Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Stage (13 page)

“Excellent, Mrs. Goodge.” she smiled brightly. “Do keep on digging. Your contributions are always so very helpful. But you know, it might be useful to find out a bit more about Parks’s past,” she ventured, watching the cook’s face to see if she was offended.

“You might be right.” Mrs. Goodge nodded eagerly. “You never know when something from someone’s past turns out to be the clue that we need. We’ve proved that more than once. I’ve got people coming by tomorrow. I should find out more then and I’ll get my sources diggin’ up more on who was about when Parks got run off from Manchester.”

Hatchet cleared his throat. “If no one has any objection, I believe I’d like to speak next. As you all know, I’ve a number of connections in the theatrical world.” Luty snorted faintly, but he ignored her. “And I must say, I do think I’ve learned something quite important today.” He stopped, picked up his tea and took a sip.

“Are you goin’ to tell us or do we have to guess?” Luty snapped.

“Do be patient, madam.” He put the cup down. “I found out that Edmund Delaney and Ogden Hinchley aren’t merely professional acquaintances. They were once very good friends. Up until about a year ago, Delaney actually lived in a small house in Chelsea that Hinchley
owned. The gossip was that he was paying little or no rent on the place. The two men had gone to Italy together. Hinchley was paying, of course. Delaney hasn’t any money. All of a sudden, Delaney shows back up in England, packs up his stuff and moves out of the house in Chelsea.”

“I wonder what happened?” Mrs. Jeffries murmured.

Hatchet coughed. “I believe, madam, that it was a woman who caused the breach in the friendship. It was shortly after Delaney returned that he was seen squiring Miss Vaughan about. The gossip about them is equally interesting. It’s being said that Miss Vaughan has provided Mr. Delaney with financial support since his return from the continent.”

There was a shocked silence. Wiggins’s eyes were bog-gling, Mrs. Goodge was shaking her head in disapproval and even Smythe looked disgusted.

“Why’s everyone so quiet?” Betsy asked.

“Because it’s awful,” Smythe said. “From what Hatchet’s sayin’, Edmund Delaney’s a kept man.”

“So?” Betsy persisted. “None of you would be shocked if it was the other way around.”

“We’re not shocked,” Mrs. Goodge declared. “Just disgusted. A kept man, indeed. What’s the world coming to?”

“Did you learn anything else?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. “Not that what you’ve told us isn’t enough,” she amended hastily. “It’s excellent…”

Hatchet laughed. “I didn’t take offense. I’ll keep at it, of course, and see what else I can find out.”

“Is it my turn yet?” Luty demanded.

The housekeeper tried to hide a smile behind her teacup. Luty and Hatchet were arch rivals when it came to
ferreting out clues. “Please, Luty, go right ahead.”

Luty sat up straighter in her chair. “Well, I didn’t have much luck findin’ out who’s goin’ to get Hinchley’s estate; Stampton wasn’t available. But I’ll hunt him down yet. I did find out that Willard Swinton’s in hock up to his neck over that theatre.”

“He’s got it mortgaged?” Smythe said.

“To the hilt.” Luty grinned. “And that ain’t the best part. Guess who’s holdin’ the bulk of the note?”

“That’s easy, madam,” Hatchet said smoothly. “It’s obviously Ogden Hinchley.”

Luty glared at him. “Was you eavesdroppin’ on me?”

“One wouldn’t have to eavesdrop to guess that particular point of information. You were so pleased with yourself it had to be Hinchley.”

“Humph.”

Mrs. Jeffries decided to intervene before this got out of hand. Honestly, between worrying about keeping their confidence up and worrying about their competitiveness on gathering information, it was a wonder her wits still worked at all. “That’s very interesting, Luty,” she said hastily.

“And that ain’t all. Supposedly, Swinton got the mortgage from some sort of middleman, he didn’t have any idea until recently that it was Hinchley who held the note. My source told me that when he found out, he was so mad, he almost had a conniption fit.”

“When did he find out?” Betsy asked.

“That’s the best part.” Luty’s eyes twinkled. “Swinton found out on Saturday, the day Hinchley came back from America.”

“How did he find out?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“From the middleman. He’d come around to the theatre
late Saturday afternoon to collect his payment, and somehow he let it slip that Hinchley held the note on the place.”

