02 - Mrs. Jeffries Dusts for Clues (14 page)

After they’d heard Smythe’s depressing news of the night before, the only one who’d faced the day with any enthusiasm was Wiggins.

At breakfast, he’d bounced into the room and announced he was going back to Knightsbridge for “another go at Garrett McGraw.” No matter how they all protested it was useless, he wouldn’t be deterred. Mrs. Jeffries wasn’t sure what to make of such behavior. But the boy was so convinced that Mary was still alive, she didn’t have the heart to try and stop him. Truth to tell, she wasn’t sure she wanted to either. He’d soon enough come to the same conclusion the rest of them had arrived at last night.

Mary was dead.

Mrs. Jeffries shoved the linen basket into the corner and then stood there staring at the wall. Her conscience bothered her.
She should have gone to Luty Belle’s as soon as she got up that morning, but she’d deliberately been putting it off. Well, she told herself, stop dithering and get to it. The sooner she got this uncomfortable duty over with, the better.

The gloom of the overcast day matched Mrs. Jeffries’s mood as she walked with Luty Belle in the communal gardens behind the row of tall townhouses. The elderly woman was not taking the news very well. She didn’t, in fact, appear to have heard a word Mrs. Jeffries had said.

“I tell you, that corpse weren’t Mary Sparks.” Luty shook her head vehemently. “I knows it. I kin feel it.”

“Now, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries said gently. “None of us want to believe that Mary is dead, but the facts speak for themselves.” She stopped by the gate and pointed toward the street beyond. “Mary left the gardens from right here. She walked out that gate, got in a hansom and was taken to Magpie Lane. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

“That don’t mean she’s dead,” Luty said stubbornly.

“The body of a young woman wearing Mary’s clothes was found buried in the cellar of a house in Magpie Lane,” Mrs. Jeffries continued doggedly. “As dreadfully awful as it is, we’ve got to face facts.”

“An’ the one fact you seem to be forgettin’, missy, is that them shoes on that body weren’t Mary’s.” Luty banged her cane against the ground for emphasis.

Mrs. Jeffries gazed helplessly at the stubborn old woman and wondered how to convince her of the truth. “But as Betsy pointed out,” she began, “Mary had very little money. Perhaps she found those shoes, and they were in such good condition, she decided to wear them despite the fact they were too large.”

“Horse patties,” Luty cried. “Mary wouldn’t have happened to find a pair of brand-new shoes, and I know fer a fact she wouldna wasted what little money she had buyin’ ’em. Besides, she didn’t steal that danged broach, and you said it were pinned to the dress when they found her.”

“I’m not accusing her of theft,” Mrs. Jeffries explained. “But
there’s another solution to that particular mystery.”

Luty cocked her head to one side. “An jus’ what’s that?”

“The murderer could have pinned that broach on Mary’s dress after she was killed.”

“She’s alive,” Luty insisted stubbornly. “I know it. I kin feel it.”

Mrs. Jeffries took her arm and led her to one of the wooden benches under an elm tree. When they were sitting, she said, “I know exactly how you feel. I don’t want to believe the girl’s dead either. But the facts speak for themselves.” She held up her hand for silence when Luty opened her mouth to protest. “Furthermore, you’re not doing Mary any good by letting her murderer get away with this foul deed.”

“But I ain’t doin’ that!”

“Yes, you are,” Mrs. Jeffries said firmly. “Every minute we waste our time and energy looking for the girl, in the mistaken belief that she is alive, is one more minute for the killer to cover his tracks. If we’re not careful, if we don’t start concentrating on who actually took her life, he’ll get away with it.” She paused and gave Luty a long, hard stare. “Is that what you want?”

Luty glared at her for a few seconds and then she quickly turned away. Her thin shoulders slumped as she gazed at a pile of fallen leaves. “No,” she whispered in a trembling voice. “If’n Mary is dead, I want the one that did it to hang.”

They sat in silence for a few moments before Luty straightened and turned to Mrs. Jeffries. “All right, we’ll have it yur way. Mary’s dead. I don’t like it, but I never was one to hide my head in hole when the truth of the matter was smacking me in the face.”

“I know it’s hard, Luty. But the only thing we can do for the girl now is to find her killer.”

“What do you want me to do?” Luty asked, staring at Mrs. Jeffries shrewdly.

“I want you to tell Inspector Witherspoon everything you know.” She reached over and patted the wrinkled hand that held the top of the cane in a death grip.

“What good’ll that do?” Luty snorted.

