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“I don’t aspire to the Home Office, sir.” He cared for law and order, but he would rather arrest criminals himself than govern over the police forces charged with doing so.

“Didn’t Gregory ever advise you not to limit yourself?” Monroe countered. He faced Jasper. “Not in your work, nor in your personal affairs. I want you to be sure you take the right steps on your way up.”

There was little doubt what he meant by that. Those right steps involved associating with the right people. Evidently, to Monroe, Leonora Spencer was not one of them.

For a moment, the differences in rank and status between him and Clive Monroe vanished, and Jasper was left with the overwhelming desire to tell the superintendent to go directly to hell. Only the arrival of Rose and Christopher, and the brougham, saved him from doing so—and throwing his job into the gutter.

“Can we give you a lift, Reid?” Monroe asked, ignoring the hard glare Jasper was leveling him with.

“I prefer to walk.” He stepped away before Rose could look to him for help in being handed up into the carriage. Instead, he tipped his hat to her and moved along the pavement.

Bloody hell.

Regret and fury spooled out in his wake as he moved swiftly in the direction of the Yard. Monroe had known about Leo, and yet he’d still arranged for this meeting with his daughter. There were other detective inspectors at the Met, other men with the ambition Jasper didn’t share in rising to higher branches of the police force. And yet Monroe seemed to have chosen him to lavish with praise and take under his wing.

He could be overthinking it or jumping to conclusions. But his instinct disagreed.

Walking did not prove curative; when he finally arrived at Met headquarters, his rigid shoulders and a knot of hostility in his gut remained. That the superintendent viewed Leo as an inadvisable attachment inflamed him. Jasper knew, however, that he would need to stifle his incensed mood when he saw her that evening. She would sense his anger and ask him what had happened. She was already worried his superiors would disapprove of her and their courtship. He would not tell her what Monroe had tried to do.

Entering the detective department, Jasper passed Constable Wiley’s desk. The irritable and peevish officer who greeted and approved visitors to the department had recently applied to, and been rejected by, the Special Irish Branch at the CID. He’d been a morose lump ever since.

“This came for you,” Wiley said, holding up an envelope. He did not move to rise from his desk. “Heard you were at lunch with the superintendent.”

Jasper ignored the comment, keeping his attention on the letter. It was too small to be Gibbons’s sketch of Henry Gray. “When did that arrive?”

“I don’t know. An hour ago, maybe.”

“Why is it still on your desk and not on mine?”

Wiley only shrugged. Jasper plucked the envelope from his hand, thankful once more that the man was not one of the constables assigned to his team.

He tore the seal on the way to his office, and giving it a quick perusal, his spirits lifted. It was from Constance Hayes.

Oliver had informed her about their conversation at Fortune’s the night before, and yes, in fact, she did recall something that she’d included in a society column the previous year. A newly married heiress had taken ill shortly after her wedding, and within a few months of returning from her honeymoon trip, she had died. Constance remembered the announcement because she’d felt pity for the woman. At age thirty-five, after being resigned to a life of spinsterhood, she’d unexpectedly found love and a husband, only then to die, she’d written.

“Warnock,” Jasper called to the sergeant, who followed him into his office. “A woman named Victoria Herrington died in December of 1883. Find her death certificate. I want to know what happened to her.”

Chapter Ten

The exterior of Castelan Private Inquiries was far more polished and professional than Leo had expected. In her mind, whenever Dita spoke of the agency, Leo pictured a set of dingy, cramped rooms. The surprising reality, however, was a street-front office on High Holborn, with large, bowed windows, a fresh, glossy coat of dark green paint on the wood trim, and a shingle above the door with the agency’s name, both engraved and gilded.

A costly lease, Leo imagined, and after inhaling a fortifying breath and opening the door, she saw additional expenses in the several employees scattered around the large front room.

There were three desks, two men to each, and they were either typing or sorting through stacks of papers while smoking cigarettes. It resembled the newsroom at the Times, which Leo had visited on a few occasions. Only here, each man looked up with rapacious eyes to see the woman who’d just entered.

One man came forward. “Welcome to Castelan Private Inquiries, madam. My name is Mr. Hutchins. How may I be of assistance?”

“I am here to meet with Miss Brooks,” Leo replied.

Dita was not in view, though there was space enough for there to be another room in the back, perhaps for the women employees.

“Ah, you must be Miss Spencer,” Mr. Hutchins said. “Do come in. Mr. Castelan is expecting you.”

He turned on a heel and started away, expecting her to follow. She did, though with a rolling of nervous tension through her. The owner’s office was located off the main room, and when Leo stepped inside, she didn’t find Dita, but a man seated behind a desk piled high with papers.

“Miss Spencer is here, sir,” Mr. Hutchins announced and then left, shutting the door behind him.

Mr. Castelan stood from his chair, his gray eyes alight with interest. “Welcome, Miss Spencer. Miss Brooks said you would be paying our office a visit today. I was pleased to hear it. Forgive the mess on my desk. I’m out of the office for one day, and this is what I return to,” he said with a laugh.