“You look dreadfully tired, sir,” Mrs. Jeffries said as she reached for the inspector’s bowler hat. It was after seven o’clock and he did look exhausted. His face was pale, there were dark circles under his eyes, and rain was dripping off his mustache.
“I’m fine,” he declared as he unbuttoned his heavy overcoat. “It’s just been a long day.” He slipped off the garment and hung it on the peg under his hat. “I take it the constable came by with the message?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “He said you’d got a murder at Brook Green and that you’d be late home. Mrs. Goodge has a nice supper in the oven; shall I bring it up now or would you like to have a glass of sherry and relax before your meal?”
“A sherry sounds lovely.” He headed toward the drawing room. Mrs. Jeffries hurried after him. He sank down in his big overstuffed chair and she went past him to the cabinet on the other side of the room. She pulled out a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and two small crystal glasses. Mrs. Jeffries knew he expected her to pour one for herself. They’d been through this ritual many, many times. She handed the inspector his glass and sat down on the settee close to his chair. “Was it a dreadful murder, sir?”
“No more than usual.” He took a sip. “The deliberate taking of a human life is always a terrible thing. The victim was a woman of late middle age named Olive Kettering. She was wealthy and lived alone except for her servants. Sad, really; from what I learned today, she lived her life in such a manner that I don’t think there will be many to truly mourn her.”
“How was she killed?” she asked. She knew very well, but it was important to ask the right questions.
“She was shot in the forehead. She was out in her garden, which is a bit odd considering the murder occurred this morning during that awful storm. She wasn’t wearing a coat or a hat nor had she taken an umbrella out with her. When the first constable arrived on the scene, he found her front door partially open, as if she’d just rushed out of her house for no apparent reason.”
Mrs. Jeffries wanted to ask how big the bullet hole had been but she knew she couldn’t. She’d save that question for their friend Dr. Bosworth. “As you often say when you’re on a case, sir, there’s always a reason for everything. No sensible person runs outside in the middle of a downpour. I’m sure you’ll eventually find out what led her to dash outside like that.” He had actually once said those very words to her, so she was quite happy to repeat them to him.
The inspector often lost faith in himself and she’d come to the conclusion over their many cases that it was best to bolster his confidence in his detecting abilities right from the very start.
“Thank you for reminding me, Mrs. Jeffries.” Witherspoon smiled gratefully. “Yes, I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually. It’s going to be a strange case, I can feel it. Most people make certain they keep on the right side of their rich relatives, but from what I learned today, Olive Kettering only has two close relations and she’d managed to become estranged from both of them.”
“That does sound odd, sir,” she agreed. “Did you find out why?”
“Apparently, her quarrel with her cousin was over religious differences and with the other one, a niece, she didn’t approve of the fellow the girl married. Still, one can quarrel with relatives without disinheriting them.” He paused, took another sip, and then continued speaking.
Mrs. Jeffries listened carefully, occasionally asking a question or nodding in agreement as he gave her all the details of his day. By the time he went into the dining room to eat his supper, she was fairly certain she knew everything that he did. But just to be on the safe side, she’d have a short chat with Constable Barnes tomorrow morning when he came to fetch the inspector.
Mrs. Goodge handed Constable Barnes a mug of hot tea. “Ta,” he replied as he sat down at the table. He’d come a half hour early to have a quick word with the household. Soon after he’d been assigned to the inspector, Barnes had realized that Witherspoon was getting help on all his cases. But being a sensible sort of man, instead of taking offense, he’d kept his eyes and ears open until he’d figured out that it was the inspector’s own household that was lending a hand. Gradually, once they’d learned to trust one another, he’d let Mrs. Jeffries know he understood what they were doing and that he approved.
The truth of the matter was that he’d accomplished more in the service of justice in the last few years than ever before. That was important to the constable, very important, and it didn’t hurt that Inspector Witherspoon’s string of solved cases had made him a legend. He worked with the man, so everyone else on the force considered him a bit of a legend as well. That wasn’t why he did it, of course, but he’d not be human if he didn’t admit that his vanity enjoyed the whispers of admiration when he walked through a local police station or Scotland Yard.
