Page 52

“When was this?” Jasper asked.

“About two weeks before I…well, before I nearly died.”

So, the two cohorts were in an argument shortly before Sebastian set his new plan in motion.

The door to the parlor opened, and a maid entered with a tea tray. Leo looked twice at the maid’s face as she placed the tray on the table and poured for them. Once the maid left, Leo turned to Augusta.

“I questioned your maids a few days ago, but I don’t recall that young woman. Was she absent?”

“Mrs. Vincent hired Enid only yesterday. One of the other maids quit her post without warning.”

“Which maid was this?” Leo asked.

“Marianna,” Augusta answered. “All the commotion and scandal must have affected her. Mrs. Vincent said she took her things and left without a goodbye. The girl didn’t even ask for a letter of character.”

Jasper cocked his head. “Marianna?”

Leo recalled her: slim, blonde, pretty. She’d been nervous to be interviewed, the lace trim of her mobcap shaking. Her hands had been white knuckled as she clutched them in her lap.

“How long had she been a maid here?” Jasper asked Augusta.

“I can’t be sure,” she answered. “Is it important?”

“Seven months,” Leo said, recalling the detail from her interview with her. “Why do you ask?”

“Miss Chandler told me the maid Marion was hired just six or seven months before Mrs. Herrington’s death. She came on staff shortly before Rupert Herrington entered the picture,” he explained.

Marion. Marianna. The two names sounded markedly similar.

Excitement—and the possibility of a real lead—shivered along Leo’s legs. She got to her feet. “Mrs. Lawlor, am I correct that you met your husband about six months ago?”

She nodded, her attention jumping between Leo and Jasper. “This is coincidental, surely.”

“Perhaps,” Leo replied. But she wasn’t inclined to let the matter settle without looking further into it. “Do you have any information on Marianna? Her address? Any letter of character from her last position?”

As this information wasn’t something the lady of the house would possess, Augusta summoned her housekeeper, Mrs. Vincent. She arrived promptly.

“I would never take on a maid who did not have a glowing letter of character,” Mrs. Vincent said with some indignance. “The previous housekeeper she worked under wrote she was diligent and quiet. A bit docile, but that isn’t something one shuns in a maid.”

“Do you recall this housekeeper’s name?” Jasper asked, animated now that they might have found a new suspect. “Or which household it was?”

“Mrs. Doris Michaels oversaw the household. I’ve no acquaintance with Mrs. Michaels, but she wrote of her mistress’s sudden passing. Marianna required a new position because of it.”

Jasper met Leo’s astonished stare and grinned.

“The letter of character said her name was Marianna?” Leo asked, confused. “Marianna Clark? Not Marion?”

Mrs. Vincent blinked and canted her head. “Why, yes, the letter did name her as Marion Clark. She explained Mrs. Michaels was always getting her name wrong. The two are close enough, I suppose. But how could you have known that?”

Leo turned to Jasper. “Marianna, or Marion, is part of the scheme as well,” she said while Augusta and Mrs. Vincent wore matching looks of bewilderment. “She is the one who overheard Mr. Lawlor giving a cab driver directions to Paddington Station.”

“Or so she claimed,” Jasper said.

He was correct. Marianna might have given Leo and Jasper a false lead. “She could have been redirecting us. Sending us in the entirely wrong direction.”

“And giving Sebastian time to disappear.” Jasper inhaled deeply, his excitement turning to visible frustration.

“Someone caught up to him, however,” Leo reminded him.