Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Cake (23 page)

Mrs. Jeffries put the tray down on the table next to his chair and poured him a cup of the steaming brew. “Is Mrs. Frommer still alive?” she asked, handing him his cup.

“Yes.” He smiled happily. “Her breathing improved enormously this morning. The doctor thinks she might be past the worst. She was well enough to be moved into a private room. It’ll be easy to keep a watch on her if she’s not on the ward. There’s simply too many people coming and going on the wards. Until this killer is caught, I won’t risk her. He’s tried once. I expect when he realizes he’s failed, he might try again. That’s why I left a police constable outside her room when I decided to come home and freshen up.”

“Aren’t you going to have a rest, sir?” she asked in alarm. “You’ve been up all night.”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her, taking a huge gulp from his cup. “I’ve too much to do today to sleep.”

“Really, sir?” She set a plate of toast on the table next to him. “The investigation is going well, then?” She needed to keep him here until Wiggins returned.

He made a slight face. “I wouldn’t exactly say that; it’s still all a bit of a muddle. But after last night we’ve a number of new leads to follow up. For starters, we’ll have to open an investigation into who tried to kill MaryAnne Frommer.”

“You think it’s the same person who shot her father, don’t you?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. Her own theory would fall apart if it wasn’t. But she was fairly confident that wasn’t going to happen.

“Oh yes, the two are definitely connected.” He gulped more tea. “And with that in mind, the first thing on my agenda today is to locate Andrew Frommer.”

“Didn’t he come to the hospital at all last night?”

“He hadn’t been there by the time I left this morning, nor has he returned home. I don’t mind telling you, Mrs. Jeffries, this looks quite bad for the man. I didn’t take
Eloise Hartshorn’s accusations all that seriously last night.”

“Eloise Hartshorn,” Mrs. Jeffries interrupted. “Was she there?”

“Oh yes.” Witherspoon nodded vigorously. “She’s convinced that it was Andrew Frommer who shot his wife. She’s equally convinced she’s going to be next. Though her reasons for thinking so don’t really make all that much sense.”

“What are those reasons?”

“Miss Hartshorn seems to feel Frommer has gone insane. As I said, it’s all a bit of a muddle. No one heard the shot or has any information about the attempted murder of Mrs. Frommer.”

“What about the servants?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. “Weren’t they able to help?”

He frowned slightly. “Not really. All any of them could tell us was that she’d gone up to the attic late in the afternoon, come back downstairs, washed her hands and then had tea. That was the last anyone saw of the poor woman until they found out she was lying in the back garden with a bullet in her side.” He sighed. “It’s most annoying. We can’t locate Mr. Frommer, the footman who helped get the poor woman to the hospital has disappeared—”

“No ’e ’asn’t sir,” Wiggins said. “’E’s right ’ere.”

Witherspoon turned sharply. Wiggins and a young lad of fifteen or so, stood in the open doorway of the drawing room. The boy was holding a worn carpetbag in his hand. His hair was dark blond and cut close to his scalp. His face was thin, his complexion a pasty pale color and his expression anxious. He wore a dirty white shirt, a brown short-waisted jacket with the two top buttons missing and a pair of badly wrinkled and stained russet trousers. Under
the inspector’s scrutiny, he shifted his slight weight from one foot to the other and then eased behind Wiggins.

“It’s all right,” Wiggins assured the boy, patting his arm. “No one ’ere’ll ’urt you. The inspector’s a nice man, ’e is. Like I told ya, you just tell ’im the truth and everythin’ will be all right.”

Witherspoon smiled gently. He wasn’t precisely sure what was going on, but he realized this poor lad was scared out of his wits. “Wiggins is right,” he said softly. “No one here will hurt you. Please, do come closer and sit down.”

The boy hesitated and looked at Wiggins, who nodded encouragingly. “Go on. You can ’ave some tea.”

Mrs. Jeffries had already poured the boy a cup. She held it out as he slowly made his way across the drawing room and, still staring at the inspector out of wide, frightened eyes, sat down on the end of the settee. He dropped the carpetbag by his feet. She handed him the tea and then moved quietly to the other end and sat down herself. Wiggins, who’d followed the lad, propped himself against the side of the settee next to the housekeeper.

“Did you bring that bag for me to have a look at?” Witherspoon asked the boy.

“Yeah.” He gulped some tea. “It’s Mrs. Frommer’s. She wanted it.”

“She told you to bring it to her?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“When?” Witherspoon prompted.

