12- Mrs. Jeffries Reveals Her Art (6 page)

Bosworth hesitated only briefly. “There’s a faint scent of bitter almond on the man’s lips. From the color of his skin, I’d say he died of asphyxiation. As no one admits to choking the life out of the poor fellow, I’d wager he must have ingested something to cause such a reaction.”

“Could it have been on one of these?” Witherspoon opened the handkerchief he’d been holding and held it out so the doctor could see it clearly. “Mints, I believe. I took them out of the victim’s mouth.”

“May I?” Bosworth asked. He brought the open handkerchief close to his face. His face was a mask of concentration as he took a long, deep breath. “Hum…yes, unless I’m very much mistaken, underneath the mint scent is bitter almonds.” He looked at the inspector. “Have you touched these?”

“Only with the tip of my finger.”

“Then you’d best go wash your hands soon. Ask one of the servants to show you to a cloakroom and be sure to use plenty of soap.” Bosworth waved the constables carrying a stretcher into the room.

While the inspector hurried off to wash up and the doctor supervised getting the body moved, Smythe took a few moments to suss out the lay of the house. He tiptoed out into the hallway and peeked into a room a little further up the hall. They were all in there. The old gent with the cane was stomping about muttering something under his breath. The American was sitting next to his wife, his arm draped around her shoulders. The other two women were standing next to the window. The one with the frizzy brown hair had stopped crying and was talking in a low, hissing whisper. Smythe thought she looked mad enough to spit nails.
The tall, regal-looking one didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her. She just stood there, tapping her foot and shooting glares at the pale-faced young man. He sat on the chair, looking like he’d just lost his best friend.

“Oh, there you are, Smythe.” The inspector appeared from around the corner.

“What are you goin’ to do, sir?” Smythe was itching to get back and tell the others, but at the same time, he was loathe to leave the inspector. He didn’t want to miss anything.

“I’m not sure, Smythe,” Witherspoon admitted. “Officially, this isn’t a murder investigation yet, only a death under suspicious circumstances. I’m not certain I ought to do anything except trot along to the station and make a report.”

“But if it is a murder,” the coachman pressed, “probably one of them”—he jerked his head toward the room the others were in—“had something to do with it. If you let ’em loose without questionin’ ’em, they might muck up or destroy any evidence that’s ’ere.”

“I know.”

“You can at least question ’em, sir,” Smythe persisted. “Like ya said, it is a death under suspicious circumstances.”

“Of course it is,” Witherspoon decided. Turning, he called to the constable standing beside the open front door. “Constable, send to the police station and inform the duty sergeant that there’s been a suspicious death at this house. After that I’d like you to fetch Constable Barnes. He’s off duty, but you can get his address.”

“I’m already here, sir.” A tall man with a craggy face stepped through the front door. “Wiggins fetched me, sir. He thought you might need me.”

“I ’ope I did right, sir,” Wiggins said cautiously.

“Yes, Wiggins, you did.”

“What’ve we got, sir?” Barnes asked as he advanced toward his superior.

“A suspicious death,” Witherspoon replied. “Luckily, Dr. Bosworth happened to be available.” He stepped back to let the constables carrying the stretcher move past him towards the front door.

“There was nothing lucky about it,” Bosworth commented as he stepped into the hall. “I was on my way to see you, Inspector. I’d just gotten off the omnibus on the Holland Park Road when your lad came dashing up to the constable. He spotted me and told me there was a possible death here.” Dr. Bosworth wasn’t telling the whole truth. As a matter of fact, he’d been on his way to the inspector’s house, but it was Mrs. Jeffries he’d wanted to visit, not the inspector. But as his association with Mrs. Jeffries generally involved one of the inspector’s cases, and as he was now part of the conspiracy of silence surrounding the household’s help in those cases, he was in a bit of a quandry.

“You were on your way to see me?” Witherspoon said, somewhat perplexed.

“I wanted to invite you to dine with me one evening next week,” Bosworth replied. “A colleague of mine from New York is in London. I thought you might be interested in meeting him. He works very closely with the New York police. Like myself, he’s a doctor.” The invitation was quite genuine. But Bosworth had meant it for Mrs. Jeffries. She was someone whose abilities rather astonished him.

