Mrs. Jeffries Forges Ahead (20 page)

She took off her white cotton gloves and tossed them across the room to her bed before turning her attention back to the window. A hansom pulled up in front of the house and she held her breath, hoping it wasn’t the inspector home this early. But it was only Mrs. Copley from next door coming back from her shopping.

Mrs. Jeffries was glad she’d gone to see Dr. Bosworth. At least now they knew what kind of poison had killed the victim. But that didn’t help very much. Arlette Banfield had been murdered in full view of over two hundred people and, what was worse, any of them could have killed her.

The poison acted quickly and, from what she’d discovered from the doctor, was easy to obtain if one set one’s mind to acquiring the lethal stuff. But what else had they learned? The victim was a free-spirited woman who clashed with the restrictions of the class she’d married into, but otherwise didn’t appear to have any mortal enemies. But she must have had at least one. Someone had murdered her.

The slamming of a door snapped her out of her reverie. She glanced at the clock over her dresser and realized it was almost time for their afternoon meeting.

Mrs. Jeffries left her room and went down the front stairs. As she reached the bottom, Phyllis came out of the drawing room, a duster in her hand. “Mrs. Jeffries, may I have a word with you?”

“Right now?” She could hear the sound of crockery and the murmur of voices from the kitchen. “Can it wait?”

“It can. I see you’re busy. I just wanted to explain things a bit more—you know, why I was afraid to agree to help you and the others.”

“You don’t owe us an explanation.” The housekeeper continued on down the hall to the back stairs.

“Yes, alright, then, I’ll just finish up the drawing room.”

“Go up to your room and have a rest, Phyllis,” Mrs. Jeffries called as she started down the stairs. She felt guilty. She didn’t want the girl to think she was angry at her for refusing to join their little band of sleuths. But she simply didn’t have time to chat with her now. “You can finish the drawing room tomorrow.”

Luty was coming up the back hall as she reached the bottom of the staircase. She stopped and waited for her.

“Is everyone else here?” Luty frowned irritably. “Dang, I knew I was goin’ to be late. But I got stuck in the worst traffic jam on the Westminster Bridge.”

“It certainly sounds as if we’re the last to arrive,” she replied as they went into the kitchen.

Mrs. Goodge, who was pouring tea, looked up. “Oh, good, you’re here. We’re anxious to get started.”

“From the general air of excitement”—Mrs. Jeffries took her seat at the table—“it appears most of you have something to share. Who would like to go first?”

“I’ll go,” Smythe volunteered. “I went to Wallington Square and had a word with the drivers at the hansom stand on the Edgware Road. The Banfield household gives them lots of business, so every one of ’em knew who I was askin’ about. One of the drivers told me that the Banfields generally send a footman over when they need a cab, but in the two weeks before the murder, the ladies of the household had taken to coming over themselves.”

“Now, that is peculiar,” Mrs. Goodge observed. “Even in these modern times, ladies don’t generally do that sort of thing, not when they have footmen and housemaids to fetch for them.”

“That’s what I thought,” Smythe agreed, “and truth to tell, the cabbies were a bit surprised as well.”

“Which household ladies are we talking about specifically?” Hatchet helped himself to a slice of seedcake.

“As the drivers put it, young Mrs. Banfield, the elder Mrs. Banfield, and both the houseguests.” He grinned. “They weren’t so startled to see Arlette get her own cab—apparently she does that all the time—but they were right shocked when the houseguests each come along and then Geraldine Banfield did it twice in a two-week period.”

“Did the drivers recall where they took the ladies?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Arlette Banfield went to her regular places: an art gallery on New Bond Street or to an address off Russell Square.”

“Her parents live in that area,” Mrs. Jeffries volunteered.

“Geraldine Banfield got her own hansom twice and both times she went to Paddington Station.”

“What about the houseguests?” Luty asked. “Where did they go?”

He shook his head with a frown. “The drivers couldn’t tell which lady was which; they only knew they’d picked both of them up at previous times from Wallington Square. But one of them went to the entrance to Hyde Park and they picked up another woman, a younger one, and went on to an office building off Haymarket,” he replied. “The second time, which was the day of the murder, one of them went to Battersea and went into a shop. But like I said, the drivers who took them didn’t know which lady was which.”

