Mrs. Jeffries Speaks Her Mind (30 page)

The inspector remained very calm. He’d dealt with unbalanced people before. They were often women and they were often from the same background and class as Bernadine Fox. Goodness, he wondered, could one’s class cause one to become unhinged? But then he realized that most upper-class females didn’t go insane and certainly didn’t go about murdering innocent people. “So you’ve murdered your late husband, Mrs. Grant, and Miss Kettering,” he prodded. “Is that all?”

She looked amused. “I should think that is quite enough, Inspector.” Her expression darkened. “But despite all my hard work, that stupid cow left this house to those pathetic fools. But they’re not going to have it.”

Barnes noticed her hand was still in her pocket. He started forward just as she pulled a box of matches out of her pocket. Too late, he realized the scent of paraffin wasn’t on his hands, it was in the room.

In a second, the match was lighted. She gave them a brilliant smile and tossed it at the curtains. “I’ll see it burned to the ground before I’ll let them have my home.”

The curtains caught fire and Barnes, because he’d realized what she’d done a heartbeat before the inspector, rushed across the room.

Witherspoon was right on his heels. “Get the constable out front to fetch the fire brigade,” he ordered Dorian Kettering, “and then raise the alarm and get everyone out of the house.” He saw Bernadine Fox run out the door, but the fire was spreading quickly and he couldn’t give chase now. There were too many people in this house and he couldn’t risk their lives.

The flames raced up the drapes. Witherspoon looked around quickly, trying to find something to use. He grabbed a heavy, fringed shawl off a sideboard just as Barnes yanked up the small rug from in front of a footstool. Together they beat at the flames. But it was no use. The room filled with smoke and the flames spread quickly.

“We’ve got to get everyone out of the house.” Witherspoon dropped the shawl and Barnes tossed the rug away just as the settee caught fire, forcing them back toward the door. Coughing, they stumbled out of the drawing room, the inspector pushing Barnes out first.

Witherspoon pulled the doors shut behind him, hoping to contain the inferno. “Check downstairs and make certain everyone’s outside,” he ordered the constable as he ran for the stairs.

“Where are you going, sir?” Barnes yelled.

“To make sure there isn’t anyone left upstairs,” he called. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll get out before the flames reach the first floor.” He’d remembered that Mrs. McAllister had said they had servants from a domestic agency cleaning the upstairs floors.

The inspector took the stairs two at a time. He ran down the corridor, opening the doors to the bedrooms and making certain there was no one inside. By the time he reached the last one, he was panting hard, sweat was running down his face, and he could barely breathe as the smoke had already gotten up here. He threw open the door and saw a young maid, her eyes wide as saucers, standing in the corner with a look of terror on her face.

Witherspoon could see she was immobilized by fright. He charged across the room, grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward the door. She was moaning and weeping, half out of her mind with fear as he pulled her down the hallway to the stairs. The sight that greeted him made his skin crawl.

Bernadine Fox was on the staircase just below, holding a lamp. A paraffin lamp. “This is all your fault,” she snarled, her face contorted in rage. “I’m sick to death of people interfering with my plans. You’re going to pay for this.” She slammed the lamp on the staircase, lit another match, and tossed it onto the spilled oil.

The maid made a high-pitched keening cry and jumped backward as the carpeted staircase burst into flames. Ye gods, Witherspoon thought, has that demented woman doused the entire house? Why hasn’t someone stopped her? Keeping a firm grip on the girl’s hand, he turned and yanked her behind him as he hurried down the hallway, his attention on the molding along the ceiling. There was an entry to the secret staircase here, but he hadn’t paid attention when they’d found it. Barnes had ducked his head out, not him.

“We’re goin’ to die!” the girl screamed. “We’re goin’ to die!”

“We most certainly are not,” Witherspoon snapped. “If need be, we’ll open a window, chuck some pillows out, and jump if we have to, but I don’t think that will be necessary. Now, what’s your name?” He’d spotted a break in the molding.

“Sally, Sally Hughley,” she replied.

