“And you had to silence him, so he wouldn’t give you away,” Jasper said. “And when Helen learned her mother had found a glass vial that had belonged to her in Theodore’s dead clasp, she went to Craven Hill, to the spot where her mother had hidden it, to reclaim it.”
Jasper took another step toward them, but Frederick dragged Leo closer to the lobby door. She took a shaking breath as Jasper held his free hand up, palm shown, as if to calm Frederick.
“Had I or Miss Spencer found the trinket, as Francine wanted, we’d surely ask questions,” he said. “Helen had been on the roof that night, as had Stephen, and yet neither of them had ever admitted to being there. She knew we would suspect them. Telling us that she’d given you the tear catcher would sound desperate, and besides, you could have easily denied it.”
“But you couldn’t allow Helen to even try to accuse you,” Leo said, her peripheral vision focusing on an autopsy table they were nearing, topped by the corpse of a sheeted man. “So, you took the phaeton and horse from your father’s stables and went to London, not knowing Helen would already be there.”
And when she confronted him, he’d silenced her, just as he had Teddy.
“Enough,” he hissed in her ear. “I’m taking Miss Spencer with me. Don’t follow, Inspector, or you know what will happen.”
“You are going to release her now,” Jasper replied. “And I will give you a ten-second head start. It is a generous offer, Mr. Cowper; I suggest you take it.”
With ten seconds to flee before being pursued, Frederick could disappear into the bustle of Trafalgar Square. At night and in the rain, the poor light would make it difficult for Jasper to hunt him. He might never return to Harrow and his family; he might be lost forever.
Leo knew what she risked, but she also felt braver with Jasper so close.
As Frederick dragged them closer to the lobby door, the occupied autopsy table she’d been eyeing came within reach—of her legs, at least. Burying her fear, Leo raised her right leg, planted her foot against the table’s leg, and shoved hard against it. The sudden motion drove her back, even harder against Frederick’s torso, and as it caught him off guard, it also unbalanced him.
The postmortem room erupted with sound as the autopsy table clattered to the floor, and Frederick roughly tossed Leo to the side. She landed on the floor, breath driven from her lungs and her vision whirling. But she still saw Frederick tearing through the lobby door as he fled.
Jasper was crouching at her side in a blink. “Are you injured? Christ, Leo.” He touched her chin to lift it, and pain flared along the left side of her neck. “You’re bleeding.”
She reached for the spot and felt the unmistakable viscosity of blood. There wasn’t a profuse amount, however, and Frederick was getting away.
She waved Jasper off. “It isn’t dire. Go, hurry!”
He straightened and disappeared through the lobby door without another moment’s hesitation. Leo’s vision swam as she got to her feet and followed Jasper, her legs feeling more like two columns of warmed jelly than anything made of bone, muscle, and tendon. She opened a linen cupboard in the postmortem room and, with trembling hands, snatched out a clean towel. Pressing it to her wound to staunch the bleeding, she hurried into the lobby. The door to Spring Street was wide-open, and outside, Jasper’s shouts for Frederick to stop echoed. She reached the front step in time to see their two darkened figures rushing toward Trafalgar Square.
“Leo, what is happening?”
She spun around at the sound of Dita’s voice and, in the dim light streaming from lampposts, saw her friend and Connor Quinn approaching the morgue.
Connor increased his pace when he saw the linen she held pressed to her neck. “Have you been hurt?”
“I don’t think the cut is very deep,” Leo answered. “Can you summon a constable? Jasper is?—”
“Watch out!” The bellowing cry came from the terminus of Spring Street, toward which Frederick Cowper and Jasper had been running.
Leo spun back around in time to see a fast-moving, horse-drawn carriage collide with a man in the street. Her heart stuttered to a stop as the viscount’s son disappeared beneath the carriage’s wheels.
Chapter Twenty-One
Acacophony of shouting, whinnying horses, and the stricken cries of onlookers swirled around Jasper as he crouched to see beneath the carriage where Frederick now lay, sprawled on the cobblestones. The next minute was a blur of commotion as Jasper directed the driver to carefully pull forward so that they could access Frederick’s body.
He hoped like hell the man wasn’t dead. He wanted to arrest the bastard, not see him put in the ground before a conviction could be levied.
“Stand back, now, all of you!” A few constables on foot patrol had run to the scene and now held out their arms to keep back a surging crowd of gawkers.
Once he was able, Jasper knelt next to Frederick’s unmoving body and pressed his fingers against his neck. He closed his eyes and concentrated, desperate to feel a pulse.There it was—a weak, thready throb against the pads of his fingertips.
“Oh, good heavens!” a familiar voice cried out.
Jasper glanced over his shoulder to find Nivedita Brooks being blocked by a constable’s outstretched arm.
“Let her through,” Jasper commanded. “Constable, fetch a wagon to transport this man to St. Thomas’s Hospital. Hurry!”
The officer darted away toward the bustling Trafalgar Square, blowing sharply on his police whistle. Jasper stood straight to meet Miss Brooks as she inched forward hesitantly. She turned her face away from the broken angles of the viscount’s son’s legs and the bloody mess of his head.