“I don’t know.” The lad sniffed and rubbed his nose. “Before it were done.”

“Before what were done?” the inspector pressed.

“The murder. Mr. Ashbury’s murder. She sent me before.”

“I see.”

“Was it on the day you were all to come back from Ascot?”

Boyd bit his lip in confusion. “I don’t know. I don’t remember so good.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you do remember?” Witherspoon suggested.

“I hid,” the lad replied. “I was scared.”

“I see.” He nodded, trying to encourage the boy to keep on talking. But Boyd shut up and stared down at the carpet.

“You got the bag from the Frommer house on the day of the murder, right?” the inspector said.

“I guess.” Boyd didn’t sound so certain. “I think, I’m confused.”

Mrs. Jeffries realized that at this rate of questioning, they’d be here all day. “Excuse me, Inspector. I don’t mean to interrupt, but, well, sir—” She broke off and jerked her head toward the hall.

“Is something wrong, Mrs. Jeffries?” he asked. “You seem to have devloped a twitch…oh…yes.” He leapt to his feet as he realized she was trying to tell him something.

“If you’ll excuse us, boys,” Mrs. Jeffries said, “we’ll be right back.”

As soon as they were in the hall, she said, “I’m not trying to tell you your business, sir, but I’ve had some experience in dealing with people like Boyd.” When he continued to stare at her blankly, she went on: “I mean, sir, he’s scared of you, and probably of me as well. I think if we let Wiggins get him talking, you’ll find out that you can get all of your questions answered far more quickly.”

The inspector thought about it for a moment. “You know, I think you’re right,” he agreed. “Wiggins,” he
called, sticking his head into the drawing room, “Could you come here, please?”

The plan worked like a charm. Within half an hour Boyd had told his tale and departed with Wiggins downstairs for a hearty breakfast.

Meanwhile Witherspoon, with a very helpful Mrs. Jeffries making comments as they went along, was giving the contents of the carpetbag a very thorough going-over.

“How on earth did she manage to get all this money?” he asked as he put the stack of notes to one side.

“She’d money of her own,” Mrs. Jeffries said, and then clamped her mouth shut as she realized that she’d not got that bit of information from the inspector. “I mean, perhaps she’d money of her own,” she continued as the inspector shot her a puzzled look, “or perhaps she’d managed to save it out of the household accounts over the years. Some women are quite clever money managers.”

“I expect it’s the former,” Witherspoon replied as he pulled out the stack of letters. “From what the constable and I learned, she did inherit some money from her mother. Which, of course, explains Miss Hartshorn’s hysterics last night. Though why she thought she’d be next is beyond me.”

“So that’s why Miss Hartshorn felt that Frommer had attempted to kill her?” Mrs. Jeffries queried. She wanted to cover her mistake as thoroughly as possible, seeing as how she might have to do some very fancy juggling to lead the inspector down the path she wanted him to go. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“That was one of the reasons.” Witherspoon peered at the faded ink on the front of the top letter. “She claimed that Frommer is desperate for money. According to her rather convoluted reasoning, Frommer murdered his
father-in-law so Mrs. Frommer would inherit Ashbury’s half of the business. Then he tried to murder Mrs. Frommer so he’d inherit her money. Supposedly he was going to kill Miss Hartshorn because she was the only one capable of putting all the pieces together and ruining Frommer’s plan.”

“You don’t believe her, do you?” Mrs. Jeffries task would be much more difficult if the inspector thought that Andrew Frommer was the killer. Much more difficult indeed.

Witherspoon sighed and put the letters down on the tea tray. “I don’t know what to believe.” He picked the first one up and tapped it absently against the side of the tray. “At first I dismissed her ravings as hysteria, but as I said, it doesn’t look good that we can’t locate Frommer. Where could he be? We’ve checked his office, his club, even with his party’s chief whip, but no one’s seen hide nor hair of the fellow. But be that as it may, I don’t believe he’s our killer.”

“You don’t?” Mrs. Jeffries held her breath.

“No, to begin with, if Mrs. Frommer had died, her husband would lose all rights to Roland Ashbury’s half of the shipping agency,” he explained. “The constable and I had a word with Ashbury’s solicitors yesterday.” He stopped tapping the envelope and slipped the letter out. “Remember when I told you he’d changed the will when he disinherited his son?”

“Yes, sir, I remember,” she said patiently.

