Mrs. Jeffries and the Mistletoe Mix-Up (4 page)

“What a good idea,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed. “Then they can be here bright and early tomorrow.”

 

Smythe and Betsy lived on the first floor of a three-story brown brick house less than a quarter mile from Upper Edmonton Gardens. Wiggins knocked softly on the front door of the flat so as not to wake the baby. A moment later, the door opened and Smythe stuck his head out.

“We’ve got a murder,” Wiggins said softly. “We need to get to Victoria Gardens straightaway.”

Smythe stepped back and waved him inside. He was a tall, heavily muscled man with strong, hard features. He had black hair streaked with a few strands of gray at the temples, dark brown eyes, and a kind smile that softened his harsh face. “I’ll just nip in and let Betsy know. She’s already gone to bed. This bein’ a new mum is ’ard on the lass.”

“Do ya think she’ll get upset?” Wiggins frowned anxiously as Smythe turned toward the hallway. “She ’ates bein’ left out of things.”

“I don’t think she’ll mind this time,” he whispered. “These days all she wants to do is get a bit of sleep. Amanda will be up and wantin’ to nurse in an hour or two.”

While he waited, Wiggins glanced around the flat. He’d been there a number of times, but he noticed that there was now a new mirror with a gilt frame over the fireplace, and there were two nice blue pillows on the settee. Not for the first time, he wondered how Smythe and Betsy could afford the place. It was quite a large flat, with a proper dining room, a kitchen, a parlor, and two bedrooms. But he shrugged as he heard the click of a door being closed down the hallway. Smythe was older than Betsy, and Wiggins thought the poor bloke must have saved long and hard to be able to afford a place like this.

 

“Would you like for us to call someone for you, ma’am?” Witherspoon asked the petite, blonde-haired woman sitting on the sofa. “This has obviously been a terrible shock to you.”

“No, I’m alright, Inspector,” Elena McCourt murmured. “But I’ve no idea what I can tell you. My husband was perfectly fine during tea.” Her blue eyes flooded with tears. “I don’t understand what could have happened. One moment he was here, and the next, he’s lying there dead in a pool of blood.”

“Who found the body, ma’am?” Witherspoon asked. He hated this part of his job, but he knew his duty. No matter how difficult it might be, the sooner one started taking statements, the faster one could solve the case. Constable Barnes had gone off to begin questioning the servants.

“Haines, our butler.” She brushed at her cheeks. “I was upstairs when I heard him call for me to come down immediately. It was shocking. Haines never raises his voice, so I knew right away that something was terribly wrong.”

Witherspoon nodded. “When you went into the study, did you touch anything? Did you move your husband?”

“No, I could tell that he was dead,” she replied. “There was so much blood, and he lay there so quietly.”

“And that’s when you sent for the police, correct?”

“No, actually, one of our guests sent for them. He’d heard the commotion and walked into the room right behind me. He was the one that ran and got the constable on the corner. The next thing I knew, the house was swarming with policemen.”

The inspector frowned. “Who was this guest, Mrs. McCourt?”

“My husband’s cousin, Arthur Brunel.” She looked confused. “I was surprised to see him here this afternoon, but Daniel had invited him for tea.”

“Why were you surprised, ma’am?”

“Because he loathed my husband, Inspector. He accused him of cheating him out of his rightful share of his father’s estate.”

“This has all been quite shocking, Constable,” the butler murmured as he took a spot on the bench across the table from Barnes.

They were in the servants’ dining hall on the bottom floor of the house. The table was rickety and pitted with nicks and scars. There were racks of dishes along one wall, and on the opposite side, storage shelves containing chipped crockery jars, mismatched glassware, and an old coffee grinder with a rusted handle. At the far end of the room, a set of gray and green checked curtains hung limply at the single, narrow window. Barnes wondered why the rich always condemned their servants to eat in the most dreary and cheerless rooms.

He wished he could hold his breath, as the smell was still bad, but instead, he nodded sympathetically at the butler. The poor man really did look shaken; his face was pale, his hands trembled slightly, and around his mouth was a thin white line. “I’m sure this is upsetting for all of you,” Barnes began. “But if we’re to sort out what happened, you and the other staff members of the household must be very honest.”

