Mrs. Jeffries and the Best Laid Plans (11 page)

“What time did you leave the house that morning?” Barnes asked.

“Early,” she replied. “The food was all ready and in the wet larder. I’d made sure that Mary—she’s the downstairs girl—had set the table properly, and I’d left Mr. Boyd’s breakfast on a warming plate in the dining room. We left at half past seven; the funeral was set for ten o’clock, but it was in Helen’s village church so we had to get to Paddington Station in time for the 8:10 train.”

“So you went to the funeral and then came back. Can you tell us what you saw when you arrived home?” Witherspoon shifted in his seat, his backside had gone quite numb. If the rest of the furniture was this uncomfortable, he knew Glover had to be lying. Napping on one of these chairs would be like trying to sleep on a bed of rocks.

“Mr. Boyd had insisted we return in time to serve luncheon, so we came back straightaway after the funeral.” She sniffed disapprovingly. “You’d have thought he and his guests could serve themselves, but oh, no, we had to come back. We barely had time to pay our respects to Helen’s family. But I digress. We arrived home to find the fire wagon outside and the fire brigade all over the place.”

“Were Mr. Glover and Miss Clarke here?” Barnes asked.

“Yes, it was Mr. Glover who told us that Mr. Boyd was dead.” She shrugged. “I know I sound heartless, but he wasn’t a very nice person. I was one of the few relatives the man had, but do you think he’d let me live here as family? He did not. He put me to work as his housekeeper and insisted I call him Mr. Boyd.”

“You said he had a problem keeping staff,” Witherspoon said. “What exactly did you mean?”

“People wouldn’t stay,” she replied. “When one is in service, taking care of a single man rather than an entire family is supposed to be one of the easier situations. But he was as hard to please as a houseful of maiden aunts. Good gracious, if there was a speck of dust on the furniture he’d scream like a banshee.

If cook was a minute late getting food on the table, he’d go into the kitchen himself and humiliate the woman, and he made the poor butler’s life a living hell.”

“Did Leeson plan on leaving as well?” Barnes looked up from his notebook.

“He was going to retire.” Hannah Rothwell grinned broadly. “The poor man deserves some peace and quiet after what he’s been through with my cousin.”

“Why did he stay?” Witherspoon asked curiously.

“Lawrence paid well,” she replied. “That’s the only reason any of us stayed. But even decent wages don’t make up for being treated badly. Not these days.”

Witherspoon thought about asking if Boyd had enemies and then changed his mind as the question had already been answered. Instead, he said, “Had Mr. Boyd recently sacked anyone who might want to extract revenge against him?”

Mrs. Rothwell shook her head. “Lawrence didn’t sack staff. They always left on their own. At least in the time I’ve been here, which is ten years. Before that, I couldn’t say.”

Barnes asked, “How many guests were expected for luncheon yesterday?”

“Four or five. The luncheon was buffet-style and people were supposed to help themselves, so I don’t recall the exact number of people.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Let me see, Mr. Gibbons was coming, Mr. and Mrs. Sapington, and I think one or two others. They were all quite stunned to find out he’d been killed, of course. Mind you, that didn’t stop them from eating.”

“Mr. Sapington stated you insisted the guests go ahead and eat,” Witherspoon said. He had no idea why that had popped into his head, but it had.

“Nonsense,” she snorted derisively. “I did no such thing. When I went into the dining room to supervise the clearing up, Maud Sapington was right on my heels. We were at school together, Inspector, and Maud delighted in sneering at how I’d come down in the world. But I digress again. Before I could so much as pull the trolley away from the butler’s pantry, she grabbed a plate and began filling it with roast beef.”

“Did she make any comment or did she just help herself?” Barnes asked curiously. Odd behavior by anyone at a murder scene was always worth noting.

