Mrs. Jeffries Defends Her Own (24 page)

“Maybe.” Luty shrugged. “But all the same, seems to me a dead man in a pony cart is worth mentionin’.”

“Of course it is, madam,” Hatchet said cheerfully.

Luty shot him a disgruntled frown. “I suppose you found out all sorts of interestin’ bits.”

He grinned. “One does hate to boast, but I did find out a tasty morsel or two. Constable Barnes told us that when John Sutcliffe was interviewed, he claimed he was on the late afternoon train to Birmingham. But he wasn’t. I’ve an impeccable source that saw him on the nine o’clock train that night. Which means he was in London when Dearman was murdered.”

“But he doesn’t have a motive for murdering Dearman,” Ruth pointed out. “And there could be other reasons he lied about taking a later train.”

“He does have a motive for wanting Dearman dead,” Mrs. Jeffries said softly. She smiled self-consciously as everyone looked at her. “I’m sorry, I’ll wait and take my turn when Hatchet is finished.”

“But I am, Mrs. Jeffries,” he said quickly. “Sutcliffe being on the later train was the only information of consequence that I heard. Do go ahead.”

“Well, my source had several things to tell me.” She
took a deep breath. “To begin with, I got confirmation of what we suspected: Ronald Dearman was a blackmailer.” She told them the details of her discussion with Blimpey, taking care, of course, not to mention Blimpey’s name. “So you see, there are any number of people who had a motive for wanting him dead.”

“This is goin’ to make it bit harder to find the killer,” Mrs. Goodge complained. “We’re already spread thin on the ground as it is. What’s more, we don’t have any way of figurin’ out how many people he might have had in his clutches.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced at the clock again.

“Not necessarily,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. “Not when you look at it logically. My source said that Dearman literally found his victims by invading their privacy, or as we’ve already discussed, by snooping. Which implies that he would only have access to people he saw socially or who worked at Sutcliffe’s.”

“I don’t think he’d bother with the accounts clerks and the typewriter girl.” Phyllis reached for a currant scone. “They’d not make enough money to be worthwhile victims. But Mr. Anson and Mr. Sutcliffe and the managers at the Sutcliffe plants might be good pickings.”

“And those would also be the sort of people he saw socially,” the housekeeper murmured.

Ruth nodded in agreement. “That makes sense. People can always find a reason to have a nice hunt around someone else’s home at social functions. I’ve caught several ladies going through the medicine chest in my dressing room and then claiming they didn’t want to
bother me by asking for a headache powder. So perhaps identifying Dearman’s victims won’t be that difficult after all.”

“Let’s hope so,” Mrs. Jeffries said fervently. “The other useful information I received is about Henry Anson. He’s John Sutcliffe’s illegitimate son.”

No one said anything for a moment. “Now that’s what I call a surprise,” Luty finally announced. “Does your sister-in-law know?”

“I don’t know.” Mrs. Jeffries reached for her teacup. “But if she did and Dearman found out about it, he could use it to blackmail her. She’d do anything to avoid a scandal. What’s more, it’s put me in a very awkward position. I don’t know what to do. If I say something and she doesn’t know, it’s going to hurt her terribly,”

Everyone stared at her in stunned surprise. Finally, Luty once again broke the now tense silence. “You don’t have a choice, Hepzibah, you gotta ask her. It won’t be the easiest conversation you’ve had with the woman, but this could be what she was screamin’ at Dearman about.”

“And we know that John Sutcliffe lied about the time he left London,” Hatchet added gently.

“But you don’t understand.” Mrs. Jeffries sighed heavily. “I spoke to Fiona today, and during our conversation, she made it quite clear that she’d rather face the hangman than talk about her argument with Dearman. She claimed it wasn’t her secret to tell. So if this is what he had on her, if he threatened to blackmail her, she’ll never admit it.”

“Did you find out anythin’ else from her?” Mrs. Goodge looked at the clock again.

“A little.” She told them about the rest of her conversation with Fiona. “So now we know that the Meadows’ coming to London had nothing to do with Sutcliffe Manufacturing,” she finished.

“I do wish Wiggins would get here,” the cook muttered. “It’s past five now.”

“If everyone else is finished, I’ll tell my bit,” Phyllis offered. “It’s not much, but I had an interesting chat with Mrs. Meadows’ housemaid.” She told them everything she’d heard from Blanche Keating.

