Mrs. Jeffries Speaks Her Mind (13 page)

Barnes looked up from his notebook. “Can she verify that both of you were here that morning?”

“I don’t know what time Olive Kettering was killed, but Mrs. Malfrey was late that day because of the storm. She didn’t get here until almost noon.” Olga Richards laughed. “Neither of us can prove we were here when she was killed.”

 

“We’re getting a late start this afternoon,” Mrs. Jeffries warned as she took her place at the head of the table. “So we’d best get right to it.”

“What about Phyllis?” Betsy tried to keep her voice casual. “Is she still here?”

“She left ten minutes ago.” Mrs. Goodge poured herself a cup of tea. “And I gave her an errand to run before she comes tomorrow morning, so we’ll have plenty of time for our morning meeting.”

Betsy looked away. She knew she was being silly, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself.

“Who would like to go first?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“I will,” Luty volunteered. “I found out a few bits that might turn out to be useful.” She told them about her meeting with Edmund Slater. When she’d finished, she helped herself to a slice of brown bread.

“So Bernadine Fox is a member of the family that used to own Olive Kettering’s house?” Ruth said slowly.

“Edmund says she is, but truth to tell”—Luty shoved her knife into the butter pot—“I’m not sure he knew what he was sayin’. By the time we got to that part of the conversation, he’d had a lot to drink.”

“Really, madam,” Hatchet exclaimed. “I don’t think pouring liquor down a man’s throat to get information out of him is very nice—or, apparently, very effective.”

“Fiddlesticks.” She glared at her butler. “I didn’t put a gun to his head and force him. I offered him hospitality and he took it. Besides, this is murder we’re talkin’ about here, so the social niceties don’t apply.”

“I agree with Luty,” Wiggins added. “Like she said, she didn’t force him to drink the stuff.”

Mrs. Jeffries didn’t want them sidetracked by a debate on what was or wasn’t acceptable behavior in ferreting out information. She had a feeling they’d all violated generally accepted principles of good behavior when the occasion called for it. “I think we can assume that Mrs. Fox is somehow related to the family that used to own the house. It would certainly explain why Olive Kettering rented the carriage house flat to her, especially if the families have known one another for years. Who would like to go next?”

“I will,” Ruth offered. “I didn’t learn much more than we already knew.” She hesitated. “And I’m very sorry to have to say this, but I’m not so sure her servants were all that innocent of stealing from her. I’m not saying they are guilty. Only that it’s possible. But if they did take her things, it wasn’t because they were thieves but only because they were so angry at her. My source told me that the staff disliked her so much that they played tricks on her, especially when they found out the poor woman was starting to hear things in the middle of the night.”

“What kind of tricks?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Nasty ones,” she said. “If Miss Kettering had been harsh with the scullery maid, the girl wouldn’t wash the vegetables properly, and when the upstairs maid was in a tiff, she’d shake the dust rags into Miss Kettering’s clothes cupboard so she’d sneeze.”

“Cor blimey, you must ’ave a right good source to find out that sort of details.” Wiggins shook his head in admiration.

“My source is a relative of a woman from my group. Mavis came by earlier today to leave me some pamphlets for our next meeting. I happened to mention the Kettering murder and she told me that her cousin worked there until last month but she quit when she was offered a position in a dress shop. The girl lodges with Mavis and when she read about the murder in the newspapers, she confided that she was glad she’d left because of all the terrible things the staff did to Miss Kettering.”

“She thinks the killer might be one of the servants?” Mrs. Jeffries clarified.

Ruth frowned thoughtfully. “I asked Mavis that specifically and she said her cousin was sure that none of them had actually done the deed, but the girl was of the opinion that if the police found out about the nasty tricks the staff was playing on their mistress, they might be tempted to lay the blame for the murder on one of them.”

“If it were anyone but our inspector, she’d be right to be scared,” Wiggins declared. “That’s the sort of thing that Inspector Nivens would do in a heartbeat. Speakin’ of him, I’ve not heard the inspector mention him recently. What’s ’appened to the fellow? ’As he left the force?”

“No, more’s the pity,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. “But ever since our inspector kept silent about the way he’d withheld evidence on that case last year, he’s been behaving himself.”

“That won’t last long,” Smythe muttered. “Nivens is like a bad penny; he’ll turn up and try stickin’ his nose into our inspector’s cases soon enough. Mark my words.”

Inspector Nigel Nivens had been dogging their inspector for years, insinuating that Witherspoon had help on his cases and wasn’t the brilliant detective everyone thought he was. The household disliked him intensely.

“Why don’t you go next, Wiggins?” Mrs. Jeffries suggested to the footman. “Did you have much luck today?”

“I think so. I had a chat with Olive Kettering’s scullery maid, Lila Perkins.” Unlike Luty, who’d freely admitted she’d gotten her source drunk, Wiggins didn’t tell them he’d plied the woman with gin. He was a bit ashamed of that part of it, despite what he’d told himself as he’d bought the woman those last two drinks. He told them everything he’d learned from Lila. When he’d finished, he turned to Ruth and said, “But Lila never mentioned they’d been playin’ tricks on Miss Kettering.”

“Maybe she didn’t know the extent of the mischief,” Ruth suggested. “And we don’t know for certain that Mavis’ cousin was talking about the entire Kettering staff. It might have just been one or two members of the household.”

“That Reverend Richards sounds like he knows which side his bread is buttered on,” Betsy observed. “Miss Kettering was worth more to him alive than dead.”

“We don’t know that,” her husband argued. “We’ve not found out who inherits her money. She might ’ave left it all to the Society of the Humble Shepherd.”

“Servant,” the cook corrected. “But I don’t understand why Richards would think that havin’ his wife in a wheelchair would get him more contributions. It wouldn’t make me open my purse any wider.”

