02 - Mrs. Jeffries Dusts for Clues (12 page)

“Three!” Wiggins looked positively scandalized. “That’s disgustin’.”

The footman was a hopeless romantic. Mrs. Jeffries made a mental note to give him back the love poem she’d found lying on the pantry table this afternoon. Perhaps she’d gently encourage him to try another method of expressing his feelings about the housemaid from up the road. “Your cheeks as round as the moon in June,” might be a bit offensive. Sarah Trippet could feel he was saying she had a fat face.

Betsy shrugged. “Disgustin’ or not, that’s what Ellen told me. And she said all three of the men were real sweet on Cassie.”

Mrs. Jeffries asked, “Did she say how she knew that?”

“Of course she did. I tell you, Mrs. Jeffries, the girl was dishin’ out the dirt on Cassie Yates faster than a dog digs a bone. She said she seen the first bloke, a great big tall blond feller, call for Cassie in a fancy carriage at least twice. Cassie claimed ’e was takin’ her to one of them posh restaurants over
on the Strand both times.” Betsy stroked her chin. “Ellen saw the second man a couple of days after the first one took Cassie out to supper. He was a heavyset bloke, with dark hair and chin whiskers. Cassie claims he took her to the opera and then to supper afterward. Ellen said he looked like a real gent—’ad on expensive clothes and all.”

“And the third man?” Mrs. Jeffries prompted. Betsy did tend to get carried away.

“Now, that’s the interestin’ one—Cassie was right cagey about the third bloke,” Betsy said meaningfully. “She didn’t say much about him to Ellen.”

Mrs. Jeffries looked disappointed. “Oh, dear. So you don’t know much about him, then?”

Betsy grinned. “I knows plenty about ’im. Cassie wouldn’t talk much about the feller, but that didn’t stop Ellen from doin’ a bit of snooping. Seems he only called around the shop twice. Both times on foot too. When Cassie wouldn’t say much, Ellen got curious. So the second time he come around, Ellen claimed she just ’appened to be leavin’ just after them. She claims she just ’appened to follow them up the street. They stopped at a park and the man pulls her behind a tree. Ellen says she saw him give Cassie something. Something small.”

Mrs. Goodge snorted. “Ellen Wickes saw all this, did she?”

Betsy shrugged. “She says she just happened to catch it out of the corner of her eye, but I reckon she was following them and spyin’ on them.”

“Did Ellen ask Cassie about him?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. She was glad to hear Betsy restoring her
h
s to their proper place. She wished she could get the girl to concentrate as easily on the final
g
of her words, but she didn’t like to correct her in front of the others, and in all fairness, except when she was terribly excited, Betsy was very careful with her pronunciation.

“No. Ellen were dyin’ to know who the man was, but she told me she wouldn’t lower herself to ask. Besides, Cassie talked free enough about her men. Ellen figured it were just a matter of time before she said somethin’.”

“I don’t suppose Ellen was able to give you any names?”

“No. But one of the other maids at the Lutterbanks’ house did,” Betsy said proudly. “After I finished talkin’ to Ellen, I went to Knightsbridge. Honestly, Mrs. Jeffries, it was too easy. I ’adn’t been there more than three minutes when one of the parlormaids come out and hotfoots it down the street. She was takin’ a note to the butcher, and I caught her when she come out of the shop. She ’ad even more to say about Cassie than Ellen did.”

“’Ow do ya get them to talk so fast?” Wiggins asked curiously.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Betsy explained loftily. “I just start askin’ questions. When they ask me why I’m a askin’, I tell ’em that Cassie Yates told a pack of lies about me and I lost me position because of it. I tell them I want to get a bit of me own back.”

The footman gazed at her in open admiration. “Cor, that’s a good ’un. I’ll have to try that sometime meself.”

“You’ve got to play your story a bit by ear,” Betsy explained earnestly, “dependin’ on who you’re tryin’ to get information on, but I figured that with someone like Cassie Yates…”

“Speaking of which,” Mrs. Jeffries interrupted firmly, “could we please stop digressing and get back to the matter at hand? I believe Betsy was going to give us the names of the men who’d been seen with Cassie.”

