02 - Mrs. Jeffries Dusts for Clues (23 page)

Mrs. Jeffries felt the inspector would hardly be that lucky, but she didn’t like to say so.

“I wanted to search his rooms today,” Witherspoon continued, “but Mr. Clements raised such a fuss I decided it would be better to wait until after we’d made an arrest.”

“Emery Clements didn’t want you to search Mr. Farnsworth’s rooms? Why ever not?” Mrs. Jeffries thought of all the gossip she’d heard about Cassie. The girl hadn’t been involved only with Malcolm Farnsworth and Andrew Lutterbank. She’d also been seeing Clements. Then she caught herself. This case was solved. There was no need for her to keep prying about for additional suspects.

“He kept muttering about us being on a fishing expedition and not bringing a warrant. Said that as we weren’t actually arresting Mr. Farnsworth right then, we’d no right to search his home. Sent for his solicitor. But don’t worry, Mrs. Jeffries.” Witherspoon set his empty glass down on the table. “I’ve got several men watching the Clements’ house. They’ll make sure nothing is taken out of the place before I get a chance to have a good look round. We’ll have both a warrant and an arrest by tomorrow morning.”

“Are you going to ask Cassie’s landlady to try and identify Mr. Farnsworth?”

“Well, er, no.” Witherspoon stared at her in surprise. “Farnsworth admitted he and Cassie used to meet in Magpie Lane. I don’t think her landlady would be of much help, do you?”

“Of course, you’re right,” Mrs. Jeffries replied hastily. She sighed. “But you know, it might be helpful if you searched Cassie’s belongings.”

“Really?”

She gave an embarrassed laugh. “It’s silly of me, sir, but I couldn’t help but think that sometimes women keep little keepsakes of their sweethearts.”

“Do they indeed?” The inspector looked genuinely surprised by this information. “And what would a keepsake, assuming that she kept something Malcolm had given her, prove?”

“Why, sir, it would prove they’d been together…” She broke off and laughed merrily. “Now, Inspector, you’re teasing me. You know very well what I’m getting at.”

Witherspoon smiled uncertainly. He hadn’t a clue what his housekeeper was trying to say, but he decided it would probably be a good idea to send Barnes around to search Cassie Yates’s belongings. “Not to worry, Mrs. Jeffries,” he said. “You know how I love my little joke, and come to think of it, you’re right. I’ll send Barnes around tomorrow to go through the girl’s belongings.”

Mrs. Jeffries sighed softly. “Poor girl, how sad that the man she loved ended up being the one who took her life.”

“Yes, tragic,” Witherspoon commented. “But there is so very much wickedness in this world, it’s quite appalling. Why even with all the evidence we’ve got against this chap, he still insists he didn’t do the deed.”

“It’s hardly likely that he would confess,” Mrs. Jeffries said dryly.

Witherspoon’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m not so sure, Mrs. Jeffries. You’d be amazed at how often people do. But Farnsworth isn’t one of them. He claims he had a change of
heart. He says he spent the rest of the night walking the streets and thinking. Though he has no money, he’d decided that if Cassie was indeed going to bear his child, he’d marry her.”

“And what were they going to live on? Neither of them was employed, nor had they much money.”

Witherspoon shrugged. “I asked him that. He claimed he was going to sell all his belongings, take the money and Cassie and emigrate to America. Said he wanted to go somewhere where he and Cassie could start over.”

As Witherspoon spoke, Mrs. Jeffries could see a rather puzzled expression forming in his eyes. “What are you thinking, sir?”

“It’s quite silly, really,” he admitted with an embarrassed laugh. “But somehow I almost believed Farnsworth. There was something about him that led me to believe he was telling the truth. Yet he’s the only one with the motive and the opportunity. Andrew Lutterbank was home with his family, Emery Clements was visiting his club, and as far as we know, Farnsworth was the only person who knew that Cassie Yates would be at Magpie Lane.”

“What about Antonia Everdene? Or for that matter, the Reverend Everdene? Either of them could have slipped out of the house and followed Cassie.” Mrs. Jeffries didn’t think this was very likely, but she wanted to make sure they didn’t leave any lines of inquiry untouched.

“I don’t think so,” the inspector murmured. He suddenly smiled at Mrs. Jeffries. “And it’s not because I don’t like to believe a woman is as capable of murder as a man. Your stories about some of your late husband’s cases have certainly opened my eyes about that particular prejudice.”