“Oh.” Witherspoon was quite flattered. “How very kind of you, Dr. Bosworth. I’d like that very much.”

Bosworth smiled absently and started toward the door.

“Excuse me, sir.” One of the constables came out of the drawing room. “I’ve found this, sir.” He hesitated, not knowing whether to give the object in his hand to the doctor or the inspector. “It’s a tin of peppermints. I saw it under the settee when we moved the body.”

Witherspoon nodded for the constable to relinquish the tin to Bosworth, who took it and flipped open the lid. Holding it to his nose, he sniffed. “Ah ha.” He shoved the tin under Witherspoon’s nose. “Can you smell it?”

Witherspoon took a deep breath. Even though the tin was empty and all he was smelling was the inside paper wrapper, the scent was unmistakable. Faint, perhaps, but definitely there despite being masked by the overpowering mint scent. “Almonds,” he said, raising his eyes to meet the doctor’s. “Bitter almonds. Do you think it’s cyanide?” He didn’t want to make any rash accusations. But he didn’t wish to ignore evidence either.

“Probably,” Bosworth replied. “I’ll run an analysis. Unfortunately, there aren’t any mints left, only the paper, the half-eaten mints and a few grains of residue powder. Still, there should be enough to give us a definite answer one way or another.”

“By all means, Doctor,” Witherspoon agreed quickly. “Run the tests. Be sure and mark it into evidence with the constables.”

“I know the procedure, Inspector.” Bosworth grinned cheerfully. “Even if I’m not on my own patch tonight. Well, I’d best be going. I’ll get started on the PM early tomorrow morning. We ought to know something definite straight away.”

“You’ll not have any difficulty with the local police surgeon, will you?” Witherspoon asked. Bosworth’s comment had made him realize this whole procedure was
highly irregular. The postmortem was supposed to be done by the local doctor assigned to this district.

Bosworth shook his head. “I’m assigned to Westminster, Inspector. So I’m having the body taken to St. Thomas’s. There shouldn’t be any difficulty. The local doctor for this district is a colleague of mine and a friend. He’ll not make a fuss. He’s enough on his plate as it is.” He nodded goodbye and left.

“What do we do now, sir?” Barnes asked.

“I’d best send Smythe and Wiggins home,” Witherspoon muttered. But when he turned around, neither one of them was anywhere to be found.

“I knew that once Constable Barnes arrived, we’d not ’ave much of an excuse to keep ’angin’ about,” Smythe explained. “So I ’ot footed it back ’ere to let you know what was goin’ on so we could get crackin’ on it.”

Smythe and Wiggins had told the household everything that occurred since they’d left the house with the inspector in tow.

“Are we sure it’s a murder, then?” Betsy asked suspiciously. She didn’t want to get her hopes up and then find out the man had dropped dead from something else.

“We won’t know for sure until tomorrow,” Smythe replied, “but Dr. Bosworth seemed to think it was poison.”

Mrs. Jeffries had a dozen different questions to ask, but right now, she didn’t have the time. If this was a case of deliberate poisoning, then the sooner they got started, the better. “I think we ought to proceed on the assumption that it is murder. Did you manage to find out the names of the people present at the Grant house?” she asked hopefully, looking at Smythe.

“I didn’t ’ave time,” he admitted.

“I did,” Wiggins volunteered.

Smythe slanted him a suspicious glance. “’Ow’d you manage that with all yer toin’ and froin’?”

“I’m fast when I want to be,” he said proudly. “And I nipped down to the kitchen after I brung the constable. Two of the ’ousemaids was natterin’ on about what ’ad ’appened. They named names, if ya know what I mean. Seems the fellow who died was named Underhill. The woman doin’ all the screamin’ when we come in was Helen Collier. She’s sister to Mr. Neville Grant’s wife, Mary. She was glarin’ like a tartar and actin’ like the bloke dyin’ was a personal insult. Neville Grant was an old bloke with a cane and there was a pale-faced feller that looked like he’d just lost his best friend—that was Arthur Grant, Neville’s son. The two others were an American couple by the name of Modean.”

