The Ghost and Mrs. Jeffries (2 page)

It was a miserable way to start the new year, Inspector Gerald Witherspoon thought as he trudged up the staircase of the opulent residence. Only the fifth of January and already there was a murder. Witherspoon sighed. He’d so hoped that 1887 would be a good year, one that didn’t have people murdering one another every time one turned around.

He paused at the top of the landing and took a long, deep breath before turning to Constable Barnes. “Now tell me again, Constable, who found the body?”

Actually he had no need to ask Barnes to repeat any information, he was merely trying to delay the moment
when he had to examine the body. Nasty things, corpses. Witherspoon didn’t much care for them.

“Her husband, sir,” Barnes replied. “He found her early this morning when she didn’t appear for breakfast. Looks like the poor woman walked in on a thief and he shot her. Twice. Once in the head and once in the chest.”

The inspector swallowed heavily. Oh dear, this was going to be a bad one. Gunshot wounds were so terribly messy. Then he realized exactly what Barnes had said. “You mean the victim was murdered in the course of a burglary?” he exclaimed. The constable hadn’t mentioned that fact before.

“So the lad that sent in the report seems to think.”

“But if it was a burglary,” Witherspoon argued, “then what are we doing here? Why wasn’t this case given to Inspector Nivens? Gracious, he’s the Yard’s expert on robbery. Furthermore, Nivens has been complaining for months that I’m getting all the homicides, practically accused me of ‘hogging’ them. Seems to me it’s only fair he should get a crack at one.”

Barnes cleared his throat. “Now, sir,” he said cautiously, “the gossip I got at the station was that the orders for you gettin’ this one came down from Munro himself. Seems the victim is a bit of an important person. They want the case solved quickly. Besides, Nivens has got the measles.”

“Oh dear,” the inspector muttered. One didn’t ignore or even dare to argue with orders that came from James Munro, the head of the Criminal Investigation Division himself. But drat, it wasn’t fair. Why should he be the one who was always having to look at dead bodies? “I expect we’d better get on with it then.”

Witherspoon and Barnes marched down the wide hallway, their footsteps muffled thumps against the thick carpet. The young police constable who’d been assigned to stand guard outside the door of the victim’s room was sitting slumped in a chair, his eyes closed in a light sleep.

“Sleeping on duty, are you, lad?” Barnes called, startling the young man.

“Sorry, sir,” the young constable replied, leaping up so fast he tripped over his feet. “But I wasn’t really asleep.”

“Could have fooled me,” Barnes said sternly.

“I was merely resting, sir,” he explained as his pale cheeks turned a bright pink. “I was on duty all night, sir. We’re a bit shorthanded at the moment.”

“The police are always shorthanded,” Barnes replied. “That’s no excuse for falling asleep at your post.”

“Now don’t be too hard on the lad,” Witherspoon interrupted. “We’ve all had to catch a catnap a time or two when we’re on duty and I expect the constable won’t do it again.”

“No, sir,” the young man replied gratefully. He quickly opened the door and stepped aside. “Absolutely not, sir.”

Barnes let the inspector enter first. Witherspoon gathered his resolve and determined not to make a fool of himself. However distasteful it might be, he knew his duty.

Once inside, the inspector stepped away from the door so the constable could step around him. He stood where he was and slowly surveyed the victim’s room.

The bedroom was large, with a high ceiling, and curved in a bow shape at one end. The walls were covered with a dark-green-and-gold-flowered wallpaper, heavy gold velvet curtains covered the windows and a brilliant emerald-green-and-gold-patterned carpet was on the floor. A bed with a carved mahogany headboard and a gold satin spread was in the center of the room. Opposite the bed was a matching dressing table and tallboy. The drawers had been pulled out. He glanced at the bed again and saw that a jewelry case was lying upside down, propped against the footboard.

On the side of the bed where he stood was a round table covered with a gold-fringed shawl. The top was cluttered with a lamp, porcelain figurines and a silver bowl. The room also contained an ornate dressing screen done in the Chinese style, a gold velvet settee and a footstool.

