Mrs. Jeffries Rocks the Boat (16 page)

“People like me.” Mrs. Lucas stared at her for a long moment, and then a slow smile spread across her face. “Your inspector is very fortunate in his staff. Of course, I am as well. I’ve got my devoted Mary and her sister Hilda to take care of me.”

“And we takes good care of you, ma’am,” Mary said as she came back into the room pushing a delicate wicker tea
trolly. The kettle must have already been on the boil and the tray made up because she’d been gone only a few minutes. She eased the trolly into an impossibly small space between the settee and a red, silk-fringed footrest.

“Indeed you do.” Isadora Lucas smiled gratefully at the maid and reached for the teapot. “Thank you, Mary. I’ll ring if I need anything else.”

As soon as she’d poured their tea, she studied Mrs. Jeffries openly. Whatever she saw on the housekeeper’s face must have reassured her because finally, she said, “All right, I’ll try and help. But I’m not really certain I understand exactly what it is you need from me. When you say you want to know anything connected to the Prosper house, does that mean you want to know which married man on the square is having an improper relationship with Mrs. Prosper? Or does it mean you’d like to know that Mr. Prosper is well aware of his wife’s behaviour but deliberately shuts his eyes to it?”

Mrs. Jeffries stifled a feeling of elation. It would, of course, be wrong to gloat. But her instincts had been right! This woman knew a great deal about what went on in Sheridan Square. “Actually, I think I’d quite like it if you could tell me everything.”

“Then I hope you’ve plenty of time.” She laughed in delight. “Because there’s plenty to tell. After dark, our garden has more foot traffic than Oxford Street.”

The inspector decided that Miss Judith Brinkman was a sensible, no-nonsense sort of woman. Much like his housekeeper. Dressed in a serviceable lavender day dress and plain black shoes, she sat ramrod straight in the middle of her drawing room and listened to them without interruption. She asked no questions and made no comments. She merely gazed at them with interest as they explained the circumstances of their visit.

“So you see, Miss Brinkman,” Witherspoon finished, “we’d be most grateful for any help you could give us.”

“That’s quite a tale, Inspector,” she replied. “But I don’t know what I can tell you that you don’t already know. From
what you’ve told me, the purser has already given you the details of Miss Daws’s voyage. I don’t know that I have anything to add to that.”

Witherspoon stifled a sigh and glanced at Constable Barnes. He was desperately hoping that Barnes could think of something to ask that might be useful. Something that would nudge the woman’s memory in some sort of fashion. They had learned a lot of information about this case, but so far, he’d not a clue as to who the killer might be.

Barnes gave a barely perceptible nod of his head and said, “Can you verify that she wore the opal and diamond necklace all the time?”

“Probaby even when she bathed,” she replied bluntly. She smiled slightly, and the inspector knew it was because he was probably blushing. “Mirabelle wouldn’t let the thing out of her sight. She wore it all the time. She was terrified someone might steal it or that she would lose the wretched thing.”

“That’s not an unreasonable fear,” Witherspoon said.

“True,” she agreed, “but if she was that frightened of losing it, she ought to have had it locked in the ship’s safe. Most of the women on board brought their jewels with them, but we weren’t in the habit of wearing them continuously.” She shook her head. “Mirabelle Daws was a most unusual woman. On the surface, it would appear she simply didn’t care what people thought of her. Yet the fact that she flaunted that necklace constantly rather showed that she did care. That she wanted everyone on board to know she had plenty of money.”

“That probably didn’t make her very popular,” Barnes muttered.

Judith nodded in agreement. “She was quite sad, really. I rather felt sorry for her. I tried to help her socially. But it was impossible, I’m afraid. By the end of the voyage, all the decent people on board had completely cut her.”

“Was it just wearin’ the necklace that put people off?” Barnes asked.

“No. Most people were rather amused by that particular
foible. It wasn’t what she did. It was her manner of speaking.”

Witherspoon was incredulous. He knew the English were a tad snobbish, but that sounded absurd. “You mean they didn’t like her accent?”

“Oh, no, contrary to what everyone believes, we’re not so horribly class ridden that most of us would ignore someone because of their speech,” Judith explained. “People cut her because of what she said. People were dreadfully shocked.”

The inspector and Barnes both leaned forward in their chairs. Rather like two old women getting ready for a particularly good morsel of gossip.

“Oh, dear,” Witherspoon said, “I do hope it won’t upset you to repeat it?”

“Hardly, Inspector.” Her hazel eyes sparkled with amusement. “I spent many years as a nursing sister. There isn’t much that upsets me. And apparently there wasn’t much that upset Mirabelle Daws either. She talked constantly, told everyone her business and then dared them to disagree with her.”

“What precisely was her business?” Barnes asked. He sounded just a bit impatient. “We were under the impression she was just comin’ to visit her sister.”

“She was,” Judith replied. “And she was bound and determined to make her sister come back to Australia with her. The fact that the woman was properly married didn’t make any difference to Mirabelle. She told everyone that she wasn’t going to rest until Annabelle was onboard a ship and heading home. She used to twirl those opals while she was speaking. It would have been amusing except that she was deadly serious.”

