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“Mrs. Lawlor did not come back to life, as she wasn’t dead to begin with,” Leo clarified.

“As I explained,” Connor said to defend himself.

“All right, all right. What did you want to ask me?” Dita inquired while scowling playfully at Connor.

“Mrs. Lawlor’s mother hired Mr. Castelan a few years ago to investigate a suspicious suitor. He turned out to be a fortune hunter,” Leo explained. “However, I’m wondering if Mr. Castelan has investigated, or heard of, any attempted murders like this one that was perpetrated against Mrs. Lawlor.”

Dita furrowed her brow in thought. “I’m not sure. Not since I’ve been there, at least.”

She had been employed by the private inquiry agency for just two months. At first, Leo had been envious of her friend. However, she changed her mind when Dita was assigned to an undercover job at Gleason’s Department Store with the objective of luring the store owner into a compromising situation to prove he was conducting extra-marital affairs.

Women were too often hired by agencies like Mr. Castelan’s to act as spies, exploiting their womanly wiles to tempt men into bad behavior—which would then be caught out and turned against them. They didn’t seem to truly investigate as Leo enjoyed doing. However, Dita seemed to be enjoying her new job, and Leo had come to terms with the fact that her friend had a different perspective.

“I can ask Mr. Castelan,” Dita said as she lifted her wool cloak from a peg near the door. “Or better yet, you can join me for lunch there and ask him yourself. He still wants to meet you, you know.”

“And I am still not interested,” Leo replied, repeating what she’d already told Dita several times.

Mr. Castelan had been angling for an introduction to her since reading a few articles in the Illustrated Police News earlier in the year that mentioned a lady morgue assistant had aided Scotland Yard in some of its recent investigations. The publicity had angered Jasper’s superiors, who said a woman’s help made the department look weak. Mr. Castelan, however, clearly disagreed.

“He isn’t going to give up, so you may as well get the meeting over with. Join me at noon,” Dita commanded, then with a beseeching glance at Connor, “if Mr. Quinn can spare you.”

He met her flirtatious look with something just shy of real annoyance. “It seems all I do lately is spare Miss Spencer. But what is another hour when there have already been so many?”

Had Leo not been present, Dita would have likely kissed Connor’s cheek in thanks. Instead, she restrained herself and left through the back door while wearing a coquettish grin. Leo stifled her amusement and followed Connor into the postmortem room, collecting an apron on the way.

“You are smitten with her,” she observed.

Connor didn’t bother to deny it. “And you are benefiting from my smittenness.”

“I’m not sure that is a word.”

He ignored her as he entered the closet filled with tools and supplies for his trade, as well as aprons, gloves, and vulcanized rubber boots for him to wear.

She raised her voice to be heard within the closet. “How do you feel about her work at Mr. Castelan’s?”

“I want her to be happy,” he replied, “but I worry she will find herself in some trouble during one of her assignments. I especially worry that no one will be there to help her.”

He was thinking, no doubt, of Lydia Hailson, his former betrothed. She’d been the investigative reporter working undercover at Gleason’s Department Store, gathering information on what had happened to Mr. Bloom’s opium. She’d been discovered and killed. Connor and Lydia’s relationship had ended several months before her body had arrived at the morgue, much to his shock and dismay. But he had still mourned her.

“You’re quite talented at detective work, you know,” Connor called, still shuffling items around in the closet. The unexpected compliment flummoxed Leo for a beat too long, and before she could thank him, he added, “However, we do have two postmortems this morning before you go off gallivanting again.”

Leo pursed her lips. “I would hardly call it gallivanting.”

She wasn’t looking forward to meeting Mr. Castelan, though she was interested in what he might know about any private inquiries like what had happened with Augusta Lawlor.

“Did you send in for that new sharpening kit?” Connor asked as he emerged from the closet.

“Last Wednesday,” Leo answered. She approached one of the corpses. A man, still clothed in a black suit. She reached for the postmortem request that arrived with the body.

“The bone saw is going to need replacing soon too,” he informed her.

She regularly kept a list in her mind of all the supplies Connor went through in his duties and now added the bone saw.

“Who do we have here?” Connor asked as he joined her, outfitted for the procedure.

“A John Doe,” she read. “Found in Blackfriars. Appears to be a stabbing.”

Like with other John and Jane Does, Leo would send a description of the victim to Constable Elias Murray later in the day to be included in the next issue of the Police Gazette.