12- Mrs. Jeffries Reveals Her Art (2 page)

“Zhey do nothing!” Nanette Lanier banged her dainty fist against the tabletop hard enough to rattle the china. “She’s been gone now for a week and still zhey do nothing. Zee English police,” she cried. “Useless.”

Mrs. Hepzibah Jeffries, housekeeper to Inspector Gerald
Witherspoon of Scotland Yard, would normally have challenged such a statement, but considering the highly excitable state of her guest, she thought it best to let the comment pass.

“Miss Lanier,” she began, only to be interrupted.

“Please call me Nanette.”

“Very well, Nanette,” she replied. She glanced at the clock. Almost three. The others should be back any moment. This would go a good deal easier if the rest of the staff were here. Smythe, the coachman, had taken everyone, even Mrs. Goodge, the cook, out for a drive in the inspector’s carriage. “I quite sympathize with your position. I don’t quite understand…” She paused, relieved, as she heard the back door open and the muted sound of several voices talking all at once. Good, the others were back. Now she wouldn’t have to deal with this on her own.

Nanette’s expression of indignation turned to alarm. “Is zat zee inspector?” she asked.

“No, no,” Mrs. Jeffries assured her. “It’s the rest of the staff. They’ve been out this afternoon.”

“I told ya you’d like it,” Wiggins, the footman, exclaimed.

Mrs. Goodge, her hat somewhat askew and her spectacles slipping down her nose, bustled into the kitchen with Wiggins right on her heels. Fred, the mongrel dog the household had adopted, trotted in after them.

“Smythe drove too fast,” the cook groused, but her round cheeks were flushed and despite her grumbling she was smiling. She stopped dead when she saw Mrs. Jeffries had a guest.

“He weren’t goin’ that fast,” Wiggins said defensively. “Not like that time he made it all the way to the…” He broke off in mid-sentence as he spotted the beautiful
woman sitting next to the housekeeper. He stumbled to his left to avoid ramming into the cook’s broad back.

“Good afternoon,” Mrs. Jeffries said calmly. “As you can see, we have a guest. This is Miss Lanier.” She gestured at Nanette, who nodded politely. “Miss Lanier,” she continued, “this is Mrs. Goodge, our cook, and Wiggins, our footman.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Goodge said.

“Likewise,” Nanette said with a regal incline of her head.

“Miss Lanier is joining us for tea,” Mrs. Jeffries explained.

“I’ll just put my hat away.” Mrs. Goodge shot the housekeeper a curious look as she bustled off toward the hallway and her room.

Wiggins, who was still staring at the woman like a love-struck cow, started for a chair, tripped over his own feet, blushed bright red and then managed to seat himself without further ado.

“Where are Betsy and Smythe?” the housekeeper asked him. Nanette Lanier’s arrival wasn’t a social call. Mrs. Jeffries wanted everyone here before the woman went any further with her story. She forced herself to stay calm, deliberately keeping a tight lid on her rising excitement. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. Nanette’s problem might be a tempest in a teapot. But she hoped not. She hoped that soon the household would be out and about doing what they did best. Snooping. Seeking answers. Solving a mystery. They were very good at it too. But then, they should be. They’d done it often enough in the past. As the household staff for Inspector Gerald Witherspoon of Scotland Yard, they’d had plenty of practise. Not that their inspector had any inkling they regularly assisted
him in his cases. Oh no, that would never do. But the point was, they did. Why, if not for them, their dear inspector would probably still be a clerk in the records room.

“They’re just coming,” Wiggins answered absently, his gaze still on their guest. He was the perfect picture of a love-struck youth. His eyes had gone all soft and dreamy, a half smile played around his mouth and a rosy blush had swept across his cheeks. Mrs. Jeffries ducked her head to hide a smile. Wiggins would be mortified when he looked in a mirror. Several tufts of his dark brown hair were sticking up at the back of his head.

The cook returned and took her regular chair at the table just as the back door opened again and the muted voices of the maid and the coachman drifted down the hallway. A moment later they came into the kitchen.

They made a striking contrast. Betsy, pretty and slender with blue eyes and blond hair, walked daintily next to a dark-haired hulk of a man. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got company.” She poked her companion in the arm. Smythe looked toward the table. His features were strong enough and brutal enough to intimidate a bear, but he’d not noticed they had a visitor because his eyes had been gazing adoringly at the maid.

Mrs. Jeffries repeated the introduction and then said, “Miss Lanier has come here for our help. It seems she has a problem.” Her voice was calm and her expression serene, but there was something in her tone that caught all their attention.

Smythe’s lips curved in a smile.

Mrs. Goodge grinned.

Betsy’s eyes sparkled.

Even Wiggins jerked his gaze away from the Frenchwoman to look at the housekeeper in pleased surprise.

Mrs. Jeffries knew good and well what was going on in their minds. The same thing she’d thought when she’d opened the back door fifteen minutes ago and seen Nanette standing there. They had a case. A mystery to solve.

“What kind of a problem?” the cook asked eagerly.

“Before we go into that,” Mrs. Jeffries said, “I’d like to remind everyone that Miss Lanier was involved in one of our first cases.”

“But of course,” Nanette said quickly. “It was when zat awful Dr. Slocum was murdered. I was working as a maid to Mrs. Leslie. We were Dr. Slocum’s neighbors.”

“It were that Knightsbridge one?” Wiggins exclaimed eagerly.

“
Oui
,” Nanette replied, giving him a dazzling smile. “
C’est
correct. I remember, you see. I remember very well what I saw when zee police were trying to find out who killed Slocum. If it had not been for all of you, zee real killer would have gotten away with it. Zat’s why I come here when zee police do nothing. I zink all of you are very good at finding answers.”

