Mrs. Jeffries Speaks Her Mind (14 page)

“That’s very clever of you, sir. But Mrs. Cameron didn’t hate her aunt; she only had a quarrel with her. I wonder if she was angry enough to threaten Miss Kettering.”

“Constable Barnes asked her that specific question and she claims she didn’t,” he answered. “And to her credit, she seemed genuinely sorry that she’d lost her temper. But as we’ve seen before, people aren’t always what they seem, and she could have been acting remorseful for my benefit.”

“She’d accosted her aunt to ask for money,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured. “From what you’ve said, she was desperate. Her husband is dying and Olive Kettering refused to help her.”

“Put that way, it does sound like a motive for murder,” he agreed. “But then again, after we left the Cameron residence, we went to see the Reverend and Mrs. Richards, and frankly, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mrs. Richards is in a wheelchair, I’d say she had an equal motive for killing Miss Kettering.”

“What kind of motive, sir?” Mrs. Jeffries was thinking fast. She had to come up with some way to let him know what Wiggins had told them today, that Olga Richards was no more crippled than the inspector himself.

“Jealousy.” He took another sip from his glass. “I’ll admit that jealousy isn’t a motive that I understand particularly well, but as a policeman, I’ve seen what kind of rage the green-eyed monster can provoke, and believe me, Olga Richards was so jealous of Miss Kettering that she could barely contain herself. Which is odd, really, considering that Mrs. Richards is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen and Miss Kettering was a rather elderly spinster lady—” He broke off and blushed. “I’m sorry, that was a terrible comment to make, but I didn’t mean any disrespect to Miss Kettering—”

Mrs. Jeffries interrupted. “Of course not, sir, you were simply using a descriptive comparison to make your point. Do you know why Mrs. Richards is confined to a wheelchair?”

“No, I don’t. I was curious, but I couldn’t think of a way to ask that sort of question without being rude,” he replied.

“Well, whatever the poor woman’s affliction, I’m sure she’s not in that contraption because she wants to be,” she murmured. “I do hope she hasn’t come down with one of those awful illnesses that are more the making of the mind than an actual ailment.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his expression curious.

“You know, sir—it’s like that time poor Mrs. Winston from up the street hurt her knee and she was confined to a wheelchair. By the time her knee healed, she was so frightened she’d trip or fall and hurt herself again, she convinced herself that she’d not got well at all. But the whole neighborhood knew she was perfectly capable of walking because her maid told us she saw her walking about in her room,” she explained. As Mrs. Winston was safely dead and had no relatives lingering in the neighborhood, she felt quite safe telling this particular lie. “But as Mrs. Richards is a much younger woman than Mrs. Winston, I’m sure that isn’t the case with her.”

 

Smythe looked at his wife from across their parlor. She was sitting in her overstuffed blue and gray upholstered chair, her feet perched on a matching footstool and her head bent over her embroidery hoop. “You’re awfully quiet tonight.” He laid the
Illustrated London News
down on the table next to his chair. “Is something troublin’ you?”

She raised her gaze to meet his. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve been watchin’ you ever since we came home and I can tell you’re upset. You’ve been workin’ on that bit of embroidery for an hour now and you’ve not done more than ten stitches,” he replied. “Now tell me what’s botherin’ ya and don’t try tellin’ me it’s nothing. I know you too well, love.”

She sighed and laid her hoop to one side. “I think Mrs. Jeffries and Mrs. Goodge are annoyed with me. They were a bit cool toward me at dinner.”

His brows drew together in confusion. “Are ya serious, love?”

“Of course I’m serious.” She stared at him reproachfully. “Didn’t you see at dinner how both of them avoided looking at me?”

He’d no idea what she was talking about. “They treated you like they always do,” he insisted. “You’ve done nothin’ to offend either of them. Dinner was like it always is, everyone chattin’ and havin’ a nice time.”

“I wasn’t having a nice time,” she insisted stubbornly. “How could I with the two of them acting like I had a bad smell?”

“Betsy, darlin’, why would either of them want to hurt your feelings? They love ya. We’re not blood, but we’re family all the same.”

“Family,” she scoffed. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. But it seems to me it isn’t much of a family when they’re just waiting to show you the door.”