He stopped. “Stay right here, Sally,” he ordered the girl. He spread his hands along the wall, pushing along the seams of the wallpaper, hoping it would open. He pushed and pushed, moving his hands up and down, but the walls stayed stubbornly firm.

“Try this.” Sally dropped to her knees and pressed against the baseboard. A narrow strip of the wall swung inward and she scrambled to her feet.

“Clever girl.” He beamed at her approvingly and she grinned back. “Come along, hang on to my hand; it’s dark in there but you mustn’t be frightened.”

“I’m not scared of the dark, sir, only the fire.” Sally clutched his hand tightly and followed him through the opening.

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust, but soon he was leading her down the staircase. When they neared the bottom, they could see light. “Almost there,” Witherspoon said.

Barnes must have heard him because he called out, “Hurry, sir, hurry. That cow has spread paraffin everywhere and the whole place is in flames. We’ve got to get out before it starts to collapse.”

“Get out yourself, Constable,” the inspector ordered as he quickened their pace. “We’re almost there.”

At the bottom, Sally stumbled and fell. Witherspoon yanked her to her feet and pushed her through the opening. Barnes, a wet cloth over his face, grabbed her hand as Witherspoon scrambled out behind her.

“This way, sir,” the constable yelled. Smoke was everywhere. The fire roared in their ears, the building crackled, and they could hear glass and china exploding from the heat. “Keep low,” he ordered.

Gasping for air, the three of them made it outside and staggered across the lawn. Firemen and police constables had formed a fire line to a pump on the side of the carriage house. Other constables held the curious back a safe distance as the fire climbed higher and higher up the floors of the house.

Mrs. McAllister rushed toward them and slipped a cloak around Sally. “Oh, thank goodness, I was so frightened you’d been trapped.”

“I would have been if that nice feller hadn’t come and saved me.” She pointed to Witherspoon. “He’s a right brave one, ’e is. I was so scared I couldn’t move.”

 

Luty Belle and Ruth returned to Upper Edmonton Gardens a few moments before the men came home. Wiggins raced in before the other two. “You’ll never guess what happened,” he cried. “There’s been a bloomin’ great fire and the Kettering house is burning. The flames are everywhere and even with two fire wagons, they can’t get them out.”

“When the fire started we wanted to help, but as we didn’t wish to expose our activities to the inspector we were in a bit of a bind,” Hatchet added. He slipped into the empty chair next to Luty.

“What happened?” Mrs. Jeffries demanded. “Did the inspector catch the killer?”

“We’re not really sure,” Smythe said. He sat down next to Betsy and grabbed for her hand. “But we did hear one of the constables say that the fire was started by Bernadine Fox.”

“I knew it,” Mrs. Jeffries stated. “I just knew it.”

“We waited to come back until we knew the inspector was alright,” Wiggins said. “I hid in the bushes along the side of the house until I saw him come outside. He saved a girl’s life. I heard it with my own ears. She said if the inspector hadn’t come and got her, she’d have burned to death.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Mrs. Goodge cried. “Now can someone please tell us exactly what happened?”

“But that’s just it.” Smythe shrugged apologetically. “We can’t. We were in the carriage on a side street when the fire started and, after that, all we heard was bits and pieces.”

“However, I do believe Inspector Witherspoon will be here momentarily,” Hatchet advised. “If the inspector pulled a young woman out of a burning house, he might have inhaled a substantial amount of smoke. I imagine his superiors will insist he come home for a rest.”

No one wanted to leave until they found out what had happened, so they were still sitting around the table when Witherspoon walked into the kitchen twenty minutes later. He stopped at the doorway when he saw everyone. There was soot on his cheeks, his tie was askew, his right hand was bandaged, and his clothes were covered in ash.

“My gracious, sir, are you alright?” Mrs. Jeffries got up. “What has happened and why is there a bandage on your hand?”

Witherspoon smiled uncertainly. He felt a bit awkward in front of Lady Cannonberry. “There was a fire at the Kettering house and I’m afraid Constable Barnes and I got caught up in it.”