Mrs. Jeffries took her seat. In the early morning, the kitchen was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock and the faint noises from the street as Londoners woke up for the day. “You had quite a full day yesterday.”
Barnes grinned. “That we did, Mrs. Jeffries. We’ve another odd murder on our hands. The victim was found lying in her back garden with a bullet in her forehead, but you already know all that, don’t you? Let me give you the details I found out from the servants. To begin with, they didn’t much like her.”
“Did they dislike her enough to murder her?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. Barnes was no fool; his opinion of the household could go a long way in eliminating suspects.
He shook his head. “It’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely. She was hard on them, but she wasn’t cruel and I finally got the housemaid to admit that she did pay top wages. But what is interesting is that they blamed her for the death of the cook.”
“The inspector mentioned there was a bit of resentment over the woman’s death,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured.
“It was a bit more than resentment,” Barnes declared. “The gardener was so furious, he’d already started looking for a new position, and from what I saw of those grounds, he’ll get one, too. He’s a fine gardener. The scullery maid and the downstairs maid were also trying to find new posts.”
“But the inspector told Mrs. Jeffries the cook died of natural causes,” Mrs. Goodge protested. “So why were they so angry? Did they suspect she’d killed the woman?”
“No, that was never mentioned,” Barnes replied. “They were upset because Miss Kettering made it clear she thought the cook was malingering to get out of her duties. Apparently, the woman would become ill, take to her bed for a day or two, and then just as quickly recover. When she had this final bout of illness, Miss Kettering didn’t let them call the doctor until it was too late.”
“So they blamed her,” Mrs. Jeffries mused. “But if they’re trying to find new positions, why would one of them kill her? Furthermore, they were all at a funeral in Kent when the murder was committed.”
“As far as we know, that’s true.” Barnes took another swig from his mug. “But we’ve no real confirmation of the actual time of death, and if the servants were in a conspiracy to kill her, they could have done it before they left that day.”
“But that would have been very risky for them,” Mrs. Jeffries pointed out. “The inspector said that Mrs. Fox saw the body when she glanced out her window at ten o’clock. If the servants were in a conspiracy and killed her, they’d have had to put the body out before they caught the train to Kent, and if they’d done that, they could have easily been spotted by Mrs. Fox.”
“I agree, I don’t think they did it, either, but it’s always good to talk through the possibilities,” he replied. “Besides, after taking their statements yesterday, I got the impression that the staff wasn’t just angry at the woman, they were a bit frightened of her as well.”
“Frightened?” the cook repeated. “Why?”
“All of them claimed she’d been acting strange lately. She claimed to hear people walking about at night or standing on her balcony. She’d wake the household up at all hours of the night and make them search the house, and I think they were getting fed up with that.”
“They never saw anyone when they went to look,” the cook muttered. “I once worked in a household where the mistress started getting fanciful. It
was
very frightening. You never knew what she would do or say next. One minute, she’d be right as rain, and the next, she’d be accusing all of us of spying on her or trying to push her down the staircase. I don’t blame the staff for wanting to leave if that was the way of it.”
“That’s not the only reason most of them had started looking for new positions,” Barnes said. “I’m sure the inspector has told you that, recently, small but valuable items were going missing from the house and she’d started accusing her servants of theft.”
“No one likes being called a thief,” Mrs. Goodge murmured, “and once a servant gets painted with that brush, new positions are almost impossible to find.”
“True.” He glanced at the carriage clock on the pine sideboard. “But don’t feel too sorry for them, they got a bit of their own back. The scullery maid told me that Miss Kettering had been sent some very expensive drinking chocolate from Holland. It came in a fancy tin and Miss Kettering gave strict instructions that it was only to be used for her nightly cocoa.” He grinned broadly. “But Susan Edwards told me she saw the cook switch the fancy cocoa in the tin for ordinary English drinking chocolate and that Miss Kettering never knew the difference.”
