Mrs. Jeffries Weeds the Plot (3 page)

“Them bricks had been pried loose,” Martha insisted. “We went ’round to the school and had a look ourselves later that day.”

“So it’s a school yard on the other side,” the cook said brightly. “That explains it, then; it was probably some silly schoolboy prank that went wrong.”

“The school closed down right after Easter. There was no one there but the caretaker and he’d been taking a nap. Looked like someone had spent the better part of that Sunday afternoon chiseling the mortar out of them bricks and then waitin’ till Miss Gentry was sittin’ down in her spot before they pushed ’em over. You can take a look, the tea table is right beside that wall. If Miss Gentry hadn’t reached for that spoon, she’d have been a goner.”

Mrs. Jeffries leaned forward. “I’m sure you’re right, my dear. Now, what about the scones being poisoned?”

“Not the scones, the cream.” Martha sighed. “Mind you, Miranda’d be dead, too, if that fat old cat from down the street hadn’t come into the garden and caught her attention before she ate the rest of Miss Gentry’s scone.”

“So it was the cream that was poisoned?” Mrs. Jeffries clarified. This was a most bizarre tale, but she’d learned in her life that merely because circumstances sounded odd didn’t make them any less true.

“Right. There were just a thin layer spread on Miss Gentry’s scone, she’s not all that fond of it. But we’d run out of butter, so she used the cream…we were havin’ guests that day and it were a good thing Miranda snatched that bite first and got sick, otherwise we’d have had a houseful of dead guests…” Her voice trailed off as she took in their expressions. Everyone looked thoroughly confused. “Look, I’m not explainin’ things very well…”

“That’s not true,” Wiggins protested. “You’re doin’ a right good job if you ask me.”

She flashed the footman a grateful smile. “That’s kind of you to say, but the truth is, Miss Gentry could tell it all much better than me. I was wonderin’ if I could bring her ’round this afternoon.”

“I think that’s a splendid idea,” Mrs. Jeffries said quickly. She darted a fast look around the table; the others were nodding their agreement and she suspected they were thinking the same thing she was. By the time Martha and her mistress came back today, they could verify a number of things. “We’d be pleased to meet Miss Gentry and hear her story.”

Martha smiled gratefully. “That’s ever so wonderful. This is such a load off of my mind, it is.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police after the dog was poisoned?” Mrs. Goodge asked curiously.

“The mistress and I thought about it,” Martha answered. “But we had no proof.”

“You had the poisoned cream,” Smythe pointed out softly.

“No, we didn’t,” Martha said. “When Miss Gentry and I went back out to the terrace after taking care of Miranda and getting rid of everyone, the cream pot was gone. That’s how we knew it was poison! As I’ve said, my mistress can explain everything much better than I can.”

“Actually,” Mrs. Jeffries said quickly, “I do believe it would be best if one of us came to see you. Would Miss Gentry be available tomorrow morning?”

Martha’s brow furrowed in confusion. Then she shrugged. “To get some help, she’ll be available anytime you want. Tomorrow will be fine. What time?”

“Ten o’clock.”

Martha stood up. She still looked a bit puzzled by the sudden change of plans, but apparently had decided to leave well enough alone.

“Before you go,” Mrs. Jeffries said, “there’s just one or two more questions we’d like to ask. It’ll only take a moment.”

“All right.” Martha sat down and the housekeeper finished her questions. A few minutes later, Betsy escorted the girl to the back door.

As soon as the two women were out of sight, Smythe was on his feet and looking inquiringly at the housekeeper. She nodded and he disappeared in the opposite direction, up the stairs leading to the front door.

“You havin’ Smythe follow her?” Wiggins asked in a loud whisper. He looked very disappointed. He’d have liked that job himself.

“I think that’s best, don’t you?” the housekeeper said
quietly. “It’ll give him the opportunity to see the layout of Miss Gentry’s home firsthand.”

“Why didn’t he just offer to take her back himself?” Wiggins asked curiously. He wasn’t quite as cynical as the others; he actually believed what people told him.

“Because we want to see for ourselves what’s what,” the cook said impatiently. “Following her will give Smythe a good chance to take the lay of the land, have a nice look around, and see just how far that wall actually is from the tea table.”