“That’s most intriguing,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured. “Especially if he was angry.”

“Yeah,” Luty agreed, “but was he mad enough to kill Hinchley? That’s the question. ’Cause even with Hinchley dead, his estate would still have the note on the Hayden.”

“But Hinchley wouldn’t benefit from it,” Hatchet said. “It’s too bad you haven’t been able to ascertain who does benefit from Hinchley’s estate.” He smiled smugly at his employer.

“Don’t you worry about that, Hatchet,” Luty said confidently. “By tomorrow night, I oughta know.”

“Good. We mustn’t close our minds to all the possiblities in this case.” Mrs. Jeffries looked at the only two who hadn’t spoken yet. “Who’d like to go next?”

“I will,” Betsy said. She wanted to get it over with. Slowly, she told them about her meeting with Hinchley’s maid. By the time she’d finished, she knew her cheeks were flaming and she was practically cross-eyed from staring at the same spot on the table.

Mrs. Jeffries deliberately kept her voice matter-of-fact. “So according to Lilly, Hinchley’s habit when he reviewed a new play never varied.”

“That’s what she said.”

“If the side door was unlocked,” Luty put in, “anyone could have come in and killed him.”

“But how would they know the door was unlocked?” Mrs. Goodge asked.

“Betsy found out easy enough,” Wiggins said. “Sounds to me like this Lilly told anyone who’d stand still for a few seconds anything they wanted to know.”

“Meaning that if someone wanted to find out about Hinchley’s habits, they wouldn’t have to work very hard at it,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed.

“I think lots of people knew about his…er…habits,” Betsy said. “From the way Lilly spoke, he’d been carrying on like this a good while.”

“For the last year,” Smythe said.

Mrs. Jeffries looked at him sharply. “What did you find out?”

“I tracked down that cabbie that took him to the Hayden,” he grimaced. “You were right. Hinchley did make a stop.”

“Where?”

“At a house on Lisle Street.”

“Who lives there?” Wiggins asked.

“No one really
lives
there.” Smythe stumbled over the words. Cor blimey, saying it out loud in front of a roomful of decent women wasn’t going to be easy. “It’s more like people work there, if you get my meanin’.”

“A workhouse?” Betsy muttered. “On Lisle Street?”

Smythe cleared his throat. Blast, he was going to have to explain it. “It’s not a workhouse.”

“Then what in tarnation is it?” Luty demanded.

“I believe,” Hatchet said, “that Smythe is referring to a brothel.”

Luty’s head jerked sharply as she looked at her butler. “How the dickens do you know that?”

“Really, madam.” Hatchet clucked his tongue. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for the ideas that are popping into your head. Surely you know me better than that? At my age and with my experience of life, there’s little about London that I don’t know—and certainly not because I’m a frequenter of such places. Now, if I may
continue. If Smythe is referring to the place I think he is, then it’s one that caters to anyone with…shall we say, unusual tastes.”

“Unusual tastes, huh,” Luty said, shaking her head. “Well, what of it? He isn’t the first man to do it and I expect he won’t be the last.”

“’Inchley didn’t stay inside long, at least not long enough to do…” Smythe broke off. There were simply no words to say what he needed to say.

“Maybe it don’t take him long,” Luty muttered.

Wiggins looked confused and Mrs. Jeffries deliberately kept her expression blank but the others couldn’t help themselves. Betsy giggled. Mrs. Goodge snickered. Even Hatchet cracked a grin.

“He didn’t stay long enough to patronize the establishment at that particular time,” Mrs. Jeffries suggested quickly. “Is that what you’re trying to tell us?”

Smythe nodded. “But since he didn’t do anything, why’d he stop?”

Luty opened her mouth but Hatchet, fearing his mistress wouldn’t bother to mince her words, spoke before she could. “Perhaps he stopped to make arrangements for later?”

“The side door,” Betsy murmured. “That’s it. That’s why he stopped at that…place. He was buying someone for later. For after he wrote his review.”

“Cor blimey, that’s probably who killed ’im.” Smythe shook his head. “This case doesn’t ’ave a ruddy thing to do with the Hayden Theatre.”

