Mrs. Jeffries and the One Who Got Away (27 page)

Witherspoon stopped and whirled around to face her. “Why are you doing this? You'll never get away with it. The police know that lad you sent to fetch me by name. When I don't return, they'll question him.”

“I don't care, Inspector. I don't care if they send two hundred policemen here to get me, because by then, you'll be dead. Now get moving or I'll do it right here on the path.”

Chills shot up Luty's spine and she straightened to her full height. The woman, whoever the devil she was, was crazier than a coot. She glanced over to where Jon had disappeared and tried to estimate how far from the gate they were and how long it might take him to bring back help. But even before she finished calculating time and distance, she knew it was futile. He'd not get back in time.

“Take a look at the name over the door,” the woman ordered.

Luty turned back toward them. They stood in a frozen tableau outside the iron gates of the crypt. Witherspoon's spectacles slid back up his nose as he read the inscription carved into the stone.

“Christopher.” He shook his head in disbelief. “What is this?”

“And you call yourself a detective.” She laughed again, reached around him, and shoved open the iron gate. “It's my family's burial crypt, the place where my brother would be resting peacefully if you'd done your job right. Now get inside.”

Luty knew she had to act; she picked up her muff and shoved her right hand inside it. She stepped out from behind the bush and waited, wanting to time it just right.

“Your brother? You mean Carl Christopher was your brother?” Witherspoon exclaimed.

“Lord, it took you long enough.” She sneered. “Yes, he was my brother and I've waited years to avenge his death.” She poked him again with the gun. “Now get inside. I don't want the police showing up before we're finished here. That could get very awkward.”

“You killed Edith Durant,” he cried. “But how can that be? You'd been working for her. Didn't she know who you were?”

“We never met.” She put the gun to the back of his head. “I lived in Italy when my brother married into that wretched family, and we both know that family ties weren't all that important to Edith. The selfish cow couldn't stand her own family let alone Carl's. Now move.”

“Yoo hoo, Inspector Witherspoon, is that you?” Luty waved cheerfully. “Gracious me, I thought that was you. Who's your friend? I was drivin' past when I saw you come in here and I've been followin' you all over the danged place. It'll save me a trip to your house today.” She kept her smile firmly in place and the words flowing as she hurried as fast as she dared across the space separating her from the crypt.

Surprised, the woman's jaw dropped but she recovered fast. She swiveled and aimed the gun at Luty. “I don't know who you are, old lady, but you're going to have to join my little party.”

“Please, let her go. She's nothing to do with this,” Witherspoon pleaded.

The woman ignored him and waved her gun toward the crypt door. “Get over here, old woman.”

“Hold your danged horses. I'm moving as fast as I can.” She eased her fingers around the handle of the Colt in her muff.

“Get inside,” she ordered as Luty reached them.

“Oh dear God, Luty, I'm so sorry,” Witherspoon muttered. “This shouldn't be happening.”

Luty ignored him as she stepped onto the stone stairs leading down into the crypt. With her back now to the lunatic with the gun, she concentrated on moving her fingers into place so that when she had her chance, she could use her own gun.

Witherspoon and the woman came down the steps behind her.

“Get over to the other side,” she ordered Luty, jutting her chin toward the opposite side of the structure.

The woman must have been here earlier, because a lantern burned in the far corner, and with the daylight seeping in from the door, Luty could see to make her away across the floor. Three of the four walls consisted of vaults neatly stacked in rows of three, and most had names and dates engraved in their centers. But the crypt was neglected; cobwebs hung from the corners, dirt dusted the floor, and the smell of damp and mildew was so strong it was almost overpowering.

Luty wanted to buy some time. “Why you doin' this, lady?”

“Why don't you ask him?” She shoved the inspector toward the brightly lighted corner.

“She's Karlotta Christopher, Carl Christopher's sister,” he said. He looked at the woman whom he used to know as Carrie Durridge. “Please allow Mrs. Crookshank to leave. She's innocent in this matter and has nothing to do with your vendetta. You obviously don't care if you get caught and hung.”