“Is the constable alright?” Mrs. Goodge asked quickly.

“He’s fine. Er, may I have a cup of tea?”

“Of course, sir, uh, Luty Belle and Hatchet came by to have tea and Lady Cannonberry stopped by to uh . . .”

“To invite you to supper tomorrow night,” Ruth finished. “But of course, now that you’ve made such a dramatic appearance, I shan’t move until you tell me everything that’s happened. Gracious, Gerald, are you certain you’re alright? You look a bit of a mess.”

Witherspoon laughed and sat down at the end of the table next to her. “I’m fine, my dear. I look worse than I feel.”

Mrs. Jeffries got another cup and poured his tea while Betsy got down another plate and put it down on the table.

“Let me,” Ruth offered as she stacked a treacle tart, two slices of brown bread, and a slice of seedcake onto the small plate. “You look as if you could do with some sustenance.”

“What happened, sir?” Mrs. Jeffries asked as she sat down. She felt just a bit awkward sitting at the head of the table while he was present, but it didn’t seem to bother him.

“We found out who murdered Olive Kettering.” He took a sip of tea. “It was Bernadine Fox. Apparently, she’s conceived a very strange and rather demented passion about the Kettering house. She felt it was hers, and the reason it’s now burned down is that, rather than see it go to the Society of the Humble, she doused most of the ground floor with paraffin and set it on fire. But, luckily, no one was injured or killed.”

“Have you arrested her, sir?” Smythe asked.

Witherspoon swallowed the bite of tart he’d popped into his mouth. “No. Unfortunately, while we——and by that I mean the police—were trying to put the fire out and get everyone out of the house, she scarped off. But we’ve got men watching all the train stations, the coaching houses, and the docks. She’ll not get away.” He was a bit sensitive about this particular subject, as the only criminal who’d ever gotten away from him was a woman. However, he had arrested her accomplice and partner.

“And you know for sure it was ’er?” Wiggins helped himself to a slice of cake.

“She confessed.” Witherspoon shook his head in disbelief. “We confronted her with the evidence we’d found and she stood right there in the drawing room and told us how she’d murdered three people in cold blood.”

“Three people?” Mrs. Jeffries exclaimed. By her reckoning, there should only have been two.

“Oh yes, she murdered her late husband by smothering him with a pillow—apparently she was tired of listening to him complain that he couldn’t sleep; she murdered Elsa Grant, the Kettering cook, but doesn’t think that one ought to count because it was an accident—she’d meant to poison Olive Kettering but the cook had switched the cocoa; and, of course, she shot Miss Kettering.”

“How very clever you are, Gerald.” Ruth patted his hand. “How did you figure it out?”

He smiled modestly. “Once I realized the house needed to be searched again, we discovered a secret staircase that goes all the way through the house.”

“Goodness, that’s amazing.” Ruth murmured in approval. Everyone else at the table had the good sense to look suitably impressed as well.

“She’d left the gun and a tin of cocoa on a table there,” he continued. “I imagine with all the people around, she’d felt it safe to leave everything there rather than move it to her flat over the carriage house. Once we had the evidence, well, as I said, she confessed. I think she’s quite mad. But it’s the sort of madness that one can hide if one is clever, and, despite it all, I think she’s a very intelligent woman.”

“If she doused the entire ground floor in paraffin and then she set it on fire, then why didn’t you smell it?” Luty exclaimed. “Nell’s bells, that stuff stinks.”

“Really, madam,” Hatchet hissed. “You mustn’t use such coarse language.”

The inspector laughed. “You’re right, Luty. It does stink. But Constable Barnes and I had spent over an hour searching along the hidden passage and we’d used a paraffin lamp for light. Both of us thought we must have spilled the oil on our fingers.”

“Or that you’d become used to the smell,” Ruth said. “Oh dear, Gerald, now tell us, how did you injure your hand?”

“He hurt it saving a young girl’s life,” Constable Barnes said from the doorway.