02 - Mrs. Jeffries Dusts for Clues (17 page)

“But why?” Betsy asked. “If he’s been disinherited, ’ow come he’s still livin’ at ’ome?”

“’Cause he don’t have nowhere else to go nor any money.” The cook reached for a bun. “And he can’t get employment. Seems his reputation is too unsavory for them that employs gentlemen.”

“Why was he disinherited,” Mrs. Jeffries asked eagerly, “and more importantly, do you know when?”

“The best I could find out was that his father was finally fed up with ’im seducin’ housemaids and leavin’ his bastards everywhere. The last time it happened was with that girl,” she broke off, trying to remember the name.

“Sally Comstock?” Mrs. Jeffries supplied.

“That’s her. Anyway, it seems that when he got her in trouble, his father paid the girl off with a big wad of money. Money that was Andrew’s quarterly allowance. Then he told young Andrew he was tired of such behavior and that the boy couldn’t expect to inherit anything from him.” Mrs. Goodge laughed cynically. “But blood’s thicker than water, and I reckon one of the reasons the boy’s still livin’ at home is in hopes of softening the old man up.”

“That’s right strange, you know,” Betsy said thoughtfully.

“What is?” Mrs. Jeffries poured out a cup of chocolate.

“Well, I ’appened to find out that Cassie Yates, when she was workin’ at the Lutterbanks, shared a room with Sally Comstock.” She broke off and laughed. “As a matter of fact, the only nice thing I’ve heard about Cassie at all was that she’d
snuck out the night Sally left—she told everyone she wanted to say good-bye to her friend.” Betsy shrugged. “Jus’ goes to show that everyone’s got some little bit of good in ’em, don’t it?”

“Indeed it does, Betsy.” Mrs. Jeffries turned back to the cook. “Did you find out when the Comstock girl left?”

“No, but it should be easy enough to check. She left right after old Angus Lutterbank’s funeral. Mr. Lutterbank was so angry with Andrew that as soon as the service was over, he made the boy take the girl straight down to the docks and put her on the ship to Australia himself. We can check at St. Matthew’s for the date of the funeral.”

“Why are you so interested in Sally Comstock?” Betsy asked curiously. “Mary weren’t even workin’ at the Lutterbanks’ when Sally was there.”

“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Jeffries confessed. “Curiosity, I suppose. Now, what all did you find out?”

“Not much really,” Betsy admitted. “But I did find out the name of the man who was Cassie Yates’s third admirer. It were Andrew Lutterbank himself. But he must have learned his lesson ’cause the girl I was talkin’ to told me that Andrew took care only to meet with Cassie away from the house.”

“Then how did she find out?” Mrs. Goodge asked.

“She saw Cassie and Andrew together twice. They met in the park. Oh, and there’s no record of Cassie gettin’ married at any of the local churches, and none of the girls I talked to ’ad any idea where it could have taken place.” Betsy turned to Mrs. Jeffries. “Do you want me to keep lookin’?”

“I’m not sure, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries confessed. “Wait until you hear what I’ve learned today, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”

She told them all about Emery Clements and Malcolm Farnsworth. She gave them the details of Luty Belle’s visit and said that Witherspoon had mentioned he was going to the Everdene house tomorrow. She then told them about Dr. Bosworth’s theory that the victim had been pregnant.

“Pregnant?” Betsy gasped. “But that doesn’t sound like Mary at all.”

“The behavior Antonia Everdene described to me didn’t sound like Mary either,” Mrs. Jeffries said earnestly. “Yet we know she went there that day and started work. But nothing makes sense in this case so far. However, we won’t give up until we uncover the truth.” For a moment she was tempted to quote Mr. Walt Whitman, the American poet. She couldn’t quite remember the verse, but it was something about looking until one really saw. And that’s just what they’d keep doing too. She turned to Betsy and said, “Will you be able to get to Putney tomorrow? I think it’s rather important that we find out what happened between Antonia Everdene and Mary.”

“I’ll go first thing in the morning.”

“Be careful that you don’t run into the inspector,” Mrs. Jeffries warned. The back door slammed and startled her so that she jumped.

“Cor, it’s about time you got ’ere,” Betsy shouted.