“You mean the way my brother was hung,” she interrupted. “No, I don't care and what's more I don't care how many people I take with me.”

“Knowin' who the blazes you are don't tell me why you're doin' it.” Luty snorted. “Or are ya dumb as well as mean?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Karlotta Christopher waved her weapon toward Witherspoon. “He arrested my brother but let the witch who planned it all get away. What's more, he didn't have the brains to catch her once she'd given him the slip.”

“Then you must be right smart if you was able to find her after all this time.” Inside the muff, Luty forced her stiff fingers to relax.

“I am smart, or at least, I'm more clever than the police, because unlike them, I never stopped looking.”

“Neither did we,” Witherspoon protested.

“Oh please, she was right under your nose and you didn't see her,” Karlotta scoffed. “But luckily for me, I spotted her at King's Cross right before Christmas when she came back from Scotland. I followed her home, saw where she lived, and then set about laying my trap. It was dead easy.”

“Easy how?” Luty wiggled her fingers inside the thick fur and prayed her arthritis wouldn't kick in when she had her chance. “Uh, I mean, what did ya do?”

“I did lots of things.” Karlotta giggled. “Edith was greedy and cheap. All it took was for me to manipulate her into sacking one of her maids and then hiring me. After that, it was child's play.”

“So you worked for this woman?” Luty cast another quick look toward the doorway but saw no help coming from that quarter.

“For several months.” Karlotta laughed again, an ugly braying sound that echoed off the walls. “And despite her being able to outwit the police, she didn't have the brains to outwit me.”

“If you hated her so much, why'd you wait so long to kill her?” Luty hoped the inspector would figure out she was trying her best to buy them time.

“Why do you think? I wanted to make her suffer. I wanted to pay her back for all those years she kept me from my brother. She was jealous of me, you know, even though she didn't know me. She couldn't stand the thought of sharing Carl with anyone.” Her lips compressed in a flat, harsh line and the hand holding the gun began to tremble. “I wanted her to pay for that.” She suddenly grinned. “At first it was just petty vengeance, but it was fun. She thought she was so smart, but before I even moved into the lodging house, I managed to steal her mail three times, and once I was inside, it was even easier. She kept her bedroom door locked, but I saw where she hid her spare key.”

Desperate for more time, Luty blurted, “Where was that? Where'd she hide it?”

“In that ugly cactus on the table outside her door. She shoved it under the soil at the edge of the pot and thought she was safe because no one would want to risk getting pricked by the plant. But I was willing to risk it and found that the key opened more than just her bedroom door.” She chuckled. “It was literally the key to watching her go mad with worry. It caused all sorts of problems, but seems to me her lodgers should have been used to trouble—they're a bunch of thieves.” She broke off and turned to the inspector. “But you know that, don't you? That's why you sent us away this morning, so those other policemen could search the house.”

“That's true,” he agreed. “Please, let Mrs. . . .”

“Oh, give it a rest. I'm not letting anyone go,” she snapped.

“Why'd you decide to kill her when you did?” Luty asked. “Why then?”

“I had to. She'd sacked me the night before and I couldn't stay there anymore. Besides, I was afraid she was going to make another run for it. So I set her up to meet me here the next morning, waited for her, and killed her. It was very satisfying and very easy. All I had to do was slip a note under her door with her real name on it. ‘Dear Edith Durant, If you don't want the police to know where you are, you'd best meet me . . .' et cetera, et cetera, et cetera . . . and then, once I'd killed her, I went back to the house and pretended I'd been there all along, working upstairs in the box room.”

“That was a pretty big risk.” Luty began easing the gun out of the muff. “Weren't you scared she'd have told someone she let you go?”

Karlotta shook her head. “It was a risk I was willing to take. Besides, knowing her character as I did, I was fairly sure she'd not said anything to anyone. Edith didn't like explaining her actions. But time's getting on, which, of course, brings me to the end of my sad little tale.” She turned slightly and moved toward the inspector, with the gun pointing toward this heart. “Sorry, Inspector, but you're as guilty as she was.”

