She began to read aloud, and Jasper quickly crossed the room to close the door. If Francine Stroud had wanted them to read her letter privately, she hadn’t intended for any servants to eavesdrop.
“To Detective Inspector Jasper Reid and Miss Leonora Spencer,”Leo began.
“As we have never met in life, I understand if you are bewildered to find yourselves at my father’s estate for the reading of my will. I cannot explain everything to you, as many details are private and have been kept as such over the years, at Gregory’s request. However, I wish you both to know that I esteemed him greatly, and that I supported my sister’s decision to marry for love. He spoke and wrote of you both quite often and with great affection. I know that you, Jasper, are a skilled detective, and that you, Leonora, have a stalwart constitution as well as a steel trap of a memory. For these reasons, and because Gregory believed so highly in you, I know I can trust the two of you now with a most significant task. I would like you to discover the truth surrounding my son’s death twelve years ago.”
Leo paused and looked up from the page. He’d begun pacing in front of the fireplace, a worrisome suspicion settling in his stomach, but now, at this last sentence, he paused, his attention sharpened.
“Go on,” he urged Leo. She continued with a nod.
“Theodore was just ten years old when, one night, he fell from the roof of the house on Craven Hill. It was judged to be death by misadventure, but there is something I kept hidden away from everyone, even Gregory. It is known that I was the unfortunate one to find my son’s lifeless body behind the house, where he came to rest. However, I never spoke of a small glass trinket I found clutched in his hand. The trinket, still strung to a length of ribbon, belonged to my older daughter, Helen. In that wretched moment, I suspected something wicked, something that went against the very nature of my being a mother. I was terrified and ashamed to question if Helen had anything todo with Teddy’s fall. So, I hid the trinket, a small vial, before anyone could discover it.
I kept it hidden away, unwilling to face my suspicion. However, recently, I learned that I may have been mistaken. The glass vial might not have been in Helen’s possession at the time of Teddy’s death. Who did possess it, and whether that person was on the roof with Teddy that night, is unknown. I am too ill and much too ashamed of what I believed about my daughter to begin my own inquiry now. However, I am aware that I failed Teddy by forsaking any opportunity to discover the truth about what happened that night. My dear boy deserves justice. I would like you to find it for him.”
Leo flipped the page and continued to read.
“You should begin your inquiry at Craven Hill. The home has been vacant for over a decade as I could not stay there after Teddy’s death. Go into the first-floor bedroom that overlooks the street. Count six floorboards from the heat register and look for a small graze in the wood. Underneath the plank, you will find the vial. It may help you in your investigation. At the very least, I would like it to be returned to my daughter.
It is by design that I will not be alive to hear the outcome of your inquiry. I cannot confess to Helen what I suspected all these years, and what has kept me from loving her fully, as I should have done. I hope she will know how ashamed I am of my betrayal.”
Leo lowered the paper. “Signed Mrs. Francine Stroud. It’s dated just two weeks ago.”
There came a light rap upon the door. A maid entered carrying a tray laden with biscuits and tea. At the sight of it, Jasper’s stomach rumbled; he’d left his lodgings in Liverpool early that morning to see to a few things at the police station before rushing to catch his train. The journey had taken hours, and he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast at Mrs. Hart’s. Shewas no Mrs. Zhao when it came to talent in the kitchen, but at least he hadn’t starved during the last four months.
The maid settled the tray onto an occasional table, and after she left, Leo let the silence stew a bit longer as she poured for them. Jasper was grateful for the delay. He hadn’t any idea what to say in response to the extraordinary letter. Mrs. Stroud had given them an assignment, for all intents and purposes, but as a detective inspector with Scotland Yard, Jasper did not take on private inquiries. His caseload was already too heavy as it was.
“I’m not sure what to make of it,” Leo said as she handed a cup of tea to him and then lowered herself onto the edge of a chair. “She could have asked us to investigate her son’s death without bequeathing us the property where he died.”
“Which makes me wonder if there were additional reasons she did not want any of her family members to have that home,” Jasper replied, taking the seat adjacent to her, on the settee.
“Because she suspected them?”
He reached for one of the biscuits and shrugged. “She’d started to doubt Helen was behind the deadly fall, so that opened the possibility that another person was. Someone who would have had reason to be on the roof of that house.”
On its surface, the inquiry did not seem too complicated. A conversation with Helen, then with the rest of the family, followed by the staff employed at the house on Craven Hill at the time, should unlock the truth, something Francine had been too afraid to undertake herself. How had she been able to turn her back on the truth surrounding the death of her only son all these years? Jasper didn’t think he could have withstood it. He’d have much rather faced the truth, ugly as it might be, and dealt with the consequences than go to his grave still wondering.
“What are we to do?” Leo asked, her cup of tea forgotten as she held it in her lap. “I could go to the address when I get back to London?—”
“Not alone,” he said, the reaction automatic.
“But the house is empty,” Leo argued.
“That doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be entering abandoned homes by yourself.”
Even ones located within wealthy neighborhoods. She set her jaw and kept her lips sealed.Bloody woman. She was going to go anyway.
Agitated, Jasper set his cup and saucer on the table. “We’ll speak to Helen before we leave. With any hope, she’ll be able to clear up the question surrounding her brother’s death quickly.” Or, she could blanch at having been found out, stammer a confession, and then Jasper would place her under arrest. He exhaled and scrubbed his bristled jaw.
He did not want this assignment, especially since it was being handed down from a woman his father had apparently known quite well. Yet, Gregory Reid had kept his acquaintance with Emmaline’s sister a secret. The wording of Francine’s letter made it sound as ifGregoryhad been the one to request the secrecy. It bothered Jasper. Perhaps as much as the decade-old mystery surrounding Theodore Stroud’s death bothered him.
“Mrs. Stroud didn’t provide many details about Teddy’s fall,” Leo said. “We should find out more about it before we speak to Helen. Do you think Mr. Corman might know?”
“I’ll ask, but I think Mrs. Dalton, and maybe Miss Stroud, would be the more knowledgeable about it.”
“What about the viscount?”
The mention of him soured Jasper’s stomach. Gregory Reid had explained enough about Emmaline’s father for Jasper to have already formed an opinion of the man. He did not believe meeting Viscount Cowper would alter that opinion.
“He didn’t attend the will reading,” Leo commented, after taking a disinterested sip of tea.
