“When matched to your torn sleeve, that scrap of fabric will,” she replied.
“Not if the jacket burns as soon as I return to Harrow.” A shape moved to her right—and Leo’s skin jumped as the loud, yowling hiss of a cat rent the air.
Mr. Cowper had trodden upon Tibia’s tail in the dark, she realized. Using the moment of distraction, Leo rushed for the door to the back lane. She flung it open and was one foot outside when a hand grabbed her arm and hauled her back into the office. This time, Mr. Cowper’s thrust succeeded in throwing her to the floor, but when Leo rolled onto her back and saw the black stamp of his figure looming over her, she didn’t hesitate—she plunged the paper knife’s blade into the body part closest to her: his calf.
He cried out and staggered away, while Leo bounded to her feet and ran again, this time toward the postmortem room door. She punted it open, but the wretched man again caught her, slamming into her back and wrapping his arms around her. He propelled them both into an unoccupied autopsy table. With the wheels locked, the table only screeched across the floor, but the edge of it rammed painfully into Leo’s ribs.
She’d kept hold of the paper knife, rather than leave it lodged in his leg, but now, Frederick’s hand smashed hers against the table once, twice, until pain radiated through the bones of her wrist and caused her fingers to open involuntarily. He wrenched the paper knife from her and, pinning her arms with his, brought the flat side of the blade against her collarbone. The pointed tip aligned with the base of her neck.
Frederick held her in a merciless squeeze, and suddenly, they were both still. His heaving breaths gusted against her ear, his face cradled by the curve of her neck.
“I didn’t expect Helen to be there,” he huffed, his breath hot against her skin. Leo’s stomach swirled with both disgust and fear. He aimed to kill her, just as he’d killed Helen.
“You both wanted the tear catcher,” she said, her own breaths fast and panicked. “But why?”
How had Frederick known where it was? And why would he have rushed there, just as Helen had, to find it?
“Because it would implicate him in Theodore Stroud’s murder.”
The stalwart voice emanated from across the postmortem room, and an overwhelming surge of relief throbbed through Leo, from her chest to her limbs.
Tears pricked her eyes as the gasoliers overhead rushed with flames. The sudden light brought the room—and Jasper—into view. He stood within the office entrance, his police-issued revolver in his hand, though not raised. He would not aim his weapon at her, she knew. His eyes assessed Leo, his mouth taut with fury as he saw the paper knife’s blade at her throat.
“When I asked why you had scolded Ursula outside the billiards room, you claimed that she was being a gossip,” he began. “But it was more than that, wasn’t it? The maid had confessed what she’d read in Francine Stroud’s letter. That Theodore was found dead with a glass vial clutched in his hand.” Jasper took slow strides into the room, his grip on his revolver firm. “Ursula explained that she’d told Helen of the letter’s contents, and so you knew that your niece would suspect the trinket was, in fact, her tear catcher.” Jasper held still. “The very one she had given to you shortly before her brother’s fall.”
Over her pounding heart and racing pulse, Leo tried to follow what Jasper was saying. Helen’s tear catcher had been inFrederick’spossession at the time of Teddy Stroud’s death.
“You pushed Teddy,” Leo said, her voice a rasp thanks to the man’s grasp around her ribs.
“You were on the roof the night of his fall,” Jasper added. “You were wearing the tear catcher, and in your struggle with him, he ripped it free from your neck.”
Leo’s ribs already ached from Frederick’s clamped arms, but now he constricted them tighter. It forced even more air from her lungs and an involuntary yelp from her throat.
“Release her,” Jasper ordered, his eyes bobbing to the paper knife. “There is no reason to silence Miss Spencer any longer, Mr. Cowper. You’ve been found out.”
Frederick didn’t obey and, instead, dragged Leo back several steps toward the lobby.
“Why were you on the roof that night?” Jasper asked, stalking toward them. “What did Theodore see?”
“He shouldn’t have been up there.” Frederick’s blunt voice rumbled against Leo’s eardrum.
“The roof was where Helen and Stephen Decamp would meet,” Jasper said. “You knew as much, I presume. It was why you were there. To spy on them.”
Though the postmortem room was icebox-cold, a fine perspiration had built up on Leo’s chest and back. Her breathing turned ragged as she tried to wriggle free from Frederick’s hold. The tip of the paper knife poked her skin, and she went still again.
“I couldn’t be with her,” Frederick whispered, the words a strident whine, as though squeezed by emotion. “But Stephen could. I knew it was wrong, but it was the closest I could come to having her for myself.”
He’d wanted to watch Helen and Stephen together. Leo’s stomach pitched.
“Helen knew how you felt,” Jasper said. “She’d given you her tear catcher as a token of sorts.”
“She felt the same,” he said, shaking now. With Leo’s back sealed against his body, the tremors vibrated through her as ifthey were her own. She swallowed, the blade pressing harder against her skin now, aligning with her trachea.
They’d been so close in age, more like cousins or friends than uncle and niece. Understanding seeped through Leo, oily and cold, at what must have happened on that roof.
“Teddy found you watching them,” she surmised.
“He couldn’t understand,” Frederick admitted. “And he wouldn’t shut up. He was whispering question after question, but he was getting louder and…”