“Well, for one thing, it will put him on the right track. Once he knows the victim is definitely Mary Sparks, he can start questioning everyone she had contact with prior to her death. We know that Mary must have been killed after she left here on the tenth. With that date as a starting point and all the other information we’ve managed to learn about the Everdenes, the Lutterbanks and Cassie Yates, he’s bound to come up with something.”

“You reckon one of that bunch is the killer?” Luty asked softly.

“It’s possible.”

“Are you and the others still goin’ to be sniffin’ around too? No offense meant to yur inspector, but I won’t feel right if’n you all just hand everythin’ over to the police.”

“Don’t worry, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries assured her. “We’ll most definitely be sniffing around. Now, I think I’d better bring you up to date on our investigation. You’ll need to pass this information along to the inspector.”

For the next half hour, Mrs. Jeffries gave Luty every little detail. She told her about her visit to the Everdene house, Betsy’s investigation of Cassie Yates, about Wiggins’s perpetual watch on Garrett McGraw and about Smythe’s finding the hansom driver who took Mary to Magpie Lane. Luty snorted in disgust as Mrs. Jeffries related Mrs. Goodge’s gossip about Andrew Lutterbank and the girl he’d gotten pregnant. “I remember the girl,” Luty said. “Real sweet, used to like to talk every now and agin when she could git away from the house. Sally Comstock was her name. She used to like to do embroidery. Some of the other girls laughed at her, said she were givin’ herself airs. Always embroidering her initials on everythin’ she owned. Reckon they was probably jealous—she were a right purty girl.”

“You mean you knew about the scandal? Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“’Cause I didn’t remember until you just now reminded me.” Luty shrugged. “And it weren’t all that much of a
scandal at the time. The family was purty good at hushin’ everythin’ up. Even I wouldna known if’n Mrs. Devlin, the Lutterbank housekeeper, hadna happened to mention it…but that was several weeks after the family had got rid of the girl.” She shrugged. “That scandal don’t have nuthin’ to do with Mary anyhows. Sally Comstock was gone before Mary started workin’ for the Lutterbanks. Matter of fact, last time I even saw poor Sally was at old Angus’s funeral.”

“Is there anything else you know about Andrew Lutterbank?”

“Just what I told you before. Don’t reckon he’s much count. The women like him fine, what with all his dandy clothes and smooth manners. But he’s got a mean streak a mile wide. Holds a bad grudge too.”

“How do you know that?” Mrs. Jeffries asked curiously.

“Hatchet told me. Don’t let that poker face of his fool ya, the man’s as nosy as a curious cat. Hears more gossip around these parts than I do.” Luty sighed. “Come to think of it, I reckon I should have remembered all this before now, but that’s what comes of gittin’ old. Sometimes things slip your mind.”

“You’re not old, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries assured her. “And how does your butler know that Andrew Lutterbank holds a grudge?”

“One of the Lutterbank footmen told him. When Andrew was away at school, one of the other boys got him into some kind of trouble,” Luty explained. “Lutterbank waited for years to get even—Hatchet didn’t know all the details, but it seems Andrew managed to squeeze whoever it was that wronged him out of a real good investment deal. The footman knew about it because Andrew was braggin’ to his friends about how he never forgot an enemy. He once tried to whip his coachman too, but the man was bigger than him.” Luty broke off and shook her head. “But I don’t reckon he murdered Mary. She didn’t like him much, but she weren’t scared of him. Besides, he ain’t got no reason to have killed her.”

“None that we know of anyway,” Mrs. Jeffries added. Until they knew more about the murder, she was prepared to consider
anyone who’d known Mary a suspect.

Luty pursed her lips. “How am I supposed to tell the inspector I come by all this information?” she asked. “I knows none of you want me lettin’ on that you’re helpin’.”

“Oh, that’s quite simple.” Mrs. Jeffries smiled. “Come by the house this evening and tell him everything I’ve told you. If he asks, and there is always the chance that he won’t, tell him you were so concerned you hired a private inquiry agent—an American inquiry agent who has since left.”

“You don’t expect he’d be dumb enough to believe that?” Luty said incredulously. “Come on now, Hepzibah, that kind of yarn wouldn’t fool a child, let alone an inspector from Scotland Yard.”

For a moment Mrs. Jeffries was at a loss. “Oh, dear, I do hope I haven’t given you the wrong impression. Inspector Witherspoon isn’t stupid,” she explained. “But he is very, well, trusting. Actually, that particular trait is the reason he’s so successful as a detective. People are constantly underestimating him; consequently they don’t guard their tongues and they inevitably give themselves away.” It was a very thin explanation, and Mrs. Jeffries knew it. From Luty’s caustic expression Mrs. J suspected that she knew it too.

