He’d attended the private boys’ school for four years, only coming home to Charles Street for short breaks. Jasper had never wondered what his father had been doing during those years. Working at Scotland Yard, he’d presumed. He could understand now, however, that Gregory Reid might have been lonely.
“And when did it end?” he asked next.
“When you finished at school.”
“Right,” he said, experiencing a pang of guilt. Jasper’s return to London had meant Gregory could no longer have Francine at the house in secret. Had his father resented that?
“It wasn’t just your coming home,” Mrs. Zhao said gently, as though reading his thoughts. “Her son passed away, and then, not long after that, her husband did as well.”
Twelve years ago, the letter from Francine had stated. Jasper would have been about eighteen years old and in his final year at Cheltenham.
“I heard about her son.” He decided not to say anything about Francine’s request that he and Leo investigate Teddy’s death. He shook his head. “Why did he keep it from me?”
Emmaline had not been Jasper’s mother; he’d had no ties to her at all, no allegiance. After Francine’s mourning period forher husband had concluded, why had they never rekindled their relationship?
“Shame, I believe,” Mrs. Zhao replied to the question Jasper had asked her as well as the one not voiced.
“Because Francine was his late wife’s sister?”
The housekeeper pushed her plate away with a sigh. He’d lost his appetite too.
“And because of the money.”
Jasper peered at her quizzically. “What money?”
She winced. “Every year, the property taxes for this house were paid in full by an anonymous party; Mr. Reid believed it was Mrs. Stroud.”
Jasper slid back his chair and stood as a rush of energy overtook the numbness that had filled him. For the last several months, ever since his father’s solicitor had handed Jasper the deed to the Charles Street address, he’d questioned how the property taxes had been paid. Most people of Gregory and Jasper’s class leased rooms or houses; they did not own a home—especially not one in a neighborhood as affluent as this one. The land the house sat upon was taxed, at a rate proportionate to the quality of the home and that of the other homes in the surrounding area. The taxes would have drained Jasper’s meager savings, and he’d not been able to reconcile how his father had managed all these years.
“Why did no one tell me?” he asked, becoming angry now. Worry had plagued him for months; he’d lain in bed, harangued by the decision to either go broke trying to keep the home his father had clung to, as he had the cherished memories of his wife and children, or sell it.
“I did not know if she would continue with her generosity after Mr. Reid’s death,” Mrs. Zhao explained, her hands clasped in a nervous, pleading manner. “And the solicitor, Mr. Stockton,he did not know who the anonymous donor was. I believe he was waiting to see if the money arrived as it always had.”
Jasper stalked away from the table, raking a hand through his hair, still damp from the bath.
“Mr. Reid could not tell you,” she went on, “without also admitting to the affair.”
Not to mention, it had likely been a longstanding bruise on his father’s masculinity.
Jasper had been shut out, and if his father were still alive, he’d have given him hell for it. But as he wasn’t, there was only Mrs. Zhao left, and he would not take his anger out on her.
“I need to get to the Yard,” he grumbled.
His housekeeper nodded as if understanding his anger and his need to leave the Charles Street home. Jasper threw on his coat and hat at the door and left on foot for police headquarters. The raw autumn air chilled his temper as he walked, his mind sorting through the mess just revealed to him. Anger, disappointment, hurt—he didn’t know which one he felt most keenly.
Once he arrived at Scotland Yard, however, he was able to set it all to the side as he greeted Constable Woodhouse at the front desk, and then the rest of the men in the Criminal Investigation Department. Constable Horace Wiley, who had applied for but been denied the secondment to Liverpool for the very investigation Jasper had just wrapped up, scowled an envious hello, but the others were pleased to see him. Word had come down of the counterfeiters’ arrests, and Detective Sergeant Roy Lewis had suggested a round of drinks at the Rising Sun that night to hear all about it.
Regretfully, Jasper had needed to postpone the gathering until the following day, as he was due to pick up Leo. After asking Detective Sergeant Warnock to find the record of Theodore Stroud’s death and leave it on his desk, he wired theLiverpool station requesting another two days’ leave. Then, he set out for the morgue.
In the dusk, the stained glass windows of the old vestry glowed with lights from the gasoliers inside, and when Jasper entered the building, he heard a sound coming from the postmortem room that he recognized: the jovial whistling of the former assistant city coroner, Claude Feldman.
He pushed open the door to the inner room to find Leo’s uncle placing the final closing sutures on the unclothed corpse of a young woman. He averted his eyes out of respect for the woman but was momentarily confused. Claude was no longer coroner here, and yet, when the older man looked up from his work, he brightened visibly, as he had for the last few years whenever Jasper visited the Spring Street Morgue.
“Ah, Inspector, how good it is to see you. My niece has informed me that you’re here for a short visit.” Claude snipped a length of catgut thread with a pair of small scissors. “How is Liverpool?”
Jasper peered toward the door to the back office, where Leo could usually be found, typing up postmortem reports, death certificates, and any other bit of paperwork that was required.
“Let’s just say I am ready to be home,” he replied. “I hadn’t expected to see you here. What has happened to Mr. Quinn?”
