“Nothing,” she said as she slipped past him and out of the closet. But while she could lie convincingly to others, she had never been able to with Jasper. The note from Eddie Bloom had worked its way under her skin, and it showed.
Before Jasper had returned to Liverpool, Leo had come clean about Eddie Bloom’s interest in the Lydia Hailson case. Unsurprisingly, he had been furious and worried. He did not like or trust Mr. Bloom, and while Leo didn’t trust him either, she did not believe the man was an outright danger to her.
“What is in your pocket?” Jasper asked in the notably deep, serious tone he reserved for suspects as he followed her from the closet. Leo supposed she shouldn't have been surprised at how observant he was; he hadn’t been made a detective inspector for nothing.
Not wanting to keep anything from him—even things that might upset him—she sighed and reached into her pocket.
“This was on my desk this morning,” she explained, extending it to him.
His jaw clenched in preparation of bad news, then opened the envelope and withdrew the ten-pound note. A dark blond brow shot up. Then, when he extracted the message within and read it, he let out a long exhale.
“Bloom.”
“Yes,” she replied.
Jasper returned the money to the envelope but took a second look at the message. He was reading that last line, no doubt.
“What do you think it means?” she asked. “About it being in my blood?”
He folded the paper along the crease and stuffed it alongside the money. “It’s probably just Bloom playing games.”
“Do you think my father might have been acting as a spy of some kind?” she pressed on. “He betrayed your family?—”
“The Carters arenotmy family.” The sharp words flayed, and Leo lifted her chin, startled. Jasper swore underneath his breath and tempered himself visibly. “Forgive me, Leo.” He held out the envelope, and she took it.
“You’re right, they aren’t,” she said. “The Inspector was your family. As is Mrs. Zhao. I know that. My point is that if my father betrayed the Carters, maybe it was because he was spying on them.”
Jasper hesitated, then turned to retrieve his bowler hat from the shelf in the closet. He appeared conflicted when he came out again, and it took him another moment to speak.
“I understand that you want to know why your family was killed. But Leo, as much as I distrust Eddie Bloom, he was right to tell you to stop asking questions. I don’t know why he’d bait you with this,” he said, gesturing toward her pocket, where she’d put the envelope again. “I can only think it’s for his own benefit.”
She blinked back a sudden pricking of tears. For years, Leo had struggled with not knowing why she’d survived the night of the murders. Why the shadowy figure in the attic had saved her. Now that she had an answer for that long-held question, her mind had turned to a new quandary. If her father was the reason her family had been brutally murdered,why? What had he done to deserve such punishment?
As much as she yearned for the truth, however, she valued Jasper’s safety more. So far, his cousin, Andrew, was the only one in the Carter family who knew who he truly was. Poking around for answers about her father would draw the attention of other Carter family members. If they looked too closely at her, they would see Jasper, too. She couldn’t risk it.
Andrew Carter’s attention was enough of a risk to manage as it was. Now that Jasper was back in London for good, Leowondered how long it would be before Andrew approached him. Then again, she knew it was useless to worry about something before it even happened.
“You’re right, I’m sure,” she said with a nod. “I’m half-inclined to send back his ten pounds.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You earned that fee.” Jasper tensed his brow and frowned. “I was wrong when I suggested you couldn’t solve a murder inquiry on your own. Even though it was dangerous, and I will always object to anything that puts you in danger, you did well, Leo.”
She hadn’t expected such praise, and it flustered her for a moment. “That means a great deal to me, Jasper.” She smiled, slightly abashed. “Though, I admit, working alone was not as satisfying as the times we’ve worked together.”
He had confessed something similar to her at St. Thomas’s. It had been lovely to hear, even if his sentiment would not change the rules set out by the London Metropolitan Police against lady investigators. Before Jasper could remind her of that, she turned her attention to putting out the gasoliers in the postmortem room.
“Now that you’re back, we can move forward with leasing the murder house,” Leo said as she turned for the office, with Jasper in her wake.
They hadn’t had a chance to discuss what to do with the house on Craven Hill before he’d left for Liverpool, but they had touched on the subject in correspondence while he was there. As two murders had been committed at the house, it seemed an apt name for the place. Though it was a fine home in a superb neighborhood, neither of them wished to ever set foot inside it again.
At first, Leo had puzzled over why Francine Stroud would bequeath it to them. But when Jasper explained what Mrs. Zhao had confessed—that Francine had been helping the Inspectorpay the property taxes on the Charles Street home so that he could keep it, and that theirs had been a romantic relationship, hidden from what would have been judgmental eyes of the world—Leo thought perhaps her reason had been slightly more pragmatic.
“I wrote to Stockton,” Jasper said, referring to his solicitor. “He agrees the yearly lease for a Craven Hill address will provide a nice income for us both.”
Leo had thought of that too, and how the money could be put toward the care her Aunt Flora would soon require. Mrs. Zhao and Claude were doing what they could for her at the house, but over the last several weeks she had become more detached, and her bodily functions were also becoming more irregular and a chore for them to see to.
“I’d been considering selling 23 Charles Street,” Jasper said. “But now, I’m not sure I have to.”
Leo, too, had worried that he might need to sell the Inspector’s home, and the idea had filled her with sorrow. Perhaps Francine had seen the gift of the Craven Hill house as a way for her generosity toward the Inspector to keep going, in perpetuity.