“But it would some people,” Mrs. Jeffries said thoughtfully.

“And she’s supposed to be a beautiful woman as well,” Wiggins added. Lila had told him that as they left the pub. Her exact words didn’t bear repeating, as she insisted that men tended to think with a certain part of their anatomy instead of their brains whenever they saw a pretty face. He’d turned red and he hoped he wasn’t blushing now.

“A beautiful woman in a wheelchair would make a lot of men feel a bit more generous,” Betsy murmured.

“Nonetheless, this Reverend Richards does sound like a confidence trickster,” Hatchet said.

Mrs. Jeffries looked at the footman. “Are you finished?”

He nodded.

“I’ll go next, then,” Mrs. Goodge said quickly. “An old acquaintance of mine dropped by the kitchen today and I got a bit of information out of her.” She told them about Doris Atherton’s visit. “So you see, from what Doris told me, Dorian Kettering really isn’t very interested in money, so I doubt that he’d have any reason to want his cousin dead,” she concluded.

“But you just told us that your source claimed the only time he ever raised his voice was when he had Miss Kettering over to dinner,” Wiggins pointed out. “So maybe she wasn’t murdered over her money but because she was such a mean woman and he was fed up with her.”

“You don’t kill people you’re fed up with,” Mrs. Goodge argued. “You stay away from them.” She had no idea why she felt compelled to defend Dorian Kettering, but she’d found herself liking the man that Doris had described. She didn’t want to think he was a killer.

“But they were family, so how could he cut her out of his life?” Betsy added. “After all, if he did that, he’d be no better than she was. You said yourself that Dorian Kettering was furious with her because of the way she treated their niece. That was the reason for their most vicious arguments.”

“True,” the cook admitted grudgingly, “but I think it’s important that we establish the fact that a member of Dorian Kettering’s former household believes he wasn’t interested in her money. But nonetheless, I’ll concede you’ve made some good points and there could have been other reasons he might want her dead. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.”

“I didn’t find out anything today,” Smythe said quickly. He’d wasted half the day on a futile trip down to the docks; specifically, he’d gone to have a word with Blimpey Groggins, one of his prime sources when they were on the hunt. But Blimpey wasn’t for hire this week; he was home nursing a bad cold and wasn’t expected back to the pub for another three or four days. Smythe was going to have to do his snooping on his own and he was a bit downhearted over the matter. He wasn’t as good as the others at getting people to talk. “But I’ve got some ideas for tomorrow and I’m determined to find out something useful.”

“Of course you will.” Betsy grabbed his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze.

“I didn’t find out anything today, either.” Hatchet shot Luty a sour look. “But I’ll have something by tomorrow morning.”

Inspector Witherspoon sighed happily as he sank into his favorite chair. “I must say, this has been the most unusual case.”

Mrs. Jeffries handed him a glass of Harvey’s
.
“Most of your cases are unusual, sir.” She took her own glass and sat down opposite him. “And you do an excellent job of solving all of them. Now, sir, what is odd about this particular one?”

Witherspoon took a quick sip of sherry before he replied. “Thus far, everyone we’ve interviewed has been, well, I’m not certain how to put it, but I suppose the best description would be that they’ve all been most peculiar individuals.”

“In what way, sir?”

“The victim was a rich woman who was very much disliked by a number of people, including her own household staff,” he explained. “Now, that, of course, is frequently to be expected when someone is murdered, at least with the cases that I seem to get, but the difference between most cases and this one is that thus far, almost everyone I’ve interviewed isn’t in the least hesitant to tell me why they disliked Olive Kettering.”

“I should think that might make solving the murder a bit easier,” she suggested.

“It should, but it really hasn’t.” He frowned and put his glass down on the table next to his chair. “Everyone I’ve interviewed has been very candid about their feelings toward the victim, but that hasn’t helped me find any hard evidence which points to the killer. I’m beginning to wonder if this is going to be the one that gets away from us.”

“You mustn’t say that, sir, it’s still very early days,” she said calmly. “You’re always like this at the start of an investigation.”

“Like what?” he demanded.

She had to be careful of how she answered here; she could tell he was a bit confused by the unexpected honesty of the suspects he’d spoken with thus far. She didn’t want him worried because this case was going a bit differently from most of his others.

The inspector’s confidence in his abilities as a homicide detective had grown enormously over the years, but he was still very prone to self-doubt. She considered it her duty to keep reminding him that he was a brilliant detective and that Rome, so to speak, wasn’t built in a day. “Well, sir, it’s as if you let your mind, or your ‘inner voice’ as I like to call it, go wandering off to gather information and see connections that are invisible to most of us. That’s what you do at the beginning of all your cases, so, consequently, one part of you can’t see that you’re making any progress at all, but you are. That’s why you’ve been so very successful as a detective, sir; you’re clever enough to let your inner voice have its own way, and in return, you always solve even the most complex of cases. This one won’t be any different, sir. You’ll find out who murdered Olive Kettering.”

Witherspoon stared at her for a long moment and she wondered if she’d laid it on a bit too thick. Then he smiled. “You give me too much credit, Mrs. Jeffries, but I daresay it does give one pause when one feels half of one’s reason has gone off on a jaunt.”

Relieved, she laughed and took a sip of sherry. “Now, what sort of odd interviews did you have today, sir?”

“Several of them. I interviewed Olive Kettering’s niece and her husband.” He told her about his visit to the Cameron household. “As I said before, he wasn’t in the least bit shy about telling us how much he loathed his wife’s aunt.”

“But he was in a sick bed when she was killed, is that right?” she clarified.

“That’s what he claims, but tomorrow we’re going to have a quick word with the neighbors. I think it’s a good idea to see if any of them have seen him out and about recently.”