Mrs. Jeffries Forges Ahead (29 page)

“Not to worry, Ruth,” Hatchet said. “That’s why Mrs. Jeffries sent me to the Banfield country house, and my source confirmed there is indeed vermin poison there and that it is a homemade recipe containing prussic acid.”

“Excellent, Hatchet,” Mrs. Jeffries exclaimed. “And had Margaret Bickleton been there recently?”

Hatchet’s smile disappeared. “Actually, Mrs. Jeffries, she hasn’t been there since last summer.”

Mrs. Jeffries forced herself to listen as Hatchet finished his recitation of meeting with the gardener at the Banfield country house. She’d only sent him there because Ruth had mentioned him yesterday when she’d repeated what she’d overheard at the funeral reception.

“And he was quite annoyed that Geraldine Banfield ignored the real problem the household was facing,” Hatchet said. “Instead, all she did was to ask him for the keys to the outbuildings and then she sent him off to harness the pony and trap to take her back to the station.”

“Exactly when was this again?” Smythe asked.

“Almost two weeks before the murder.” He reached for a slice of buttered brown bread. “And then the poor fellow waited and waited for either Mrs. Banfield the elder or Mr. Banfield to get back to him with instructions for the builders but they didn’t. Finally, on the nineteenth, which was the day of the ball, he sent Mr. Banfield a telegram asking for instructions. The tarps weren’t doing a very good job of keeping the wet out, and he was afraid the rain was getting into the walls.”

“Did he get an answer?” Ruth asked.

“No.” Hatchet frowned. “He didn’t. That’s why he approached Mrs. Peyton at the funeral reception. But he said she was adamant the household hadn’t received a telegram on the day of the ball.”

“But they did.” Smythe said. “You lot weren’t the only ones that had a bit of luck.” He grinned at the housekeeper. “I wasn’t able to find out about everyone who’d come or gone to the house but I come close.”

His assignment had been the most difficult. He’d been told to learn as much as possible about who came and went from the Banfield home on the days leading up to the murder. It hadn’t been easy, but passing a bit of coin about among the hansom drivers and the street boys had given him the information he needed. “One of the street lads saw the telegraph boy coming to the house with a message that morning. He said that before the lad was halfway up the walk, an older woman come out. He gave her the telegram.”

“But then why wasn’t the message given to Mr. Banfield?” Hatchet mused.

“Maybe it was,” Luty suggested. “Considerin’ that his wife was murdered, maybe he just forgot it. A leaky roof might not have seemed important.”

“Fanny didn’t mention anyone getting a telegram,” Wiggins said. “And she knew I was interested in everything that happened that day.”

“If Mrs. Banfield or one of her houseguests intercepted the telegram outside, perhaps Fanny didn’t know about it,” Ruth said. “Did your source give you a description of the person who took the telegram?”

Smythe nodded. “The lad said she was tall and on the portly side. I reckon it had to be Geraldine Banfield. Mrs. Bickleton is tall but thin, Mrs. Kimball is small, and Lady Stafford wasn’t there that mornin’.”

 

Mrs. Jeffries paced again, only this time it was in the hallway by the front door. She walked because she was trying to make sense out of it all and couldn’t. On the one hand, she was certain she knew who the killer must be, but on the other, the facts she’d learned today simply didn’t fit with the scenario that she’d developed in her head. She found herself at the door again. It was getting late and she wished the inspector would come home. Perhaps he had learned something that would help her make sense of it all.

She cracked the door open and peeked outside. But there was no sign of a hansom. She kept going over and over everything she knew. She took a deep breath and tried to put the information in a logical sequence; Ruth told them that Arlette Banfield had confided that they were going to ask Geraldine Banfield to move to the country house, which could be a motive of course. But Ruth had had the definite impression Arlette and Lewis had come to that decision the very day of the ball because Geraldine had insisted all the glassware be washed again. She’d interfered with the household one time too often. So that motive wouldn’t work; Geraldine wouldn’t have known she was going to be asked to leave.

And what about Lewis Banfield? Did he have a reason for wanting his wife dead? By all accounts, he’d appeared very much in love with her. Yet Mrs. Jeffries knew that appearances were almost always deceiving.

Now that she was dead, Lewis was going to inherit a substantial amount of art worth a great deal of money. But according to what Luty and Hatchet had learned, he had restored the family finances to such a level that he didn’t need more money. So financial gain wouldn’t have been his motive. Besides greed or hatred, there was usually only one other reason a man would want to get rid of a wife: another woman. But there was no evidence whatsoever that Banfield had any romantic attachments.

She stopped and leaned against the newel post, her arms crossed in front of her as she went down the list of suspects in her mind. Rosalind Kimball loathed Arlette and had actually threatened her. She had access to poison; she’d been given cyanide to kill the vermin in her house. But how could she have put the lethal dose in the champagne bottle? For that matter, how could any of the suspects have done that? Constable Barnes had reported that the bottles had come up from the wet larder and were only opened in the butler’s pantry.

She straightened up. “My gracious, the poison probably wasn’t in the champagne bottle, it must have been in the glass itself. A glass that was sitting in the pantry and which anyone could have tampered with at any time that day,” she muttered aloud. But was that possible? According to what they knew, there were two champagne glasses in the set and they were exactly alike, so how would the killer have known which one Arlette would be using?

Because they weren’t exactly alike. She started pacing again. She was no expert on champagne glasses, but these hadn’t been made in a factory, they’d been blown by a master craftsperson, Elizabeth Montrose. Surely there must be small differences between the two items. Would the killer have known which glass was which? Surely, but would that matter?

She put the problem out of her mind and continued down her list of suspects. The other couples at the Banfield table seemed to have nothing to do with Arlette, so they were out of the running, so to speak.

