Millicent shifted uneasily on the sofa, while Nadia nodded her head readily, her eyes glistening with tears.
“Yes, fine, Inspector. After dinner, I…I went to the small sitting room with Helen, Millie, and Miss Spencer. We didn’t stay there long. I went to my room afterward and then to bed. This morning, when I joined Grandfather for breakfast, he told me Helen had…gone.” She choked out the last word.
Jasper would need to verify her claim against whatever Warnock and Price learned from Nadia’s maid, but he wasn’t suspicious of her.
“You already have my alibi,” Anthony said as he stared through a window, his back to the others in the room.
Millicent folded her hands in the lap of her thick nightrobe, the collar high and modest. “I left the sitting room before the others and went to my room. My maid drew a bath, and afterward I read a novel for a little while in bed before falling asleep.”
Jasper looked to her husband, the Cowper heir. He knew for a fact that Frederick had been in the billiards room around ten thirty, as that was when Jasper had been leaving Leo’s room and overheard his terse admonishment of the young maid. “And you, Mr. Cowper?”
He wanted to test him, see if Frederick would tell the truth.
“I think it was just after ten when I left the billiards room. I went to bed and stayed there all night,” Frederick answered, his brow taut, his demeanor distracted.
“Can you verify this, Mrs. Cowper?” Jasper asked. He received a subtle scoff and a look of disdain from her.
“Those of our class keep separate rooms, Inspector,” she said, making it clear anything else would have been beneath her.
“I see,” he said and recalled, belatedly, the penchant upper-class couples had to keep separate bedrooms, often attached by a connecting door or dressing room. Jasper could not see the draw of that; if he had a wife, he’d want her in bed with him every night. The errant thought gave rise to another vision of Leo that had no place being in his mind right at that moment.
“Do you have a valet, Mr. Cowper?” If so, the servant could mark when Frederick was in his room.
“Yes, Winters. But I gave him the night off, so I didn’t see him until morning.”
“What time in the morning?” Jasper pressed.
“Eight, I believe.”
He would check with Winters to verify Frederick’s recollection, though Jasper recalled seeing the heir entering the breakfast room at around eight thirty that morning.
The only person remaining to give his whereabouts over the course of the previous night was the viscount. He had not moved from his armchair, nor lifted his head from his hand. His tall, thin frame looked to be sagging in on itself in utter defeat.
Frederick stood up from his cushion on the sofa. “What about that Miss Spencer woman? She was here last night. Shouldn’t she be questioned as well?”
Jasper hitched his chin. “She has been.” He would not share more than that with them. “Now, it is known that Helen left here sometime during the night after eleven o’clock. She could not have taken a train to Paddington Station, as the tracks were closed, so she would have required a conveyance. Were any missing this morning from the stables here?”
The viscount lifted his head from his hand and spoke with a firmness that straightened every back in the room. “Decamp. Tell him.”
The butler cleared his throat. “A pony phaeton and one of the horses, Inspector. They were found to be absent from the stables this morning.”
“Did Mrs. Dalton have experience taking the phaeton out?” The small, sporty conveyance was made for a single passenger, or two passengers squeezed close together.
Everyone—excepting the viscount, whose face was once again buried in his palm—glanced skeptically at one another, as if to seek out the person who might know the answer.
“My wife did not drive often,” came Anthony’s reply after a pause. “But a phaeton is not so difficult to maneuver.”
Perhaps not, but Jasper still wondered if the person who had beckoned Helen to meet them at their “spot” had also driven to London with her. There had been no horse and phaeton parkedalong Craven Hill earlier that night when he and Leo had found Helen’s body, and it appeared the phaeton and horse were still missing.
“I’ll have my sergeant take down a description of the horse and phaeton. The Met can launch a search for them in London,” he said. “I will also need handwriting samples from all of you.” The request elicited the same quizzing looks from them as Anthony had given him earlier. Before anyone could object, Jasper raised his hand to stave off any dissension. “I am requesting samples from everyone here, including the staff. Just sign your name, or whatever you like, on a piece of paper.”
As Decamp went to find paper and writing tools, Jasper fielded cold, suspicious glances. It was possible he was making too much of the note; there was the chance it was an old missive, and Helen had simply been storing it in her handbag. When Warnock and Price arrived with Helen’s maid, Jasper would see what she knew. If Helen was seeing anyone, and if she’d received a note last evening, the maid would likely be aware of it.
“What was she doing at that house?” Nadia asked as she wrote her name. She handed it to Jasper and met his eyes. “She hated it there. The place is haunted.”
He cocked his head, intrigued. “Because of what happened to your brother?”
She blinked, as if surprised he knew about Teddy’s death. “Yes.”