“If she was violently opposed to her sister’s marriage,” Witherspoon asked, “why didn’t she object before the fact? Why wait until her sister comes all the way to England and then follow her months later to bring her home? It’s most odd, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” Judith said, “not when one understands Mirabelle’s
reasoning. She wasn’t opposed to the marriage when it happened. It was only later, after Annabelle had come to England, that Mirabelle decided there was something odd going on. She implied that Eldon Prosper was keeping his wife a virtual prisoner. When I tried to get her to explain what she meant, all she would say was that she suspected that he was keeping her letters from her sister and not letting Annabelle write home.”

“She hadn’t had a letter from her sister since she’d been married?” Barnes surmised.

“That’s right.” Judith nodded. “Mirabelle said she’d only received one letter from Annabelle since she’d come to England and that one had been mailed the day her ship docked in Southampton. She was convinced that Annabelle was in some sort of trouble or stuck with one of those monstrous men for a husband. Mind you, I was quite sympathetic to Mirabelle. I suspect if I were in her situation, I’d have done the same thing. Especially if I’d come into a great deal of money, as the Daws family apparently has. But one thing I wouldn’t have done was to tell everyone onboard the ship that a man as rich and influential as Eldon Prosper was some sort of animal and that I was going to get my sister away from him if it was the last thing I did!” She shook her head in disbelief. “For an intelligent woman, that was quite stupid on Mirabelle’s part. You can imagine what most people thought. Mind you, it was mainly the men who didn’t want their wives around her. I think a lot of the women felt as I did.”

“Do you think it’s possible that her attitude about er…a marriage and that sort of thing might have offended someone so much that they would want to harm her?” Witherspoon thought it a weak motive for murder, but then again, one never knew.

Judith pursed her lips in thought. “I don’t think so,” she finally said. “People cut her, but they didn’t go out of their way to be cruel. I don’t think that there was any one particular man that was overly offended by Mirabelle’s attitudes. No,
I’d say they just wanted to keep their wives away from her.”

“Did you see Miss Daws leaving the vessel?” Barnes asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Judith said. “There was a real crush on the quay. Relatives and friends were turning up and meeting people, that sort of thing. But as I was getting into a hansom, I saw Mirabelle talking to a young boy, rather I should say a street arab.”

“Do you know where her luggage was at that point?” Barnes persisted.

“I’m not absolutely certain,” she said hesitantly, “but I think there was a porter right behind her. He may have been carrying her things. She didn’t have much, just a large case and a carpet bag. She’d told us she planned to buy some things in London. She spoke to the boy for a moment; then I saw him give her something. Perhaps it was a letter or a message. A few moments later, I saw her moving through the crowd. That’s the last I saw of her.”

Witherspoon nodded gratefully. They’d never found Mirabelle’s baggage. The shipping line claimed she took it with her when she left the vessel.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Witherspoon asked. “Anything at all?”

Again, Judith hesitated. “I don’t know if this is helpful, but she did tell me she was going straight up to London. The ship docked quite late in the afternoon. By the time it tied up and we passed through the formalities of disembarkation, it was late. Most of the passengers had made plans to stay over in Southampton and continue on the next day. But not Mirabelle. She said she was going up to London straightaway to have it out with Eldon Prosper.”

“I guess she didn’t know that he was out of town,” Barnes mused. “Too bad. If she’d known that, she’d have stayed in Southampton that night, and she’d still be alive.”

“But Mr. Prosper was in London that night,” Judith exclaimed. “I know because Mirabelle had sent him a telegram
when the ship docked in Cherbourg. Right after we docked here, she received a reply from him saying he’d see her that very night.”

Witherspoon looked at the constable. Barnes grimaced. They were thinking the same thing. They hadn’t checked Eldon Prosper’s alibi as thoroughly as they should. “Are you sure, ma’am?” the inspector pressed. “We have it on good authority that Mr. Prosper was in Edinburgh that evening.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t actually read the message, but I did see Mirabelle coming out of the purser’s office waving the envelope about. She was quite pleased. She told me it was all arranged, that she was going to meet him in London. Then she said, and this is a direct quote, gentlemen, she was going to ‘have it out once and for all with the old bastard.’”

“This was right before the
Island Star
docked?” Witherspoon hadn’t any idea why this was important, but in the past he’d learnt it was useful to have a person’s “timeline,” as he called it, absolutely correct.

“No, it was right after the ship docked,” Judith answered. “Mirabelle and I said our farewells, and she went back to her cabin, presumably to gather her things. The last I saw of her was on the dock an hour or so later. Pity, I rather liked her. She was blunt and rather foolishly honest. But she didn’t deserve to die alone and in a strange land.” She stared off at the far wall for a few moments and then gave herself a small shake. Turning to Witherspoon, she said, “I hope you catch whoever killed her. I hope you catch them, and I hope they hang.”

As soon as the inspector and Barnes had gone, Judith Brinkman walked to a door just a few feet behind the area where she’d been sitting and yanked it open. “Are you all right?”

“I’m jus’ fine,” Luty Belle Crookshank scrambled up off the floor of the small storage closet and wiped the dust off her bright orange skirts. “Jus’ fine. Boy, you gotta powerful lot of information outta that woman. I was listenin’ so hard,
I was fit to bust. Who’da thought Prosper was in town the night of the murder?”

“Would you care to come out and have cup of tea?” Judith invited. “I believe you must be rather thirsty. You’ve been in there a good while.”

Luty hurried out. “I’ve spent time in worse places. But I am thirsty. Can I help myself?” she asked as she headed for the tea trolly.

“Of course.” Judith chuckled.