12- Mrs. Jeffries Reveals Her Art (26 page)

“We’ve already dispatched a telegram to Kent, sir,” Barnes pointed out. “Maybe the local police will find them when they search Underhill’s cottage.”

“Let’s hope so, Constable.” Witherspoon sighed. “For some reason, I’ve a feeling those missing paintings are important to this case. But I can’t quite determine precisely how.”

“You’ll suss it out in the end, sir,” Barnes said. “Should I go and get young Mr. Grant now?”

Witherspoon hesitated. Drat. “He’s upstairs in his father’s room, isn’t he?”

“Both he and Mrs. Grant are at Mr. Grant’s bedside.”

“Then we’ll wait until tomorrow morning to arrest him. I won’t run the risk. My conscience would torment me if in arresting Arthur we inadvertently harmed his father. We’ll leave a constable on duty here and come back tomorrow morning. Perhaps the elder Mr. Grant will be stronger then and more able to cope.”

“What if Arthur tries to scarper?”

“I don’t think Arthur will be going anywhere,” Witherspoon replied. “He’s far too nervous a disposition to try making a run for it.”

Barnes stared at his superior for a moment, his expression speculative. “You don’t think he’s guilty, do you, sir?”

The inspector smiled faintly. “You’re very perceptive, Constable. And also quite correct. I don’t think the fellow murdered anyone.”

Witherspoon couldn’t explain it, even to himself. But he had a feeling the young man wasn’t a killer. “I know the evidence looks bad, but I can’t quite see him doing the planning it would take to kill James Underhill with poisoned mints. Frankly, he seems far too much a bumbler.”

“It could be an act, sir,” Barnes suggested. “Perhaps he’s not quite the fool everyone thinks.”

“Well, his father seems to think him a fool,” the inspector pointed out. “And he ought to know.”

Every female in the room was staring at Alex Morante, as he asked to be addressed, like they’d never seen a man before. All right, Smythe thought, so he’s not a badlookin’ bloke. Even Mrs. Jeffries, who ought to have known better, was hanging on the fellow’s every word. Just because Morante was as handsome as the devil and had courage and bravery oozing from his pores, the women were all atwitter over him. Smythe hated him. He glanced at Hatchet and Wiggins. They looked like they hated him too.

“I kidnapped Irene to save her life,” Morante claimed.

“That’s right. He did,” Irene added. She gave him an adoring smile. “If it wasn’t for Alex, I’d be dead. James
Underhill had hired people to kill me. They were going to kidnap me that night.”

“But instead ’e kidnapped you?” Wiggins jerked his head toward the Spaniard.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” Mrs. Jeffries said. She looked at the artist. “How did you know that Underhill was going to harm Miss Simmons?”

“Irene had come by my studio about two weeks ago. She was posing for me,” he explained. “I’d sent her into the next room to put an apron on over her dress when Underhill stormed into my studio. He demanded I forge a painting for him—a Caravaggio, to be precise. He had a client who wanted a forgery to foist off on some banker as collateral for a loan. I told him I didn’t do that sort of thing…”

“Why would Underhill want you to do it, then?” Smythe asked. “I mean, did he pick yer name out of a hat or somethin’?”

“Smythe,” Betsy hissed. “Don’t be so rude.”

“No, it’s a fair question.” Alex held up his hand. “He asked me to do it because I’d done it before. I’d forged three Caldararos last year—but I thought they were to be known as copies only. I didn’t know he was going to foist them off as the real thing. When I found out what he’d done, I was furious.”

“How did you find out?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Underhill told me.” Alex smiled bitterly. “The man had no shame. He admitted what he’d done. After I’d painted the Caldararos, I started hearing rumors about him, about some of the scams he pulled on his clients and on the artists he dealt with.”

“So you started askin’ questions?” Wiggins guessed.

“That’s right.” Alex shrugged. “And I didn’t like the
answers I got. I’m not a saint, but I’m not a criminal.”

“All right, go on with yer tale now,” Luty commanded. “Underhill arrived at yer studio. Then what happened?”

“When I told him to leave, told him I wasn’t interested, he got angry. He told me I’d no choice, that I had to forge the Caravaggio or I’d be sorry.” Alex raised one eyebrow. “I don’t like being threatened. I told him to get out and said if he came back I’d go to the police. But he laughed at me and said that I couldn’t, that I was the one who had actually done the forging. If I told the police what he’d done, I’d be arrested. It would be my word against his. He was from an old, respectable family and I was a foreigner. Who would the police believe? Him or me?” His mouth curved in a cynical smile. “Underhill made his point and then he left. But I’d forgotten about Irene. She came back into the room and she was as pale as a ghost. I knew she’d overheard everything. She was scared and I don’t blame her. She told me she couldn’t pose, grabbed her shawl and ran out.”

“So how did Underhill know she was there?” Wiggins asked.

“I ran after her. Underhill was waving down a hansom and saw her leaving my studio. He guessed that she’d overheard everything,” Alex said. “I hoped everything would be all right, that Underhill wouldn’t do anything. But then a few days later, I heard a rumor that someone had hired some thugs to kill Irene.”

“It wasn’t a rumor,” Smythe said.

“But why?” Mrs. Goodge asked. “I mean, why murder just Irene?” She pointed at the Spaniard. “You knew what he was up to. You could ruin him just as easily. Why just kill the one of you?”

“But I couldn’t tell,” Morante explained. “Not without
ruining myself. Even if the police believed I’d been duped into doing those forgeries, my career as an artist would be ruined. No respectable gallery or broker would handle my work. Underhill knew his secret was safe with me, but he didn’t want Irene knowing it. So he was determined to silence her.”