“I don’t think so,” Mrs. Jeffries said.

“Why not?” Luty demanded. “Maybe they got in an argument over the money. Maybe Hinchley didn’t want to pay what he’d promised.”

“Hinchley would have taken care of the business end of things when he stopped to make the arrangements,” Hatchet said.

“I agree,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “Besides, professional…uh…”

“Prostitutes,” Luty supplied blandly.

“Right, prostitutes,” Mrs. Jeffries continued, “don’t generally make it a habit to murder their customers. From what Betsy has told us, Hinchley indulged in this behaviour quite often. I don’t think it was a prostitute who murdered the man.”

“Neither do I,” Mrs. Goodge said. “I don’t think this killing was done by some poor soul who was sellin’ Hinchley his body. Seems to me if that were the case and they’d killed someone, they wouldn’t bother wasting time getting the man dressed, dragging him to a canal and making it look like an accident. Seems to me, if it was someone like that, they’d have cleaned him out good and scarpered for the coast.”

“Precisely my thoughts,” Mrs. Jeffries said. She looked at Smythe. “We’ve got to talk to someone at that brothel before the police do.”

Smythe glanced at Betsy, who was resolutely looking past his shoulder at the far wall. “Uh, you want me to do it?” he asked. “Go back to that place?”

“Well, we could send Wiggins,” Mrs. Jeffries suggested dryly, knowing precisely how the overprotective coachman would react.

Wiggins shot up from his seat. “Really?”

“Down, lad.” Smythe laid a restraining hand on his arm. “I’m not lettin’ you go wanderin’ into a place like that.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” the footman said eagerly. “Not
that I want to go to a place like that. But this is right important. You know ’ow devoted I am to solvin’ our cases.”

“That would hardly be appropriate,” Hatchet said quickly. “But perhaps I…”

“I’ll go,” Smythe interrupted bluntly. He shot a quick glance at Betsy and saw that her eyes were now flashing fire. Blast, he’d have to smooth her feathers later. But at least the lass cared enough to get good and narked at him. “No offense meant, Hatchet,” he said to the butler, “but you’re not likely to get anyone to loosen their tongues too quickly, and like Mrs. Jeffries says, we’ve got to talk to this er…person before the police do.”

Hatchet’s eyebrows rose. “I believe I’m quite good at getting information out of people,” he said loftily.

“Yeah, but we need it fast,” Luty put in. “And we ain’t got time to come up with a good story for ya. Let’s face it, Hatchet. You look too much like a preacher to get any fallen angels to spill their secrets to you. Smythe is right; he’s the one that ought to go.”

Smythe nodded. He did have a way to get folks to loosen their tongues. His way was quicker and more effective than any story Hatchet could come up with. He looked around the table. “Someone’s got to go there and it’s goin’ to ’ave to be me.”

The house on Lisle Street was easy enough to find. Smythe paused in front of the door. From inside, he could hear laughter and the faint sounds of a piano. He raised his hand to knock, lost his nerve and stepped back into the shadows of the overhanging eaves. It wasn’t that he was scared. He was thirty-five years old and he’d lived hard in Australia for a good number of those years. Brothels didn’t shock him. But he wasn’t going to think about
his past and it wasn’t his past that was keeping him from pounding on the front door.

It was Betsy. Her face. The way she’d watched him as he got ready to leave, her expression as shut and locked as a bank vault. What had she been thinking? That he
wanted
to go out to visit a place like this?

Oh, blast it all anyway, he thought, raising his fist and pounding on the wood. The quicker I get in there, the quicker I can get out.

A heavy-set, middle-aged woman with frizzy red hair and rouged cheeks stuck her head out. She raked him with a long, appraising glance, decided he looked like he might have money and asked, “What can I do for you, big fella?”

“Ya can let me in for a start.” He shoved at the door, but she blocked it with her ample hips.

“This ain’t a church,” she said. “You got any money?”

In response, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. “Enough.”

Her eyes gleamed greedily as she stared at the bundle between his fingers. Her painted mouth split into a wel-coming smile. “Then come on in, handsome. We’ve got anything you want.” She took his arm and he had to restrain himself from shaking her off. “And I do mean anything.”