“Uh, sir,” Barnes said. “The body’s over there.”

“I know, Constable, I know. But it’s important to take in the details of a place before one begins investigating.” Witherspoon thought that sounded quite good. He really didn’t like the idea that others might catch on to his sqeamishness about corpses. That would be most embarrassing.

But he could delay no longer and he knew it. Steeling himself, he walked to the opposite side of the bed and reluctantly knelt beside the dead woman.

She’d been a tall, heavyset middle-aged woman with gray-streaked dark brown hair, thick eyebrows, a jutting nose and a thin flat mouth. She lay on her back, with her hands behind her neck, her arms at sharp angles on each side. She was dressed in a pale lavender evening dress with long, tight sleeves and a high lace neck. He deliberately didn’t look at the gaping hole in her chest. He flicked his gaze to her arms and saw that the cuffs of her dress were hanging open, revealing the pale white flesh of the inside of her arms. Witherspoon felt a wave of pity wash over him. Poor woman. Murder was dreadfully undignified.

“Did you notice her feet, sir?” Barnes asked.

“Er, yes,” the inspector replied hastily. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. But he’d deliberately looked away from the dead woman’s limbs when he’d seen that her ankles were exposed. Still, Witherspoon knew that his duty required him to examine the victim with all due care. Why, even the smallest detail could help him solve this terrible crime.

“Looks like she were killed instantly, don’t it, sir?” Barnes continued chattily.

Witherspoon hadn’t the foggiest idea how the constable had come to that conclusion, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He stared quizzically at the victim’s feet. Her long voluminous skirts had ridden up, probably as she fell, and the inspector could see her feet, still clad in evening shoes, were crossed at the ankles. Suddenly it came to him. “Why yes, Constable. That’s my conclusion exactly. From the
angle of her arms, we can conclude she was probably trying to unbutton her dress.” He forced himself not to stammer over those words. “And if the killer came in and she whirled about quickly, then from the way her feet are crossed we can conclude that death must have been almost instantaneous.” He sincerely hoped he hadn’t just made a fool out of himself and knew a tremendous relief when Barnes nodded.

“I’m not surprised she died quick, sir,” the constable continued. “It were probably a double-fast shot. One to the head and one to the heart.”

Witherspoon nodded weakly and forced his gaze to the victim’s wounds. There was a small dark hole in the center of the forehead. But the worst was the woman’s chest—it was covered in a round swell of dried blood with a crimson blackened pit at the center. It was only duty that made the inspector bend closer and examine each of them in turn. He held his breath and tried not to get dizzy.

“We had a bit of luck with this one, sir,” Barnes said cheerily. “The husband saw right off what had happened. He had the good sense not to touch anything.”

“Not even his wife’s body?” Witherspoon was rather surprised by that.

“Not even her, sir. He said he could see she was dead as soon as he saw her lying there. And when he saw the jewelry case on the bed and them drawers pulled out, he figured it was probably a robbery. He thought it best just to close the door and send for the police. No one’s been in the room since he found her.”

“That is a bit of luck,” Witherspoon agreed. “Usually the relatives muck the body about so much that what little evidence there is in cases like this gets horribly muddled.”

“What do you make of it, sir?” Barnes asked.

“Too early to tell, Constable, too early to tell. When is the divisional surgeon arriving?”

“Dr. Potter should be here any moment now.”

“Potter?” Witherspoon moaned. “Oh dear, hasn’t he retired yet? I’m sure I heard someone say he was going off to Bournemouth to grow roses.”

The constable sighed. “Not yet, sir.”

Neither man held the divisional surgeon in high esteem.

“I suppose I’d better go talk with the husband,” the inspector said. He’d learned what he could from staring at this poor woman. There was no point in prolonging this distasteful task. For the life of him, Witherspoon couldn’t understand what one was supposed to learn from studying a corpse. It wasn’t like they were ever going to speak up and tell you who’d done the foul deed. “What’s his name?”

“Hodges, sir. Leonard Hodges. The victim is Abigail Hodges.”

