Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Cake (17 page)

“Of course,” Mrs. Jeffries replied.

“But ’e’s got an alibi,” the footman pointed out, “and so does Mrs. Frommer.”

“What difference does that make?” Luty exclaimed. “We’ve had half a dozen cases where the one with the best alibi ended up bein’ the killer.”

“I don’t think it’s Mr. Frommer,” Wiggins stated, shaking his head. “I think it’s her, Mrs. Frommer. She really hated her father, especially after he come and drug ’er ’ome.”

“How do you know that?” Mrs. Goodge demanded.

“Because I talked to Bobby Vickers,” he said casually. “’E’s a good friend of that footman that’s taken off from the Frommer household. He told me that Boyd—that’s the lad’s name—’ad said that ’e was worried that Mrs. Frommer was goin’ to do somethin’ awful. She were desperate to get away from ’er ’usband.”

“Oh bother, Wiggins.” Mrs. Goodge crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s silly. If Mrs. Frommer was goin’ to commit murder because her situation was so awful, why would she murder her father? Seems to me she’d have killed her husband.”

“You have a point, Mrs. Goodge,” Hatchet agreed. “My sources of information all agreed that Mrs. Frommer despised her husband and would have done anything to get away from him.”

“Why’d she marry him in the first place?” Betsy murmured.

“She married him because her father made her,”
Hatchet replied. Goff had come through with a bit of information. Not much, but at least he could contribute something. “Andrew Frommer is from an old and well-respected family. But like many such families, they’ve no money. The estate was lost years ago and there was only a small yearly income for Andrew. Not enough to support his political ambitions and certainly not enough to finance a campaign. Then he met Roland Ashbury at a party political dinner. Ashbury was in trade, of course, but he’d money and a daughter. Frommer, to his credit, at first resisted Ashbury’s attempts to buy a husband for his daughter. But he eventually gave way and asked MaryAnne to marry him.” He toyed with the handle of his teacup. “But the marriage went sour from the start and Andrew Frommer made no secret of the fact that he considered it his father-in-law’s fault. He blamed him for getting him stuck in a loveless marriage.”

“He wants an heir too,” Mrs. Goodge added. “I’ve got that on good authority. He dreams of startin’ a political dynasty. ’Course, he can’t do that without a son.” She smiled, thinking of the way the poor lad had blushed earlier today when he’d told her about overhearing Frommer bragging to one of his associates that as his wife was barren, he’d have to “take matters into his own hands” to procure a son. It had taken her ten minutes to pump that bit of information out of Matthew Piker. “But Frommer’s been talkin’ about the neighborhood that he’s got that problem well in hand,” she finished.

Mrs. Jeffries knew she had to take control of this situation. There was far too much information being bandied about. So much so that she wasn’t sure she’d even remember it all.

“Please, everyone, can we do this one at a time? I’m getting very confused.” She looked at Luty. “Now let me
see if I understand you. You found out that Frommer finances are in a mess.”

Luty nodded vigorously. “That’s right.”

“And I found out that he’s a wife beater and that Mrs. Frommer had run off from him and that he and her father had drug her home,” Mrs Goodge announced proudly. She’d also found out another bit or two, but she was saving this for their next meeting. Sometimes she’d found her sources could be most unreliable and she could have dozens of people through the kitchen without learning a ruddy thing. Well, it wasn’t so much that she’d found out anything as it was that she’d thought of something and she considered it might be important.

“I see.” Mrs. Jeffries nodded encouragingly and then looked at Hatchet. He repeated what he’d learned and she turned her attention to Smythe and Betsy, both of whom had been somewhat quiet. “Betsy?”

The maid smiled and shrugged. “No luck yet, Mrs. Jeffries, but I’ll keep at it. I’m going back out before supper to have a word or two with one of the housemaids who works for Charles Burroughs. I’m meeting her at the Lyons Tea Shop on Oxford Street.” She glanced at the clock and then got to her feet. “I’d best be off. I told her I’d be there at five o’clock.”

Smythe hated for Betsy to be out late in the afternoon; he was always worried that she’d get caught up in her investigation and end up on the streets after dark. “Now, why would you want to talk to Burroughs’s ’ousemaid?”

“She might know something.” Betsy shrugged. “After all, it might have been Burroughs’s gun that killed Ashbury.” She was desperate to find out something and at this point she was willing to talk to anyone.

“But ’e’d no reason to murder the old man,” Smythe persisted.

“We don’t know that,” Betsy said. “We don’t know that at all.”

“Betsy’s right,” Mrs. Jeffries interjected. “Burroughs did have a good reason to murder Ashbury. Unfortunately I don’t know what that reason is.”

Andrew Frommer seemed to have aged ten years in the past half hour. He sat slumped behind his desk, his expression morose, all arrogance gone. “What did she tell you?” he asked.

“Quite a bit,” Witherspoon replied. Without being invited, he took a seat on a cane-backed chair opposite Frommer’s opulent desk. He nodded for the constable to take the empty one next to him. “Your wife states that both of you came back on the early train. That, along with the PC who saw you on the earlier train, is more than enough evidence to warrant further questioning.”

“Where was she when the old man was killed?” he asked.

The inspector certainly wasn’t going to answer that question. Eventually there wouldn’t be any police constable on the premises, and who knew what kind of vengeance Frommer would take on his wife if the man knew she’d gone to a solicitor. “More to the point, sir, where were you?”

He jerked his head up. “I went for a walk,” he mumbled. “I had a lot on my mind.”

“Did anyone see you, sir?” Barnes asked.

“Lots of people saw me,” he replied.

“Anyone who actually knew you?” the constable persisted. “Anyone who could confirm your whereabouts between the hours of three and four o’clock?”

