Chapter 19 #2
Miss Sweeny blinked. “Maybe she didn’t tell him what it was she was after. I don’t know, and neither do I care. Stephen killed her when she found out he’d pushed Master Teddy. He took my lady and her babe from me, and he deserved what he got!”
Jasper sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, contemplating the maid’s version of events.
Clearly, she’d been devoted to Helen. So much so that she would commit murder to avenge her.
He wondered if Helen would have done the same for her, had their roles been reversed, and found he could not believe she would have.
“Did Stephen confess before you shot him?”
This question seemed to startle her, and the maid scowled. “He said it was his fault. He kept mumbling about her body and all the blood, and how he just left her there. It was a confession.”
“Or you jumped to the wrong conclusion without proper evidence,” Jasper said.
“Helen told you she gave away her tear catcher, but she never named Stephen specifically. I’m sorry, Miss Sweeny, but if she held any suspicion at all that he might have had a role in Theodore’s death, it simply doesn’t add up that she would have arranged to meet him the night of the storm, let alone go with him to the Craven Hill house. ”
Jasper got to his feet as another theory took shape.
“However, if she’d given the tear catcher to another man, and she learned that man might have grappled with Theodore before his fall…
” He paced toward the door, his mind working quickly as he mused aloud, “What if she wasn’t rushing to London to beat Leo and me to the hidden trinket, but someone else?
Someone who knew that trinket would connect them to the boy’s fall. ”
Miss Sweeny slammed her iron-cuffed wrists against the table. “No! It was Stephen. It had to have been. Before she married, my lady wasn’t out in society enough to have met any other unsuitable men. She stayed at home, she and Miss Stroud and Mr. Cowper and Stephen.”
“You said Stephen and Frederick Cowper had a falling out,” Jasper reminded her.
“They did,” she said.
“When?”
She lifted her chained hands and rubbed her temples in frustration. “I don’t know exactly. Everything unraveled between everyone after Master Teddy died. I think it was around that same time.”
Jasper had paced to the door. Now, he held still. The missing phaeton and horse from Cowper Hall had plagued him, especially after finding Stephen’s muddied gig and horse at his farm. Sam Everton had confirmed Stephen had taken Helen to London, too.
So that meant someone else had taken the phaeton and horse from the viscount’s stables. Someone who would have had ready access to them. Someone who would have wanted to reach that little glass tube hidden under a floorboard before anyone else.
Someone who had known about Francine Stroud’s letter and what she’d found in Teddy’s hand.
“Inspector?” the maid queried. He’d been silent too long.
Her voice snapped him out of his trancelike focus, and he wrenched the door open.
Sergeant Warnock was still at his desk, though the rest of the department had thinned out.
Constable Wiley remained, along with Price and another newer constable that must have been hired while Jasper was in Liverpool.
“Where is Lewis?” he asked sharply.
Warnock grimaced and shot a glance toward Chief Inspector Coughlan’s office. The door was closed, but the Irishman’s grumbling voice could still be heard.
“He’s in with the chief,” Warnock said. “Coughlan’s none too pleased to hear Miss Spencer was involved in another arrest.”
Jasper stilled. “What arrest?”
The sergeant’s lips gaped like a landed fish. “I thought you knew, sir. Mrs. Gleason from Gleason’s Department Store. Some kind of opium smuggling ring.”
“Opium?” Christ. What in hell had happened since the previous evening? He held up his hand. “Never mind. Warnock, Price,” he said. “You’re both with me. Wiley, charge Miss Sweeny with the murder of Stephen Decamp. She has confessed.”
Wiley hoisted himself up from his chair, looking peeved to be given an order this late in the evening. Especially as there would be paperwork to complete and arrangements to be made to hold the prisoner for the night.
Warnock and Price, however, jumped to their feet, and each reached for their coat and hat.
“Where are we going, sir?” Price asked.
“To the hotel at Paddington Station,” Jasper replied, reaching for his own still-damp coat and bowler. “If Frederick Cowper is still there, I need to speak to him.”
“Cowper?” Wiley asked, pausing from his walk toward the interview room. “He was here earlier.”
Jasper’s heels dragged to a stop as he was putting on his coat. “When? What did he want?”
“A half hour ago, or so. He was leaving London and wanted some things belonging to his cousin, the Dalton victim.”
“What things?”
“Didn’t say. Of course, I told him we couldn’t release any evidence until the case is closed,” he said, puffing up his chest with a look of superiority. “And I told Miss Spencer to quit going through the box, too.”
Jasper had started away again, but at the mention of Leo, he stopped and stared at the constable. “Miss Spencer was here as well?”
Wiley snorted derisively. “Aye, she said she was here to give her report to Sergeant Lewis about the arrest of that department store owner. But instead, Mr. Cowper and I found her going through the evidence box for the Dalton murder. Can’t keep her bloody beak out of police business, that woman.”
Jasper clenched his hands into fists at his side. “When did she leave?”
“Same time as Mr. Cowper.”
His pulse skipped. “They left together?”
At Wiley’s nod, he turned and started for the corridor.
On the face of it, Leo and Frederick’s departure together might have meant nothing.
But if Frederick had been looking for a piece of evidence, and he’d found Leo going through the box…
Jasper’s worry might have been unfounded, but by the time he reached Constable Woodhouse, he knew he couldn’t set it aside.
“Woodhouse,” he said, approaching the reception desk. The constable was donning his boiled wool coat as he prepared to leave for the evening. “Did you see Miss Spencer go out?”
“Not long before you arrived, Inspector,” he answered with a nod.
“And was a man with her?”
Another nod. “A gent. He offered to escort her to where she was going. She declined, saying it was but a short walk.”
Again, on its surface, the overheard exchange didn’t sound overtly alarming. But Frederick Cowper was the only other person who had known about Francine’s letter. Ursula had confessed to him in the billiards room, stoking his anger…or had it been panic?
“Did she say where she was going?” Jasper asked. At the shake of the constable’s head, indecision stole through him. Her home on Duke Street was a short walk from the Yard. But so was the morgue.
As he, Warnock, and Price exited through the back door into the courtyard behind headquarters, he tried to determine where Leo might have gone.
“Sir?” Warnock said. “Shall I get a cab for us?”
Jasper knew he should go to Paddington Station, on the chance that Frederick’s train had not yet left. But he could not shake the suspicion that Leo was in trouble.
“Yes,” Jasper said, making his decision. “Take Price and go to Paddington Station. If you find Mr. Cowper, take him into custody and bring him back here.”
Warnock accepted the task with alacrity, and he and Price set off toward the line of carriages for hire.
Jasper pulled the brim of his hat down against the rain and set off in the direction he hoped Leo had gone.