Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected (14 page)

“Possibly,” she replied calmly, “but sometimes one has to take risks if one is to learn anything. And I do believe I learned rather a lot this afternoon.”

“Go on,” Mrs. Goodge encouraged, “tell us the rest of it.”

“When I got inside, I heard voices coming from the public bar. Naturally, I was curious; the place was supposed to be closed. So I crept up the hall and listened. There were two people in the bar; obviously they were using the Gilded Lily as a meeting place because they assumed it would be safe from prying eyes. Well, unfortunately, I accidentally kicked my shopping basket; they heard the noise and the man came to investigate.”

“Who were they?” Betsy asked.

“Michael Taggert and Sarah Hewett,” Mrs. Jeffries said thoughtfully. “And once Mr. Taggert got over the shock
of finding me, I must say he was quite a gentleman about the whole thing. Of course, I did have a bit of explaining to do.”

“What did you tell him?” Mrs. Goodge asked.

“The truth,” Mrs. Jeffries replied calmly.

Their was a collective groan from around the table.

“Now, now,” Mrs. Jeffries said quickly, “it’s not as bad as all that. But I had to tell them something and it’s rather difficult to think when one is on one’s knees hiding behind a door.”

“Exactly what did ya tell ’em?” Smythe asked.

“Just that I was the housekeeper to Inspector Gerald Witherspoon and that I occasionally helped out a bit with his investigations.”

“So you didn’t mention any of us?” Mrs. Goodge pressed.

Mrs. Jeffries hesitated. She knew what was worrying them. The number of people who knew the household helped the inspector with his murder cases seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. It was a problem that concerned her as well. But sometimes one didn’t have much choice in these matters. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

There was another collective groan.

She ignored them and carried on. “The only way I could get Michael Taggert to believe me,” she explained, “was to tell him everything. But don’t worry, he’s an artist.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Wiggins exclaimed.

“I mean, he’s got rather a more open mind than most people,” she said hurriedly. “And after I told him what we did, he was really quite forthcoming about everything. If you’re worried that he or Mrs. Hewett are going to say anything to anyone, don’t be. I think the both of them are rather good at keeping secrets.”

“Mrs. Jeffries,” Smythe said somberly. “We ain’t niggled about that. But bloomin’ Ada, this is a murder investigation and you was trapped in a deserted pub by two of the suspects. Don’t ya see what we’re gettin’ at? You coulda been killed. Either of them two could have been the murderer and they wouldn’a thought twice about stickin’ a knife in your back.”

She was suddenly rather ashamed of herself. Here she was thinking they were only concerned about more people learning their secret, while in reality, they’d been worried about her safety. “But that didn’t happen,” the housekeeper assured him quickly. “And furthermore, I don’t think either of them is the killer. As a matter of fact, I’m sure of it.”

“Don’t be,” Smythe retorted. “’Cause I found out today that Michael Taggert didn’t leave the Gilded Lily after his set-to with Dapeers. He come back around Bonham Road and slipped into the saloon bar. He was there when Dapeers was murdered.”

“And Sarah Hewett’s not exactly a grievin’ young widow, either,” Mrs. Goodge added. “Accordin’ to my sources, there was no love lost between her husband and herself.”

“And she hated Dapeers,” Betsy interjected. “From what I learned today, she had as much reason to kill him as anyone else.”

Mrs. Jeffries threw up her hands. “Listen, this isn’t doing us a bit of good. Why don’t we all calm down, tell one another what we’ve found out today and then try to sort things out calmly and rationally. Mrs. Goodge, you go first.”

The cook looked as though she’d love nothing more than to continue lecturing the housekeeper on the folly of taking silly risks, but as she actually had something to report, she
resisted the urge. “All right, then. First of all, like I was sayin’, I found out that Sarah Hewett wasn’t in love with her late husband.”

“That don’t make her a killer,” Betsy said. “From what I can tell, half the women in London don’t much care for their husbands.”