Mrs. Jeffries was inordinately pleased. Sometimes she wondered if her dear inspector would ever see the world as it really was rather than as what he wished it to be. “Then why couldn’t either of them have done it?”

“I suppose Miss Everdene could have. She certainly had the motive. She’s desperately in love with Farnsworth. But after Farnsworth left, she went into her room and wasn’t seen
by the servants until the next morning. And she didn’t know where Cassie had gone. The reverend couldn’t have done the murder—he was indisposed.”

“Oh, I see. He was still drunk.”

“Quite.”

“Will you definitely be arresting Mr. Farnsworth tomorrow?”

Witherspoon closed his eyes. “Yes. The case is circumstantial, but nonetheless it’s quite strong.”

* * *

Mrs. Jeffries didn’t sleep Well that night. Her mind simply wouldn’t stop working. She went over and over every detail of the case and knew that something was wrong, something didn’t make sense.

At three in the morning she awoke with two facts pounding in her head. Five hundred pounds…She remembered now where she’d heard that figure mentioned before. And Essie Tuttle had told Betsy that she’d seen someone step out of the shadows and follow Cassie Yates on the last night of her life. Malcolm Farnsworth was still with his fiancée then.

Mrs. Jeffries threw off her bedclothes, grabbed her robe and hurried out of her room. Almost running, she dashed up the steps to the top floor and tapped on Smythe’s door.

“What is it?” Smythe stuck his head out and peered at her out of sleepy eyes. “Cor, Mrs. J, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Yes, I know. But there’s something I must know. When you went down to the docks, were you able to find out if Sally Comstock got on a ship for Australia?”

He yawned and pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “I checked at the Pacific East Line and Merritor’s Shipping, they’s the two that carries the most passengers from the London docks. They both had sailings on the day Angus Lutterbanks was buried, but there weren’t no one named Comstock on the passenger manifest.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Jeffries whispered. For a moment she was terribly afraid. But despite the fear, she knew what she had to do. There was no other way. For she knew who the killer was.
If she were wrong, she’d take full responsibility. She could not ask anyone else to do what had to be done. If she were wrong, she would not only be violating man’s law, but God’s as well.

“What’s goin’ on, Mrs. J?” Smythe gazed at her quizzically.

“Smythe, is there a shovel anywhere about the place?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“There’s one in the cooling pantry,” he replied. “’Ere now, what are you up to?”

“Don’t ask,” she replied firmly as she turned and started for the stairs. “It’s not the sort of thing I could ever ask anyone else to do. I don’t want you involved.”

“Now just a minute ’ere. If’n you think I’m lettin’ you toddle off in the middle of the night with a bleedin’ shovel all by yerself,” he yelped softly, “you’ve got another think comin’.”

She stopped and turned. The coachman was watching her with a hard, determined expression. “Smythe,” she said gently, “I’m going to break the law. I’m going to do something I couldn’t in good conscience involve anyone else in. I think I know what happened, but I’m not absolutely certain. However, what I propose to do is the only way I can know for sure. I simply must do it alone. There’s too much risk involved—”

“I don’t care ’ow much risk there is,” he interrupted. “I ain’t lettin’ you go off on your own at this time o’ night. You ain’t goin’ without me,” he said flatly.

“Smythe—”

“No, Mrs. J. You jus’ give me a minute to get dressed, and don’t try leavin’ on yer own. Whatever you’re up to, I’m goin’ with ya.”

She started to argue the point, then realized it was useless. From the fierce expression on his face, she knew Smythe meant to come with her. “All right, meet me downstairs in five minutes. But I’m warning you, you won’t like it one bit.”

* * *

Mrs. Jeffries was absolutely right. Smythe grimaced as he, Mrs. Jeffries and a very jittery Wiggins stopped inside the gate of St. Matthew’s churchyard.

“Blimey, this is a miserable place,” Wiggins moaned. He gave a quick, terrified glance behind him at the first row of graves. “Are you sure we ought to be ’ere? It don’t seem right.”

“Well no one invited ya to come along,” Smythe snarled.

Wiggins had heard Smythe moving about in his rooms and taken it into his head to go with them, and after a good ten minutes of arguing he had finally convinced Mrs. Jeffries and the coachman that he could be of some use. But now, viewing the ghostly churchyard with its eerie tombs and old misshapen headstones, he sincerely wished he’d stayed in bed.