Julian Hammond, the artist, was there that night, but other than the fact that he’d been upset because she’d made a business arrangement to have one of his works mass-produced, he had no real motive. Furthermore, no one had reported seeing him either near the pantry where the champagne and glass were kept or near the Banfield table, so he wouldn’t have had an opportunity to poison her.

Lady Stafford didn’t like Arlette but she had no reason to want her dead.

Mrs. Jeffries had saved her number one suspect for last. Margaret Bickleton had a motive: she hated Arlette for stealing her daughter’s fiancé. Everything pointed to her. She winced slightly as she recalled what Hatchet had told them. The Bickleton woman hadn’t acquired the poison from the Banfield country house as Mrs. Jeffries had assumed, but they knew she’d taken a hansom to Battersea where there were dozens of factories where one could obtain cyanide. That was a bit of an exaggeration, she told herself, but nonetheless, there were a number of establishments where a resourceful person could have laid hands on the lethal stuff.

She sighed and wandered into the drawing room. She wasn’t sure what to do next. She’d sent everyone out today with specific instructions for acquiring information that proved Mrs. Bickleton was the killer and they’d done her proud. But some of the pieces they’d brought back didn’t fit with the theory she’d concocted. So she wasn’t certain she ought to push the inspector in that direction. She went to the window and pulled back the curtain. The street was empty save for a housemaid washing the steps of the house across the road.

But it had to be Mrs. Bickleton, she thought. It had to be. She went into the foyer and resumed her pacing. Why else would the woman have gone to all the trouble of sneaking into the Banfield attic and reading Geraldine Banfield’s clippings about that old murder in Salt Hill? It was a rather famous case. John Talwell, the killer, had used prussic acid in a bottle of stout to murder a most inconvenient mistress. Despite dressing like a Quaker and protesting that men of his ilk couldn’t do such a terrible thing, Talwell was caught, convicted, and hung for the crime. As she recalled the details, she heard a hansom pull up outside and hurried to the door.

Peeking outside, she saw the inspector alighting from the cab. She was at the ready when he stepped through the front door. “Good evening, Mrs. Jeffries.”

“How was your day, sir?” she asked as he handed her his hat.

He thought for a long moment, as though he were taking her question very seriously. “It started quite badly and then ended quite well.”

“Really, sir? I can’t wait to hear all about it. Are you having a sherry this evening?”

“Indeed I am,” he replied.

A few moments later they were both settled in their favorite spots with their drinks. “Now, sir, do tell me about your day.”

He took a quick sip before he spoke. “We started out at the Montrose home,” he began. “I had to interview Crispin Montrose. Honestly, Mrs. Jeffries, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to it at all. Not only is he grief stricken over losing his child, but as part of our interview we needed to find out if he knew Mrs. Banfield was in the family way.”

She stared at him over the rim of her glass. “And did he?”

Witherspoon shook his head. “No, and he reacted as badly as I feared. If Mrs. Montrose hadn’t come downstairs and intervened, I think he would have hurt himself.”

“Oh dear, sir, that must have been very upsetting.”

“It was, but we did learn a few interesting things before the poor fellow lost control of his emotions.” He told her about the remainder of the Montrose interview.

“Arlette Banfield actually told her father she thought Geraldine Banfield had deliberately invited two women she didn’t like to stay as houseguests for the sole purpose of annoying her?” she clarified. Again, there was a niggle in the back of her mind, as if something important was right in front of her but she couldn’t see it.

“That’s what he reported.” Witherspoon took another sip. “But he was really more concerned about his wife. He didn’t think she’d ever get over having had another, sillier argument with Mrs. Banfield because she couldn’t go to the ball. But I will admit our day did get a bit better. After leaving the Montroses’, we went back to the Banfield home and we found something very useful, very useful indeed.” Taking his time, he told her everything that had happened, starting with Lewis Banfield’s tearful reaction to learning about his wife’s pregnancy to their finding the champagne bottle and possibly the poison under the bed in the guest room.

Mrs. Jeffries’ spirits soared. She knew it, she knew it, she was right. “And Lewis Banfield was sure that was the room that Mrs. Bickleton occupied?”

“She’s still there, Mrs. Jeffries. She and Mrs. Banfield had gone out for a walk shortly after we arrived and hadn’t returned by the time we left. If we’re lucky, Mrs. Bickleton will have no idea we’ve found the box and the bottles.”

“What if she looks under the bed?”

“If she saw the box was gone, she’d probably try to leave.”

“You mean escape,” Mrs. Jeffries corrected. “I mean, if she’s the murderer.”

“Precisely. But we’ve taken measures to prevent her from disappearing,” he said. “We’ve got constables posted in the square and the mews. They’re watching all the doors.”

“But of course, sir. I should have known that. Do you think you’ll have the results of the analysis by tomorrow?”

“I think so. I stopped in at the local station and had a quick word with Inspector Grainger. He assured me that the contents of the box had been entered into evidence and everything was on its way to the police surgeon and the chemist. He was a bit embarrassed, I think.”

“Why?”

“Well, his lads were the ones tasked with searching the house and, as I said, by the time they reached the bedrooms, people had retired for the night.”

“Ah, I think I see the problem, sir.” She nodded in agreement. “And they didn’t insist on having a proper search. They allowed themselves to be intimidated.”

“I’m afraid so,” he replied. “But I can hardly fault the men. In our society, the upper class does have substantial influence and I imagine it was one of the superior officers who made the decision not to disturb the Banfield guests.” He thought back to the night of the murder, to the young constables who’d been so worried that he would think they hadn’t done a proper job. One of the lads had supposedly been chased out of a bedroom by an old lady with an umbrella, and he imagined it had been that incident that had prompted an officer to call off the house search. “But what’s done is done. At least we found what we hope is the murder weapon.”