He gaped at her in disbelief. “Why would you say something like that? They’d never want to show you the door . . .”

“Maybe not right away, but we all know there isn’t really enough work for more than one maid, and I don’t need the job anymore, Phyllis does. It’ll not be long before they ease me out so she can have my place.” She felt her eyes flood with tears and blinked hard to hold them back. Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she was being silly and unreasonable, yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

Taken aback, he wasn’t sure what to say. He could tell by the expression on her face that she was dead serious. “Now why on earth would you think such a thing? There’s plenty of work at Upper Edmonton Gardens for the both of you.”

“You see!” she cried triumphantly. “You’re admitting they’re trying to give her my job.”

“I’m admitting nothing,” he shot back. “I’m just tryin’ to tell ya there’s enough work for the both of you. What have you got against Phyllis? Seems to me she’s always tryin’ to get on your good side so you’ll be nicer to her. Just the other day I ’eard her offerin’ to run your letters to the postbox and you just about snapped her head off. It’s not like you to be so mean to someone, especially a poor girl who’s just tryin’ to earn a living.”

“Poor girl,” Betsy repeated as she jumped to her feet. “So now you’re on her side.”

“I’m on your side,” he protested. He had no idea how what had started out as a husband’s tender inquiry as to his wife’s well-being had ended up in a shouting match. It wasn’t like Betsy at all.

“No, you’re not.” She started for the door. “No one’s on my side.” With that, she stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

 

Luty was so bored she could scream, but she kept a polite smile on her lips as she surveyed the dancers in the vast ballroom. She enjoyed a party as well as the next person, and if she’d come here tonight purely for social reasons, she’d be out on that dance floor kicking up her heels. But she’d come to get information, and so far she’d not found one person who wanted to talk about murder. Sometimes she didn’t understand what in tarnation was wrong with some people.

“Luty, my goodness, what on earth are you doing here?” a woman’s voice boomed out of the crowd.

Turning, Luty saw Alice Wittington charging toward her. Alice was a tall, portly woman with bright red hair piled on top of her head in complicated waves and curls. Diamonds hung from her earlobes, sparkled on her fingers, and were draped around her ample neck. She wore a beaded blue taffeta scoop-necked gown and held a glass of champagne in one hand.

“Howdy.” Luty grinned broadly. She liked Alice. She didn’t have her nose in the air and she treated others decently. “It’s good to see you. I thought you were in Italy for the winter.”

Alice waved her hand impatiently. “Oh, I was, but Edward kept having stomach problems because of all the garlic in the food, so we came home early. How are you? It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”

“It has been a long while.” Luty laughed. As she’d not had much luck tonight, she might as well be sociable and spend some time with her friend. “The last time I saw you was at the Huffington dinner party last summer. Now, that was a lively evening.”

“Only because Edward started arguing politics with Lord Rivington. Honestly, that hidebound old fool makes anyone who disagrees with him sound as if they’re one of those revolutionaries. But I don’t think putting a legal limit on the number of hours a day that a man can be worked is all that radical, do you? Of course you don’t; as I remember, you jumped into the fray on Edward’s side of the argument. That was very brave of you, considering that by then everyone at our end of the table was accusing him of being a socialist.”

Luty laughed and shook her head. “As I recall, your Edward held his own.”

“He always does.” Alice grinned, tossed back her champagne, and handed her empty glass to a passing waiter. “Have you eaten? The Palmers usually have a wonderful buffet.”

“I haven’t had a bite,” Luty admitted. “And I am getting a bit peckish. I hope they have roast chicken.”

“They’ll have everything,” Alice promised. “And after we’ve heaped our plates as high as we can, we’ll go off and find a nice quiet corner so we can visit.”

Five minutes later, the two women were sitting at the most secluded of the small round tables in the dining room. On the opposite wall, a long buffet table was loaded with food and drink. Waiters moved quietly between the tables, filling glasses and picking up dirty plates.

Luty moved a silver candlestick from the center of the table to the edge. “I like to look at people when I talk to ’em,” she explained to Alice. “And these things just git in the way. Isn’t it awful about that Kettering woman getting murdered?” She picked up her fork, speared a piece of chicken, and popped it into her mouth.

