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Jasper suppressed a groan. The last thing he wanted was a rumor to fly around about this.

“There was a miscommunication,” he told Woodhouse. “I am not dancing with anyone.”

The constable raised a quizzical brow, but Jasper didn’t linger to discuss it further. He went to the detective department, his irritation simmering. He’d hoped Monroe would not press on with the idea of matching him with Rose, especially after Jasper reminded him that he was, in fact, courting Leonora Spencer.

There was no choice; he would not attend the dinner, and the next time the superintendent alluded to his daughter, Jasper would just need to be blunter.

At the entrance to the detective department, Jasper’s heels dragged to a stop. Seated in one of the chairs near Constable Wiley’s desk was Miss Nivedita Brooks. She saw Jasper and shot to her feet.

“Inspector Reid,” she said, her manner tense.

“This woman says she wants to see you,” Constable Wiley announced from his chair.

He knew perfectly well who Miss Brooks was, and his sneer was not unlike others Leo’s friend would receive here. Her former beau, PC John Lloyd, had attempted to place a bomb housed in a suitcase at Scotland Yard. The bomb had detonated, killing him and wounding many others, including Leo. It didn’t matter that Lloyd had been coerced, he was still viewed as a traitor. Many officers saw Miss Brooks as suspicious, or even potentially complicit in the Yard bombing that occurred in May.

She eyed Wiley with annoyance but turned her attention toward Jasper. “I need to see you, Inspector,” she said. Clutched in her hand was a rolled-up newspaper.

He tucked the note Woodhouse had given him into his coat pocket and led Miss Brooks to his office. There, she placed the newspaper, The Morning Chronicle, on his desk. It was folded open to the page on which the three suspect sketches had been printed.

“I saw the sketches this morning while my father was reading the paper at the breakfast table,” Miss Brooks said. “You’re looking for this woman?”

She let her pointer finger rest on the sketch of Marianna. The short column of text underneath the portraits said Scotland Yard was pursuing information regarding a crime and to contact Inspector Reid at the CID with any information.

“I am,” Jasper replied. “Do you know her?”

“No, but I’ve seen her,” Miss Brooks answered. “At Mr. Castelan’s.”

Jasper had started to hang his coat and hat on the coat stand but now stopped. His pulse picked up its pace. “When was this?”

“Right when I started there. I only saw her once or twice, but I recall her because I was hoping for another woman to work with.”

“But you didn’t work with her?”

Miss Brooks shook her head, her hands balled into tense fists. “No. I didn’t see her again after those first two times when she came to speak to Mr. Castelan in his office. Mr. Hutchins, one of the clerks there, said she once worked for Mr. Castelan but hadn’t been around for months. They’d used her in the past as a watcher.”

A spy then, like Miss Brooks.

“Do you remember her name?” Jasper presumed it was some form of Mary, but Miss Brooks shook her head, again not knowing.

“Is she in trouble?” Miss Brooks asked. “If one of Mr. Castelan’s employees is arrested, it will look bad for the whole agency.”

“That is something for him to worry about, Miss Brooks, not you,” Jasper said as he put on his coat and hat again. “What about these two men? Do you recognize them?” He tapped the sketches of Sebastian Lawlor and Henry Gray, neither labeled with their false names, only a request to contact Scotland Yard if someone recognized them.

“I haven’t seen them before,” she said with certainty. But that didn’t mean they weren’t connected to Castelan’s agency. Miss Brooks had been employed there for less than two months, after all.

Jasper noticed her maid’s uniform of a dark cotton dress and white pinafore behind the panels of her cloak. “Is that uniform for an assignment?”

“Unfortunately,” she sighed, plucking at the pinafore. “I’ve been placed in a household to discover a man’s perfidy. It’s what Mr. Castelan’s agency specializes in.”

Jasper would not ask if Miss Brooks was expected to lure this man into an indecent situation, only to then be “caught”—proving the wife’s claim. He had no say over what Leo’s friend chose to do for work.

“What about thefts?” Jasper asked.

“Those types of cases are common too,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind being assigned to one.”

Jasper reached for the newspaper. “May I?” She nodded, giving him permission to take it.

“Miss Brooks,” he said as he walked her to his office door. “Are there any detectives at Castelan’s named Bentley?”