Mrs. Goodge laughed heartily. The other two looked at her, their expressions curious. “Oh dear, I know I shouldn’t carry on so, but the truth is, I once did the very same thing,” she admitted. “At my last household, the mistress of the house had started getting nastier and nastier to me. Nothing I did was right and she found fault with every meal I cooked. A few weeks before I left, they were sent some expensive Darjeeling tea from India. I was so annoyed that I switched it with some old stuff I’d found in the dry larder. I used to laugh myself silly when I’d hear that woman going on and on to her friends about the exquisite tea she was serving. Oh, it was wonderful; I’d sneak upstairs and peek into the drawing room when she had guests and watch them try to choke that stale stuff down. I know it was a terrible thing to do, but honestly, I’m not in the least sorry.”
Barnes, who’d began to chuckle as she told the story, said, “I don’t blame you, Mrs. Goodge. Anyone who finds fault with your cooking deserves to drink stale tea. But there’s more I need to tell you. I had a quick word with the lads that searched the grounds and did the house-to-house in the neighborhood.”
“They found something.” Mrs. Jeffries leaned forward eagerly.
“Not so much what they found, as what they didn’t find. Namely, the gun. So that means the killer took it with him,” he said. “But it’s also possible that he—or she—tossed it in the river. Unfortunately, there aren’t any close neighbors so no one saw anything suspicious. But we’re going to continue asking about the neighborhood. You never know what might turn up.”
“Was the Kettering house searched?” Mrs. Goodge asked.
Barnes frowned. “It was, but it’s such a huge place and I don’t think the lads were as thorough as they ought to have been. They were in and out in an hour. I’m going to suggest to the inspector that we have another look round.”
“I’ll go first,” Mrs. Jeffries declared as they took their places around the table for their morning meeting. For once, everyone was a bit early. “I want to share everything I’ve found out from the inspector and Constable Barnes.”
“I found out a few bits myself,” Luty, grinning mischievously, added, “and I can tell by the way Hatchet’s been preenin’ this mornin’ that he’s stumbled onto something, too.”
“I do not preen and I certainly didn’t ‘stumble’ onto information.” He gave her a sour look.
“Does that mean you ain’t found out anything?”
“The point of my comment was to deny that I stumble onto useful items.” He stuck his nose in the air. “I have a number of excellent sources which I cultivate in an intelligent and logical manner. Stumble, indeed.”
“If we’ve all got something to share, we’d better be quick about it. It’s already a quarter past eight and Phyllis might take it into her head to come even earlier than usual,” Betsy said.
“She’ll not be here this early.” Mrs. Jeffries gave her a reproachful look and then turned her attention back to the others. She told them everything she’d learned from Witherspoon and Constable Barnes.
“Cor blimey, sounds like there’s lots of people that won’t be cryin’ at Miss Kettering’s funeral,” Wiggins observed when she’d finished. “Fancy accusin’ her servants of stealin’, especially when she’d a houseful of those people from that Society of the Humble Shepherd.”
“Servant,” Mrs. Goodge corrected. “It’s the Society of the Humble Servant.”
“Just because people claim to have religion,” he continued with a nod toward the cook, “that don’t mean they’re not above stickin’ a pretty trinket in their pocket.”
“Apparently that is precisely what Miss Kettering’s housekeeper pointed out to her mistress,” Mrs. Jeffries remarked. “Yet it didn’t seem to have a great deal of influence on Miss Kettering’s attitude toward her staff.”
“Yes, but she didn’t sack them, did she?” Mrs. Goodge snorted. “And believe me, if she’d really thought her servants were to blame for the thefts, she’d have given them the boot faster than Samson can gulp down a dish of cream. Olive Kettering didn’t want to believe her friends would steal, when it’s so much easier to blame some poor servant. Stupid woman, she’s lucky the whole lot of them didn’t up and leave.” She’d worked in houses where the staff had taken the blame for the misdeeds of family or friends. She understood and hated the unfairness of it all.
Mrs. Jeffries glanced at the clock. Despite her admonition to Betsy, they had better move along or Phyllis might come walking in the back door. “Who’d like to go next?”