A Mrs. Jeffires Mystery 11 - Mrs. Jeffries Questions the Answer (10 page)

“Mrs. Hadleigh.” Harry snorted. “Claims to be Mrs. Cameron’s friend and all that, but she didn’t
like Mrs. Cameron any more than I did.”

“How do you know?”

“Any fool with eyes could see that Mrs. Hadleigh hated Mrs. Cameron. Pulled all sorts of ugly, sour faces at the woman’s back whenever Mrs. Cameron wasn’t lookin’. But then everyone in the ’ousehold did that exceptin’ for Miss Ellingsley…” He broke off and sighed. “Now there’s a lovely woman. Too bad she had to go to work for the Camerons. But that’s what comes of bein’ a poor relation. Mind you, I expect that Mrs. Hadleigh will do her best to get Miss Ellingsley sacked now that Mrs. Cameron is gone. She’ll not want the master gettin’ any fancy ideas in his head about a younger woman. Not that Miss Ellingsley is interested in Mr. Cameron. Good Lord, no. She’s got other fish to fry, that one does.”

Smythe’s ears were ringing. Harry Comstock was like a blocked drainpipe; one good clean-up and words gushed out like backed-up water. There were dozens of questions that he could ask, but he wouldn’t be able to ask a single one of them if he couldn’t get this fellow to slow up a bit.

“Uh, look,” he interrupted sharply. Harry blinked owlishly. Smythe forced himself to smile. “Why don’t we go and ’ave us a nice sit down.” He jerked his head toward the table near the hearth. “I’ll get us a couple of whiskies.”

Betsy arrived back at Upper Edmonton Gardens before the others. She found Mrs. Goodge pacing the kitchen floor and muttering. “Silly old thing is going to ruin everything…”

“Who’s ruining everything?” Betsy asked. She
took her hat and coat off and hung them up.

“Aunt Elberta, that’s who.” Mrs. Goodge, her face flushed and her eyes flashing behind her glasses, stomped over to put the kettle on. “She’s been here all day. You’d think someone her age would have to rest. But no, she’s here hour after hour, interruptin’ my sources, asking her silly questions…”

“Mrs. Goodge.” Mrs. Jeffries’s soft voice interrupted the cook’s tirade. “Do lower your voice. She’ll hear you.”

“She’s deaf as a post,” the cook snapped. She picked a plate of buns up from the sideboard and slapped them down on the table. “I had half a dozen people through here today and I didn’t learn a ruddy thing. It’s all her fault.”

Mrs. Jeffries and Betsy exchanged glances as they came toward the table. Both of them sympathized with Mrs. Goodge’s plight, but they felt sorry for poor Aunt Elberta too.

“I had a bit of luck today,” Betsy said cheerfully, hoping some good news might distract the cook.

Mrs. Goodge snorted.

Mrs. Jeffries drew her chair back when there was a loud knocking on the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Betsy said, dashing for the stairs.

Mrs. Goodge kept muttering under her breath as she got tea ready, and Mrs. Jeffries, wisely, held her peace. She’d let the cook fume for a few minutes, get the poison out of her system and then they’d have a nice little chat about the best way to deal with Aunt Elberta. Perhaps the others could take turns taking the old dear out to Holland Park.

Betsy returned clutching an envelope.

“Is that for the inspector?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“No, it’s for Smythe.” Curious, but not wanting to let it show, Betsy carefully placed the envelope at Smythe’s usual place at the table. “I wonder who’s writing to him? It’s an awfully posh envelope…” She was interrupted by the sound of the back door opening.

Wiggins, accompanied by Fred, dashed into the room a few minutes later. “Am I late?”

“No, Wiggins,” Mrs. Jeffries replied.

“Good.” Wiggins slid into his chair and beamed at them. “I found out ever so much today…”

“I’m glad someone has,” Mrs. Goodge interrupted, and then she too broke off as the back door opened again.

This time it was Smythe. He swaggered into the kitchen, a cocky grin on his face, and tossed off a jaunty salute to the others. “’Ello, ’ello,” he said. “What a day I’ve ’ad. You’ll not believe what all I’ve found out…”

“You’ll not believe my day either,” Mrs. Goodge complained.