“Malcolm Farnsworth and Emery Clements,” Betsy stated hurriedly. She blushed and leaned back in the chair. “Accordin’ to the parlormaid, Cassie was seein’ both of them.”

Mrs. Goodge frowned heavily. “What about the third one, then?”

“She didn’t know his name. But she knew there was someone else. She seen her with him. Cassie weren’t one to keep conquests to ’erself.”

Emery Clements was certainly a familiar name, Mrs. Jeffries thought. For that matter, so was the name Malcolm. “Malcolm Farnswoth,” she said thoughtfully. “I wonder if that’s Antonia Everdene’s fiancé. I know his Christian name is Malcolm.”

Betsy gaped at her. “How’d you find that out?”

“I went to the Everdene house today,” Mrs. Jeffries admitted. “I’ll tell you all about it in a minute. First, though, I want to hear the rest of what you’ve found out. Did you question the parlormaid about Mary Sparks?”

“Didn’t have much luck there…” Betsy paused. “But you know, it’s right strange. When I asked Abby, that’s the parlormaid, if there’d been any stealin’ goin’ on, the girl said there hadn’t. Don’t you think if an expensive broach was stolen, she’d a known about it?”

Mrs. Jeffries frowned. “Yes, one would think so.”

“I think so too. But even when I were hintin’ that maybe that’s why Mary Sparks left the Lutterbanks, Abby just shook her head and said no. Claimed Mary just up and left one day. There weren’t no fuss made about a stolen broach or anything else. Abby were right surprised too. She thought Mary and Mark McGraw had an understandin’—Mary had been sayin’ she was goin’ to keep on workin’ for the Lutterbanks until Mark come home.”

Mrs. Jeffries drew a sharp breath. “So the household didn’t know about the alleged theft.”

“Not a word. And, if you ask me, it’s downright impossible,” Betsy said flatly. “There in’n a ’ouse in London that can keep that kind of gossip out of the servants’ ’all. Oh, I did think to ask her what Mary was wearin’ the day she left.”

“What’s that got to do with anythin’?” Wiggins asked.

Betsy ignored him. “She ’ad on her blue dress and a pair of dark shoes. But they wasn’t new shoes. I asked Abby about that too. She said Mary was still wearin’ a pair of old brown ones.”

Mrs. Jeffries beamed in approval. “Very good, Betsy. Now, as we’ve already heard what Mrs. Goodge and Wiggins learned today, it’s my turn.”

Just then, they heard the screech of the hinges as the back door opened and Smythe stepped inside. He was soaked. Water dripped from his coat onto the floor, his shoes squeaked with every step, and his dark hair was plastered flat against his skin.

Betsy leapt to her feet. “You’re soaked, man. Get that wet coat off before you catch yer death.” She dashed behind him and tugged at the wet garment.

“Stop yer fussin’,” he said with a lazy grin. “A bit of water never hurt anyone. I see ya started without me.”

While he was stripping off his coat and drying off before the stove, Mrs. Jeffries told him everything the others had discovered that day.

“I was just starting to tell everyone what I’d learned today when you came in,” she finished. “So I may as well continue. As I said before, I went to the Everdene house today, and I must say, I think Antonia Everdene knows something about Mary Sparks’s disappearance.”

“I should bloomin’ well ’ope so,” Smythe muttered as he settled gratefully into a chair.

Mrs. Jeffries looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“You’d best finish first,” he said somberly. “When you ’ear what I’ve found out, it’ll become clear enough.”

She stared at him for a moment and then went ahead and told them everything. Naturally, she gave them every little detail of the visit. “All right, Smythe,” she commanded softly as soon as she finished with her story. “It’s your turn now.”

He took his time answering, his big, dark eyes staring blankly into space for a few moments. “I’ve spent most of today lookin’ for the livery that hired the carriage that come to take away Cassie Yates’s belongin’s,” he finally said. He glanced at the housekeeper. “It weren’t Howards. It were Steptons over near the Wandsworth Bridge. One of the blokes there remembers a toff comin’ in on September 11th and hirin’ the carriage, but he weren’t the one that did the drivin’, and he wouldn’t sneak a peek at the logbook for me. He did give me the name of the feller that drove the carriage that day, but the man’s gone to Bristol to visit his relations and in’t due back for a few days.”