Turning, Mrs. Jeffries saw Smythe. He gave her a cocky smile and swaggered to the table like the king of the mountain.

“Good evening, Smythe,” Mrs. Jeffries said pleasantly. “We’ve been a bit concerned about you.”

“There was no need for that,” he replied, giving Mrs. Goodge a wink and pulling out a chair. “You knows I can take care of myself.”

“Not when there’s a murderer runnin’ around stickin’ knives in people’s ’earts,” Betsy snapped. “Worryin’ us to death was right inconsiderate.”

The coachman looked startled. “Now, now, lass,” he began soothingly. “I weren’t doin’ it a purpose, but I was in the thick o’ things and couldn’t get back.”

Mrs. Goodge snorted and Betsy narrowed her eyes. Mrs. Jeffries quickly intervened. “Well, now that you are back, perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell us what you’ve been up to.”

Smythe reached for the pot of cocoa, poured himself some and leaned back in his chair. “Where’s Wiggins?”

“He’s hot on the trail,” Betsy said sarcastically, taking care to enunciate every word. “Like you, I guess he can’t be bothered with comin’ ’ome either.”

“Look I’ve done told ya—” he began defensively, but Mrs. Jeffries cut him off.

“Yes, we know what you’ve told us,” she said. “Now we’re wasting time here. We’ve learned a lot since you’ve been gone,
and we need to know what you’ve found out.”

“I finally found the bloke that drove the hired coach from Cassie Yates’s lodgin’s. That’s why I’ve been gone so long.” He smiled smugly and took a long, leisurely sip from his mug.

Betsy sighed, Mrs. Goodge rolled her eyes and even Mrs. Jeffries was tempted to give him a swift kick in the leg; instead she gave him what he wanted to hear. “We knew you’d catch up with the fellow sooner or later. You’re very clever, Smythe.”

He leaned forward on his elbows, his dark brown eyes shining. “The man that come for Cassie’s belongin’s were a tall, well-dressed feller who paid double the regular ’irin’ price—seems he were in a ’urry that mornin’ and didn’t want to wait around for one of the other coaches to come back. He paid twice what was needed to take a coach and driver out that were already promised to someone else.”

“Who was the man?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“He never give a name, and he took some pains to disguise ’imself. Mitchell, that’s the man that drove the coach that day, said ’e wore a fancy top hat and a scarf around ’is neck to cover his face.”

“We already know that,” Betsy said waspishly, letting them know, less than tactfully, that she’d already reported this particular fact two days ago.

Smythe frowned impatiently. “Yes, but what you don’t know is ’ow strange the feller acted. On the mornin’ of the eleventh, he ordered the driver to go to the girl’s room. ’E tipped the landlady nice and then went inside. ’Alf an hour later, he come out loaded down with a carpetbag and boxes and the like. Now this is where it starts to get interestin’. Mitchell ’urried over to give the man a bit o’ ’elp, but the bloke was ’avin’ none of that. He ordered the driver back onto the coach, loaded Cassie’s things inside ’imself and then told the man to drive on.”

“What’s so interestin’ about that?” Betsy asked archly.

Instead of taking offense at her sneering tone, Smythe turned and gave her a long, thoughtful stare.

“It’s interesting because by rights, the man who ’ired the coach shouldn’t have lifted a finger to do any of the work,” Mrs. Goodge explained.

“True,” Mrs. Jeffries added. “Generally, the driver does all the carting and loading, but in this case, whoever hired that coach didn’t want the driver anywhere near either Cassie’s rooms or Cassie’s things.”

“Oh.” Betsy flushed slightly.

Smythe grinned. “But that’s not all that’s odd ’ere,” he continued. “Once the bloke was back in the coach, ’e ordered the driver to take ’im out of London, to a small village in Essex. Once they got there, the same thing ’appened. The driver just sat there while the man unloaded Cassie’s belongin’s.”

“Was Cassie there?”

“Not ’ide nor ’air of ’er,” Smythe said firmly. “The reason I were so late gettin’ in tonight were because I been out to the place.”

“Did you manage to get inside?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Couldn’t,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “The place were locked up tighter than a bank vault, but I got a good gander in the windows, and no one’s been there in months. The man just left ’er belongin’s piled in a ’eap in the parlor, but there’s dust and cobwebs everywhere.”