“You’ve got a letter, Smythe,” Betsy interjected hastily, hoping to get him to shut up about how much he’d accomplished before Mrs. Goodge worked herself up into a fit.

Smythe’s cocky grin faded. “A letter?” He picked up the envelope. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the neat handwriting and he paled as he realized who it was who’d written him. Blast! He’d told that stupid sod not to contact him here. Conscious they were all staring at him, he slipped the letter into the pocket of his waistcoat, plopped
down next to Betsy and busied himself pouring out a mug of tea.

“Is something wrong, Smythe? You’ve gone a bit white about the mouth,” Betsy said. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine, lass.” He tried to smile and knew he was doing a bad job of it. He’d kill that ruddy man when he got his hands on him. “Just a bit winded from gettin’ back ’ere so fast.”

“Aren’t you going to open it?” she asked curiously. It wasn’t often one of the staff got a letter, especially one in a posh envelope.

“There’s no time to now,” he explained quickly. “I saw Luty and Hatchet comin’ right behind me. We’ve probably got a lot to get through, so I’ll read it later.”

“My turn won’t last long,” Mrs. Goodge said.

Mrs. Jeffries closed her eyes briefly and hoped they could get through this with a minimum of fuss. The cook was already out of sorts, Betsy was dying of curiosity about Smythe’s letter, Wiggins probably wouldn’t think to be tactful when he started bragging about what he’d learned and goodness knows what Luty and Hatchet had found out.

By the time Luty and Hatchet arrived a few moments later, the rest of the tea things were on the table, Mrs. Goodge’s fury had dulled to a slow simmer and Smythe’s color had returned to normal.

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

Luty waved her hand. “If’n it’s all the same to everybody, I’d like to say my piece.” She plunged straight ahead when no one objected. “I found out quite a bit about Brian Cameron. Seems he don’t
have much luck with wives. His first one died off from influenza right after she had a child. Brian up and married the second one less than a year after the first one died. Some said it weren’t decent, but the man did have two orphan babies he told everyone they needed a mother.”

“Was your source absolutely sure that the first Mrs. Cameron’s death was due to natural causes?” Hatchet asked.

No one was surprised by the question. The same thought had crossed everyone else’s mind.

Luty nodded vigorously. “He was sure. They was visiting one of Mr. Cameron’s relatives up in Yorkshire when she took sick. But she weren’t the only one to get sick—half the village had the flu. A lot of them died.”

“Did you learn the name of the village?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. She was from Yorkshire.

“It’s a place called Paggleston,” Luty replied. “Brian Cameron’s uncle still lives there.”

Mrs. Jeffries nodded. “I believe it’s quite near Scarborough. Yes, now I remember. There was a terrible outbreak of influenza a few years back.”

“The first Mrs. Cameron died from the flu,” Luty said firmly. “My source was sure about that. But that’s not what’s important. I found out that Brian Cameron inherited a lot of money from her, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty thousand pounds. He got his hands on plenty when he married Hannah Cameron too, but—and this is the interesting part—seems ole Brian don’t have much of a head for business, not that that keeps him from trying. So far, he’s invested in a Malaysian tea plantation that got hit with a typhoon and a cattle
ranch in Montana that lost every head of beef to hoof and mouth. He put up the money to have two ships built for the Australian trade and put a big lump of cash out on investin’ in South American railroads. But it don’t seem to matter what he puts his money in—he loses it sooner or later.”

“What about the ships?” Wiggins asked.

“Sank. Both of ’em. One of ’em sank before she even left the English Channel and the other made it all the way to Fremantle but got hit by a bad storm on the way home and was lost.”

Smythe whistled softly through his teeth. “Cor, the poor blighter don’t ’ave much luck.”

“Not with money or wives,” Luty said. “But as far as my source knew, he hadn’t lost the money he’d put in the South American railroads.”

“Will he inherit a lot of money now that Hannah Cameron’s dead?” Betsy asked eagerly.

“I ain’t sure,” Luty admitted. “My source didn’t know but he said he’d check on it for me. That was the first thing I thought of too.”

“Excellent, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries said, then she caught herself as she saw Mrs. Goodge’s shoulders slump.

