“Quite certain. I have a very good memory.”
Intrigue brightened his eyes. “Ah yes, I remember now. Nadia mentioned it at dinner, didn’t she? A photographic memory.”
Leo didn’t like to talk about her perfect memory. She never wanted to appear too proud or too strange, and strange was certainly how she’d felt when Nadia Stroud had commented on it at dinner.
“Do you truly remember everything?” Mr. Cowper asked, cocking his head with interest.
“It’s difficult to explain,” she said, squirming a little. “But for the most part, yes, I remember what I see and read, and much of the time, what I hear. Everything is…just there, in my mind, waiting for me. Like I said, difficult to explain.”
Hoping to avoid any further questions, Leo opened the box to perform a search. “I’ll look, just in case,” she said but hesitated when lifting the lid. “There is blood on some of the items, if you would rather not look in.”
He gave a solemn shake of his head. “I’ll be fine, Miss Spencer, but thank you for such thoughtfulness.”
With him at her side, Leo removed the lid. She checked the neck and bodice of Helen’s dress for the brooch, though she already knew it would not be there. She also pushed aside a small stack of handwriting samples, tied together with string, and then Helen’s mud-encrusted boots. Every item had been pinned with a small tag, upon which a description had been written.
“I don’t see a brooch,” Leo said as she moved the dress to cover the murder weapon, thinking it better that he not view it. Doing so revealed something at the very bottom of the box. A small, ripped scrap of fabric that Leo had not seen before.
She took it up, and her fingers rubbed the soft material, dyed a dark burgundy.
“What do you have there?” Mr. Cowper asked.
“I’m not sure,” she murmured. The strip of fabric was narrow, so much so that the small tag pinned to it was nearly equal in size. Leo read the card’s writing. “Snagged on broken glass, back door.”
As Helen had possessed a key to the house in her handbag, it was left to reason that the killer had smashed some glass in the back door to gain entrance.
Holding the plush fabric between her fingers, her memory worked to remember where she had seen this color and fabric before. The tug of recognition was there. She only needed to concentrate. She closed her eyes.
“What is it you are doing?” Mr. Cowper asked.
Leo opened her eyes and lowered the fabric. “Trying to place where I’ve seen this material before.”
“With your extraordinary memory?” he asked, grin forming. “Any luck?”
“Nothing yet.” She placed the fabric back into the box. With some focus, she might be able to come upon an answer, but she was too unsettled by Mr. Cowper’s interest in her memory to do so right then. “It will come to me.”
Constable Wiley returned then, his usually pale cheeks tinted pink.
“Mr. Cowper, it seems to be the opinion of the Chief Inspector that it would be best for Inspector Reid to send the victim’s belongings after the case is closed.” He spoke swiftly and quietly, and though he tried, he could not avoid glimpsing Leo’s smug grin.
“Constable, thank you. I’m sure that is the best course of action,” Mr. Cowper replied.
“And you, Miss Spencer,” Wiley said harshly. “You are to return tomorrow to give your accounting of today’s events. Chief Inspector’s orders.”
That was just fine by her. Leo was growing tired of waiting and of Wiley’s presence, anyhow.
As Mr. Cowper and Leo left the detective department, he said, “May I escort you to wherever it is you are going?”
“I’m only walking a short distance,” she assured him as they passed Constable Woodhouse at the front desk in the lobby. She smiled at the friendly constable, bidding him a good evening, and then she and Mr. Cowper stepped outside into the rain.
“If you are quite certain?” he asked as he signaled a hansom.
“Entirely. Besides, you must need to get to your train.”
He tipped the brim of his hat and closed himself into the hansom.
Leo put down her head and started for the morgue. The sleety rain pelted her, and she wished she was not wearing her finest gown and shoes. At least she had a hooded cloak, which she pulled up now to protect herself from the rain.
As she walked swiftly, Leo began to pull up images from the day and night she and Jasper had spent at Cowper Hall. From the first moments of entering the large Tudor home and seeing the Viscount Cowper standing ominously above them at the balustrade, to the will reading in the library, and those who were present. More images flipped forward, each one vivid and detailed, as if she were standing inside each memory again.