Mrs. Goodge poured Smythe more cocoa. “Who does the place belong to?”

“It don’t rightly belong to any one person,” the coachman confessed. “The cottage sits on less than an acre of its own ground. Accordin’ to one of the neighbors, it were sold last year to a London property company.”

Mrs. Jeffries’s eyes met Smythe’s. “Wildwoods.” It was a statement, not a question. She wasn’t surprised when he slowly nodded.

“Yes. I found that out from one of the neighbors. But no one can figure out what they want with a piddly bit o’ land and a tumbledown cottage.”

“What did the man do after he’d taken in Cassie’s things?” Betsy asked. She seemed eager to redeem herself.

“’E got back in the coach, and they drove back to town. The driver left ’im off at Hyde Park, and that were the last ’e saw of ’im. Except the man give ’im ’alf a crown.”

“You’ve done very well, Smythe,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “Now I do believe we’d better bring you up to date on what we’ve learned in your absence.”

She gave him the information, leaving nothing out and stressing Betsy’s contribution. She also told him about the missing Wiggins and the mysterious message. When she’d finished, the coachman’s normally cheeky expression had been replaced with a heavy frown.

“Good gracious, you look like you’ve just bitten into a sour apple,” Mrs. Jeffries exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly, “but I’m not likin’ the feel o’ this case. And I don’t much like the fact that Wiggins is off by ’imself gettin’ into mischief. The lad’s good-hearted, but let’s be blunt, Mrs. J, sometimes ’e’s got about as much sense as a lump of Mrs. Goodge’s bread dough.”

“That’s not true,” the cook snapped. “Wiggins might moon about a bit every now and again over some girl, but the boy’s no fool.”

“I’m not sayin’ ’e’s a fool,” Smythe argued. “I’m sayin’ I’m worried. There’s too many ’orses in this stable, too many bits and pieces we don’t know.”

Smythe’s attitude began to affect them all. Mrs. Goodge bit her lip, Betsy began twisting one of her long blond curls, and even Mrs. Jeffries had to fight the urge to get up and start pacing. Smythe wasn’t an alarmist.

“What particularly worries you so much?” Mrs. Jeffries finally asked.

“Everythin’. Don’t you see, the driver didn’t get a look at the man…He were deliberately ’idin’ his face.”

“But Cassie isn’t the one that’s dead. Mary is,” Betsy pointed out.

“Aye, Mary’s dead and Cassie’s missing, and there’s at least three men who had something to do with both girls.”

Mrs. Jeffries stifled a surge of panic as she grasped precisely
what Smythe meant. “You’re right,” she said quietly, forcing herself to keep calm. “But that doesn’t mean we’re dealing with a madman. The only thing we know for certain is that Mary is dead. We’re only assuming that Cassie is missing because we haven’t located her yet.”

“Madman?” Mrs. Goodge yelped. “Who said anythin’ about a madman?”

Across the table, Smythe and Mrs. Jeffries gazed at each other, their eyes grave, their expressions somber.

“Are you two sayin’ you think theys a lunatic killer runnin’ about murderin’ ’ousemaids?” Betsy glanced from the housekeeper to the coachman, then looked quizzically at the cook.

“Aye,” Smythe said slowly. “That’s exactly what I’m sayin’, and I want you to start bein’ a bit more careful…”

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Mrs. Jeffries said firmly. “We could easily be wrong. Mary is dead, but we don’t know that there’s anything in the least diabolical about Cassie Yates’s disappearance. From what we’ve learned of that young lady’s character, she could be off with some man.”

“Then ’ow come ’er belongin’s is in that cottage and she ain’t?” Smythe asked belligerently.

“Simple. The man might be married, and Cassie could have agreed to be his mistress,” Mrs. Jeffries explained. “She could have insisted he buy her new clothes. Oh, I don’t know, but there any one of a thousand reasons could explain why he took her things to that cottage. But it’s now imperative that we find out more.” She turned to Betsy. “Don’t bother with any of your chores tomorrow. I’ll take care of dusting and cleaning the drawing room. Get over to Putney as early as you can and see if you can find out more about Mary’s stay in the Everdene house.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Smythe said quickly. “Shouldn’t she stay ’ere and keep an eye out for Wiggins?”