“And sendin’ her off like that’ll give us a chance to find out if that dog really did find a dead body,” Wiggins finished. He leapt to his feet, scooting the chair back loudly against the floor as he did so. “I can nip down to the station and have a word with Constable Griffiths. He’ll know if some dog dug up a body.”

“Mind how you talk to him,” Betsy warned as she came back to the kitchen. Constable Griffiths had worked on a number of the inspector’s cases. This wouldn’t be the first time they’d used him for information. “He’s no fool.”

“Should we send someone to fetch Luty and Hatchet?” Mrs. Goodge asked.

Mrs. Jeffries considered the question. Luty Belle Crookshank and her butler, Hatchet, would be very annoyed to be kept out of an investigation. They were good friends of the household of Upper Edmonton Gardens and always helped with the inspector’s cases. “I’m not sure we ought to involve them until we know for certain we’ve got something to investigate.”

“Are you sure, Mrs. Jeffries?” Betsy pressed. “They’ll both get their noses out of joint if they find out we’ve started snooping without them.”

Mrs. Jeffries considered the maid’s warning. “You’re right, of course.” She sighed. “They will be annoyed. But what if this is only a tempest in a teapot? What if
this Miss Gentry is one of those very unfortunate and rather pathetic people who make up stories to get a little attention?”

“If that were true, would her maid have come all this way to ask for our help?” Betsy asked. “She seems to like her mistress, but I don’t think she’d go to all this trouble unless she was certain Miss Gentry was really in danger.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Mrs. Goodge put in. “I’ve known some really silly women who had equally silly maids.”

Betsy shook her head. “Martha figured out what I was up to when she worked for Vincent, so she can’t be too silly.” The moment the words were out, she clamped her lips shut, wishing she’d kept her comment to herself or just agreed with the cook. She didn’t like reminding the others that she was the one who’d questioned Martha on that case. She was the one who’d been a lot less clever than she’d thought. They weren’t supposed to let anyone know they helped Inspector Witherspoon. No one. But this girl had sussed it out and it had been all Betsy’s fault.

“Don’t worry about it, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries said softly. “Sometimes it’s impossible to get information out of people without giving the game away, so to speak.”

Betsy’s shoulders sagged in relief. “You’re not annoyed about it?”

“Don’t be daft, girl,” the cook interjected. “Of course we’re not. We’ve all had to tell more than we wanted every once in a while.”

“Martha Dowling isn’t the first person to catch us out.” Mrs. Jeffries smiled kindly. “And I doubt she’ll be the last. Now stop fretting and let’s have a good think about whether or not there’s something else we can do before Wiggins and Smythe return.”

But there wasn’t anything to do except go about their
normal routine. Betsy went upstairs to finish polishing the furniture, Mrs. Goodge mixed up her suet, and Mrs. Jeffries went upstairs to check the linen cupboard. But all of them worked just a bit faster than usual and with their ears cocked toward the door. They wanted to be at the ready, as it were, when the males of the household returned.

The rest of the morning seemed to crawl by at a snail’s pace. Mrs. Jeffries replenished the supply of dewberry-wood chips and counted out the week’s linen supply. She laid the sheets, towels, and cleaning rags on the table outside the cupboard, then withdrew to her quarters to finish the household accounts.

She entered her rooms and kept the door open so that she could hear when someone arrived back with news. Sitting down at her desk, she drew the account book out of the top drawer, opened it, and diligently picked up the stack of receipts sitting underneath the brass angel paperweight. The greengrocer’s bill was on the top. She picked it up, studied the items on the list, and then dropped it onto the ledge. This was utterly pointless. She simply couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was already too occupied with that strange tale the girl had told them. She knew it was because investigating murder—or in this case, attempted murder—had become virtually second nature to all of them. The housekeeper smiled to herself. Even Smythe and Betsy, who’d just recently become engaged, had postponed getting married because they were afraid they’d have to give up their snooping. They hadn’t come right out and admitted that this was behind their reluctance to set a wedding date, but Mrs. Jeffries was fairly certain. Once Smythe and Betsy were married, they’d no doubt want their own house and their own life. A life certainly far grander than the one they lived now. Smythe, despite his efforts to keep his circumstances a secret, was a wealthy man. None of the
others in the household, save for herself and Betsy, knew about the coachman’s fortune.

