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“I’ll need your files on Mary Keating and Edwards. Addresses too,” Jasper said.

Castelan shouted, “Hutchins!” When the man appeared, he requested the files to be pulled.

“And for another one of your detectives, if you don’t mind. Benson,” Jasper added.

“Benson?” Castelan repeated. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Jasper admitted. “Does he work for you still?”

Castelan crossed his arms. “Yes. Why?”

“It has to do with a lead I’m following,” he answered. It was best to be vague when he did not yet know how Benson connected to Victoria Herrington—or if he did at all.

Reluctantly, Castelan nodded, and Hutchins darted away on his task.

“One last thing,” Jasper said, thinking of the wedding bands found in Edwards’s ticket pocket. “Were Samuel and Mary romantically involved?”

Some speculative amusement returned to Castelan’s expression. “Involved? Why do you ask?”

“Answer the question, please,” Jasper replied.

Castelan guttered a sound of exasperation before answering, “I don’t encourage my detectives to pursue romantic liaisons here at the office, but I also do not police them. If they were involved, it was no business of mine.”

Hutchins returned swiftly with the addresses for Samuel Edwards, Mary Keating, and Lars Benson.

“The files include past assignments for the agency, wages, and addresses, Inspector,” Hutchins said. “Lars should be in later today if you’d like to speak to him then. He’s out on assignment.”

“I’ll come back in, thank you,” Jasper said, then left Castelan’s office.

It was reasonable to assume Samuel Edwards and Mary Keating had quit their lodgings before going to live in the Lawlor household. However, the addresses might still house family members or neighbors who remembered them.

“Edwards’s address in Clerkenwell is closest to us now,” Warnock said as they passed Silas Palmer, who was still openly scowling at Jasper. “Should we try there first before going to Miss Keating’s?”

Her listed address was in the opposite direction, across the river in Southwark, and it would take some time to get there.

“Good thinking,” Jasper said, and they started on their way.

During the quarter mile or so to Edwards’s old address, tremors of impatience bit at Jasper. Samuel Edwards was dead; there was nothing he could tell them about Henry Gray. Mary, on the other hand, might still be alive and able to provide them with information on the fake doctor.

Still, he and Warnock proceeded with the hope that if Samuel’s family resided there, or former neighbors, they might recall some valuable information. That hope vanished when they spoke to the landlady. She recalled Edwards from a year back. He hadn’t had any family that she knew of, and he would often be late paying his weekly rent. She recalled him stepping out with a woman. When shown the illustration in the paper of Mary Keating, she shrugged and said it might have been her.

They took a cab to Mary’s address next. It was nearing midday, and as they drew closer to the river, traffic slowed a good deal. However, at last, they reached Broadwall and Stamford Streets, stopping outside a building of apartments. The building was worn, the air inside dank with the scent of mold and rotting wood. The stairs were soft underfoot as they climbed to the second level, and the shrill wailing of a baby came from some apartment nearby.

“I don’t much like my landlady’s cooking,” Warnock said as they came upon Number 12, Mary’s last known rooms. “But at least the place smells nice. And there aren’t any babies to keep me awake at⁠—”

Jasper held up a hand to signal the sergeant to be quiet. The door to Number 12 was open an inch. With Warnock now on alert, Jasper rapped his knuckles on the doorframe.

“Hello? Miss Keating?” he called out. “This is the Metropolitan Police. We’d like a word.”

The baby ceased its wails, and in the sudden silence, a soft moan of pain sounded from within Number 12.

Jasper punted open the door the rest of the way, and in the one-room apartment, near a kitchen sink, a woman lay sprawled on the floor. Blood—vivid and fresh—soaked into the rug underneath her. She moaned again.

“Warnock, quickly, summon a carriage.” The sergeant darted away on his task, and Jasper went to the woman.

“I’m Inspector Reid from Scotland Yard,” he told her as he knelt at her side. She clutched her abdomen, where blood oozed. She’d been stabbed. Her coloring was pale, her face pinched in anguish, but there was no question as to who she was.

He had found Mary Keating.