He squeezed his eyes shut just as a shot rang out. It took several seconds before he realized he wasn't hit, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Karlotta Christopher drop her weapon as she flopped onto her knees and then crumpled onto the floor. Luty stood like a stone statue, holding a Colt .45.

“Get the gun, Inspector,” Luty ordered. “She ain't hit, but her hair's not going to be the same for a good while, and as irritatin' as this woman is, I'd rather let the law deal with her than have to kill her.” On the floor, Karlotta had just realized she wasn't shot. She sat up and scrambled across the stone floor for the weapon. But Witherspoon beat her to it.

*   *   *

“You should have seen her, Mrs. Jeffries, she was ravin' like a banshee and it took three constables to drag her to the police wagon,” Smythe reported as he helped himself to a slice of seedcake.

“She was in a terrible state,” Hatchet added. “And luckily, both Madam and the inspector appeared to be unharmed.”

Following Mrs. Jeffries' instructions from their morning meeting, Smythe and Hatchet had gone to the lodging house just in time to see Barnes, Inspector Rogers, and three other constables racing off. They'd followed them and arrived just as two police constables escorted Luty Belle, the inspector, and a bedraggled woman they now knew was Karlotta Christopher from the Christopher crypt. Keeping out of sight, they again followed them, this time to Y Division headquarters. They'd hung about until Barnes, guessing they might be close by, had slipped outside and told them what had happened.

They raced back to Upper Edmonton Gardens with the news only to discover that Mrs. Jeffries had already deduced the identity of the killer.

“Humph, Madam's going to be ridiculously difficult to live with now,” Hatchet complained. “She's at the police station right now being preened over as if she were the Queen. I'll never hear the end of this.” Once he'd learned what had happened, he'd sent up half a dozen silent prayers of thanks that Luty hadn't been hurt. “And it could have ended very badly. Both of them might have gotten killed.”

“We should all just be thankful she got there in time to save the inspector,” Ruth said firmly. “I, for one, am forever in her debt. I would be so upset if anything happened to my dear Gerald.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me, I promise.” They all turned to see dear Gerald and a grinning Luty standing in the archway. Jon, who'd insisted on staying with Luty, stood on her other side.

“I am not goin' to be impossible to live with,” Luty announced as the group advanced into the kitchen. “Like I was tellin' the inspector here, I just happened to see him goin' into the cemetery, and then Jon and I took after him to invite him and Lady Cannonberry to supper tomorrow night.”

“But I got us lost,” Jon said, taking up the narrative, “and when we finally found them again, we saw that woman holding a gun on Inspector Witherspoon.”

Hatchet pulled out Luty's chair as she came around the table while Witherspoon motioned for Mrs. Jeffries to stay seated. He slipped into the empty spot next to Ruth.

“But luckily, Jon's as fast as the wind,” Luty continued. “And I had my peacemaker with me. Mind you”—she gave Witherspoon an admiring glance—“it was right smart of the inspector to keep that crazy woman talking so long. It gave Jon time to get us help.”

“You're too modest, Luty.” Witherspoon smiled gratefully at the elderly woman. “If you'd not been there with your weapon, I'd be dead. She meant to kill me. And, by the way, you were the one who had the good sense to keep her talking.”

“Nonsense, we both did our part.”

“What'd ya say to her?” Wiggins asked.

“I jist asked a couple of questions, and she started braggin' about how smart she was and how she made Edith Durant's life miserable.”

“You were very clever, Luty,” Witherspoon declared. “And thanks to you, by the time Barnes and Inspector Rogers arrived, Karlotta Christopher was disarmed and we had everything under control,” he added. He glanced at Smythe and then at Hatchet. “How did you two know something untoward had happened?”

“I sent 'em a message,” Jon said. He stood behind Luty's chair. “When you was takin' Mrs. Crookshank's statement, I slipped out and sent a street lad with a note to Mr. Hatchet. I knew he'd be here, we were to meet Mrs. Crookshank here so she could invite you to supper tomorrow night.”

This was a blatant lie, of course, but none of them minded. What's more, it seemed to do the trick.