Mrs. Jeffries Weeds the Plot (24 page)

“Absolutely not,” Louisa Cooksey replied. “Why would anyone wish to hurt her?”

“She imagines things,” the reverend added. “We worry about her health, don’t we, my dear?” He addressed the last part to his wife.

“Indeed we do,” Mrs. Cooksey affirmed. “She’s quite delicate, you know. She oughtn’t to be living on her own.”

“Do either of you know a man named Stan McIntosh?” Barnes asked. He didn’t like these two.

“No,” the reverend replied. “Is there any reason why we should?”

Barnes didn’t answer; he looked at Mrs. Cooksey. “Ma’am?”

“I saw him a time or two,” she admitted. “You are talking about the caretaker of that school, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am. You saw him? When?”

“Well, I guess it was the day that poor Miranda got so ill. I saw him going into the school just as we were passing by in a hansom. But that hardly counts, does it?”

“Was he carrying anything, ma’am?” Barnes persisted.

“Not that I remember,” she said.

The inspector looked at Reverend Cooksey. “Have you ever met a man named Tim Porter?”

“Isn’t that the fellow Miranda dug up?”

“Yes, did either you or your wife know him?” The inspector was fairly certain he knew how they’d answer, but one could never be sure until one asked.

Louisa Cooksey’s eyes narrowed angrily. “He was a pickpocket, Inspector, hardly the sort of person we’d be acquainted with.”

“We don’t know the man,” the reverend stated. “We never heard of him until all this fuss started. Look, Inspector, how much longer is this likely to take? I’ve an appointment this evening and I don’t wish to be late.”

Witherspoon glanced at Barnes. He snapped his notebook closed, a sure indication that he had no more questions to ask. The inspector couldn’t think of anything else to ask them. Once again, it was a bit of a dead end. “I believe we’re finished, sir. Oh, just one more thing. On the day you stopped by Miss Gentry’s to have tea, the day Miranda took ill, did you happen to notice if the back door was open?”

Both the reverend and his wife answered at the same time.

“It was open,” she said.

“Closed,” he stated firmly.

Mrs. Jeffries waited up for the inspector, but it was so late by the time he returned home that she got only the barest details out of him about his visit with the Cookseys. She wished him a good night at the top of the staircase and went to her rooms.

She didn’t bother to light the lamps. She wanted the darkness. She wanted to put her mind at ease and let the information they had gathered about his case flow about in her head until it made sense.

She sat down in her chair and closed her eyes. Then she forced her body to relax. Little by little, the bits and pieces began to coalesce and form themselves into the beginnings of a pattern. Porter was murdered first and then McIntosh. So she decided that she could safely assume that the same person killed them both. It was finding Porter’s body that had involved Annabeth Gentry, so now the killer or killers were trying to murder her, but they wanted her murder to look like an accident. Why?

She sighed and opened her eyes. The pattern she’d thought was forming shifted suddenly in her head and now nothing made sense. Annabeth Gentry’s death was supposed to look like an accident. That could only mean that whoever it was who was trying to kill her didn’t want the police to investigate her death. And they wouldn’t if the coroner ruled it was an accident.

Then why, she asked herself, hadn’t the killer cared about the police investigating Porter and McIntosh’s deaths? They might have been poor and had no family to raise a fuss—She stopped as the idea that had come to her earlier took root in her mind. The answer, she realized, was simple. The killer hadn’t cared because there was nothing that could connect him or her with Porter and McIntosh. Those poor wretches had lived solitary lives, with virtually no connection to anyone or anything. How had Betsy put it?
As if they’d popped up on the face of the earth
. The police would do their best, but after a few weeks, other cases would demand their attention and they’d certainly put these murders on the back burner. Neither man had anyone to look after his interests. No one really cared that they’d been killed.

But Annabeth Gentry was different. She had friends and relatives to demand that the police keep looking no matter how long it took. And the killer didn’t want the police looking too closely into her death, because there
was something in her life that connected her directly to the murderer. But what?

Mrs. Jeffries sighed and got up. She’d best get ready for bed. Maybe she’d think of something before she fell asleep.

Holding her shoes in one hand, Betsy tiptoed down the back stairs. If she was quick about this, she could get over to the school, have a look ’round, and be back in time for breakfast.

The floorboard on the bottom stepped creaked loudly. She stopped, cocked her head up the stairs, and listened for a moment. But she heard nothing. She continued on into the kitchen, put her shoes down on the chair, and then crept over to the pine sideboard. She’d seen Mrs. Jeffries put McIntosh’s keys in the top drawer. She pulled it open and frowned. No keys. She pushed aside a ball of twine, a tin of sealing wax, and two rusted door hinges.

“Looking for these?” Smythe asked softly.

Betsy jumped and whirled around. Her beloved stood there, holding up McIntosh’s key ring.

“What are you doing down here?” she snapped. “You scared me to death. Don’t go sneaking up on a body like that, it’s not healthy.”

“More’s the point, what are you doin’ down ’ere at this ’our of the mornin’? And don’t try tellin’ me any tales, lass, you’re fully dressed and wearin’ your cloak, so I know you’ve taken it into yer ’ead to go out and ’ave a snoop on your own.”

She debated arguing with him, but she didn’t want to waste the time. “All right, what if I
was
going out? So what? It’s morning. I can go out and do a bit of snooping on my own, I don’t need your permission.”

He glared at her. She raised her chin a notch and glared right back. Defeated because she wasn’t in the
least intimidated, he sighed. “I knew you were up to somethin’.”