“Good gracious, why would anyone want to be taken to Battersea?” Mrs. Goodge exclaimed. “What kind of shop could there be in that neighborhood? It’s filled with nasty-smelling factories and gasworks.”

“Maybe that’s precisely why she went,” Mrs. Jeffries mused. She was thinking of all the places one could obtain cyanide. As the good doctor had stressed, there were any number of legitimate industrial uses for the stuff. “Dr. Bosworth confirmed that Arlette was killed by cyanide poisoning—and what better place to obtain it than a factory of some sort or another?”

“But it’s not like they sell it on the streets,” Luty pointed out. “That stuff is deadly and most places keep it under lock and key. I know for a fact it’s used in silver mining, but no one that I know was ever careless enough to just leave it lyin’ about for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to pick up.”

Mrs. Jeffries hadn’t thought of that. “True, but if one wanted the poison, one could bribe someone who had access to it, couldn’t one?”

“I think we ought to find out exactly which woman it was that was taken to Battersea.” Betsy looked at her husband. “Do you think the driver would recognize her?”

Smythe looked doubtful. “I don’t think so; he said the lady was wearin’ a bonnet with a blue veil and a matching blue jacket. That’s ’ow he knew she were from the Banfield house. He’d picked her up there only the day before.”

“That’s simple enough to find out, then,” she replied. “We’ll have to discover which of those two ladies has a blue jacket and a bonnet with a matching veil.”

“I can do that,” Wiggins offered. He thought that might be the sort of thing that Emma Carr would know. “I’ll ’ave a quick word with the servants in the area and find out what’s what.”

“Good,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “I’ll go next, then, if no one objects.” She told them about her visit to Dr. Bosworth and what he’d said about the poison. But before she could tell them about the other pertinent fact she’d learned, they began speaking.

Hatchet interrupted first, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Now that we know for certain it was cyanide, that does broaden the field a bit, and apparently there’s any number of ways to get one’s hands on the lethal stuff. As has been rightly pointed out, it has many industrial uses. I’ll wager there are dozens of factories in Battersea or in London where one can obtain it.”

“But like the doctor said, a factory isn’t the only place one can find it,” Mrs. Goodge pointed out before Mrs. Jeffries could tell them she wasn’t finished. “When I was first in service,” the cook continued, “there was a rumor that the lady of the manor in the next village had murdered her husband by splitting open peach pits and pounding out the insides before adding the mash to his pudding. Mind you, she was never arrested and nothing was ever proved. But she was seen on the morning he died, climbing a peach tree.”

“Cor blimey, peach pits is ’ard,” Wiggins said. “’Ow did she crack ’em open?”

“I don’t know.” The cook grinned. “And you’re right, of course: getting a pit open wouldn’t be easy.”

“Perhaps she was really determined,” Ruth suggested with a laugh.

Mrs. Jeffries glanced at the clock. She’d wait to the end to tell them the rest. “We’d better move along, it’s getting late.”

“That’s all I’ve got,” Smythe said.

“I’ll go next,” Luty offered. Without mentioning the name of her source, she told them what she’d discovered about the Banfields from her visit to John Widdowes. “So it looks like the family wasn’t as rich as everyone thought, at least not back when Garrett Banfield was running the business.”

“It certainly sounds as though if it hadn’t been for Lewis Banfield’s business acumen, the family might have been faced with a dire financial situation,” Ruth murmured.

“Well, my source didn’t exactly say that, but he implied that Lewis had come along just in time,” Luty agreed. “Actually, he did let it slip that one of the lenders was gittin’ ready to foreclose on the Banfield country estate. Garrett Banfield had mortgaged the place to invest in a tea plantation in the Far East. But the feller had the worst luck. First the crop was wiped out two years in a row with bad typhoons and then the tea leaves got tainted with some plant disease. The plantation ended up being abandoned and all the investors lost everything.”

Hatchet nodded. “Investing in the Far East is never the sure thing that people think it is. Fortunes are often made, but they’re just as easily lost.” He’d spent a number of years traveling the world and knew firsthand what life in the tropics entailed.

“So if old Mr. Banfield hadn’t died, there’s a good chance the Banfields would have ended up broke?” Betsy clarified. An idea had popped into her head, but as she asked the question, it popped right back out again and she couldn’t recall the details.

