Or one that would get her killed. Leo’s skin prickled with gooseflesh.
“Did she tell you what the story was about?”
Mrs. Ferland shook her head. “She wouldn’t say. Got the impression it were dangerous since in the past, she’d told me about her other articles. Didn’t breathe a word about this one, though. I told her to be careful. I told her…” She shook her head and lifted her apron hem to dab at her eyes and nose again.
“May I look at her room?” Leo asked. If Lydia had been working at Gleason’s undercover and writing a story, it was possible she’d have notes or drafts of her article stashed there.
Mrs. Ferland agreed and led Leo to the second floor. Voice quavering, she said she’d checked Lydia’s room each evening, hopeful that she had returned at some point during the day, but with no luck.
The room was small—no larger than Leo’s own cramped Duke Street bedroom. It was much tidier than Leo’s room, however. The bed was neatly made, there were no articles of clothing left lying about, and a narrow stand of shelves was organized with Lydia’s few possessions. Even the small writing desk near the single window overlooking the street was orderly and clean, with a Remington typewriter, some books, fountain pens, and a box of typewriter paper.
She walked to the desk, hopeful that there would be some typing on the paper in the box, but the pages were blank. Opening the desk drawer, she saw that it was empty.
“Have you tidied the room recently?” Leo asked.
“No, this is how Lydia likes to keep her space,” she answered. Then after a pause, she added, “Liked, I mean.”
Downstairs, another lodger called for Mrs. Ferland. The landlady excused herself for a moment. Leo twitched the curtains, looking out over the street, thinking. If Lydia was a reporter, why wouldn’t she have anything she’d written on her desk, or in it? There were no pages on the stand of shelves, and no closet to put anything in. Just a bureau where, Leo discovered after a quick search, was filled with clothing and undergarments.
Leo got down on all fours and peered underneath the bed. Some boots and shoes were lined up, though nothing else had been stored there. Before pushing back onto her feet, she considered a hiding space that she had used in the past herself, after Aunt Flora had found and read the letters Leo had written to her dead family shortly after she and Claude had taken her in. She’d been a child, still raw with anguish, and spoiling for a fight too. Leo had liked living with the Inspector in his big house with the kindly Mrs. Zhao who made delicious food. Even Jasper, the tall, quiet, unsmiling boy off the streets hadn’t been too awful. The truth was, Leo hadn’t wanted to live with her aged aunt and uncle, whom she did not know at all. In her letters to her dead family, she had written honestly, perhaps even cruelly, about her discontent. She knew her family would never be able to read her letters, but Leo had wanted to talk to them. Writing letters had seemed like the best way to get out her thoughts.
Flora had called her an ungrateful little girl and then tossed the letters into the kitchen stove. Her aunt had been crying as she did so, Leo recalled, and now she understood Flora, too, had been in anguish. She’d lost her sister to inexplicable violence. After reading her aunt’s letters to her mother, Leo realized that Flora must have felt guilt or frustration, or both. She’d known the family was in danger, but she hadn’t been able to stop it.
After watching the letters to her dead family burn, Leo kept anything that was remotely private under her mattress. Flora did not change the bedlinens, for that was Leo’s chore, and so her private things were safe there.
Leo lifted Lydia’s mattress and grinned as she pulled free a thick manila folio, toggled with string. She sat on the edge of the bed and began to go through the papers. There were several newspaper clippings, all of them advertisements for Gleason’s, and some typed pages riddled with edits and notes scribbled in the margins. Leo quickly read the first few lines on one of the pages, and it appeared to be the beginning of an article on stolen goods being sold in one of London’s most fashionable department stores.
With her pulse beginning to kick, Leo pulled a slim, leather-bound journal from the folio. The pages inside were covered in handwriting. Her eyes skimmed over the pages, in which Lydia had chronicled the names and descriptions of the shop assistants she worked with, as well as others in different departments. She noted people’s schedules and habits, as if she were compiling information on everything related to Gleason’s employees. Then, there were notes on products being sold, like urns, vases, statuary, and decorative home items such as pillows and clocks.
Just as Mrs. Ferland’s returning footfalls sounded in the corridor, she turned a page in Lydia’s journal and read a word, which had been underlined twice:Opium?
She stood up from the bed a moment before the landlady came back into Lydia’s room.
“Forgive me if I were too long away. The other lodgers were quite upset to hear about poor Miss Hailson.” She saw the folio lying on the bed. “Did you find anything helpful?”
Leo stuffed the papers and the journal back inside the folio and tied the toggle. “It was under her mattress. I’m quite sure it details what she was working on at Gleason’s.”
If opium and stolen items were involved, whatever Lydia had been investigating had been dangerous. She’d also, obviously, been caught.
“I will need to take this with me to share with a detective from Scotland Yard,” Leo said, thinking first of Jasper, but then, as he would be leaving for Liverpool—perhaps even before she had the chance to see him again—of Roy Lewis. “If they know she was onto something dangerous and illegal, the police will have every reason to open a case to investigate her murder.”
At least, that is what she hoped.
Mrs. Ferland nodded avidly. “Of course, take it, if you think it will help. I still can’t believe she’s dead. It just isn’t fair. She were so certain this story would be the start of her career…”
The landlady didn’t have to finish her thought. She was right. It wasn’t fair at all. Murder hardly ever was, but the bite of some cases was felt more sharply than others. What Lydia thought would start her career had very likely ended her life.
After thanking Mrs. Ferland again and promising her that she would be in contact, Leo left the boardinghouse. She had the folio tight under her arm as she walked along the pavement toward an omnibus stand at the end of the road, near Picadilly Circus. She’d come on foot, but she was too eager to return to the morgue and share Lydia’s trove of notes with Connor. Or perhaps she should instead go straight to Scotland Yard. Jasper would not be there; he would be traveling to Harrow. But Roy Lewis might listen to what she had learned about Lydia’s precarious position at Gleason’s.
Leo approached the omni stand, where three men in business suits and a woman wearing a large, fussy hat waited for an omni. Another man, tall and wide set, stepped up onto thepavement a few strides in front of Leo and walked toward her. He didn’t move aside to allow her to pass, and when she tried to move around him, he slid to block her path again.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, her patience wearing thin.
But he did not move. Just then, a black-and-maroon-painted carriage came to a stop next to her in the street. The tall man standing before her raised his arm, gesturing toward the carriage. The door opened, and Leo saw a familiar face looking out at her.
“Good day, Miss Spencer.” It was Eddie Bloom, the proprietor of Striker’s Wharf and the leader of a criminal racket out of Lambeth’s wharves. “I think you should join me.”
Leo held still where she was, alarm coursing through her. “No, thank you, Mr. Bloom,” she said, a bubble of air trapped in her throat. “I have an omni to catch.”
