Mrs. Jeffries Weeds the Plot (17 page)

“This is goin’ to cost you a pretty penny,” Blimpey Groggins said bluntly. “It weren’t easy findin’ out about either man.”

“If it’d been easy, I wouldn’t ’ave ’ired you.” Smythe shrugged. He wasn’t concerned about the cost. Blimpey wasn’t cheating him; it probably had cost the man a pretty penny. “Why was it so ’ard findin’ out the goods on Porter? He was known to the police, ’e was a thief.”

“Actually, the fellow was a pickpocket.” Blimpey picked up his drink and took a sip. They were in the
public bar of the Admiral Nelson. “Quite a good one, by all accounts.”

“Then ’ow come ’e’s dead?” Smythe asked. “Sounds to me like ’e picked the wrong pocket and got ’is throat slit for his trouble.”

Blimpey frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Porter was a pro.”

“Any idea on who might ’ave killed ’im?” Smythe knew that Blimpey’s sources were likely to have far more information than they shared with the police.

“That’s the funny part: no one knows. Word is that Porter made it a point to get along well with his…uh…associates. Went out of his way to avoid makin’ enemies.”

“Maybe it was one of ’is marks that killed ’im,” Smythe mused.

“It’s possible, but not very likely.” Blimpey took another sip. “Most marks don’t even know they’ve been hit till they go to empty their pockets for bed. ’Course, there is one thing else—Porter had come into a bit of money. He was flashin’ a wad of notes about two days before he died and he told one of his mates that there was more to come.”

“Flashin’ notes? From liftin’ purses?” Smythe exclaimed. “Come on, pull the other one. No one’s that bleedin’ good.” The good citizens of London had been contending with pickpockets since the Romans. Most of them never carried large amounts of cash on their person.

Blimpey hesitated.

“Go on, tell me. You must ’ave some idea what Porter was up to, and it weren’t pickin’ pockets.”

“I don’t want to set you on the wrong track,” Blimpey said. “But it sounds to me like he was blackmailin’ someone.”

“You said Porter went out of his way to keep things
nice and tranquil. Blackmail generally makes you a few enemies.”

“That’s one of the reasons I wasn’t sure I ought to say anything. Blackmail would be out of character for Porter. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

“So what you’re tellin’ me is that it sounds like ’e was puttin’ the screws to someone, but from what you’ve ’eard, Porter didn’t generally have the guts to take on anyone who was likely to give ’im any grief.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Blimpey waved at the barman. “You want another?”

Smythe shook his head. “I’ve ’ad enough, thanks. If Porter was blackmailin’ someone, could you find out who?”

“My sources are workin’ on that as we speak,” Blimpey replied. “Mind you, that doesn’t mean we’ll find out anythin’ worthwhile.”

“Fair enough. Did you get anything on McIntosh?” Smythe took a quick sip from his beer.

Blimpey shrugged. “Not much. He worked as a caretaker at Helmsley’s Grammar School for a couple of years. Before that, no one seems to have heard of him. But one rumor I got is that he was a seaman of some kind.”

“Nobody ’as any idea why ’e was murdered?”

Perplexed, Blimpey shook his head. “Not yet. But I’m workin’ on it.”

“You don’t ’ave much, do you?” Smythe muttered. He didn’t really blame Blimpey. The man wasn’t a miracle worker, but Smythe did hate having to go to this evening’s meeting with so little information.

Blimpey’s expression soured. “I ain’t failed you yet, have I? Just give me a day or two and I’ll know more about Stan McIntosh than his own mother.”

“Don’t be so bleedin’ touchy,” Smythe shot back. “You’re the one that said this was goin’ to cost me a
pretty penny. You can’t blame me for wantin’ to get my money’s worth.”

“You’ll get your money’s worth,” he promised. “Just give us a day or two.”

“Fine, you’ve got it. Did you hear anything on that other matter?”

“Elliot Caraway?” Blimpey grinned. “Oh, I heard plenty about him. I was right, you know. He’s about ready to be tossed out of his chambers. He’s not had a brief in months and he’s dead broke.”

“What’s he livin’ on?”

“Credit, I expect.” Blimpey shrugged. “Word I ’eard is that some relative of his wife’s inherited a bundle and he’s schemin’ to get his hands on it.”

“Could he do that?” Smythe asked curiously.

“When there’s money involved, you can do all sorts of things. Mind you, with his skills in front of the bench, I don’t think there’s much chance he’d get a bloomin’ cent out of her. It’s been years since he won a case.” He shrugged philosophically. “But that probably won’t stop him from bringing the poor woman to court.”

“On what grounds? You can’t just go haulin’ people into court willy-nilly. You’ve got to ’ave a reason.”

“I don’t know. You want me to find out?”

Smythe thought about it for a few seconds. He had no doubt it was Annabeth Gentry whom the barrister wanted to drag into court. He didn’t think he needed Blimpey pursuing that line of inquiry. If a case was filed against Miss Gentry, they’d be the first to know. She’d tell them herself. “Nah, don’t bother. What else ’ave you got for me?”

“Not much,” Blimpey said. “I’ve still got my feelers out on that vicar and his wife. I’ll let you know when I hear something, and as for that Phillip Eddington fellow, the only thing I could get on him was that he seems to travel out of the country a lot.”

“Doing what?”

Blimpey grinned. “He goes off to Nova Scotia a time or two a year and does pretty much the same as you: he checks on his investments.”

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Inspector Witherspoon stuck his head in Chief Inspector Barrows’s office. “Oh sorry, sir. I didn’t realize you had someone with you.” He nodded politely to Nigel Nivens, who was sitting in a straight-backed chair opposite the chief’s desk.