Luty winced. “My source didn’t come right out and say that, but he sure hinted things was goin’ in that direction. But then old Garrett had a heart attack and Lewis took over. That’s all I found out today.” She grinned at her butler. “How’d you do?”

“Not as well as you, madam, but I had a fruitful encounter of my own,” he declared. He was bluffing; he’d gone to see his friends the Manleys, but they were out of town and not due back until tomorrow, so he’d tracked down another source. But he hadn’t learned much.

“What did you find out?” Mrs. Jeffries interjected. Luty and Hatchet were very competitive with one another and she wanted to get this meeting moving along.

“Not much more than we already know,” he admitted with a shrug. “Namely, that it was Arlette Banfield’s family that objected to the marriage. But I did hear that her father, Crispin Montrose, was so upset over the match he almost didn’t go to the wedding. But he changed his mind at the last minute and showed up at the ceremony. The Montrose family is well thought of in London’s art community. Before she married, Arlette did a lot of modeling for painters and sculptors. My source told me that the piece she posed for before her wedding was done in two mediums, a small one in brass and a large one in stone. Both are supposedly exquisite, and the sculptor, an artist named Julian Hammond, gave her the brass statue as a wedding present.”

“I wonder why her family was so against her marrying Lewis Banfield,” Ruth muttered. “I know what Elizabeth Montrose told the inspector, that she had nothing but contempt for the class of people the Banfields represented, but honestly, it does seem a bit of an overreaction. Do you think there might be another reason she didn’t want them to marry?”

Mrs. Jeffries cocked her head to one side. “You might have something there. The Montroses do seem to have been unduly upset. Perhaps we ought to investigate this further.” She looked at Ruth. “Do you think you could find out about this for us?”

Ruth thought for a moment and then nodded. “I’ve a number of acquaintances who know everything that goes on in London society. I’m sure one of them will be able to shed a bit more light on the Montroses’ objection to the wedding. Considering that I found out nothing useful today, it’s the very least I can do.”

“Find out if the two families have any history with one another,” Betsy suggested. “Sometimes old sins cast long shadows.” She looked at Hatchet. “Are you done?”

“I am,” he replied. “I’m seeing a good source tomorrow and I hope I’ll have something more to report at our afternoon meeting.”

“I’ll go next, then,” Betsy said. “I went back and had another go at the local merchants, but I didn’t find out anything new. Sorry, I tried my best, but most of the clerks had very little to say about the Banfields.”

“You’ve done as well as the rest of us,” Smythe said dryly.

“I heard a few things,” Wiggins volunteered. “It’s nothin’ particularly about the murder, but it does give us an idea of what kind of ’ousehold the Banfields really’ave.” He told them about his encounter with Emma Carr. When he’d finished, he shrugged and said, “Like I told ya, it weren’t much. But I feel lucky to ’ave found anyone to talk to from that neighborhood. I’ve larked about the area for two days and she was the only servant I could find.”

“Can I go now?” the cook asked. “I need to get the roast out of the oven and let it rest properly before the inspector gets home.” She paused briefly and, when no one objected, she continued. “I had a source in today that knew a bit about the Banfields from many years ago. She used to work for Lady Stafford, who was one of the women that was sittin’ with Geraldine Banfield at the ball.”

“Used to work?” Wiggins repeated. “You mean she don’t work there now?”

Mrs. Goodge wasn’t offended by the question. “I’m afraid not, and she didn’t really have all that much to say. She just rambled on about how grand the Stafford household was when she worked there. When I finally managed to get her to concentrate on anything Lady Stafford might have said about the Banfields, the only thing she remembered was one time when Lady Stafford and Mrs. Banfield had had too much to drink she overheard them reminiscin’ about how they’d once borrowed the housemaids’ cloaks and snuck into the courtroom during the assizes at Aylesbury.”

“That’s an odd thing to do,” Ruth said.

The cook shrugged and pushed back her chair. She really did need to check the roast. “Apparently there was some Quaker on trial for murderin’ his mistress, and back in those days such things weren’t even spoken about in the presence of well-bred young ladies.” She moved toward the cooker, grabbing a tea towel on her way. “But they’d heard about it and read about it in the broadsides, so they slipped off when no one was lookin’ and managed to get inside.” She opened the oven door and, using the tea towel to protect her fingers, pulled out the roasting pan. “This looks about right.”