“All right, I’ll be by around eight.” Luty kicked her cane to the ground and leapt to her feet.

Mrs. Jeffries hid her smile. She’d suspected that Luty didn’t need a cane any more than Betsy did. She also suspected that the only reason the woman carried it was that she couldn’t carry a gun in the streets of London. Luty had once confessed to her that when she and her husband had moved here after years of living in the Wild West of America, giving up her six-shooter had almost killed her. Any weapon, even a stick, was better than none. “I think that’ll work perfectly, Luty.”

* * *

Mrs. Jeffries’s spirits were better when she arrived back in Upper Edmonton Gardens. She took off her coat and hat and hurried down to the kitchen.

Betsy looked up from the silver serving spoon she had been
slowly polishing, Mrs. Goodge grunted a hello and Smythe nodded and then hunched back over his cup of tea.

“Luty took the news as well as can be expected,” she announced quickly, “and apparently she and Wiggins are the only ones who realize we’ve still got a murder to solve.”

“Give us a bit o’ time, Mrs. Jeffries,” Betsy whined. “We all know there’s a killer out there somewhere, but it’ll take a day or two to get over the upset. Even though none of us knew Mary, we’d all got right fond of ’er just listening to Luty Belle talk about the girl.”

“I’m aware of that,” Mrs. Jeffries said firmly. “But we don’t have a day or two to play about.”

“Mary’s not in no ’urry,” Smythe complained. “She’s been dead two months now.”

Mrs. Goodge sighed. “Rotten luck.”

Mrs. Jeffries felt like shaking the lot of them. “I know how you all feel,” she said. “But we’re not going to find Mary’s murderer by sitting around here and moaning. Come on, now. Get up. There’s work to be done.”

Smythe arched one heavy black brow. “And exactly what do ya wan’ us to do?”

“First of all, I want you to find that driver who came and collected Cassie Yates’s belongings from the lodging house.”

“But why?” Betsy asked in confusion. “Cassie don’t have nuthin’ to do with Mary’s murder. She weren’t the one buried in Magpie Lane.”

“I’m not sure why,” Mrs. Jeffries replied honestly. “But Ellen Wickes said that Cassie ran out of the shop and chased a young woman around the corner—all she saw was the skirt of the woman’s dress, but remember, it was a dark blue dress.”

“I get it. It might ’ave been Mary that Cassie was chasin’ after.” Smythe jumped to his feet. “Is that what yur sayin’?”

“That’s it exactly.”

The kitchen was suddenly filled with suppressed excitement. Betsy’s eyes began to sparkle, Mrs. Goodge shoved her recipe book into a drawer and Smythe dashed to the back door, eager to be off on the hunt.

“What do you want me to do?” Betsy began to tumble the silver back into the box.

Mrs. Jeffries thought for a few moments. There were so many loose ends, so many tiny clues that might or might not be worth pursuing. Suddenly Antonia Everdene’s pinched face flashed into her mind. “I want you to go to the Everdene house in Putney. See if you can find a housemaid or a footman and find out every little detail about the time Mary spent there.”

Betsy nodded eagerly, picked up the silver box and jammed it into the cupboard. She was dashing toward the kitchen stairs when Mrs. Jeffries called her back.

“Betsy, be sure and find out if any of the servants overheard what Antonia Everdene said to Mary when she sacked her.”

“What if none of them was listenin’?”

“Oh, really, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries admonished. “Do you think that’s likely?”

The maid grinned and tossed her blond curls. “No, but on behalf of the servin’ classes, I felt I ought to say it.”

Mrs. Goodge turned toward the teakettle. “I’d best get ready, then. The boy’ll be here in a few minutes to pick up the laundry, and there’s a chimney sweep comin’ into Mrs. Gaines’s house next door. We’ve got a delivery of fish expected as well, and ol’ Thomas, the rag-and-bone man, is usually around these parts late in the day.” She glanced up at Mrs. Jeffries as she filled the kettle. “Is there anything in particular you want me to be diggin’ for?”

Again Mrs. Jeffries had to stop and think. This case was getting so complicated, she wasn’t sure what was important and what wasn’t. But she certainly didn’t want the cook wasting any precious gossip opportunities just because she couldn’t determine the next course of action. She decided to err on the side of caution. One could never learn too much about the people involved in a victim’s life. “See if you can learn anything else about the Lutterbanks. Concentrate your efforts on Andrew Lutterbank, and see if you can ferret out any more details about that scandal with that young girl who was sent off to Australia.”