Mrs. Jeffries Weeds the Plot (9 page)

She pretended to be surprised. “Strangled? Oh dear, you mean he was murdered? All Wiggins said was he’d seen a dead body. He seemed so upset, we didn’t press him for details; we just assumed that whoever it was had died of natural causes.”

“I’m afraid not. There was quite a wide ligature mark about the fellow’s throat.” He shuddered.

“How very sad, sir.” She clucked her tongue sympathetically. “I don’t suppose you’ve been able to identify him?”

“Oh yes, that was quite easy. His name was Stanley McIntosh. He was a caretaker of a grammar school. Which, by the way, has been closed since Easter.”

“So he was strangled, sir?”

“It certainly looked like it.”

“Do you have any idea who might have murdered the poor man?” She asked this as a matter of course.

He sighed. “Not as yet. We sent police constables to do a house-to-house in the local area, but so far, we’ve not turned up much.”

“Did this Mr. McIntosh live in the school itself?”

“He had a room off the kitchen. Actually, they’d converted the dry larder into a bedroom for the fellow. We searched the room but we came up with nothing.”

“Could robbery have been the motive, sir?” she asked innocently.

“I doubt it, the school is virtually nothing more than an empty shell and the victim had nothing of value in his room. Quite sad, really, nothing but a few old rags for clothes and some postcards he’d kept under his bed in a cigar box.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not much to show for a man’s life. But whatever modest means he had, however humble his position and circumstances, no one had the right to kill him. To take his life.”

“I agree, sir,” she said softly. From any other man, the sentiment expressed by him would have sounded false or silly, but Mrs. Jeffries knew he meant every single word. He would do everything in his power to bring the killer to justice. “I know you’ll catch the murderer, sir. You always do.”

“I certainly hope so, Mrs. Jeffries. But I must admit, I’m not overly optimistic about our chances. There seems no reason for this killing.”

“But there never seems to be a reason for murder, sir,” she protested. “Not in the beginning of a case. What’s got you so pessimistic about this one?”

He smiled wanly. “I don’t really know. There was just something so depressing about the whole situation. Here was this poor wretch of a man living in that awful little room. There weren’t any curtains, or pictures or books or carpeting or anything to brighten his miserable existence, just this silly cigar box with a few postcards that he’d probably drug out of dustbins.” He sighed and shook his head again. “Why would anyone want to kill someone who had so little? It seems so pointless and cruel, I simply don’t understand, Mrs. Jeffries.”

Mrs. Jeffries gazed at him sympathetically. He really was a sensitive person. She understood exactly what he meant. “Life is often cruel, Inspector,” she said softly.
“And it’s because of this random misery that what you do is so important. You’ll find the person who took this McIntosh’s life and you’ll put them in prison so they can’t ever hurt anyone again.”

“I’m flattered by your faith in me.” He sighed again, but this time he didn’t sound quite so depressed. “I only hope I can justify it.”

“You’ve never failed in the past, sir,” she reminded him, “and there’s no reason to think you’ll fail on this case. Now, sir, do tell me what you’ve learned so far. You know how I love hearing all the details.” She held her breath, hoping she’d managed to shift his mood.

He hesitated for a moment and then he swallowed the bait. “Well, we did learn a few things today. There weren’t any witnesses, of course, but one of the neighbors said they’d seen Mr. McIntosh crossing the school yard earlier today.”

“Earlier today?” she repeated. She wanted something a bit more specific.

“Around a quarter to eleven.” Witherspoon took another drink of sherry. “So far, that’s the last time anyone saw him alive.”

“Except for the killer,” she said. “It would have been nice if your witness had seen someone going into the school yard.”

“That would certainly make my task a great deal easier.” He drained his glass and got to his feet. “Perhaps we’ll come up with something soon. Not all of the lads doing the house-to-house had reported in by the time I left the station. So there’s still hope. Someone may have seen something.”

Mrs. Jeffries suddenly remembered that Smythe and Wiggins had been at the school. She hoped it wouldn’t be their bad luck that someone had seen one of them. But she managed to give the inspector an encouraging smile. “Let’s hope so, sir. Did you find any evidence of
what actually, uh, strangled the victim?” She might as well get as many details as possible.

Witherspoon started toward the dining room. “We think the killer must have used rope. The marks on the throat certainly weren’t caused by hands.”

“Why do you think it was rope, sir?” she asked as she followed him into the dining room.

Witherspoon pulled out his chair and sat down. “There was a length of it tossed into the corner. Of course, we won’t know the cause of death until the postmortem is completed. But Dr. Bosworth assured me that he’ll have the results by tomorrow.”

Mrs. Jeffries’s spirits lifted. “Dr. Bosworth. He’s doing the autopsy?”

“Oh yes; Dr. Potter’s gout has flared up again and the district doctor’s got a broken arm. I had Barnes send over to St. Thomas’s for Dr. Bosworth. I’m sure the chief inspector won’t object. It’s not good to delay the postmortem, you know. I mean”—he yanked his serviette off the table and onto his lap—“we think the man was strangled, but we don’t know for certain, if you get my meaning.”

“Yes, sir, I believe I do,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed. She deliberately kept her expression casual, but she was delighted that Dr. Bosworth would be doing the autopsy. He’d helped them on several of the inspector’s cases.

“I’m not very hungry,” the inspector said as he reached for his fork, “but I suppose I should eat something.”

“Absolutely, sir,” she assured him. “You must keep up your strength. You’ve much to do in the next few days.”