“True,” Mrs. Goodge replied. “But after her husband died, Sarah was stuck living in the Dapeers household. Seems she and Moira get along all right, but she hated Haydon Dapeers. Rumor has it that he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, if you know what I mean. With him dead, Sarah can breathe just a bit easier. And there was somethin’ peculiar about the way she up and married Charles Hewett—poor fellow had been in love with her for a long while and she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Then all of a sudden she throws herself at him and they elope.”

“Why’d she live there if she ’ated Dapeers so much?” Wiggins asked curiously.

“She probably didn’t have any choice, her husband probably left her destitute,” Betsy guessed.

“No.” Mrs. Goodge shook her head. “He left her an annuity, at least that’s what my sources told me, but for some reason, she decided to stay at the Dapeers house.”

“That still isn’t a motive for murder,” Betsy complained. She was rather cross that the cook had found out one of the very things she was going to report.

“Did you learn anything else?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

Mrs. Goodge shook her head. “Not really, except that Haydon Dapeers wasn’t a very nice man. Quite a number of people disliked him.”

“Includin’ his own wife,” Betsy interjected.

“Do go on, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries encouraged.

“Well, I met Hamilton at the pub this afternoon,” she began.

Smythe’s brows drew together in a quick frown. “You went to a pub with a stranger?”

“Hamilton isn’t a stranger. I met him yesterday.”

“Where?” Smythe persisted. Bloomin’ Ada, did every female in this household take it into their heads to do something daft and dangerous today?

“He’s the lad that works in the grocer’s around the corner from the Dapeers house,” she explained. “His sister used to work for Haydon and Moira Dapeers. That’s why I wanted to talk to him.”

Smythe still wasn’t happy. “Was ’is sister there today?”

“No,” Betsy said irritably. “She wasn’t. But Hamilton knew plenty about the Dapeers household and he told me everything.”

Mrs. Jeffries could see that Smythe didn’t like hearing that Betsy had spent part of her day at a pub with a young man. The maid and the coachman were tentatively finding their way into a courtship. “How very clever of you, Betsy,” she said quickly.

Betsy smiled broadly and went on to tell them everything else she’d found out. When she was finished, Mrs. Jeffries nodded approvingly and then turned to Smythe. “Did you learn much today?”

Smythe shrugged. “A bit. Seems that Haydon Dapeers was rannin’ a gamblin’ game on the side. Actin’ as bookmaker to a few select customers. The one that I’m most interested in is a solictor named James McNally.” He supplied them with the details he’d picked up from Blimpey Groggins. “I thought I’d see what I could find out about McNally this evening, seems to me ’e’s got to be considered a suspect. ’E was there.”

“I think that’s a splendid idea,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed.

“And I thought I’d see what else I could learn about
Moira Dapeers and Reverend Ballantine,” Betsy put in, not wanting to be outdone by the coachman.

“Excellent, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. She turned her attention to Wiggins. “And how did you fare today?”

Wiggins squirmed uncomfortably. He wasn’t at all certain how to tell them the only person he’d talked with was a…he couldn’t bring himself to even think of the word commonly used to describe Bronwen’s occupation. He’d liked her. She was a nice person, despite what she had to do for a living. “Oh, I did all right.”

He decided to just tell them his information without mentioning who he’d acquired it from. “I found out that Tom and Joanne Dapeers really ’ated Haydon. They thought ’e’d opened the Gilded Lily deliberately on the same street that they was on just to run ’em out of business. Haydon Dapeers ’ad tried to do that before, you know. When they opened one of their other pubs, Haydon had up and opened the Pale Swan just up the road from ’em.”

“Do you know that for a fact or is your source just guessing?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“She seemed to know what she was on about,” Wiggins replied. “And what’s more, one of the barmaids from the Black Horse, she got sacked for sassin’ Mrs. Joanne Dapeers, she was seen ’angin’ about the Gilded Lily the day before the murder or maybe it was the mornin’ of the murder, Bronwen weren’t sure. But she’s disappeared.”

They all stared at him. He wasn’t making a lot of sense. Finally, Mrs. Jeffries said, “I’m afraid I’m not following you. Does this person have anything to do with Dapeers’s murder?”