Betsy wasn’t sure she liked that. “How?”

“Your face, lass. You were thinkin’ about what you was goin’ to do when we were ’avin’ our meetin’ yesterday. I could tell you were plottin’ and schemin’ about somethin’.”

“I wasn’t plotting anything,” she retorted. “I was thinking we oughtn’t to lose a perfectly good opportunity.”

“To search the school ourselves,” he said. “Yeah, the same thing crossed my mind.”

She brightened immediately, delighted at the way their minds had come to the same conclusion. “Well, let’s get moving, then. We’ve only got a couple of hours before the others get up.”

He wanted to stay angry at her, wanted to give her a good talking-to about worrying him and trying to go off on her own. But the truth was, she looked so sweet and eager standing there with that shiny expression on her pretty face that he didn’t have the heart to keep chewing on her. “All right, we’ll go. But I want you to promise me you’ll not do something this daft again.”

Betsy was already grabbing her hat off the hat stand and heading for the back door. “It wasn’t daft. You said so yourself.”

“I said I ’ad the same idea to search the place, I didn’t say it weren’t daft to try and sneak off on your own.” He was practically running to catch up with her. “And I want your promise, Betsy.”

She gave in because she didn’t want him nattering at her all the way to the school. “Oh, all right, I promise the next time I have an idea to go off, I’ll tell you first.” She threw the latch on the back door and stepped outside.

Smythe pulled the door shut behind him as he followed.
He wasn’t sure, but he had the distinct impression he’d won that round far too easily.

Though it was early morning, the sun hadn’t risen yet. They made their way to Holland Park Road and Smythe waved a hansom cab. He had the cab stop one street short of the grammar school. He’d learned to be cautious and there was no point in leaving a trail.

“We’ll walk from ’ere,” he told Betsy as he helped her down.

“Good idea,” she agreed. Five minutes later, they were slipping through the heavy gates of the school.

“Let’s go around to the back door,” he whispered. Betsy nodded and they slipped around the side of the building. Smythe noticed that Betsy deliberately kept her gaze off the sheds. She’d not admit it in a million years, but he knew she was glad he’d come. In the dim light, this place was right scary.

Stan McIntosh’s keys got them into the kitchen. The sun was just cresting the horizon, so there was enough light to get around without hurting themselves. The kitchen was huge. The floors were a gray slat, scratched and worn by years of shuffling feet. On the far wall were the sinks, greened with age and smelling of rotten vegetables. Above them, the wooden slats of the drying racks were broken and bent. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, cupboards with doors askew lined the other wall, and a huge cooker, blackened with grim and soot, stood just the other side of the back door.

“McIntosh’s rooms were supposedly off the kitchen,” Smythe murmured. He noticed that Betsy hadn’t left his side. As a matter of fact, if the lass got any closer, they’d be joined at the hip. “Come on, let’s have a gander over ’ere.” He started for the hallway opposite the cooker.

“But the police already searched his room,” Betsy insisted. “I think we ought to have a good hunt around the school.”

“All right, where would you hide something?” He swept his hands out in an arcing motion. “This place isn’t exactly small.”

“Well, we don’t know that he had anything to hide,” she replied. Drat, she hated it when he was right. The building was huge. It would take them hours to do a proper search.

“Then why the dickens are we ’ere?” He put his hands on his hips.

“Because he might have something here that’ll give us a clue to this case,” she shot back. “Oh, come on, you’re right, let’s start with his room. From what little we know of McIntosh, if he did have something to hide, he’d probably want to put it where he could keep an eye on it. His room’s in the dry larder. That’s what the inspector told Mrs. Jeffries.”

They went down the short hall past the wet larder. Betsy wrinkled her nose. The wet larder smelled of rotten meat and boiled cabbage. She wondered how anyone could have stood living here. But sure enough, Stan McIntosh had turned the dry larder into his room.

“It’s not much in the way of comfort,” Smythe murmured. A simple iron bedstead covered with an ugly, green wool blanket and a pathetically small pillow was shoved up against one wall. A huge steamer trunk was at the foot of the bed and there was a small table and a chair in the far corner. There were no windows in the room.

“How’d he stand it?” Betsy asked. “The smell from the larder is enough to choke a horse. Why’d he stay down here? There must be dozens of bedrooms upstairs; why would he take this one?”

“Who knows? Maybe he didn’t ’ave any choice.”

“I don’t believe that.” Betsy stepped farther into the room. “He was here all alone, how would anyone know where he slept or what room he took for his own?”

“Come on, let’s have a hunt.” Smythe moved over to the bed, picked up the mattress, and peeked underneath.

Betsy did nothing; she simply stood where she was, shaking her head in consternation. “Look at this place. It’s got dust everywhere—” She broke off as she realized the dust around the base of the trunk hadn’t been disturbed. But the dust everywhere else in the room had. “Smythe,” she said softly. “Let’s have a go at the trunk.”

Smythe cocked an eyebrow at her. “The police aren’t stupid, lass. They’ll have looked in there.”

“I don’t mean
in
the trunk, I mean under it.” She rushed over and began pushing at the heavy thing.

“’Ere, you’ll ’urt yourself; let me.” Smythe got on the other side and shoved it out of the way. He didn’t know what his beloved expected to find. But he’d humor her. “See, there’s nothing here. Just an empty floor.”

But Betsy had dropped to her knees and practically had her nose to the floorboards. She pressed on one, then another and another. As she put pressure on one side of one of the boards, the back of it lifted. “See, the nails have been taken out of these.” She gestured at the floor. “He’s got something hidden here.”