Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Cake (16 page)

She looked puzzled by the question. “I just told you.” Her expression cleared as she realized the implications of what was being asked. “Gracious, that must have been when Father was killed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Barnes wondered if the inspector was ever going to ask another question. “As far as we can tell, that would be the time of death.”

“And I’ve no alibi now.” Again she laughed. “I assure you, Constable. Much as I disliked my father, I certainly didn’t kill him. I was nowhere near the house at that time.”

Witherspoon started slightly, as though her answer had pulled him back into the conversation. As a matter of fact, her statement had reminded him of what was bothering him. “You admit you didn’t like your father.”

“I admit that,” she replied. “I told you that before. I didn’t like my father at all. He was never a real father to me. He always put his own interests first, but much as I disliked him, I didn’t murder him.”

Witherspoon nodded slowly. He wanted to ask this next question very carefully. “Could you tell me why you said that once you’d found out your father was dead, lying wouldn’t matter.” He was rather annoyed at himself for taking so long to recall that particularly interesting comment she’d made. Especially as she’d made it only a few moments ago. He admonished himself for being so distracted.
He really must keep his mind on the interview at hand. But gracious, it was so very easy to get muddled.

She stared down at her hands and a long, heartfelt sigh escaped her. “I meant that if I’d known Papa was dead, I wouldn’t even have bothered going to the solicitors. I’d have left. I’ve some money of my own. With my father dead, Andrew couldn’t have forced me to come back. That’s what he did, you know. One other time when I left him, he made me come back by threatening me.”

“How did he threaten you?” Witherspoon asked quickly. “If you’ve money of your own, how could he have made you come back?”

She looked away for a moment, and when she turned back to the Inspector, her expression was grim. “He told me he’d toss Father out into the streets if I didn’t come home. At the time I was sure he meant it. But after I found out what my father did, after the way he’d behaved recently, I wouldn’t have cared about what Andrew could do to him. I wouldn’t have let anything stop me. I was quite prepared for the worst.”

Witherspoon thought back to his conversation with Henry Alladyce. He’d gotten the impression that Roland Ashbury was cheap, but certainly not destitute.” Your father, then, couldn’t afford his own home?”

“That’s not the point, Inspector.” MaryAnne Frommer smiled bitterly. “My father has plenty of money. But he claimed he couldn’t live on his own because he had a weak heart. It was rubbish, of course. He was as healthy as a horse. He only made the assertion because he wanted to stay on here.”

“What did your father do to you?” Witherspoon asked. “You said a few moments ago that once you found out what he’d done…”

“He told Andrew where I was living,” she cried angrily.
“I’d written to him to give him the address of the rooming house where I was staying. I hadn’t wanted him to worry. But instead of taking my part, instead of helping me get away from that monster I was married to, my own father led him right to me. I never forgave him for that. Never.”

Witherspoon looked at the constable, making sure that Barnes was getting all of this down. Whether Mrs. Frommer realized it or not, she’d just given them a motive for murder. “So you hated your father,” he prodded gently.

“Of course I did. My father couldn’t have cared less about me,” she countered flatly.

“You realize you’ve just given us a motive, don’t you?” Witherspoon warned. He wasn’t quite at the point of cautioning her officially, but she was definitely climbing to the top of the suspect list.

MaryAnne Frommer didn’t look in the least alarmed. “Why would I kill him? I’d devised the perfect revenge against the man. I was going to leave. Andrew would have tossed him into the street. That would have hurt my father ten times more than getting a bullet in his skull. He wouldn’t have been able to stand the humiliation of being a nobody.”

“Living here meant that much to him?” Barnes queried.

“It meant everything to him,” she said passionately. “He stayed because despite Andrew treating him like a half-witted servant, he loved basking in Andrew’s limelight. He loved living in a big house with an important man, an MP. Don’t you understand, as long as he was a member of this household, people treated him with respect. He got invited to the best gentlemen’s clubs, he was asked out to dine, his opinion was solicited. If he was tossed out on his ear, all that would end. My father was
terrified that if he lived on his own, he’d just be another stingy businessman with no entrée into the circles of his betters.”

“Stingy businessman,” Witherspoon repeated. “But your father’s business partner says the business is doing well.” He really didn’t know what to make of all this; it was most odd. Most odd indeed. Tonight, when he got home, he’d have to have a good long think about the whole situation.

MaryAnne Frommer’s brows came together. “Business partner? You mean Henry?”

“He said he was your father’s partner,” Witherspoon replied. “Isn’t that correct?”

She looked doubtful. “Well, I suppose he
would
say that. But actually Papa and Josiah Alladyce had quite a different arrangement worked out. Papa set it up when my brother Jonathan went to live in the United States.”

“I’m sorry,” the inspector said, “but I don’t quite understand.” He didn’t know if this matter would turn out to be pertinent to the case, but he’d learned that the most seemingly unconnected events could end up being important.

“It’s an old story, Inspector” —she sighed again— “and one that does none of us any credit. For when it happened, I was just as unreasonable as Father. Pride, I suppose. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. My brother and his wife and son have been dead for over fifteen years. They died in California. They were killed when the wagon they were sleeping in was washed away in a flood. But the point is, when my father disinherited Jonathan and had no son to leave his half of the business to, he forced Josiah Alladyce—that’s Henry’s father—to draw up an agreement about the disposal of the company’s assets when they either died or retired. The agreement is very specific
in its terms. Whoever died first would leave his half of the business to the other one until both partners were dead or retired. Then the business would be sold and the assets split between my father’s heirs and the Alladyce heirs. That’s why I’m surprised that Henry calls himself a partner. He’s not. Well, I suppose he is now that Father’s dead. But he wasn’t before.”

Barnes asked, “How much is the business worth?”

