Mrs. Jeffries Rocks the Boat (24 page)

“Won’t the police be using it?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Probably.” Smythe shrugged. “But they’ll be on the ground floor. I’ve got us a way into the second floor. There’s a right nice view from the window up there.”

CHAPTER 10

“The inspector is doin’ quite well on his own this time, isn’t he?” Mrs. Goodge commented as soon as the men had left.

“Indeed he is,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed. “But that’s no reason for us not to do our best.”

The cook didn’t look convinced. “I suppose you’re right,” she replied slowly. “But I can’t help thinkin’ that I’ve wasted an awful lot of food in the past couple of days. I’ve not found out anything useful.”

“Now don’t be so down in the mouth,” Luty chided. “We won’t know what’s useful and what’s not until after we catch the killer. Besides, just because we ain’t had much luck gettin’ the jump on the inspector so far don’t mean we ain’t contributin’. Think of poor Hatchet. Drags his old bones all the way out to Colchester to see that Lady Henrietta, and he don’t find out anything more than what we already know. But he didn’t let that get him down none. He went ahead and went out tonight with the others. It’s just like Hepzibah says; we don’t know that the case is over just because the inspector is fixin’ to grab some woman tryin’ to sell a necklace. Besides, maybe no one will show at all tonight.”

“Well said, Luty,” the housekeeper commented. “By the way, now that Hatchet is gone, will you please tell us something? Who is Rollo Puffy?”

Luty laughed. “He was, or for all I know, still is, one of the best con men operating in the United States. He took Hatchet and a few others real good.”

“What do you mean?” Betsy asked curiously. “Took him how?”

“For money,” Luty replied. “Rollo Puffy cost poor old Hatchet three thousand dollars. Mind you, it was a number of years back, before we came to London. Hatchet had just come to work for me. My husband was still alive back in those days, and we had us a big house up on Nob Hill. Well, Hatchet had somehow met up with this real nice old feller named Rollo Puffy. Puffy claimed that he’d made a fortune in the lumber business up in the northwest and had come to San Francisco to sell this big, fancy yacht.” She reached for the pot and poured herself more tea. “Anyway, Hatchet come in one evening sayin’ that Puffy wanted to get shut of this yacht so danged bad, he was goin’ to sell it real cheap. Puffy said he was goin’ to buy an even bigger one and sail it back to Seattle. He didn’t need two boats. Now the reason Hatchet told me and my husband about it was because we’d invested some of his money for him. We both thought it sounded fishy, but we didn’t like to say no thin’. So we all got in the carriage and went down to the dock to have a look at the yacht.” She smiled and shook her head at the memory. “It was a beauty. Over forty foot long and with the prettiest white and gold trim you ever saw. To make a long story short. Hatchet gave Puffy the money that night. Even though we thought the boat were pretty, we were against him doin’ it. Just didn’t stand to reason that even a rich man would sell something that valuable for three thousand dollars. But it was Hatchet’s money, and he did as he wanted. He told us he was goin’ to
set sail for the Pacific islands. Give up butlerin’ and see something of the world. But things didn’t work out like that.”

“What happened?” Mrs. Goodge asked eagerly.

“When he went back to the dock the next morning, the yacht was nowhere to be seen. But there were three other people there, and they was all madder than spit.”

“I take it the man had sold the yacht to these three as well,” Mrs. Jeffries said.

“Absolutely. And the reason the feller worked the scam so easy was that there really was a Rollo Puffy, and he really was an eccentric millionaire. He kept a huge suite at one of the fanciest hotels in town and had a letter of credit deposited at the Bank of California. This feller claimin’ to be Puffy had moved into his suite at the Fremont Hotel and from the gossip I got later, even though the bank did try to hush it up, he’d used me line of credit too.”

“But how did this man get away with pretending to be someone he wasn’t?” Betsy asked.

“Easy.” Luty grinned and put down her cup. “No one had ever seen Puffy. He was rich as sin, but he never came to town. Lots of fellows like him back in those days. Fellows that struck it rich back in the 1840s and 50s and didn’t know what to do with all that money. Puffy had deposited the letter of credit and rented the rooms at the Fremont through an agent. But the agent was long gone by the time the sharpster come around pretendin’ to be Puffy.”

“Poor Hatchet,” Mrs. Jeffries said sympathetically. “That must have been quite a blow to him. Losing all that money.”

“It hurt his pride worse than his pocketbook,” Luty replied. “But I didn’t use Puffy’s name on that telegram just to niggle at Hatchet. I used it because it’s probably the last name on earth that’ll ever be heard tell here in England. The last thing I’d ever want to do is make up a name and have some poor soul have to suffer for what we done.”

“Did you hear something, sir?” Barnes asked Witherspoon. He stuck his head around the wooden partition and stared hard
up and down the street. “I thought I heard a thumping noise.”