“Good gracious, I’m not surprised someone murdered him,” the cook said when Phyllis had finished. “Imagine sneakin’ about and lookin’ into a dyin’ man’s sickroom. That’s disgustin’.”

“I think the fact that the two widow ladies are planning on traveling is interesting,” Ruth said thoughtfully. “But then again, perhaps it isn’t so very unusual, especially as neither marriage seems to have been a happy one.”

Fred suddenly leapt up and raced out of the room. A second later they heard several sharp taps on the back door. Mrs. Jeffries started to rise, but Phyllis waved her back into her chair. “I’ll go see who it is.”

“Surely it’s not Wiggins,” Hatchet said. “He’d not bother to knock.”

They heard the door open, then the murmur of voices and the clatter of footsteps in the back hall. Phyllis returned, followed by two young lads, both of them rather ragged looking. The taller of the two, a redheaded boy, carried a gray flat cap in his hand.

“This young man has a message for you,” Phyllis said to the housekeeper.

Mrs. Jeffries smiled in recognition. “I know you. We spoke on the street yesterday.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Jeffries, but this time, I’m bringin’ a message for you. It’s from Mr. Wiggins and he asked us to tell ya not to worry, that’s he’s on the hunt and he’ll be home later tonight.”

“Did he say where he was goin’?” Mrs. Goodge demanded.

“Liverpool Street Station,” the shorter, dark-haired boy said. “He said he’s got to meet a train and then do some followin’. Are you Mrs. Goodge?”

“I am.”

“Then he’d like you to kindly keep his dinner in the warmin’ oven,” the boy replied, “as he’ll be hungry as a bear when he gets in.”

Mrs. Jeffries was in the foyer when the inspector came home. “You look very tired, sir,” she said as she reached for his heavy overcoat and hung it on the peg.

“I am.” He handed her his bowler. “Playing catch-up on a murder case is very time consuming. We’ve been all over London and I’m exhausted.”

“Of course you are, sir.” She hung his hat on the next coat tree peg. “But dinner won’t be for another fifteen minutes. Would you like to have a sherry and relax?”

“Only if you’ll have one with me,” he replied.

A few moments later they were settled in their respective spots in the drawing room, sipping Harvey’s Bristol Cream. Witherspoon put his glass down on the table. “It was such a busy day, and then to top it off, I had to go back to the station to read Nivens’ reports.”

“Did you see the postmortem report?”

He nodded. “The doctor is of the opinion from the size of the bullet hole that the gun used in the murder is a small one, possibly a derringer or perhaps even an Enfield. But small or not, the shot was fatal and the victim died quickly.” He reached for his glass and took a sip. “But according to all of the witnesses we’ve spoken to thus far, no one heard the shot.”

“That’s a very busy part of London, sir,” she reminded him. “Nonetheless, a gunshot, even from a small weapon, is such a distinctive sound that I’m surprised that no one heard it. Surely there were people on the street and perhaps even some still in the building.”

“There were,” he agreed. “According to Nivens’ report, there were clerks working late in an office on the top floor, but the constables that interviewed them wrote that they’d heard nothing. I didn’t have a chance to speak to them myself, but I’m going to as soon as possible.”

“You can’t do everything on the first day, sir.”

“No, and we didn’t get there till late in the morning. We started off with a visit to the victim’s home, and Mrs. Dearman was rather put out that she had to be interviewed again. She wasn’t overly cooperative.”

“Was she trying to hide something, sir?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied as he shook his head. “She simply seemed to be busy and didn’t wish to be bothered with having to speak to the police. The vicar was coming to go over the funeral details. Her friend, Mrs. Meadows. was present and refused to leave, so I’ve decided to wait until after the service to interview Mrs. Dearman again.”

“Will you be interviewing Mrs. Meadows as well?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Of course, she was part of the victim’s circle of friends.” He grinned. “I think Mrs. Meadows’ high-handed attitude annoyed Constable Barnes. Just as we were leaving, he suddenly asked her where she had been between six and seven on the evening of the murder. It was obvious the question annoyed her, but to her credit, she answered and told us she was home. Mrs. Dearman was a bit miffed at the constable as well.”

“Constable Barnes doesn’t like people to take advantage of your good nature, sir. Did anything else transpire when you were there?”