She picked up the greengrocer’s bill and put it back under the paperweight. She reflected for a moment on the strange circumstances that had led them all to the household of Gerald Witherspoon. She’d been a policeman’s widow from York who’d decided to come to London because she was bored. She’d quite deliberately found a position as housekeeper to a policeman. The inspector had been happily working in the records room, but once she’d gotten him investigating and then solving those horrible Kensington High Street killings, well, everything had fallen into place rather neatly.

Smythe and Wiggins were already here when the inspector and she had arrived. They’d worked for Witherspoon’s late aunt Euphemia. The inspector, though he had very little use for either a footman or a coachman, kept them both on. He’d not only inherited this house from his aunt, he’d also inherited a substantial fortune. Mrs. Goodge had come along a few weeks later, and then one night, Betsy, half-starved and looking like death was dogging her very footsteps, ended up on the inspector’s door stoop. Gerald Witherspoon, being the man he was, insisted on taking the girl in, feeding her, and then giving her a position as maid.

That was the beginning. Now they were family. And they loved to snoop. Not that their dear inspector ever realized he was getting help from his own household on his cases. He didn’t. Occasionally, though, others did.

She was shaken from her reverie by the sound of the front door shutting downstairs. Someone was back. She leapt up and fairly flew down the front stairs.

“Oh, Inspector—” She caught herself and slowed down when she reached the landing on the first floor. Recovering her poise, she continued down the stairs at
her normal pace. “I didn’t think you’d be home so early. Is everything all right?”

“Quite all right, Mrs. Jeffries.” Witherspoon took off his hat and moved toward the new brass coatrack he’d recently bought. “Chief Inspector Barrows is having a dinner party tonight.”

“A dinner party, sir?” Mrs. Jeffries beat him to the coatrack by a couple of seconds. She extended her arm, took the inspector’s bowler, and placed it on the top.

Gerald Witherspoon was a middle-aged man with a mustache and thinning dark hair. His complexion was light and his features sharp and rather fine-boned. Behind a pair of wire-rim spectacles, he had kindly hazel eyes. He frowned in confusion at his housekeeper. “Apparently I’m invited to this dinner party. But I don’t recall receiving an invitation. Do you remember our receiving one?”

“No, sir, I don’t. Was the chief inspector absolutely certain he’d sent the invitation?”

“That was the awful part, Mrs. Jeffries, I couldn’t ask.” He started toward the back stairs. “You see, I wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation, when all of a sudden Inspector Nivens poked me in the ribs and asked what I was going to bring Mrs. Barrows for her birthday. It was most awkward. At that very moment the chief inspector turned and looked in our direction. He told me not to be late tonight, otherwise he’d be stuck talking to his wife’s brother. It was obvious that a celebration was planned and that I’d been invited.”

“Oh dear, that
is
awkward. Excuse me, sir.” She was practically running to keep up with him. “But if you’d like a cup of tea, I’ll be happy to bring it to the drawing room.” Drat, she didn’t want the inspector hanging about the kitchen when they were beginning an investigation. It would be just their bad luck to have Wiggins come
flying through the back door talking up a blue streak about the case.

Witherspoon reached the top of the back stairs and started down. “I shall require far more than a cup of tea,” he called over his shoulder. “I shall require the good graces of you dear ladies.”

“Good graces?” she repeated. She charged down the back stairs behind him. “Whatever does that mean, sir?”

“It means I shall need your help.” He reached the bottom step. “We’ve not much time.”

Mrs. Goodge and Betsy glanced up from the table as the inspector and Mrs. Jeffries entered. Both of them, to their credit, managed to quickly mask their surprise. “This is a nice treat, sir,” the cook said heartily. “Have you come home to have tea with us?” He sometimes did have tea with them, though usually that was on Sundays.

“I’ve come home to throw myself on your mercy,” he said, pulling out the chair at the head of the table. “I’m in a bit of a muddle. I’ve been invited to Chief Inspector Barrows’s dinner party tonight. It’s his wife’s birthday, so I must take a present, you see.”

The women all stared at him blankly. It was so quiet they could hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the street outside.

“You’ve plenty of time to buy a present, sir,” Betsy finally said. “It’s not even three o’clock yet. The shops are open for another three hours.”