Nadia stormed up to him, her eyes hinged on the vial. “That is Helen’s tear catcher.”
“You recognize it?”
“Of course, I do. Our mother gave them to us when Aunt Emmaline and our cousins died,” she said, referring to Gregory Reid’s wife and two children who’d drowned eighteen years ago. At the time, Nadia would have been quite young, perhaps nine or ten. Helen, perhaps a few years older than that.
Nadia reached for the tear catcher, and Jasper let her hold it. She gazed at the pretty twist of amethyst and cobalt glass. “I’ll confess; I didn’t know my cousins or aunt well, so I filled mine with a few drops of water instead of tears. I remember feeling guilty for it, even though I shouldn’t have—Helen filled hers with perfume.” She shook her head as she handed the tear catcher back to him. “We wore them for over a year, as necklace pendants, before our fake tears dried up inside. But they were so pretty we kept wearing them, and I filled mine with perfume too. It’s so odd. I hadn’t thought of these tear catchers in years, and now, this is the second time in just a few months.”
Jasper pocketed the tear catcher, intrigued. “When was the first time?”
She peered at him. “Is it important?”
“It could be.”
Nadia crossed the small butler’s pantry toward Decamp. He and Ursula had been listening quietly, the maid riveted, and the butler, his eyes damp and probing.
“Very well, then,” she said. “I was going through my jewelry boxes, setting things aside that I no longer wanted, and happened to find my tear catcher. I showed it to Helen and asked what had ever happened to hers. Her cheeks went tomato red. She was utterly flustered and didn’t want to speak about it. Of course, I wanted to know why, so I needled her, and eventually she shouted that she’d given it to someone.”
“Who?” Jasper asked.
Nadia arched a brow. “A man. I attacked her with questions, but she wouldn’t say more, just that it was someone she wished to forget all about. She was so upset, she nearly cried.”
Jasper’s mind began to whirl with everything Nadia was saying. He forced it to slow. “Did you believe her? That she’d given it to a man?”
Nadia furrowed her brow in thought. “I know my sister well.” She paused. “Knewmy sister. I always knew when she was lying. Her nostrils would flare, and she’d blink too much. But when she said she’d given the tear catcher to someone else, there was none of that. I only saw humiliation, oddly. So, yes, I believed her.”
“And when you had this conversation with Helen about the tear catchers, was your mother present?” he asked next.
“Yes. Come to think of it, she was. She was upset by our little tiff and went to lay down.”
Jasper unclenched his hands, which he’d balled into fists at his sides. He exhaled, finally understanding. After hearing her daughters’ argument, Francine had learned the little vial might not have been in Helen’s possession at the time of Teddy’s death. That it may have already been given to a mysterious young man.
“Inspector,” Decamp said. “If Mrs. Dalton gave that tear catcher to someone else, how was it found in Master Teddy’s hand?”
“I believe that is what Mrs. Stroud wanted Miss Spencer and me to discover,” he replied. “If Theodore was pushed, and heripped the trinket free from around his attacker’s neck, where it was being worn…”
“It may have been the man Helen gave it to,” Nadia provided.
“Why would that man, whoever it was, have been on the roof with Master Teddy?” Ursula asked. But then, she covered her mouth and hunched back. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business.”
At the maid’s question, however, Nadia did not appear irritated. Instead, she blanched. “Oh no.”
“What is it, Miss Stroud?” Jasper asked.
“Stephen,” she whispered. Decamp stood up on unsteady legs.
“What about my son?”
“He and Helen would…well, they would often meet on the roof of the house on Craven Hill to be alone,” Nadia whispered, her eyes blinking rapidly.
Jasper thought of Helen’s relationship with Stephen. It had ended right after Teddy’s death. IfStephenhad been the man to whom Helen had given the tear catcher, he might have worn it as a sentimental trinket. Had Teddy come upon the lovers on the roof?
He might have pushed the boy from the roof, and Teddy’s hand might have closed around the tear catcher, ripping it free from Stephen’s neck.
When Nadia had brought up the tear catchers shortly before their mother’s death, Helen might have panicked with the memory of what had happened that night, of what she’d participated in. Perhaps that is why she and Stephen had traveled together to London—to retrieve the tear catcher. But again, the vial alone was not evidence of any foul play. And if Stephen had pushed Teddy off the roof, even accidentally, why would Helen have conducted an affair with him now, all these years later?
It made no sense.
Jasper rolled his neck and shoulders, frustrated by the circles he kept traversing with this case.