No one was quite sure how to respond to her statement, so no one said anything. Save for the faint ticking of the carriage clock on the cupboard shelf, the room was silent as they all drifted back to the memory of the first case they’d knowingly worked on together. It hadn’t been their first case; there had been those horrible Kensington High Street murders. But on that one, they’d each worked separately, under Mrs. Jeffries’s guidance and without even knowing what they were doing. But the murder of Dr. Bartholomew Slocum had been different. Mrs. Jeffries had realized they not only enjoyed and were good at snooping about but were just as devoted to the inspector as she was, and that they could work together as a team.

It had been the Slocum murder that had really brought them together. Mrs. Jeffries smiled at the memory. Now they were a family.

Misinterpreting the continued silence, Nanette quickly said, “I can keep a secret. If you help me, I won’t say a word to anyone, especially not to your Inspector Witherspoon.”

“Well,” Mrs. Jeffries said thoughtfully, glad the woman had given them this promise freely, “that would put us more at ease. Now as to whether or not we can help you, we can’t determine that until we know precisely what it is you need.”

“My friend is missing,” Nanette said. She plucked a pristine white handkerchief out of the pocket of her elegant green spring jacket and dabbed at her eyes. “She’s been gone for a week.”

Mary Grant’s serene expression didn’t change as she watched her husband come out the French doors and stamp across the lawn to where she was entertaining his wretched business guests. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she saw Neville deliberately smash an early blooming daffodil with his cane. They’d discuss that later, she thought before casting her gaze back to their visitors. Tyrell and Lydia Modean weren’t friends but business acquaintances. And though they’d been foisted upon her by her husband, she was far too proud a hostess to ever do less than her best. She smiled warmly at the tall man standing behind his wife, who was seated directly across from her. “Have you had time to visit many galleries?” she inquired politely. Modean was quite an attractive man, even if he was an American.

“Quite a number of them,” Tyrell Modean replied. He
laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He’d been standing here now for ten minutes and was hoping they’d go in to tea soon. “We took in the Japanese Gallery on New Bond Street this morning. Some of the work was exquisite, wasn’t it, Lydia?”

But it wasn’t Lydia Modean who replied. It was the man sitting across from their hostess. James Underhill was also a guest, but one who’d been invited by Arthur Grant, Neville’s son, who was slouched in a chair across the table. “Exquisite? Do you really think so?” Underhill said doubtfully. He opened a tin of mints and popped one in his mouth.

“Yes,” Modean replied, not bothering to look at the Englishman. “I do.” He deliberately moved so that he was turned away from Underhill. The snub was obvious to everyone seated at the table. Helen Collier, Mary Grant’s sister, leveled an outraged frown at the American.

“Mrs. Grant,” Modean continued calmly, “I understand the Caldararos were originally part of your family’s collection.”

Underhill shot a fierce glare at the American’s broad shoulders. God, he hated him. He snapped the lid shut on his mints and started to put them back in his coat pocket.

“James,” Mary ordered. “Could you go and get Mr. Modean a chair? Take Arthur with you to help carry it. They’re quite heavy.”

James Underhill was outraged. The witch was treating him like a servant. Well, by God, she’d pay for that. He glared quickly at the others around the table. Arthur practically trembled as Underhill’s gaze raked him. Helen gave him her mewling calf’s smile that for some odd reason she thought was attractive and Mary merely stared at him
imperiously, daring him to object. Modean and his slut of a wife didn’t even bother to look in his direction.

Underhill slapped the tin onto the table. “Of course, Mrs. Grant,” he replied coldly. “I’ll be delighted to get Mr. Modean a chair. Come along, Arthur. I could use a hand.”

“Have you told the police?” Mrs. Goodge asked. Her tone was polite, but behind her spectacles, her eyes were suspicious. She’d never had much liking for foreigners. Especially the French.

“Zee police!” Nanette snorted. “Useless fools! I went to them zee morning after Irene did not come home! Zhey claimed zhey’d make inquiries. But zhey did nothing. A rich man says he knows nothing of Irene and zhey are cowed like zee dog.”

“I’m not quite followin’ ya,” Smythe said softly. “Why don’t ya start at the beginnin’ and tell us everythin’?”

“But I’ve already told Mrs. Jeffries,” Nanette wailed. “I don’t want to waste time. Something has happened to Irene. I know it. I can feel it in my liver.”

“Liver?” Wiggins echoed. “That’s a funny place to feel somethin’.”

Nanette waved her hand impatiently. “Not my liver—what’s zat other word…” She tapped her chest.

“Heart?” Betsy suggested.

Nanette nodded. “Zhat’s it. I can feel it in my heart. Sometimes I get my English mixed up when I’m excited or upset and now I am very upset.”

“Then I suggest you drink your tea and calm down,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “You’ll need to have all your wits about you when you tell us the facts of this matter.”

Nanette nodded and took a deep breath. “But of course.
You are right. I must be calm. It happened last week. My friend Irene Simmons came to take tea with me. A charming custom, is it not? Afternoon tea…but forgive me, I’m wandering off zee point. Irene lives in zee flat upstairs from my shop. She lives with her
grandmère.
Pardon, I mean grandmother.”

“You own a shop?” Betsy asked curiously.

“A hat shop,” Nanette replied proudly. “We carry all zee latest designs from Paris. We also carry a full line of gloves, scarves, fans and shawls.”

“Go on,” Mrs. Jeffries prompted. She too was curious how someone who only a few years ago was a lady’s maid had acquired the capital to open her own business. But she wasn’t going to ask that question now. She’d learned it was better to find some answers indirectly. “Do tell us about Miss Simmons.”