“I wouldn’t think of lying to the police,” Haines replied. “I know my duty.”

“You’d be surprised at how often people do lie to us,” Barnes replied with a smile. “Servants sometimes think they’re protecting either one of their own or their masters by not telling us what they know or what they’ve seen.”

“That won’t be the situation here, I assure you.” He sniffed disapprovingly. “No one in this house would protect either of the McCourts.”

“They weren’t liked by the staff?” Barnes pulled out his little brown notebook and his pencil.

Haines closed his eyes for a moment. “I didn’t mean that, Constable. I just meant that Mr. and Mrs. McCourt run a very formal household, that’s all. They weren’t given to encouraging familiarity from the staff.”

“I understand. It’s the sort of place where a servant could live and work but the master and mistress made sure everyone was kept in their place, right?”

“That’s correct. I don’t mean to imply there was any cruelty on their part, but it isn’t the kind of household that creates loyalty from the servants. Though recently, Mrs. McCourt did take a stand against Mr. McCourt sacking one of the housemaids. The girl had accidentally chipped one of the plates in his Oriental collection.”

Barnes made a mental note to follow up on that comment, but right now he wanted the man’s statement while the memory was still fresh in his mind. “Can you tell me what happened here today?”

“You mean, when I found the body?” Haines swallowed convulsively.

“You can start there.”

“When I went into the study, I didn’t even see Mr. McCourt lying there on the floor. For some odd reason, the first thing I noticed was the bundle of mistletoe hanging down from the middle of the doorframe.” He broke off with a harsh laugh. “I was afraid one of the maids might have put it up, and I knew that Mr. McCourt would be angry. Then I looked down and saw him lying on the floor. I thought he’d had a heart attack or a stroke, but as I got closer, I saw all the blood.”

“Do you recall what time it was when you found him?”

“All of the staff had been out in the garden until the hour, so it must have been a few minutes past five o’clock. That’s when we all came back inside. Bad smell or not, it was too cold to stay out, and it was getting darker by then.”

“Where was Mrs. McCourt when you found the body?”

“Mrs. McCourt had gone upstairs. The maid hadn’t opened the balcony door off the master bedroom, so she went up to do it herself.”

“I thought you just said they ran a formal household.” Barnes stared at him curiously. “So why did she go up? Why not send up the housemaid?”

“It is a formal household.” He clasped his hands together on the tabletop. “I’m sorry, I know I’m babbling and not making any sense. But it isn’t every day that one’s master gets his head almost chopped off by a madman—”

“I know,” Barnes interrupted him. “Please, take a deep breath and concentrate on everything you heard and saw this afternoon. Take your time and tell me in your own words. What happened here? Why were the servants out in the garden on a cold winter day?”

Haines closed his eyes briefly, unclasped his hands, and stretched out his fingers. “There had been a bit of a fracas earlier during tea.”

“A fracas,” Barnes repeated.

“Mr. McCourt had invited a number of guests for tea,” Haines explained. “And just before the tea was to be served, a fire started in the servants’ hall. The flames were put out straightaway, but unfortunately, there was the most ghastly odor, and it soon became obvious that the guests were uncomfortable, so Mrs. McCourt asked them to leave. When they were gone, she ordered all the windows and doors to be opened to get the smell out of the house and told us to go out into the garden for ten or fifteen minutes to get past the worst of it.”

“Did both the McCourts go outside with the staff?” Barnes jotted down the facts as quickly as he could.

Haines shifted uncomfortably. “No. Mr. McCourt went into his study, and Mrs. McCourt went upstairs to open the balcony door off the master bedroom. She said she’d stay out on the balcony instead of coming back downstairs. I’ll admit it was odd that she didn’t ask the maid to do it, but I expect she had her reasons.”

“If the smell was that bad, why didn’t Mr. McCourt go outside as well?” He stopped writing and looked up at the butler.

“Mr. McCourt didn’t share with me personally his reason for staying inside, but I did overhear him tell Mrs. McCourt the odor wasn’t that bad and just to prove it, he’d stay inside.”