“Who were you talkin’ to today?” Smythe asked.

“What’s a sacked barmaid from the Black Horse got to do with the murder at the Gilded Lily?” Betsy exclaimed.

“Wiggins, has this heat addled your brain?” Mrs. Goodge charged.

“Wiggins,” Mrs. Jeffries said gently. “Why don’t you start over. Start at the beginning and tell us everything.”

“It’s been a rather tiring day,” the inspector said to Mrs. Jeffries as he followed her into the drawing room. “A nice glass of sherry will be just the very thing I need.”

“I’ll pour you one, sir,” she replied, “sit yourself down and get comfortable. You can tell me all about your grueling day.” Mrs. Jeffries sincerely hoped the inspector had got over being so tight-lipped about this case. Everyone in the household had learned something today. It was imperative that she get the inspector investigating a few of the clues the staff had turned up. Not that she could actually come right out and
tell
him, of course. But if she could get him talking, she had her ways of getting the information across.

“Oh, I don’t think I want to talk about the case,” Witherspoon said, waving his hand in the air dismissively. “As you’ve often told me, Mrs. Jeffries, sometimes it’s best just to let all the information one learns stew about in one’s mind until it’s done.”

Mrs. Jeffries almost dropped the decanter of sherry. Goodness, what was she going to do now? Who would have thought the inspector would have taken her casual words of encouragement when he was doubting his abilities as a policeman so very seriously. She could hardly insist he talk about the murder. But if he didn’t, how was she going to get him thinking about Moira Dapeers and the Reverend Ballantine, or Ellen Hoxton, the barmaid sacked from the Black Horse, or James McNally? In the future, she vowed as she used her apron to wipe up the drops of sherry she’d spilled on the sideboard, she’d be more careful in what she said to the man. Apparently he took her words far more seriously than expected. But she refused to give up. As Luty Belle sometimes said, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

“I think that’s a marvelous idea, sir,” she said cheerfully. “When you’re home, you ought to be relaxing, not thinking about an insoluble murder.”

“Insoluble?” he echoed, his eyebrows raising above his spectacles.

“Oh dear.” She handed him a glass of sherry. “Pardon me, sir. I didn’t mean to use that word.”

“Gracious, I should hope not,” he replied. “Why you’ve told me yourself, no case is insoluble.”

“I didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded, sir,” she said quickly, feeling like a worm at the terrified expression that had flitted across Witherspoon’s face. “What I meant to say was that the case was difficult, not insoluable.”

“I should hope so, Mrs. Jeffries.” He sank back in his seat and reached for his sherry. “I like to believe that justice will always prevail. It may take me a while, but I do think that eventually I’ll catch the culprit.”

He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself, not her. “Of course you will, sir,” she replied.

“I’ll admit this case is, as you say, difficult. But gracious, you’ve told me dozens of times that no crime is impossible to solve.”

“I’ve absolute faith in your abilities, Inspector,” she said. “Eventually, you will catch this killer. I’ve no doubt of it.”

Witherspoon said nothing for a moment. He took a sip of sherry and regarded her steadily over the rim of his glass. “You know, I think perhaps I ought to talk about the case. Get the ideas flowing, that sort of thing.”

“If you’d like to, sir,” she said casually, as though the matter was of no consequence. “I do so enjoy hearing all the fascinating details of your methods. They’re so very, very brilliant.” She wondered if perhaps she wasn’t piling it on a bit thick.

“You’re far too kind, Mrs. Jeffries,” he said.

“Did you learn anything useful today, sir?” she asked quickly. She felt rather bad. From the expression on the poor man’s face, she knew she’d seriously undermined his self-confidence. Drat. But she’d had to do something.

“I’m not sure.” Witherspoon frowned. “Sometimes one isn’t, you know. Sometimes one doesn’t know whether what one has learned has any connection to the crime, or whether one is just chasing one’s tail. Take today, for instance. Constable Barnes and I went round and had a chat with the gentlemen from the Bestal’s Brewery. They were at the Gilded Lily the night of the murder.”