“I expect it’s just the sound of the bumpers hitting against the wharf,” Witherspoon replied. He’d not heard anything.

“It sounded closer than that, sir. Almost like it was right over our heads.”

“There’s nothing over our heads, Constable. No one’s been in this building for ages,” Witherspoon said. “I expect there’s so much rot upstairs that it wouldn’t be safe to walk across the floor. Do you see anything yet?”

“Not yet, sir.” Barnes stuck his head back in. He wasn’t concerned that they would be spotted. To begin with, there wasn’t anyone about, and secondly they were well hidden. “But he ought to be here soon. Accordin’ to what Nivens’s people told us, Jon McGee is back in town. He holds court here every night from eight o’clock on.”

“Hmmm…yes. But it’s almost eight, and we’ve not seen anyone go in except a few locals and our own lads. I don’t think this McGee fellow could have slipped past us either, not from the description we got from the lads in K division.”

“He’ll be along soon, sir. And the minute he shows, we’ll spot him. There’s not too many peg-legged crooks working this part of London.” Suddenly, Barnes cocked his ear toward the road and then stuck his head back out.

“Someone’s comin’ now, sir.” He paused for a brief second. “It’s him, sir. It’s McGee. He and one of his mates are just coming past the wharf.”

Witherspoon stuck his head out as well. Holding his breath, he watched the two men, one with a wooden peg leg, make their way toward the door of the Sailor’s Whistle. “Excellent. Now all we have to do is wait for the lady to arrive, and we’ll be right as rain.”

“You’re convinced that whoever shows up with the necklace is our killer, sir?” Barnes asked.

“Probably,” the inspector replied. “But we’ll have to see what happens, won’t we? I don’t want to make too many assumptions about tonight. I shouldn’t like to arrest the wrong person.” The inspector had a horror about that. He had a great
deal of faith in the British justice system. But in a murder case where the penalty was probably going to be death, he wanted to make absolutely sure that for his part, he arrested the guilty party.

Witherspoon would rather see the guilty go free than an innocent person hang.

“Be quiet,” Smythe hissed at Wiggins. “You keep thumping about like that, the inspector or one of his lads will be up here to see what’s goin’ on.”

“I’m not movin’ on purpose,” Wiggins gave himself another hard shake and smacked at the air in front of him. “There’s a spider on me somewhere.”

“There’s nothing on you,” Hatchet soothed.

“Yes, there is.” Wiggins jiggled up and down on the balls of his feet. “I walked through its ruddy web.”

“Stop that or I’ll box yer ears,” Smythe whispered. “These floorboards are old as sin and creakin’ like an old woman’s bones.”

“But the inspector and Constable Barnes is outside the building,” Wiggins protested. “They can’t ’ear nuthin’.” But he did force himself to stand still. He slapped his hand to his neck, thinking he felt a tickle on his skin.

“Can you see, Smythe?” Hatchet asked. They’d wiped a fairly large amount of grime off the window. But the night was dark, and his eyes weren’t as sharp as they used to be.

“The view’s just fine. I think that’s Jon McGee and one of his thugs goin’ in now.” He raised his hand and wiped at his cheek. This place was so filthy that even standing in it made you feel dirty. The very air itself reeked of grime and grit. It also reeked of lots of other things, most of them nasty. The river being so close didn’t help much. In this part of town the water mainly smelled of rancid vegetation and rotting fish. “Stinks, doesn’t it?” he commented idly.

“It shouldn’t be for much longer,” Hatchet replied. “Not if our lady wants to be home at a reasonable hour.”

“Ouch.” Wiggins slapped himself on the cheek, again thinking he’d felt something scuttling across his face.

“Let’s just ’ope she doesn’t change her mind on us,” the coachman muttered.

From a distance, they heard the sound of a carriage turning into the street.

“That sounds like a cab,” Smythe said, “and if it is, it’s proably her. In this neighborhood, there ain’t much carriage trade after dark.”

Witherspoon’s whole body stiffened as he watched the cab pull up on the narrow street in front of the pub. A heavily veiled woman stepped out. Despite the warmth of the summer evening, she carried a large fur muff. She handed the driver some coins, and they heard her murmur something to him. But her tone was too low for them to understand what she said.

“Right, ma’am,” the driver replied. “I’ll be back for you in fifteen minutes and not a moment later.” He cracked the whip in the air and moved off.

The woman stood in front of the door and paused, probably to gather her courage, and went inside.

Witherspoon and Barnes didn’t take their eyes off the door. “I think it’s her, sir,” the constable muttered.

“We’ll know in a moment.” Just as the words left Witherspoon’s mouth, the door opened and a young man dressed in workingman’s clothes stepped out. He looked straight at the two policemen and shook his head. Then he went back inside.