“I’ll have a go next,” Betsy said brightly. “What I learned sort of goes along with what Luty told us. It seems that Mr. and Mrs. Cameron didn’t get on too well. The footman from the house next door to them told me that he heard them arguing all the time.” She went on to tell them everything she’d learned from Bill Tincher. “And one of the things they argued about was Mrs. Cameron telling Mr. Cameron he didn’t have a head for business.”

“Just because a bloke has a bit of bad luck at business
don’t mean ’e’s a killer,” Wiggins charged. “There’s plenty others that didn’t like Hannah Cameron.”

“True,” Betsy agreed. “But someone’s been up to something funny at that house. Bill told me that last week he spotted someone slipping out of the house late one night. Whoever it was didn’t go anywhere; they just crept into the shadows behind one of the trees and stood there for the longest time.”

“Who’s Bill?” Smythe asked.

“The footman from the house next door,” she replied. “He’s just a lad, but he’s a sharp eye and I don’t think he was making it up. He did see someone.”

“Was it a man or a woman?” Luty asked.

“He couldn’t tell,” Betsy said. “They were swathed from head to foot in a hooded cloak. But it could have been Mr. Cameron.”

“We don’t know that, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries said calmly. “It could have been anyone. Were any of the other suspects in the house that night?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but it was on a Friday evening, not this past Friday, but the one before that.”

“You’d best find out,” Mrs. Jeffries instructed. The nighttime excursion may have nothing to do with the murder, but then again, it was possible. She turned her attention to the footman. “Why don’t you tell us what you learned?”

“I think I know who it was that this footman saw that night,” he boasted. “Kathryn Ellingsley ’as a sweetheart.”

“Is her young man a tree, then?” Mrs. Goodge sniffed disdainfully.

“’Course ’e isn’t,” Wiggins shot back defensively. “But my source told me that she’s been sneakin’ out late at night to meet her feller. So it were probably Kathryn Ellingsley this Bill saw.” Wiggins wasn’t really sure his source could be trusted. He’d not even planned on telling the others what he’d found out, considering who his source was for the information. But the cook had niggled him enough so that he’d told all. He wished he hadn’t. It would be shameful if the others knew the only person he managed to get talking today was an ten-year-old boy, and then only after he’d bribed the child with a packet of sweets. He wasn’t sure the lad wasn’t telling tales.

“Kathryn Ellingsley slips out of the Cameron house at night to see her sweetheart?” Mrs. Jeffries clarified.

“That’s what the lad said,” Wiggins admitted. “But ’e’s just a little fellow and I think ’e was just repeatin’ what ’e picked up ’ere and there.”

“Who was this child?” Mrs. Goodge demanded.

“He’s the son of the housekeeper at one of the ’ouses across the gardens from the Camerons,” Wiggins explained. “I couldn’t find anyone else to talk to. I was lucky I spotted this lad before the coppers spotted me.”

“We understand, Wiggins,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “It’s going to be difficult for all of us to do our investigating, but we’ll do the best we can. I think you’ve done quite splendidly today. Your source might be young and might well only be repeating gossip, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Did you learn the name of Miss Ellingsley’s sweetheart?”

“No, Davey didn’t know the bloke’s name.” He
shook his head. “But I think I can find out. If everyone on the gardens is gossipin’ about it, someone must know the man’s name.”

Hatchet cleared his throat. “I don’t think you’ll have to bother your source again, Wiggins,” he said. “His name is Connor Reese, Dr. Connor Reese, and he’s Hannah Cameron’s first cousin.” He smiled sheepishly. “It seems, my boy, that you and I found out the very same thing today.”

“Well, that’s a bit of rotten luck,” Betsy said.

“Not necessarily,” Mrs. Jeffries interjected smoothly. “Hatchet’s information apparently confirms what Wiggins learned.”

“That’s not all,” Hatchet said. “I also found out that Dr. Reese hated Hannah Cameron. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to learn why. But I do know that he wasn’t welcome in the Cameron household.”

“Who’s not welcome?” Aunt Elberta said from the doorway. She peered at the group gathered around the table. “Is it a tea party?” Eagerly, she scuttled toward the others, her cane thumping heavily enough to send Fred wiggling under Wiggins’s chair. “I just love parties.”