces in the department, all of whom were younger men who peered at her quizzically as Constable Wiley reluctantly led her to Lewis’s office.
The front desk officer had not missed her over the last few months, if his curling lip when she’d first approached was any indication.
He’d closed her in the office and told her to wait.
At least fifteen minutes had passed since then, and Leo began to question if the constable had even told Sergeant Lewis of her arrival.
Or perhaps the constable was having a good chuckle at her expense and hoping she’d come storming out in a fit of temper.
Well, she wouldn’t give him that.
Leo continued to pace the office, impatient and bored.
Outside, evening was falling faster than usual, thanks to a sleety rain.
It tinked against the window, the sound assuring her that she would become drenched on her walk back to Duke Street.
It only darkened her mood and heightened her restlessness.
As she passed the desk, she peered at the side of a box where a small, metal-framed window held a paper placard.
The name Giles Beatty had been written in ink.
It was an evidence box, she knew, and she couldn’t help but be curious as to who Giles Beatty was and what he’d done… or what had been done to him.
She started to lift the lid to peek inside but then grimaced and stopped.
If Jasper found her peering into an evidence box, he’d be annoyed.
If Sergeant Lewis found her doing so, however, his reaction could very well be to throw her out of Scotland Yard for good.
Not that she really thought he would go to that extreme…
but the truth was, she didn’t know the sergeant well enough.
It was better for her to be cautious and restrained until she did.
Leo walked around to the chair in front of the desk, where another box and some papers had been stashed. She bent at the hip to read that case placard, but when she did, she immediately forgot the promise she’d just made to herself to behave.
The box of evidence was labeled with Helen Dalton’s name.
Leo didn’t stop herself from lifting the lid off this box, reasoning that it was Jasper’s case, not Sergeant Lewis’s.
Inside, she found several items relating to the case, including those from the scene of Helen’s murder.
Helen’s personal belongings that Leo had set aside at the morgue, including her clothing, boots, and handbag, were tucked next to the peacock statue, which was the suspected murder weapon.
The door to the office opened, but instead of Sergeant Lewis, it was Constable Wiley who entered. He wasn’t alone. Frederick Cowper followed him into the office, his hat in his hand and his greatcoat glistening with rain. Wiley screwed his face up in contempt.
“What do you think you’re doing? That’s off-limits to you.”
Quickly, Leo replaced the lid. Not because the constable had reprimanded her, but because Mr. Cowper’s attention had gone straight to the open evidence box. The visual reminders of his niece’s murder weren’t anything he needed to see.
“Mr. Cowper,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were still in London.”
“Miss Spencer,” he replied, greeting her with a distracted nod.
“I was waiting for the funeral service to complete the casket I commissioned for Helen. I thought my father would appreciate the Cowper family seal upon the lid.” He grimaced at the sorry thought.
“My train is due to depart soon, but I wanted to see if I could claim some of Helen’s belongings before I leave.
The constable thought it would be fine.”
Leo slid a disappointed look at Wiley and laid a hand on the lid of the evidence box. “I am sure Inspector Reid will have Mrs. Dalton’s possessions sent to Harrow as soon as the case is closed. But as the investigation is still ongoing—”
“I’ll ask you not to interfere with official police business, Miss Spencer,” Wiley interjected.
She set her shoulders. “I think it is premature to release evidence, Constable Wiley.”
His cutting glare was as good as a command for her to shut her mouth.
Mr. Cowper, discomfited by their tense exchange, raised his hands. “If it will be too troublesome, I’ll simply wait.”
But Wiley wasn’t willing to give up, especially if it meant allowing Leo to win this round.
“I’ll speak to the Chief Inspector and see what he has to say on the matter,” he announced, then left the room in a fine pique of temper.
Mr. Cowper arched a brow in what appeared to be amusement. “I don’t think that man is very fond of you.”
She sighed heavily. “The feeling is mutual.”
He came toward the chair, gesturing toward the evidence box with his hat in his hand. “I was hoping that Helen’s brooch might be in there. It’s a family piece, and I know Nadia will wish to have it.”
“Helen wasn’t wearing a brooch,” Leo said.
There had been no brooch when she’d viewed the body, nor when she’d done a quick perusal of the items inside the box. Mr. Cowper, however, didn’t appear convinced.
“Are you certain? She always wore it.”
“Quite certain. I have a very good memory.”
Intrigue brightened his eyes. “Ah yes, I remember now. Nadia mentioned it at dinner, didn’t she? A photographic memory.”
Leo didn’t like to talk about her perfect memory. She never wanted to appear too proud or too strange, and strange was certainly how she’d felt when Nadia Stroud had commented on it at dinner.
“Do you truly remember everything?” Mr. Cowper asked, cocking his head with interest.