“Come in, Witherspoon.” The chief waved him toward the empty chair next to Nivens. “Have a seat. This won’t take a moment.”

“Thank you, sir.” He gave Nivens a friendly smile.

Stone-faced, Nivens stared back at him out of his cold, gray eyes. He was a portly, pale-skinned man with dirty blond hair worn straight back, a weak chin, and a large nose.

The inspector’s smile faltered.

Chief Inspector Barrows cleared his throat. “Witherspoon, Inspector Nivens has brought it to my attention that you’re asking questions about the Porter murder. Is that true?”

It took a moment before the inspector realized what the chief was talking about. “Oh yes, but I’m not really asking questions about that murder; it’s more along the lines of trying to find out if it has anything to do with another case I’m working on—the McIntosh murder.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nivens snapped. “There’s no evidence that Stan McIntosh had anything to do with Tim Porter. Porter was a thief. That one is mine, so I’ll thank you to keep your paws off it.”

“If you don’t mind,” Barrows said sarcastically, “I’ll handle this matter.” He directed his words at Nivens. He didn’t like the man. But Nivens had made a career of being politically well connected and the chief couldn’t
completely ignore his complaints. But no matter how many friends in high places that Nivens had, Barrows wasn’t going to pull his best homicide detective off a case just because he might have stepped on Nivens’s patch. Chief Inspector Barrows had no idea how someone like Gerald Witherspoon actually solved murders; all he knew was the man got results. That was all that mattered. “You say you were only asking questions about Porter in connection with the McIntosh murder?”

“Yes, sir. Well, there was another matter that appeared to be connected. I was looking into that as well.”

Barrows raised an eyebrow. “What other matter?”

“It was in my daily report, sir.” Witherspoon pointed to a stack of papers on the side of the chief’s desk. “I put it there this afternoon.”

“Oh, uh, yes, well, I’ve not had time to read the dailies, so just tell me about it.”

Nivens snorted faintly.

“It’s one of our witnesses in the McIntosh case, sir. A neighbor to the victim. She was seen having words with the fellow on the day before he was killed. When I interviewed her, she claimed there’d been several attempts on her life.”

“What’s that got to do with Tim Porter?” Nivens asked harshly.

“The woman’s name is Annabeth Gentry. Her bloodhound was the one that dug up Porter’s body,” Witherspoon explained. “So, of course, I began to suspect that it’s all related somehow. Miss Gentry’s dog finds a body; that’s victim number one. Then there are attempts on her life, that’s number two, and then, lo and behold, someone murders the caretaker next door. I mean, I don’t think we’re discussing a series of unrelated coincidences here. There must be some connection.”

“Rubbish,” Nivens snapped. “I remember Annabeth Gentry. I interviewed her. She’s a silly spinster who fancies
her dog is smarter than most people. If someone was trying to kill her, why didn’t she contact me? I’m the officer in charge of the Porter case.”

Witherspoon had asked her that very question. She’d been quite blunt in her reply. She’d thought Inspector Nivens rude, bombastic, and worst of all, he’d not liked her dog. “I don’t think Miss Gentry quite realizes there might be a connection between finding that body and the attempts on her life,” he hedged. “As I was there to interview her about the McIntosh murder, she told me about the attempts on her own life.”

“How many attempts?” Barrows asked.

“Three.”

“All since she found the body?”

“Right.”

Barrows nodded. “There’s a connection. There has to be.”

Witherspoon hesitated. “Well, there is something else you ought to know. Miss Gentry inherited a substantial amount of money recently.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Nivens barked. “The attempts on her life are obviously tied to Tim Porter, so I should be taking over that investigation as well.”

“Not so fast.” Barrrows lifted his hand. “Witherspoon is right. If the woman received a large inheritance, she may have a whole passel of relatives trying to murder her. God knows that’s happened often enough in the past. There might not be a connection to the Porter case at all.”

“But, sir,” Nivens protested, “how likely is that?”

Barrows shrugged. Things were getting very complicated. He wasn’t even sure whether Witherspoon was defending his poking his nose into Nivens’s case because there was a connection between the cases or because there wasn’t. He didn’t care, either. But he did care about catching killers. “We don’t know. But I’m
not taking him off the case. As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to think that maybe he ought to be investigating the Porter murder as well.”

Nivens shot to his feet. “That’s my case. You can’t do that.”

“But I can,” Barrows said calmly. “You’ve had it for two weeks and you’re no closer to an arrest than the day that dog dug up the corpse.”

“Who would like to go first?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

Mrs. Goodge waved her hand. “Let me. My report is short. Truth is, I didn’t have much luck today at all. The only thing I heard was that there was some foreign man who went to the Helmsley’s Grammar School looking for his cousin. He was surprised it was empty and a school. Fellow kept insisting to the woman down at the post office that that was the address where he’d sent his letters.” She waved her hands dismissively. “It isn’t very useful, I know.”

“What kind of foreigner?” Wiggins asked.

“What difference does it make?” the cook retorted. “It doesn’t have anything to do with our case. According to Mrs. Pavel at the post office, it wasn’t the first time some foreigner come in with the wrong address for a relative. But if you must know, he was an American or maybe
a Canadian. They sound so much alike it’s hard to be sure.” She sighed loudly. “I know it’s not much.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Jeffries said stoutly. “As we’ve found out before, everything is useful. We never know what detail will be the one that provides the vital clue for solving the case. Perhaps one of us ought to have a word with Mrs. Pavel. Who knows what we’ll learn. I’m not sure what this means, but it could be significant.”

“Can I go next?” Wiggins waved his hand in the air. “I found out a lot today.”