“So we’ll have to wait until he comes back to find out just who it was that took away Cassie Yates’s belongings,” Mrs. Jeffries said. Her apprehension mounted. Smythe was
certainly taking a long time to get to the point. If it had been Mrs. Goodge talking, she’d have thought nothing of it, but he never beat around the bush.

“Right.” Smythe began drumming his fingers against the top of the table.

Mrs. Jeffries cleared her throat, and when Smythe looked up at her, she gave him a long, level stare. “What else did you learn today?” she asked quietly.

His mouth flattened into a grim line. “I found the driver that picked Mary Sparks up the night she left Knightsbridge.”

“Where’d he take her?” Betsy asked.

“This was the day after she’d supposedly gone to the Everdene house, right?” Mrs. Goodge said. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration.

“Yeah. It took me a long time to track the bloke, I chased him over ’alf of London today…”

“Smythe,” Mrs. Jeffries interrupted. “Please tell us what you’ve learned.”

He took a deep breath, and his big body slumped against the back of the chair. “The driver picked Mary up just after it got dark. But you’re not goin’ to like where he took ’er.” He paused and rubbed one hand over his face. “He drove her to Magpie Lane.”

There was a horrid, stunned silence. Mrs. Jeffries was the first to find her voice. “But Luty Belle was sure the body wasn’t Mary…”

“Cor, I know that,” Smythe exclaimed. “But she must’ve been wrong.”

Wiggins’s chubby round face twisted into a scowl. “I don’t understand what you’re all on about. Why’s everyone gettin’ in such a state?”

“Because if’n he took Mary to Magpie Lane that night,” Mrs. Goodge explained irritably, “no matter what Luty Belle Crookshank says, the dead girl is probably Mary Sparks.”

“But Mary had small feet,” Wiggins protested.

“That don’t mean nuthin’,” Betsy interjected. “If’n you’re poor and you come across a brand new pair of shoes, you go ahead and grab ’em.”

“How could she keep ’em on her feet?” he argued. “If’n they’s too big, they’d have come off.”

“They were high-button shoes,” Mrs. Jeffries said quickly. “Mary could have stuffed the toes with newspapers.”

“I don’t believe it,” Wiggins insisted.

Mrs. Jeffries wished she didn’t have to believe it either. No wonder Smythe wasn’t crowing like the cock of the walk tonight. He’d probably dreaded having to share this particular bit of news. Luty Belle was going to be dreadfully upset.

“Wiggins,” Mrs. Jeffries said gently. “None of us want to believe it. But the facts do speak for themselves. Mary has been missing for two months. A body that’s been dead for approximately the same amount of time has been found in Magpie Lane. If Smythe’s information is correct, and we’ve no reason to think it isn’t, the last time anyone saw Mary alive was the night she was taken to Magpie Lane.”

Inspector Witherspoon knew it wasn’t going be a good day. He glanced at the clerk working in the corner of the outer office of Wildwoods and stifled a sigh. Outside the narrow windows the sky loomed cloudy and ominous. He could hear the clatter of the omnibuses and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves blending with the raucous cries of the street vendors.

He frowned at the closed door of Emery Clements’s office and wished the man would hurry up so he could get this uncomfortable interview over. Witherspoon hated asking questions of a personal nature. He much preferred the nice, easy straightforward inquiries such as what is your name, what is your address and where were you at such and such a time. Yet now he had to go into that office and ask Mr. Clements about a betrothal ring and possibly even a fiancée. Goodness, he thought, this could turn out to be a crime of passion. The idea made Witherspoon shudder. No, he decided, it definitely wasn’t going to be a good day. But much as he dreaded the coming interview, he still found himself hoping that Emery Clements could give them some useful information. The Chief Inspector was beginning to make pointed remarks. So far they hadn’t identified the victim, located the murder weapon or found any witnesses. None of his police constables were getting anywhere with their door-to-door inquiries around Magpie Lane, nor had they had any success in locating the shop that
had sold the victim her shoes. If he didn’t find something useful soon, he simply wouldn’t know what to do next. Even his household had been glum and morose this morning.

The door opened, and a thin-faced clerk stuck his head out. “Inspector Witherspoon, Mr. Clements can see you now.”