Smythe had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching him as he slipped around the corner of Orley Road. Yet when he looked over his shoulder, he saw
nothing. “I’m gettin’ fanciful,” he muttered to himself. Yet the feeling persisted as he continued up the road and around the bend to a pub he’d spotted. It was a plain, honest workingman’s pub called the White Hare. He pushed into the public bar and took a good, long look around before moving up to the bar. “I’ll have a pint of your best bitter,” he told the publican.

The room was crowded with workers, shop assistants, day laborers, and even a few bank clerks in their suits and ties.

“Here you are.” The barman slid his glass of beer across the counter.

“Ta.” Smythe slapped down his money, picked up his beer, and headed toward an empty chair in the corner. “This spot taken?” he asked a ruddy-faced man sitting at the table.

“It’s yours if you want it,” the fellow replied.

Smythe sat down and sipped his beer. He didn’t try to start a conversation, he simply sat there keeping his ears open.

“Blast and damn, that bitch’s got a sharp tongue,” the man at the table next to him said to his companion. “A bit late with the ready and she’s wantin’ to toss me out on me ear.”

“You know how women are,” his companion replied, “they want to know the rent’s been paid. Can’t blame her for that.”

Thinking this conversation wasn’t particularly interesting, Smythe turned his head slightly, the better to hear the conversation going on behind him.

“Ada told me she weren’t in the least surprised old McIntosh got done in, what with him bein’ such a secretive sort.” The voice was female and sharp.

Smythe turned his head and looked behind him. Two women were sitting at the table in the corner. One had frizzy blond hair stuck up in a knot on the top of her
head and the other had dark brown hair. It was the frizzy blonde that was doing the talking. “He might have looked as poor as a church mouse, but believe me, he could come up with the money when he—” She broke off as she saw Smythe staring at her.

He decided to plunge straight ahead. There was no point in being coy. “Sorry,” he said quickly, “I couldn’t ’elp overhearin’. Are you talkin’ about that poor bloke that got ’imself murdered yesterday?”

Frizzy blonde cocked her head to one side and appraised him shrewdly. “What’s it to you?”

Smythe suddenly realized the entire room had gone quiet. He wasn’t sure what to do next. He looked around the room and noticed that people weren’t just staring at him curiously, there was open hostility on most of their faces. “I was just wonderin’,” he finally said. “Bein’ curious, that’s all.”

“You’d do best to mind your own business,” the man at his own table said. “Being too curious about Stan McIntosh can get a man killed.”

Smythe wasn’t going to let this lot intimidate him. He stared hard at the man who’d spoken until the fellow looked away. The others turned back to their own business.

Blast, he thought, there goes my chance to get anything out of this lot. Asking any more questions here would be a waste of his time. These people had closed ranks. Something was going on. Something the police wouldn’t have a hope in Hades of getting out of any of them. If he wanted to find out what was happening here, there was only one thing left for him to do.

He’d have to make a trip to the East End docks.

He needed to see Blimpey Groggins.

“They’re the most awful gossips,” Ida Leahcock said to Mrs. Goodge. “They’d talk the hind legs off a dog, they would. Those tea cakes are very nice, Mrs. Goodge, begging your pardon. I don’t suppose you’d part with the recipe, would you?”

The cook hesitated, torn between hoarding her own precious recipes and wanting to keep Ida talking. “Of course you can have it,” she said with a bright smile. “Please, do help yourself to another.” She’d give Ida the recipe all right, minus an important ingredient or two. “Now, you were saying about the Adderly twins, the ones that was going on and on about that Reverend Cook.”

“Reverend Cooksey,” Ida corrected as she reached across the table and snatched up another tea cake. She was a thin, sparse woman with steel-gray hair done up
in a skinny bun, a pointy nose, and a pair of sharp brown eyes that could spot a pickpocket or a petty thief at twenty paces. On the back of her right hand she had a birthmark in the shape of a hedgehog. “Eliza Adderly was the one that told me all about him. Mind you, she only found out because she works for the Cookseys and she happened to overhear Mrs. Cooksey giving the reverend a right earful.” She paused long enough to stuff half the tea cake into her mouth.

Mrs. Goodge forced herself to keep smiling. She wasn’t going to let the woman’s piggish manners put her off. It wasn’t often in an investigation that information as good as this dropped right into her lap, so to speak. Well, it hadn’t exactly dropped into her lap; she’d sent a street Arab with a note over to invite Ida to tea after learning the Cookseys lived in Hammersmith.

Ida Leahcock owned Lanhams, a café just outside the Shepherd’s Bush station. Every working person in the area stopped in for tea. Ida knew them all. Back more years than she liked to remember, Mrs. Goodge and Ida had once been kitchen maids together. Mrs. Goodge had minded her work, kept herself decent, and climbed the ranks to end up a highly respected cook. Ida had been caught kissing a stable boy in the back garden and tossed out without a reference. But that hadn’t stopped her from being successful. She’d ended up owning half a dozen small, but lucrative cafés. Mrs. Goodge had run into the woman at the greengrocer’s one morning. They’d both been reaching for the same apple. She recognized the hedgehog birthmark on Ida’s hand right away. It hadn’t taken more than five minutes of chat before Mrs. Goodge realized that Ida Leahcock, the kitchen maid dismissed in scandal all those years ago, was now a successful businesswoman. More importantly, she was a walking gold mine of information. “An earful?” Mrs. Goodge prompted.

Ida snickered. “Apparently she doesn’t have much respect for his being a man of the cloth. I heard the two of them had a right old slinging match, they did. Eliza told me she almost run out of the house in fright as they was screaming at each other so loud. Mind you, Eliza’s a bit of twit. Scared of her own shadow, she is. You know what I mean. Remember that green girl that worked at Morgan’s with us? The one with the buckteeth and the runny nose. Eliza reminds me of her.”