Awed, they all stared at him. Wiggins shrugged. “The ’ousemaids was natterin’ like a couple of magpies. I’da ’eard more but that stick of a butler come by and chased ’em both about their business.”

“So at least we’ve a few names to start with,” Mrs. Goodge said triumphantly.

“We’d best send for Luty and Hatchet,” Betsy said. “You know how they get when we don’t send for them right away.”

Smythe looked at Mrs. Jeffries. “Should I go?”

“The inspector might take it upon himself to start asking questions tonight,” she said thoughtfully. “On the other hand, he might come home quite soon.”

“I think Smythe ought to go straight away,” Mrs. Goodge said stoutly. “The worst that can happen is the
inspector comin’ in and finding them here. But he’d think nothing of it. They’re good friends.”

“Go ahead, Smythe,” Mrs. Jeffries instructed. “See if you can get them here quickly. We’ve much to discuss.”

As soon as Smythe had disappeared, she turned to Wiggins. “Was there any sign of Irene Simmons at the Grant house?”

Wiggins shook his head. “Nothin’. That’s one of the reasons I nipped down to the kitchen. I wanted to ’ave a bit of a look about the place. But I didn’t see anything.”

“Do you think this man dyin’ and Irene Simmons might be connected?” Betsy asked.

Mrs. Jeffries wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. It would be so much simpler if we knew for certain this man was murdered.”

“For the sake of argument, let’s say he was,” Mrs. Goodge suggested.

“Then I’d say the disappearance of Irene Simmons is connected in some way with the dead man,” she replied.

“Good.” Mrs. Goodge lit the fire on the stove. “That’ll make it nice and simple-like. I’ll just put some water on to boil. We might as well have tea when Luty and Hatchet get here. It’ll help us keep our wits about us.”

“I’ll get the cups,” Betsy volunteered.

They kept themselves busy tidying up and setting the table. Finally, after what seemed like hours, they heard the sound of a carriage pulling up outside.

“They’re here,” Mrs. Jeffries said as she took her seat at the head of the table.

“Land o’ Goshen,” Luty cried, “thank goodness Smythe got there when he did. We was fixin’ to go out.”

She was an elderly American woman with sharp black eyes, white hair and a penchant for bright clothes. Her
small frame was swathed in a deep crimson evening jacket decorated with ostrich feathers. Tossing her handbag onto the table, she snatched out the chair next to the housekeeper and flopped down.

“Good evening, everyone,” Hatchet, her tall, white-haired, dignified butler said as he followed his mistress into the kitchen. He was dressed as always: pristine white shirt, black frock coat and trousers. “It is rather fortunate that Smythe arrived when he did. We were about to leave for Lord Staunton’s dinner party.” He tossed a malevolent glance at Luty. “Unfortunately, Madam didn’t have time to send her regrets to Lord Staunton.”

“Piddle.” Luty waved a hand dismissively. “That old windbag has so many people cluttering up his place he’ll not notice if I’m there or not. I ain’t missin’ me a murder to go have supper with a bunch of people I don’t even like. I would’na accepted the invitation in the first place if you hadn’t nagged me into it.”

The American woman was rich, eccentric and had a heart as big as the country that had spawned her. Her butler was smart, devoted to his mistress and a bit of a martinet. They were dear friends of the household, having worked with them on a number of the inspector’s cases.

Hatchet raised one eyebrow and drew out a chair for himself. “I never nag, madam. However, like you, I didn’t want to risk missing out either.”

“We ready, then?” Smythe asked, dropping into the chair next to Betsy.

“Yes,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. “If no one objects, I’ll start.” She told the newcomers everything, beginning with Nanette Lanier’s unexpected visit. “So you see,” she finished, “we may have called you out under false pretenses.
We don’t know that we do have a murder here. Underhill might have died from natural causes.”

“If he did, then I’m the Queen of Sheba,” Luty declared. “A disappearin’ woman and a dead man in the same house within days of each other.” She snorted. “Somethin’ funny’s goin’ on, that’s for sure.”

“I quite agree,” Hatchet added. “One extraordinary event might be explainable, but two? No, Mrs. Jeffries, you were right to send for us. Something strange is indeed going on in that household.”