“I’m not certain,” she replied. “Quite a lot, I dunk. I know Father hadn’t spent a penny of the profits that he didn’t have to after Josiah Alladyce died. I do believe that annoyed Henry. Mind you, Henry does pull his living out of the firm.”

Again Barnes glanced at Witherspoon. The inspector nodded slightly in acknowledgment. It was obvious now that they had one more suspect on their hands.

There was an air of suppressed excitement around the table as they all took their places for their afternoon meeting. For once, Mrs. Jeffries thought, everyone is on time. She could tell by their expressions that most of them had found out something useful. She couldn’t wait to tell them what she’d learned.

“Can I go first?” Luty asked eagerly as she scanned the faces of the others, daring someone to deny her request “I’m gonna bust if I don’t git it out.”

“Go ahead, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. Her own information, important as it was, could wait.

“Well, as you all know, I’ve got plenty of ways of findin’ out things.” She shot her butler a glare as a faint snort of derision issued from his direction. “And I found out something real interestin’ about Andrew Frommer. He’s broke. He spent a bundle campaignin’ in the last election. So much so that he’s up to his nose in debt and
that fancy house of his is mortgaged to the hilt. That means he’s got a motive for murderin’ his father-in-law.”

“I don’t see how his financial condition could be that affected by Roland Ashbury’s death,” Hatchet said thoughtfully. “Even if Mrs. Frommer inherits from her father, it would be her money, not his.”

“So?” Luty demanded.

“So”—Hatchet gave her a sly smile—“we know that Mrs. Frommer loathes her husband. If she inherits from her father, I don’t think she’ll be sharing it with her spouse. Furthermore, how much could the victim actually have to leave to anyone? He didn’t even own his own home and his business certainly doesn’t appear to be all that prosperous. I know. I went along and had a look at the place.”

“He’s got plenty to leave,” Mrs. Goodge said darkly. “He hasn’t spent a penny of the profits off that business since his partner died five years ago. MaryAnne Frommer’s the heir, you see. That business may not look like much, but I found out that Ashbury and his partner bought the building some years back, and the warehouse next to it. The whole lot’s worth a fortune now.”

“Seems to me that just about everyone ’ad a reason for wantin’ Mr. Ashbury dead,” Wiggins said. “Even ’is own kin.”

“Especially his own kin,” Mrs. Goodge declared stoutly. “Ashbury was a horrible man. He disinherited his own son because the boy married a servant, and forced Mrs. Frommer to stay with that brute of a husband of hers. But now that he’s dead, she can leave him. She’d left him before, you see. But her own father told Frommer where she was stayin’ and he went and drug her home.”

“Whaddaya mean, ’he drug her home’?” Luty asked, her eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Just what I said,” Mrs. Goodge replied. “Frommer went to the flat where his wife was living and made her come home with him. He’s a wife beater.”

“And she went with him?” Luty exclaimed, her expression incredulous.

“What else could she do?” Mrs. Goodge said. “He was her husband. I’m sure her landlord didn’t want that kind of trouble, especially as Frommer was an MP.”

“MP or not,” Luty snapped, “they’d be havin’ snowball fights in hell before I’d let some wife-beatin’, no-good cowardly varmmit come draggin’ me home.”

“My sentiments precisely,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed. Gracious, the information was coming along so fast she could barely absorb it all. They must be a tad more orderly or she, along with the rest of them, would get confused. “But let’s let Luty finish talking and then we’ll move along to Mrs. Goodge. Both of you seem to have found out an awful lot.”

“I’m done,” Luty announced. “All I learned was that Frommer was broke and iffen Mrs. Frommer ain’t gonna share with him, I guess that leaves him out as a suspect.”

“Not necessarily,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured. She made a mental note to ask Lady Cannonberry about the Married Woman’s Property Act. One of the delightful things about being friends with a radical is that they were usually well up on all the most recent legislation. “We’d better check on what Mrs. Frommer’s position would be. Legally she might not have been able to stop her husband from using her money or selling her property. Especially if it was left to her in trust and that trust is administered by her husband.”

“But even Ashbury wouldn’t have done that,” Betsy cried. “It wouldn’t be right. Surely he knew Frommer was a brute.”

“He’d do it all right,” Mrs. Goodge interjected. “Any man that would let his own son and his wife lose their home and almost starve to death wouldn’t care tuppence for his daughter’s happiness.”

“Ashbury let his son’s family starve?” Smythe asked.

“Almost.” The cook shook her head in disgust. “He disinherited the boy when he married. The girl was a servant, a Russian immigrant. They, along with the wife’s family, moved to the United States and bought a small farm somewhere out west. There was a drought or something horrid like that; you know how things like that are always happening in America. The family lost the farm. Jonathan Ashbury wrote his father for help, begging him to lend him some money. Ashbury never even answered. A few months later, when the family had been forced out of their home, the wagon they were sleeping in was washed away in a flood. All of them were killed except for the daughter-in-law’s brother.”

“Cor blimey,” Wiggins muttered. “Ashbury really was a monster.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Goodge agreed. “So it’s no wonder his own daughter stopped speakin’ to him. I only hope the stupid old fool didn’t tie up the girl’s inheritance and give Frommer control of it.”

“We don’t know what Frommer can or can’t do,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “I think it may well depend on how Ashbury wrote his will. Apparently he spent more time trying to please his son-in-law than he did worrying about his daughter’s well-being.”

“And as Frommer’s an MP,” Smythe muttered, “there’s no tellin’ what he could do even if the money was left free and clear to his wife.” He caught Betsy’s eyes and gave her a wary smile. He didn’t want her thinking he approved of any man hitting a woman. He’d noticed
that when women heard about another female being knocked about, they tended to tar all men with the same brush.

“Does this mean that Mr. Frommer is still a suspect?” Wiggins asked.