“Which is Angus Lutterbank’s grave?” Mrs. Jeffries asked briskly. She held the lantern up.

“Over there.” Smythe pointed to the darkest spot in the churchyard. Wiggins groaned.

“Come on, let’s get this over with.” Squaring his shoulders and taking a firm grip on the shovel, Smythe headed toward the other side of the graveyard.

Mrs. Jeffries held the lantern as the grim trio made their way to Angus Lutterbank’s final place of rest. The night was silent. The churchyard, which held generations of London’s dead, was so quiet the sound of their footsteps seemed as loud as drumbeats. In the bushes behind the Lutterbank grave, a night scavenger scuttled noisily away from the approaching humans.

“Blimey.” Wiggins jumped and banged into Smythe’s broad back. “What was that?”

“Cor, get off me, ya silly twit. It’s just an animal,” Smythe snapped. He put his lantern down, gave Mrs. Jeffries a long, level stare and then stuck his shovel deep into the grave. “’Ow deep do you reckon we’ll have to go?”

“Not more than a couple of feet,” she murmured, wondering again if she were doing the right thing. But she couldn’t think of what else to do, and if she did nothing, Cassie Yates’s murderer would get away scot-free. Surely God was more concerned with bringing a killer to justice than a bit of digging about in a spot of hallowed ground. Mrs. Jeffries truly hoped so.

For the next twenty minutes the two men dug steadily as Mrs. Jeffries held the lamp and watched.

“’Ere now,” Smythe mumbled as his shovel dug into something that wasn’t soft earth. “I think we’ve found what we’re lookin’ for.” He tossed the shovel onto the small hill of dirt at the side of the shallow pit and dropped to his knees. Using his bare hands, he continued to dig.

A moment later he gasped and straightened. “You were right, Mrs. J. Angus in’t the only one buried in this grave.”

“Oh no,” Wiggins moaned. Clenching his teeth and keeping his eyes closed, he dropped to his knees beside the coachman and began to dig too.

They had her uncovered in minutes. Taking a deep breath, Mrs. Jeffries stepped closer and held the lantern directly over the body. An ivory-handled knife still protruded from the corpse’s ribs. Smythe, his face a mask of horror and revulsion, was breathing raggedly. Wiggins had gone pale. Even Mrs. Jeffries felt a shakiness in her knees.

“Who is she?” Wiggins whispered.

Before Mrs. Jeffries could answer, Smythe reached down and pulled a bit of tattered cloth from the dead hand. He swallowed and held it close to the lantern.

The cloth had once been a delicate white handkerchief. But in the glow of the light they could see it was badly torn and covered with dark stains. There were embroidered letters in the bottom corner.

“S C,” Smythe said softly. He looked up at Mrs. Jeffries, and their gazes met. “Looks like Sally Comstock never even made it to the docks.”

* * *

Their plan was quite simple. As dawn broke, Mrs. Jeffries, accompanied by Wiggins, went to Luty Belle’s. Smythe kept watch in the churchyard.

Luty listened to them without comment, then ordered Hatchet, who’d been standing in the corner clucking his tongue, over to St. Matthews. The butler didn’t look particularly happy about the fact that he was part of their plan. However, he contented
himself with a brief speech about grave-robbing, amateur detectives and lunatic Americans before leaving to carry out his part of the scheme.

“Don’t pay him no mind,” Luty said as she watched Hatchet’s stiff back disappear through the door. “He’s devoted to me. He’ll never let on that it was you who dug the girl up.”

“We didn’t dig ’er up,” Wiggins protested. “We didn’t even know she were there. It was more like we discovered ’er.”

“Are you absolutely sure about the finger, Luty?” Mrs. Jeffries asked anxiously.

“Yes. I’m sure.” Luty grabbed Mrs. Jeffries by the arms and ushered her to the front door. “Now stop yer frettin’ and git on home, Hepzibah. None of this is goin’ to work if’n the inspector wakes up and finds you gone. You’ve got to be there when Hatchet shows up with that cockamamie excuse and drags the inspector out to the churchyard. And besides, come this evenin’, the killer will be locked up good and tight. I reckon a bit of grave diggin’ is a purty small price to pay for justice.”