Drat, Witherspoon thought, I should have asked the identity of the victim before I examined the body. He wasn’t sure why he should have done that, but he felt like he’d missed the boat. “How many others are there in the household?”

“The victim’s niece, Felicity Marsden, lives here and then of course there’s the servants, sir. A housekeeper by the name of Thomasina Trotter, a cook, several maids and a footman. Considering the size of the house and the kind of neighborhood hereabouts, it’s a fairly small staff.”

“No butler?”

“No, sir.”

Leonard Hodges waited for them in the drawing room. He was a tall, distinguished gentleman with deep-set hazel eyes, dark brown hair worn straight back from a high forehead, an aquiline nose and prominent cheekbones. He would have been a handsome man save for the expression of utter despair and grief on his face. Dressed in an elegantly tailored black morning coat with gray trousers and a matching waistcoat, Leonard Hodges paced nervously in front of the wide marble fireplace. He also, the inspector noted, appeared to be a good deal younger than the late
Mrs. Hodges. But naturally one couldn’t comment about such a thing.

“Mr. Leonard Hodges,” the inspector began politely as he and Barnes advanced into the room.

“Yes.” Hodges started violently. Seeing the constable’s uniform, he smiled weakly. “I take it you’re the police?”

“I’m Inspector Witherspoon and this is Constable Barnes.” They nodded courteously at one another. “I’m sorry, sir, we didn’t mean to startle you when we came in just now. Let me say I’m dreadfully sorry for your loss,” the inspector said sincerely. “It must have been a terrible shock. I understand you’re the one who found your wife?”

Hodges closed his eyes for a moment before answering. “That’s correct.”

“Could you tell us the circumstances, please,” Witherspoon asked. His heart swelled with sympathy for the poor man.

“The circumstances,” Hodges repeated blankly. “Oh yes. Of course, you’ll need to know the details. Forgive me, please, I’m not thinking too clearly.”

“That’s understandable, Mr. Hodges,” Witherspoon replied kindly. “Please take your time and begin at the beginning. When did you find your wife’s body?”

“When she didn’t appear at breakfast this morning, I became concerned. I thought perhaps she’d taken ill during the night,” Hodges began softly. “I went upstairs to her room and saw her lying there. I knew right away she was dead.” He paused and took a deep breath. “So I sent Peter for the police.”

“And what time was that, sir?” the inspector asked.

“Just after seven-thirty this morning. We always breakfast at half past seven.” His voice broke.

The inspector gazed at him in dismay. “I’m dreadfully sorry to have to put you through this, Mr. Hodges,” he said gently, “but the more you can tell us now, the faster we can catch the villains that perpetrated this evil deed.”

“Of course.” Hodges got hold of himself. “I understand. Please, go on. Ask me anything you like.”

“May we sit down, sir?” Witherspoon inquired.

“Oh please,” Hodges said quickly, gesturing towards the wing chairs opposite the settee. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Forgive me. Would you care for a cup of tea, or coffee, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” the inspector said as he sat down. He waited until Barnes was settled in the wing chair and had taken out his notebook. Then he turned back to Mr. Hodges. “When was the last time you saw your wife alive?”

“Last night, about nine-fifteen.”

“Is that the time Mrs. Hodges usually retires for the evening?” the inspector asked.

“No, no. But she didn’t retire then,” Hodges explained. “We weren’t here when I last saw her. We’d been out for the evening. The last time I saw my wife alive was when I put her in a hansom cab outside Mrs. Popejoy’s home.” He dropped his face into his hands. “Oh, this is all my fault.”

Witherspoon straightened. Egads, was the man going to confess? He couldn’t believe his luck. “Your fault, sir?”

“Yes,” Hodges cried passionately, lifting his head and gazing at the inspector with tear-filled eyes. “If only I’d come home instead of going to my club to stay, this wouldn’t have happened. But I was so angry. I stupidly indulged in foolish pride and my poor wife paid the price for my stubbornness. If I’d been with her, I could have protected her. If I’d only come home, she might still be alive, she might have been saved.”