“I know what two millimeters is,” she replied tartly.
“It was too close.”
She didn’t argue with him, likely because she knew he was correct.
Thank God he’d listened to his intuition earlier. Had he not decided to check in at the morgue rather than go to Duke Street, or even Paddington Station with Warnock and Price, Leo would have been killed. Frederick Cowper had likely been but a few moments away from slitting her throat with that paper knife when Jasper had come upon the open back door to the morgue. The tumult inside had reached his ears, and he’d drawn his Webley. But of course, he had been unable to use it with the bastard using Leo as a shield.
His thumb brushed over her knuckles, her palm dry and cool in his.
“Tell me what you need,” he said. “Are you in any pain? I’ll fetch the doctor.”
Leo tensed her fingers around his. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m only waiting for the doctor to officially discharge me.”
It wasn’t often that Jasper was overcome with emotion, but in that moment, he let go of restraint. He gathered her hand and lifted it to his mouth, pressing his lips against her knuckles. His eyes locked on hers, as he whispered against her skin, “I keeppicturing Frederick with that knife to your throat. You shouldn’t have been in that position. I cannot lose you, Leo.”
She took a breath, her lips quivering and eyes softening. “You aren’t going to.”
He nodded, though he knew neither of them had any control over such a thing. Fortune and circumstance too often outmaneuvered intention. But to dwell on it wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“How is Mr. Cowper?” she asked hesitantly.
Jasper lowered her hand but kept it in his. “He was taken into surgery, but his condition is grim.”
“He won’t live?”
“If he does, it will only be to hang,” Jasper replied, knowing he sounded harsh but also not caring at all. The man was a murderer, not to mention his twisted feelings for his own blood relation.
“Mr. Cowper must have taken the phaeton and horse from the stables that night,” Leo said. It brought Jasper a bit of comfort to hear her discussing the case. It was a bit of normalcy and proof that she was, as she claimed, perfectly fine.
“He was back by breakfast,” Jasper nodded. “But by then, the stable hands were awake. He hadn’t wanted to give away that he’d been out overnight.”
“You think he stashed the horse and phaeton on the property somewhere?” Leo asked. Then, her eyes opening wider with zeal, she added, “One of the unused outbuildings, like the barn where Helen and Stephen Decamp would meet.”
Jasper had considered that too and would have Constable Wiggins conduct a search. “He might have turned the horse loose or, if he was smart, exchanged it for another either in London or on the road back to Harrow.”
There were any number of livery stables along the route where he might have done so.
“Has Stephen Decamp been found yet?” Leo asked.
Jasper frowned and explained what he’d discovered at Stephen’s home, as well as the person he’d placed under arrest for the crime.
“Helen’s maid staged it to appear to be a suicide?” Leo asked.
“Not very well. The crime scene looked off,” he said, thinking of how he’d questioned the positioning of the body at the table. “It would have been good to have you there to lend your opinion on the matter.”
Although pleasure lit her eyes, she shrugged lightly. “You didn’t need my opinion. You figured it out.”
“Yes, that is true,” Jasper assented. “But I found that I missed figuring it out with you by my side. If that makes any sense.”
A bashful grin bowed Leo’s lips and grew until it was a full, unabashed smile. “It does. And in a way, we did solve Teddy and Helen’s murders together during the confrontation with Mr. Cowper at the morgue.”
The memory of that scene would not leave him any time soon, unfortunately.
“Why did Frederick come after you there?” Jasper asked. “Constable Wiley said the two of you were in my office, going through Helen’s evidence box. Did you find something?”
“A piece of fabric that had been collected by constables at the Craven Hill house, snagged on the broken glass in the back door,” Leo said. “When I saw it in the box, I knew I’d seen the fabric before. I couldn’t place it, not right away. But I was a fool and assured Mr. Cowper that my memory would give me the answer.”
She exhaled and looked genuinely mortified.