Alice nodded in agreement as she sliced through a piece of roast beef. “It is terrible, though in all honesty she wasn’t a very nice person. Not that that justifies someone taking her life. Gracious, if everyone went about murdering all the disagreeable people in London, the city would be empty.”

Luty swallowed her food. “You knew her?”

“We have—or had—mutual friends,” Alice replied. “I’d met her on a number of social occasions and, as I said, she wasn’t very personable.”

“Was she rude?”

Alice’s forehead creased in thought. “I wouldn’t call her rude or impolite. She always observed the proper social etiquette. But she never smiled and she had a very sharp tongue. The woman had absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever, which I think is very sad. If one can’t laugh in this life, one might as well give up the ghost. Oh dear, I should learn to watch my tongue; I suppose that’s exactly what she’s done.”

“I wonder what had soured her so on life,” Luty mused. “From the gossip I heard, she had plenty of money and her health was good.”

“Who can say?” Alice shrugged. “Perhaps she’d been disappointed or betrayed in love when she was young. She certainly went through this world looking for the worst in everyone and everything. The only way she could keep servants was by paying more than the going rate, and she left her local parish church, St. Matthew’s, because the vicar there insisted on using church funds to feed the poor rather than send Bibles to the Far East. No one was at all surprised when she joined that odd religious group.”

“Odd religious group?” Luty repeated. She knew perfectly well what Alice referred to, but she was playing dumb. On their last case, it had been pointed out to her that a number of people in London had realized she was helping Witherspoon with his murders. She’d resolved to be more discreet.

Alice picked up her champagne glass. “It’s the Society of the Humble or some such name.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Luty forked a marinated mushroom. “Is it a real church?”

Alice laughed. “I don’t know precisely what it is, but I do know that the man who runs it, the Reverend Richards, has made a career out of bilking unhappy middle-aged women out of their money.”

“Really?” Luty’s eyes widened. “My goodness, how’d ya find that out?”

She laughed. “Oh, I have my sources and, unlike most people in this town, I’m not ashamed to admit I love gossip. But that’s neither here nor there. What I do know is that Samuel Richards is as handsome as the devil and charming to boot.” She leaned closer. “Ten years ago, he ran another religious society, only it wasn’t called the Society of the Humble, it was something else.” She took a quick sip of champagne. “It wasn’t here in London, either, it was in Manchester. There was a woman there name Adeline Franklin, and, like Olive Kettering, she was single, middle-aged, and rich. She suddenly had a heart attack and died. When the will was made public, it was found she’d left her entire estate, a considerable fortune, to Richards and his group.”

“And I take it he’s gone through that cash already,” Luty suggested.

“Oh no, not at all.” Alice shook her head. “He never got so much as a sixpence. Adeline Franklin had heirs—two nephews—and once they found they’d been disinherited, they took Richards to court and charged that he’d taken advantage of their aunt when she wasn’t in her right mind. They won.”

“Was Miss Franklin out of her head?” Luty asked bluntly.

“Probably not.” Alice smiled wryly. “But let’s face it, Luty, judges in this country are almost exclusively from the upper strata of society. They don’t like it when money is left out of the family, so to speak. It sets a dangerous precedent and gives people ideas.”

Luty laughed. “You mean it might make people think they can leave the money to whomever they damned well please.”

“Precisely.” Alice grinned broadly. “And the upper class will never let that happen, not in our lifetime.”

 

“Should I start on the upstairs, then?” Phyllis asked Mrs. Jeffries. “The bedrooms all need to be done, especially the rugs. I noticed the one in the inspector’s is a bit worse for wear . . . Do you think Wiggins can help me bring them down so I can give them a good beating?”

Mrs. Jeffries, who was sitting at the kitchen table working on the household accounts, put her pencil down. Her gaze flicked to Mrs. Goodge, who was measuring flour into a bowl, and then back to Phyllis. “Please do the upstairs, but don’t bother with the rugs. I’d prefer we wait until the weather is a bit warmer. It takes ages to haul them down, and this time of year the weather is simply too unpredictable to risk it. Just when you’re ready to take them outside it’ll start to rain. But there’s plenty to do up there. Clean the inspector’s room first, then you can polish the wall sconces on the upper floors. There’s a new tin of brass polish in the linen cupboard. After that, you can have a go at the cobwebs forming on the second- and third-floor ceilings.”