He told her about the rest of his interview with the widow. “But as I said, we didn’t stay very long. After that, we went to the Sutcliffe offices and had a word with the staff. I spoke with both John Sutcliffe and Henry Anson. That was quite interesting. Anson admitted there was a great deal of tension between himself and the victim.”

Mrs. Jeffries forced herself to listen, but it was difficult. She kept wondering what Wiggins was doing. When Witherspoon finished speaking, she said, “Anson told you that when he was hired, he’d been given the definite impression that Dearman was getting the sack?”

“Absolutely.” Witherspoon drank the rest of his sherry. “But when we spoke to Mr. Sutcliffe, he most certainly didn’t confirm anything of the sort.”

“What did he say?”

“He claimed that Henry Anson had been unduly sensitive about the matter and that as he’d not cut Dearman’s salary, he’d accepted the loss of responsibility. He
said he put Anson in charge of the plant operations because the company had grown so much they needed someone well educated handling the job and that he wanted to ease Dearman toward retirement. Dearman’s performance was still acceptable, but he was starting to show his age, you know, a bit of memory loss, that sort of thing. Sutcliffe claims he never considered sacking him.”

Mrs. Jeffries wished she could just tell the inspector what she knew about Anson and Sutcliffe’s relationship. But that was impossible. The only thing to do would be to tell Constable Barnes and leave it up to him. “Are you going to confirm the time Henry Anson arrived at his fiancée’s home? Oh dear, don’t answer that, how silly of me to even ask such a question.” She laughed self-consciously. “Of course you are. It’s standard procedure.”

He smiled indulgently. “We’ll be having a word with his fiancée, Miss Throckmorton, tomorrow. Apparently, I’m going to have another very busy day. But that wasn’t all that happened. I had the most interesting interview with the typewriter girl. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I have. They’re becoming increasingly common.”

He nodded. “She was a very nice young lady, but she had no love for Ronald Dearman.” He told her about his interview with Anna Blackburn.

Mrs. Jeffries only half listened as she tried to sort out who Wiggins was meeting at Liverpool Street Station and why he would think it necessary to follow them.

“The letter she’d typed for him was to a law firm in Sydney, about an estate for a Mr.… Hinshaw, no, no,
that’s not it,” Witherspoon said. “It was Grimshaw. Eldon Grimshaw.”

That got Mrs. Jeffries’ attention. “The typewriter girl prepared a letter to Australia?” she asked.

“She did, even though it was against company rules. Then, apparently, two days after he’d forced her to do his private correspondence, Dearman tried to sack her,” he repeated, and this time, Mrs. Jeffries listened very carefully. “This young woman was lucky that Mr. Anson intervened on her behalf. Another employee from the accounts department, a young man named James Tremlett, was sacked ten days or so before the murder.”

“I take it you’ll be having a word with him?” She certainly hoped so; that way, Tremlett could tell Witherspoon about Dearman’s hallway assignation with a mysterious stranger.

“Indeed. He’s on my list of interviews for tomorrow.” He glanced at his glass and noted that it was empty. “Do we have time for another one?”

“Of course, sir.” She was already getting to her feet. She poured them both another sherry and took her seat again. “I’m glad you’re on the case, sir. I have to admit, even though Fiona and I have been estranged for years, I was a bit alarmed when I found out that Inspector Nivens was in charge of the investigation.”

“And you were right to be concerned.” His good humor suddenly vanished. “One does hate to complain, but I must say, when I looked over Nivens’ reports, I was somewhat appalled at the manner in which the initial investigation had been conducted. Nivens hadn’t even bothered to have a constable interview Miss Blackburn.
He’d decided they didn’t need her statement because she was a woman. Can you believe that?”

“Actually, sir, I can.”

“It is very important that anyone involved in the crime scene area be interviewed as soon as possible. The more time that passes, the harder it is to catch the culprit. Furthermore, I suspect the reason no one heard the fatal shot is because Nivens didn’t send out enough constables to do the job properly. He didn’t bother to get the names of the day laborers who’d come in for their pay packets from the office upstairs. One of them might have heard something. Nor did he send anyone to check for witnesses in the pub across the road or the surrounding buildings. That’s the least he could have done, and what’s more, it is standard procedure in all homicide investigations.”

“I’m sure you’ll rectify the situation, sir.” She ducked her head to hide her amusement. It was rare for Witherspoon to criticize a fellow officer.