“How’d you find out about the bogus note that Underhill sent to Irene luring her to the Grant house?” Luty asked.

“I knew I had to do something to protect her,” he said. “So I did the only thing I could. I went to Underhill’s lodgings. I told him I’d changed my mind about doing the forgery. I told him I was broke and needed the money.”

“And he believed you?” Hatchet asked.

“Oh, yes.” Morante smiled cynically. “I can be quite convincing. I demanded some cash immediately, a kind of down payment on the forgery. I knew that he kept his money in the bedroom and I wanted a chance to search his desk. When he went to get the cash, I had a quick look. The note he’d written to Irene, the one luring her to the Grant house, was on his desk.”

“Just sittin’ there right where you could see it?” Smythe’s tone was disbelieving.

“No,” Morante replied. “I had to hunt for it. It was under a telegram Underhill was sending to someone in Kent. But as soon as I saw the note, I knew what he was planning. Why else would he have someone else’s stationery in his desk? I made a note of the time of the appointment and the address, waited till Underhill came back into the room, took his money and left.” His dark eyes sparkled with amusement. “I used Underhill’s own money to rent the house in the country.”

“The place he took me to be safe,” Irene said, giving him a warm smile.

“Then what happened?” Luty asked.

“I knew that Irene would be going to Beltrane Gardens at six o’clock on the eighth.” He nodded at his friend, who’d sat quietly through the entire narrative. “With George’s help, we managed to foil the murder.”

“George lent us the carriage.” Irene flashed a grateful smile at George, who blushed a fiery red.

“That’s right,” Morante agreed. “George lent me his brougham…”

“It’s an old one,” George put in. “It used to belong to my father. But he’s dead so he doesn’t drive it anymore.”

“Then what happened?” Hatchet asked.

“Then we waited outside the Grant house. I spotted a couple of thugs at the mouth of the mews so I knew we’d better grab her before she went inside.” He smiled apologetically at Irene. “When she started up the walk, I called her. She turned, recognized me and came towards the carriage. Before she knew what happened, I pulled her inside and George took off.”

“Why didn’t you scream?” Mrs. Goodge demanded.

“I couldn’t. Alex put his hand over my mouth.” She didn’t look as though she were still annoyed at Alex. “By the time we were on our way out of London, Alex had convinced me of the terrible danger I was in. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t get a message to my grandma, and I didn’t dare send one to Nanette. Underhill and Nanette have some kind of relationship, and Alex wasn’t sure we could trust her.”

“But yer poor old granny was worried sick about you,” Luty groused. “What if she’d needed something? What if she’d gotten sick…”

“We took care of that,” Irene said quickly. “Alex slipped into the flat and refilled her medicine bottle when she was asleep. Besides that, George has kept an eye on her.”

“Why didn’t you come back when Underhill was murdered?” Hatchet asked.

“We didn’t know if it was safe.” Alex shrugged. “We knew he’d paid to have her murdered, but not being familiar with that sort of thing, we weren’t sure if whoever had taken his money would still feel he had to do it.”

“It took me quite a bit of talking to convince them it was safe to come here,” Betsy said. She looked pointedly at Smythe. “That’s one of the reasons we was so late.”

“What do you know about Underhill’s killin’?” Smythe asked them bluntly.

All three of them looked surprised by the question.

“What could we possibly know about it?” Alex asked. “We were in the country when he was killed.”

“Yeah, but you’ve admitted you were in ’is flat. If ya knew Underhill at all, ya knew he was always chewin’ them mints. It woulda been dead easy for ya to pop a tampered tin of mints into the man’s coat pocket and then sit back and wait for yer problem to be solved permanently.”

Morante stared at Smythe for a moment, then flicked a quick speculative glance at Betsy. He grinned. “Agreed. I could have done that. But”—he looked the coachman dead in the eye—“I didn’t. I’m not a murderer. If that had been my solution, I wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of kidnapping Irene, involving my friend and hiding out in the country. I would have simply killed him the day I went to his lodgings.”

The two men stared at one another, taking each other’s
measure. Smythe leaned back and folded his arms across his massive chest. “I reckon there’s some merit to what you’re sayin’.”

“So what do we do now?” Irene asked.

“I suggest you all go home,” Mrs. Jeffries said calmly. She looked at Irene. “I’m sure Nanette will be delighted to see that you’re alive and well.”

As soon as they were gone, Betsy turned to the others. “I’m ever so sorry I worried you,” she said, “but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Don’t fret about it, Betsy,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “We all occasionally have to make a decision. You did the best you could.”

“We’ll git over our scare,” Luty said. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Hatchet agreed.

“Thank goodness you’re ’ome in one piece,” Wiggins said. “That’s ’ow I feel about it.”

“I’ll fix you a nice hot cuppa cocoa to make up for all the runnin’ about you’ve had to do today,” Mrs. Goodge said.

Smythe just glared at her.

Mrs. Jeffries met the inspector when he came in the front door. Within minutes, she had him in the drawing room, a glass of sherry in hand.

“I’ll only have a quick one.” He yawned. “I’m really very tired. It’s been a most distressing day.”

“You look exhausted, sir,” she told him, clucking her tongue sympathetically. “How did the investigation go today?”

The inspector told her everything. By the time he put down his second glass of Harveys and got to his feet, Mrs.
Jeffries knew every detail of the day’s events.

The inspector went up to bed and Mrs. Jeffries double-checked that the front door was locked. As she climbed the stairs to her own room, she was deep in thought. She quite admired the way the inspector had decided not to arrest Arthur Grant. Like her employer, she didn’t see him as the murderer either. But then, who had done it?