“Were all the windows and doors still open when you found Mr. McCourt’s body?”

“Yes, Mrs. McCourt instructed me to leave them open until it got full dark.”

“Did she give you any other instructions before she went upstairs?”

“She asked me to get everyone together in the kitchen at five fifteen. She wanted to find out who was responsible for the fire.”

Barnes had no idea where his questions might be leading, but over the years he’d learned to trust himself. “She was going to sack the person responsible?”

Haines pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “I think she wanted to be sure the fire was an accident, and if that was the truth, I’ve a feeling she intended to protect the person. It would have been Mr. McCourt, not her, who’d have given someone the boot.”

“Was the fire an accident?”

“That’s just it; no one would own up to knowing anything about it.” He sighed. “When we were out in the garden, the housekeeper and I questioned everyone. We’ve three maids, a scullery, a footman, the cook, and a housekeeper, and none of them so much as touched a lamp today. As a matter of fact, except for the footman who’d been sent out to get the wet sand, every single servant was in the kitchen when the fire started.”

 

Elena McCourt smiled sadly. “Forgive me, Inspector. I’m not explaining this very well. Let me start at the beginning. We had guests today, and my husband was the one who sent out the invitations. I didn’t even know until a couple of days ago that a formal tea had been arranged.”

The inspector was no expert about such matters, but it had always seemed to him that it was the lady of the house who managed social affairs. His surprise must have shown on his face, because she quickly said, “I know it sounds odd, as I’m the one in charge of our social calendar, but occasionally, Daniel took it upon himself to arrange something. But that is beside the point.”

Witherspoon wasn’t so sure of that. But he didn’t want to interrupt her, so he merely nodded.

She continued. “The guests were Mr. and Mrs. Leon Brunel, Mr. Saxon, Mr. Raleigh, Mr. Cochran, and, of course, as I’ve already mentioned, Mr. Arthur Brunel.”

“You said that Arthur Brunel was your husband’s cousin—”

“And you’re wondering if the other Brunel is related as well,” she interrupted. “Arthur is a half brother to Leon Brunel, so yes, both men were Daniel’s cousins.”

“And Mr. Arthur Brunel and your husband weren’t on good terms; is that correct?” he pressed.

“Daniel was the executor for Elias Brunel; he was Leon and Arthur’s father. They had different mothers. Leon is the elder. When the estate was settled three years ago, Arthur accused my husband of conspiring with Leon to cheat him out of his full share,” she explained. “That’s why I was so surprised when he arrived today. He’s not spoken to Daniel in three years.”

The inspector wanted to understand the basics of the situation before he delved further into the relationships between the victim and those who might be the suspects. Sometimes if he heard too much information in one sitting, he got a bit confused. “I see. Before we get any further into Mr. McCourt’s differences with his cousin, could you tell me what happened today?”

She looked surprised but nodded assent. “If you like. When the guests arrived, they were shown to the morning room. Usually, they’d have been put in the drawing room, but for reasons of his own, my husband instructed our butler to take them all to the morning room.”

“May I have the full names of all the guests, please?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. Leon and Glenda Brunel, Nicholas Saxon, Jerome Raleigh, Charles Cochran, and Arthur Brunel.”

“And those who are not cousins are friends of the family?” he inquired.

“No. Mr. Saxon is a business acquaintance only. He had a rather extensive Oriental antique collection, and he’s sold my husband a number of pieces,” she explained. “Mr. Raleigh is one of the experts Daniel uses to authenticate and evaluate pieces he’s thinking of buying. Charles Cochran is a solicitor who worked with my husband years ago. He’s also interested in Oriental antiquities. I suspect they were all invited today so that Daniel could show off his latest acquisition.”

“What kind of acquisition?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me he’d bought anything recently, but he must have, as that would be the only reason he’d have those particular people over for tea. But you want the sequence of events, don’t you?” She sighed heavily. “Oh dear, this is awkward, but I don’t suppose I’ve much choice. Better you should hear it from me than from anyone else. While our guests were sitting in the morning room, I was having a horrible row with my husband. We were in his study.”