“Do you think you might be able to find out where Lydia was living? An address?” she asked. “Without being too obvious, of course.”
“I know just who to ask.” Dita sprang from her chair and collected her things. “But you never said how finding out what happened to Lydia would help Mr. Quinn.”
“They were once betrothed,” Leo explained. If anyone could be sympathetic to losing a loved one, it was Dita.
She nodded solemnly. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Chapter Twelve
With October nearing its end, and the sun slipping below the horizon earlier every evening, Leo arrived home just as shadows began to lengthen along Duke Street. This time of year, sunsets tended to be dull and fast, as if not wanting to give anyone a reason to stay out in the chilly evening air any longer than necessary.
Leo’s mind had whirled since leaving Oxford Street, and even more so after stopping in at the morgue to divulge to Connor what she’d learned on her outing to Gleason’s. When she’d told him of Dita’s suspicion of a liaison between Lydia and Mr. Gleason, he’d been adamant that she would never have engaged in an affair with a married man.
“But perhaps that is why she was so nervous that day,” Leo suggested gently. “Maybe she had heard that Mrs. Gleason had hired a private agency to look into her husband’s affairs.”
But Connor had refused to believe it, and Leo had decided not to push the idea further, especially when he was already so upset. Besides, Dita had only been theorizing; there was no proof of anything. What Leo wanted to do next was see where Lydia had been living and speak to the people she’d known well—outside of Gleason’s. Considering she had been killed while still wearing her work uniform, Leo would remain cautious about questioning anyone else at the department store.
Light glowed in the sitting room window inside the small but tidy row house on Duke Street, and as she climbed the front step and let herself inside, Leo looked forward to warming herself by the coal fire that Claude would have stoked. After hanging up her coat and hat and leaving her gloves and handbag on the hall table, she stepped into the front room—and came to an abrupt stop.
Jasper and her uncle stood together in front of the fireplace, each holding a glass of whisky. Claude hardly ever drank, except for a half-pint of ale from time to time, and she most certainly had never seen him having a drink with Jasper. The men were utterly quiet, as if they’d cut off their conversation upon hearing her come in through the front door, and their expressions were furtive.
Leo sensed that she’d interrupted something serious.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, suddenly worried. “Is it Aunt Flora?”
Her uncle startled. “No, no. Your aunt is well. She and Mrs. Zhao are in the kitchen.”
It had been one of Claude’s days to work at Tate’s, she realized, and Mrs. Zhao would have come to stay with Flora.
“In fact, I should go check on them. Mrs. Zhao has made a lovely roast for our supper,” her uncle said, setting his untouched glass of whisky on the occasional table.
As he walked toward the door where she still stood, he met Leo’s curious gaze. And then winked. She had no idea what to make of it as he left the sitting room.
“How is Quinn?” Jasper asked before she could ask what he and Claude had been discussing. She shook the cold from her skirt as she walked toward the coal fire, then picked up heruncle’s abandoned whisky. There was no reason to put it to waste.
“Still upset,” she answered, although she had no intention of letting Jasper steer her away from what she wanted to know. “What were you and my uncle speaking about just now?”
“He wanted to know more about the house on Craven Hill.” Jasper’s answer was too quick, too relaxed, to be believed completely. He was holding something back. But just as she had with Connor earlier, she let it go.
Leo sipped the whisky, and while it wasn’t sweet like the Inspector’s favorite cherry cordial that they used to share, Jasper’s preferred spirits were beginning to grow on her. It might have been because of Jasper himself, and of how the taste reminded her of him. She sat on the sofa, and he took the cushion next to her.
“I haven’t really given the house much thought,” Leo confessed. “It doesn’t feel real yet that it’s ours.”
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, and scrubbed a hand over his cheek bristle. “We don’t need to think about it just yet. I’d like to arrest someone for Mrs. Dalton’s murder first.”
“Did you speak with her maid?”
“I did.” He sat back against the cushion and shifted toward her. “Helen was having an affair with the viscount’s steward, Stephen Decamp.”
“Decamp? A relation of the butler’s?”
He nodded. “Son. The maid delivered a note from Helen to Stephen the afternoon of the storm, after the reading of the will. He sent along his written reply.”
Leo leaned back, drawing her leg up underneath her. “To meet at their spot. So, it was he who took the phaeton and drove them to London. But where is Stephen Decamp now?”
“I sent a wire to Paddington Division for them to take him into custody,” Jasper said, taking a sip of his drink. He shook his head. “But I had word before coming here that they couldn’t locate him.”
“He might have stayed in London.” It would explain why the horse and phaeton had not been returned to the stables at Cowper Hall. “If he did kill her, he could have fled the country by now.”