“Apparently in an effort to ensure that Jonathan Ashbury had no claim on the estate whatsoever, Ashbury and Josiah Alladyce did their wills up so that only one chosen heir would inherit. For Ashbury, that heir was MaryAnne Frommer.” He settled back in the chair and flipped open the letter. “So the last thing Frommer would want is his
wife dead. If she dies, the estate all goes to Josiah Alladyce’s heir.”

“You mean it’s a bit like a tontine,” she remarked. “Whoever is left gets it all? Isn’t that illegal?”

“It does sound a bit like that,” he murmured. “But apparently it’s not illegal if it’s worded correctly in the will.”

“Did Frommer know about Ashbury’s will?” she asked.

“Oh yes, Ashbury made it quite clear to Frommer sometime back,” Witherspoon replied as he turned his attention to the paper in his hand.

Mrs. Jeffries sagged in relief. She knew Andrew Frommer wasn’t the killer. He was a monstrous human being, but he wasn’t a murderer.

Witherspoon’s brows drew together as he read the first letter. Absently he handed it to Mrs. Jeffries to read and then picked up the next one.

His expression changed to disgust as he read the others. By the time he finished the last one, his mouth flattened into a grim, hard line. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it, Mrs. Jeffries? How could the man have treated his family so abominably.”

She pretended to read the letter before she looked up and met his gaze. “Yes, sir, it is awful.” She scanned the area quickly, looking for the photograph. With dismay, she realized it hadn’t fallen out of the envelope as it had last night. “Is there anything else in the envelope?”

The inspector picked it up and peered inside. “No, why did you ask? Do you think the letter sounds as if it were missing a page.”

Blast, she thought. Now what? “Oh no, sir, I simply wanted to make sure.” She forced herself to laugh. “I’ll be honest, sir. I know what a thorough policeman you are.
I was just trying to impress you with my own, rather feeble attempt at efficiency.”

“Dear Mrs. Jeffries,” he scoffed. “You’ve no need to impress me at all. Why, you know how much I’ve come to rely upon you to be my sounding board, as it were. But, as you say”—he reached for the bag, just as she’d hoped he would—“I am thorough. Let’s see if there’s anything else in here.” He pulled it closer and held it wide open. “Goodness, there is something else.”

Mrs. Jeffries sent up a silent prayer of thanks. They were heading back in the right direction. This was becoming increasingly difficult and now she had a new fear. What if Constable Barnes arrived before she could use the photograph to get the inspector moving toward the real killer. “What is it, sir?” she asked.

“It looks like a photograph,” he murmured. He held it up and stared at it, a look of curiosity on his face. “Oh how sad. I think it’s Jonathan Ashbury and his family.”

“May I see, sir?” she asked. She kept her ears cocked toward the front of the house. Were those footsteps coming up the front stairs?

“Of course.” He handed it to her and then put the carpetbag on the floor. “Have a good look. I think it’s quite a good photograph. Amazing what they can do these days.”

She didn’t answer for a minute. She was trying to determine what was the fastest course of action here. From down the hall, she heard the pounding of the door knocker.

“You know, sir,” she said loudly, hoping to distract him, “there’s something very familiar about this face.”

“That’s probably Constable Barnes at the front door.” He started to get up. “And yes, there is a resemblance. I think Jonathan Ashbury looks very much like his sister.”

“Do sit down and finish your tea, sir,” she ordered. “Betsy’ll get the door. I expect the constable could do with a cup of tea as well.” Panic set in as she realized that she wasn’t supposed to have ever seen any of the principals in this case. Blast.

He eased back into his chair as footsteps echoed in the front hall. “He’s probably in a hurry, Mrs. Jeffries. As I said, we’ve much to do today.”

“What I meant, sir”—Mrs. Jeffries tried again—“was that I wouldn’t know about the resemblance of Jonathan Ashbury to his sister; I’ve never seen her.” She took a deep breath and hoped she could manage to pull this off without arousing his suspicion. “But I have seen one other principal in the case.”

Witherspoon raised his eyebrows. “Really? Who?”

She heard Betsy’s voice and then Constable Barnes. This was no time for to be subtle. “Charles Burroughs,” she announced bluntly. “I accidentally saw him, sir.”

“Really?” Witherspoon repeated.

Betsy and Barnes’s footsteps came toward the drawing room. Mrs. Jeffries only had few more seconds to make her point. “Really, sir. It was quite accidental, I assure you. I’ll tell you the circumstances later, but what is important”—she held up the photograph and pointed to the young man standing next to Natasha Ashbury—“is this. Don’t you see it, sir?”