“It’s difficult to explain,” she said, squirming a little. “But for the most part, yes, I remember what I see and read, and much of the time, what I hear. Everything is…just there, in my mind, waiting for me. Like I said, difficult to explain.”
Hoping to avoid any further questions, Leo opened the box to perform a search. “I’ll look, just in case,” she said but hesitated when lifting the lid. “There is blood on some of the items, if you would rather not look in.”
He gave a solemn shake of his head. “I’ll be fine, Miss Spencer, but thank you for such thoughtfulness.”
With him at her side, Leo removed the lid.
She checked the neck and bodice of Helen’s dress for the brooch, though she already knew it would not be there.
She also pushed aside a small stack of handwriting samples, tied together with string, and then Helen’s mud-encrusted boots.
Every item had been pinned with a small tag, upon which a description had been written.
“I don’t see a brooch,” Leo said as she moved the dress to cover the murder weapon, thinking it better that he not view it. Doing so revealed something at the very bottom of the box. A small, ripped scrap of fabric that Leo had not seen before.
She took it up, and her fingers rubbed the soft material, dyed a dark burgundy.
“What do you have there?” Mr. Cowper asked.
“I’m not sure,” she murmured. The strip of fabric was narrow, so much so that the small tag pinned to it was nearly equal in size. Leo read the card’s writing. “Snagged on broken glass, back door.”
As Helen had possessed a key to the house in her handbag, it was left to reason that the killer had smashed some glass in the back door to gain entrance.
Holding the plush fabric between her fingers, her memory worked to remember where she had seen this color and fabric before. The tug of recognition was there. She only needed to concentrate. She closed her eyes.
“What is it you are doing?” Mr. Cowper asked.
Leo opened her eyes and lowered the fabric. “Trying to place where I’ve seen this material before.”
“With your extraordinary memory?” he asked, grin forming. “Any luck?”
“Nothing yet.” She placed the fabric back into the box. With some focus, she might be able to come upon an answer, but she was too unsettled by Mr. Cowper’s interest in her memory to do so right then. “It will come to me.”
Constable Wiley returned then, his usually pale cheeks tinted pink.
“Mr. Cowper, it seems to be the opinion of the Chief Inspector that it would be best for Inspector Reid to send the victim’s belongings after the case is closed.” He spoke swiftly and quietly, and though he tried, he could not avoid glimpsing Leo’s smug grin.
“Constable, thank you. I’m sure that is the best course of action,” Mr. Cowper replied.
“And you, Miss Spencer,” Wiley said harshly. “You are to return tomorrow to give your accounting of today’s events. Chief Inspector’s orders.”
That was just fine by her. Leo was growing tired of waiting and of Wiley’s presence, anyhow.
As Mr. Cowper and Leo left the detective department, he said, “May I escort you to wherever it is you are going?”
“I’m only walking a short distance,” she assured him as they passed Constable Woodhouse at the front desk in the lobby. She smiled at the friendly constable, bidding him a good evening, and then she and Mr. Cowper stepped outside into the rain.
“If you are quite certain?” he asked as he signaled a hansom.
“Entirely. Besides, you must need to get to your train.”
He tipped the brim of his hat and closed himself into the hansom.
Leo put down her head and started for the morgue. The sleety rain pelted her, and she wished she was not wearing her finest gown and shoes. At least she had a hooded cloak, which she pulled up now to protect herself from the rain.
As she walked swiftly, Leo began to pull up images from the day and night she and Jasper had spent at Cowper Hall.
From the first moments of entering the large Tudor home and seeing the Viscount Cowper standing ominously above them at the balustrade, to the will reading in the library, and those who were present.
More images flipped forward, each one vivid and detailed, as if she were standing inside each memory again.
The scrap of fabric in the evidence box was small, no larger than the length of her thumb, and no wider either. The soft, plush material was most likely velvet, and the color continued to trouble her. She knew she had seen it before. But where?
As she approached the back lane to the morgue, she went through what each member of the Cowper family, as well as the solicitor Mr. Corman, had been wearing at the reading of the will, then later at dinner.
The vivid memories shuttled into the front of her mind, distracting her from the poor weather, and Leo saw again each person seated around the dining room table the evening of the destructive storm that had kept her and Jasper from departing Cowper Hall as planned.
Her feet came to a stumbling halt. She took a short, gasping breath as her mind’s eye lingered on the picture-perfect memory that had arisen, providing an answer—though little comfort.
Oh, good Lord.
She hurried for the back door to the morgue, her pulse at a full gallop as she realized the enormity of the mistake she’d just made.
Leo was opening the door to the back office when she felt a presence behind her. Before she could turn, a hand shoved hard between her shoulder blades, thrusting her into the darkened morgue.