Page 56 of Courier of Death
Clear sunlight cut sharply into Jasper’s eyes on his way to Scotland Yard the next morning. He’d have preferred the rainy spring weather that had drenched London the last few weeks, if only to help ease the aching of his head. Claude had come by the previous evening, arriving just after Jasper had admitted defeat and returned home. The city coroner had taken one look at him and then shaken his head disapprovingly.
“I said not to overdo it, Inspector.”
The thing was, Jasper hadn’t thought he had been. At least, not until he was stricken with a bout of severe nausea and vomited into the Carlisle Street gutter. He and Lewis had been leaving the Stewarts’ residence, where the maid had informed them that Mr. Stewart was not in. Nor did she know when to expect him, especially since the children were no longer at home. Mrs. Bates had taken them, a boy and a girl, to their grandparents in Kent for the time being.
“They can’t step a foot outside without a reporter shouting at them,” the maid had explained with indignance.
He’d gotten the address in Kent from the maid, albeit with difficulty, and left his name and an order for Mr. Stewart to contact him.
“Have a telegram sent to the Canterbury Borough station,” Jasper instructed Lewis as they left. “I want an officer to check in and make sure Mrs. Bates is where she claimed to be going.”
Leo had expressed concern that the woman seemed eager to settle into Mrs. Stewart’s role now that she was in prison, facing charges of conspiracy and murder. Taking the children from London might have been benign, or something more ominous.
It was then that Jasper had stopped along the street, suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness and nausea. Grimacing, Lewis had told him to go home. As there was nothing more for them to do that evening, he followed his sergeant’s suggestion.
At home, Claude had rechecked his pupils, given him headache powder, and pressed on his sore ribs.
“Where is Leo?” he’d asked, grunting at the renewed tenderness of his ribs.
“Closing up the morgue,” Claude replied, before taking a glance over his thick spectacles. “She found some of her family’s belongings in the crypt today. I think she is going through them.”
Jasper hadn’t known anything from the house on Red Lion Street had been stored there. He’d waited for Claude to say more, but he hadn’t elaborated.
Now, after a night of poor, sporadic sleep, Jasper arrived at the Yard earlier than usual. Constable Woodhouse greeted him in the lobby, but Constable Wiley wasn’t yet at his desk in the detective department. Which was likely why Leo was seated in Lewis’s chair, the contents of the boxes from Niles Foster’s rooms taken out and stacked into piles.
“Isn’t it a bit early in the day to be interfering with evidence?” Jasper asked. Thankfully, neither Chief Coughlan, nor InspectorTomlin or any of the other Special Irish Branch detectives were in yet. The laborers hadn’t even arrived to work on the wall, so all was peaceful.
Leo stayed seated. “I’m not interfering. I’m reading.” Her eyes skipped from the slim book open before her to his face. “My uncle said you overdid it yesterday.”
Jasper suppressed the pleasure he felt that she might have come to the Yard to check in on him. “I’m fine.”
She appeared skeptical but didn’t comment. Instead, she set aside the book she’d been flipping through to reveal a thick prisoner album underneath. “I found him.”
Jasper groaned as he took off his hat and coat while she flipped the album open to a marked page. “How on earth did you get that?”
“Sergeant Richards lent it out to me. All I had to do was ask kindly,” she said with a sly quirk of her mouth. “And bring him a Chelsea bun.”
He sighed, though he wasn’t surprised the records room officer had been so soft with her. He gave in. “Who did you find then?”
She turned the album out for him to see and tapped a photograph.
“The man I saw scowling at Constable Lloyd just before the explosion. He was wearing a brown cap at the time, but this is most certainly him.”
The man was scowling at the camera too. Lester Rice, arrested for assault and thievery. Sentenced to eighteen months at Coldbath Fields. Released less than a year ago.
“Look.” Leo pointed to a smaller photograph on the page, alongside Rice’s portrait. It was of his hands. On his left middle finger was a large signet ring. The police would often photograph hands or any distinct features, like tattoos, moles, or scars, to make identifying criminals easier.
“That signet ring could be what made the matching gashes on John Lloyd’s and Niles Foster’s cheeks,” Leo said.
Though Jasper hadn’t received any gashes like the ones on the constable and parliamentary aide during his own attack, it was possible Rice had been one of the thugs in his kitchen the other night.
“If he is muscle for the Angels, then yes, maybe,” Jasper agreed. But he continued to frown as he read further into Rice’s file. Lester, a known associate of the Angels, was also a brother to Peter Rice, who had been hanged for the murder of Police Sergeant Charles Brett nearly seventeen years ago.
“Peter Rice was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood,” Leo supplied, already knowing what had captured Jasper’s attention.
The notorious murder of Sergeant Brett was still well known, even among the youngest Met constables. In the autumn of 1867, five IRB members had intercepted a police transport of two Fenian leaders to Belle Vue Gaol in Manchester. One of the police officers, Sergeant Brett, had been shot and killed in the failed attempt to free the prisoners. Peter Rice and two others were hanged for his murder.
“I would wager Lester Rice is tied to the Irish cause, just as his brother was,” Leo said. “Lester might have known about the planned bombings on the evening of the thirtieth. If the Angels did too, then… Well, I wonder if John’s bomb was meant to go off at the same time as the others. When the remains of Geraldine’s valise were found in the wreckage, she would then be implicated.”