Frommer shook his head. “No. Not that I recall.”

“Where did you walk, sir?”

He swallowed heavily. “Look, Inspector, if I tell you the truth, can you promise to keep it confidential?” He held up his hand as he saw the inspector start to protest. “I swear, this has nothing to do with Roland’s murder. But it isn’t the sort of information I want made known. It could ruin my career.”

Witherspoon mentally debated his options. He didn’t like Andrew Frommer; the man was a brute and a bully, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was Ashbury’s murderer. Also, there was the small matter of Eloise Hartshorn’s statement that she’d seen him leaving here on the afternoon of the murder. Not that Witherspoon was accepting her statement at face value. Not yet. “I’ll try to keep what you tell me confidential if, indeed, it has no bearing on this case.”

Frommer heaved a sigh of relief. “Good, good. It doesn’t, believe me. Well, let’s see, where to begin?” He gave a weak laugh and put his elbows on the desk. “I did come back to London on the early train. There was someone I wanted to see. I got to the station and I took a hansom to Tacner Place; that’s over near the Foundling Hospital in Chelsea.”

“Who were you going to see, sir?” The inspector already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted to see how genuinely honest Frommer would be.

“A woman by the name of Eloise Hartshorn,” he replied, his expression was now speculative. “But I expect you already knew that.”

Witherspoon nodded but kept quiet.

“Eloise wasn’t home. I was disappointed, but as I hadn’t told her I was coming, I couldn’t really get angry.”

“What time was it that you were at Miss Hartshorn’s?” the inspector asked.

“I believe it was close to three-fifteen or so. After that
I went for a walk. I had a lot of thinking to do.”

Witherspoon said nothing for a moment. “What were you thinking about, sir?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern,” Frommer snapped.

“I’m afraid it is, sir. You see, I think you were thinking about the awful row you’d had with your father-in-law before you both left Ascot.”

Frommer’s face darkened with anger. “Are you back to that? I’ve told you, Roland and I didn’t
have
an argument. My wife imagines things. She’s a dreadfully stupid woman…just because she couldn’t abide her father she thinks that everyone hated him. I’d no reason to quarrel with Roland. No reason at all.”

“But you did, sir,” Witherspoon said calmly. He hoped the information he’d received from Ascot was reliable. “You were furious with him because he wouldn’t loan you any more money.”

“Who told you that ridiculous story?” Frommer leapt to his feet. “It’s a lie. A damned lie.”

“Are you denying that you asked your father-in-law for a loan?” Barnes queried.

Frommer hesitated and the inspector pressed his advantage. “We know all about your financial situation, sir. We know that you’re completely without funds. Roland Ashbury has made the last two payments on your bank loan, hasn’t he, sir?”

“All right, I’m a bit short at the moment, I’ll admit that. Roland was glad to help me. He was always glad to help,” Frommer insisted.

“Not this time, though,” Witherspoon said. “This time he told you he wouldn’t do it and you were angry. Very angry. I believe you actually threatened him, didn’t you?
Told him if he knew what was good for him he’d pay up.”

Frommer paled. “I didn’t mean I’d kill him,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I only meant that I’d ask him to leave this house. It’s still my house, you know.”

“But it wouldn’t be for much longer, would it, sir? Not if you stopped paying your bank loan.” Witherspoon watched Frommer carefully.

“You can’t possibly believe I killed him,” Frommer insisted. “Why, I was at Chelsea at three-fifteen. Eloise’s maid will testify to that.”

“But you could easily have made it here by three thirty-five,” Barnes pointed out. “And as the body wasn’t discovered until almost four, you’d have had ample time to murder the man.”

“What do you think, sir?” Barnes asked as they walked toward the hansom station at the corner.

“I’m not sure,” Witherspoon replied. “Frommer could have murdered him, but we’ve no real evidence. That’s the mucky bit about this case, Constable. There are so many who could have killed him, so many who apparently wanted him dead, but we’ve no proof that any of them actually did it. Mrs. Frommer could just as easily have done it, as could Henry Alladyce or the servants…or—I don’t know; we’ll just have to keep digging. Any word on that missing footman yet?”

“No, sir, nothing. We’ve sent the lads around the workhouse, but no one there admits to seein’ the boy. Mind you, that lot isn’t all that happy to be cooperating with us in any case, so who knows if he’s been there or not. Do you think he’s important?” Barnes ran his hand over his forehead, wiping off a line of perspiration trickling out
from under his helmet onto his cheek. The day was waning, but the summer air was heavy and humid.

“I’m not sure. According to Miss Donovan and the other servants, the boy hasn’t been seen since the morning of the murder. Which would mean he’d disappeared hours before the murder and probably has nothing to do with it. But I don’t like it, Barnes. I don’t like it at all. But there’s not much about this case that I do like. It certainly is turning into a muddle, isn’t it?”

They’d come to the curving junction of Manchester Street and Grays Inn Road. This late in the afternoon, traffic was heavy. On the pavement, a boardman advertising this evening’s performance of a pantomine spotted Constable Barnes in his policeman’s uniform and made a mad dash in the other direction. As did a young shoeblack. A mush-faker pushing a ginger-beer cart yelled a catcall at the retreating boy and boardman and then grinned broadly as the policemen came steadily on, seemingly oblivious to the consternation their appearance on the street had caused.

A row of hansoms formed a line across the road, some of them disgorging passengers in front of the Throat and Ear Hospital. Barnes didn’t know what to think; he was as confused as his inspector. “It
is
a muddle, sir. But about the missing footman, well, coincidences do happen,” he ventured. “Should I get us a cab, sir?”