“She looked at me and said, ‘There’s no reason to let all this food go to waste.’ ” Mrs. Rothwell snorted again. “Then she stuck her head out the door and called the others to come in and eat. I was amazed. I wasn’t fond of Lawrence in the least, none of us were, but it was no longer a social occasion of any sort. But Maud was always like that, pushy and greedy.”

Witherspoon nodded sympathetically. “It must have been a very awkward situation for you.”

She actually laughed. “It was, but it was also funny. I’m sure the story of the whole lot of themselves eating themselves silly before their host’s body was even carted off by the police is already making the rounds. The Sapingtons will hate that. Arnold Sapington is a stickler for the social niceties, which is a bit of an affectation if you ask me, considering he was nothing but a builder’s son from Slough. Maud doesn’t care what people think of her. She never did.”

It was obvious Mrs. Rothwell had no love for Maud Sapington. “I take it you’ve known Mrs. Sapington for quite some time,” Witherspoon said.

“As I said, since we were in school,” Mrs. Rothwell replied. “She was a greedy thing back then, too. Which is odd, really; she grew up with everything. Oh, her family weren’t aristocrats, but they were rich as Croesus.”

“Are the Sapingtons and Mr. Boyd close friends?” the inspector pressed. He wanted to find out if all of yesterday’s luncheon guests disliked their host.

“Oh, good lord, no.” She laughed again. “Lawrence thought Maud a silly woman and considered her husband a social-climbing upstart. He only invited them for luncheon because Walter Gibbons was going to announce that it was Lawrence who’d won the chairmanship of the Bankers Benevolent Society and not Sapington.” Her smile faded. “I told you, Inspector, my cousin had a cruel streak. He wanted to watch Arnold Sapington’s face when he heard the news.”

Witherspoon noticed that she now referred to the victim as “Lawrence” rather than “Mr. Boyd.” But he didn’t think that fact had anything to do with his murder. Furthermore, she might have disliked her cousin, but she did have an alibi. “Had Mr. Boyd been worried or unduly concerned about anyone or anything of late?”

“Not that I know about,” she replied. “But he’d have hardly confided in me.”

“Who would he have spoken with if he had concerns?” Barnes asked.

“No one. Lawrence kept his own counsel. He was a very secretive man, Inspector, in everything. He wouldn’t even let anyone see one of his paintings until he was finished with it. He once sacked a gardner for sneaking a peek at an unfinished oil painting.”

“So as far as you know, no one had been threatening him or doing anything of late to cause him alarm?” Witherspoon probed.

She shook her head and then glanced at an ornate carriage clock on a small table to her left. “Is this going to take much longer?”

“I think that will be all for now,” Witherspoon said. “We appreciate your help in this matter.”

Mrs. Rothwell got to her feet. “I don’t know that anything I’ve said will help find who murdered him. If I were you, I’d stay a bit and have a chat with his lawyer. He should be here soon.”

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Rothwell. In the meantime, we’re going to question the rest of the staff. I expect you’d like us to conduct our interviews below stairs. Do you have a space we might use, perhaps the butler’s pantry . . .”

“You can talk to them here.” She waved him back to his seat. “Who do you want me to send up first?”

Witherspoon smiled gratefully. “Could you ask Mr. Leeson to spare us a few minutes. We’ve a few more questions for him, and do let me know when Mr. Boyd’s solicitor arrives. I’d like to insure he doesn’t leave without speaking with us first.”

 

Betsy stood on the pavement and shivered as a gust of wind slammed into her. The day had started out bright and sunny so she’d not bothered with her heavy jacket, just a light lavender shawl over her dress. But May weather was treacherous, and now dark clouds scuttled across the sky and the air had that raw heavy scent of impending rain. She debated going back to the house for her umbrella and jacket and then decided to risk the deluge. The worst that could happen was she’d get wet.

She pulled her shawl tighter, crossed the road, and walked into the greengrocer’s. The clerk, a young man with a prominent Adam’s apple and wispy brown hair, was emptying cabbages into a bin. “I’ll be with you in a moment, miss.” He put the sack down on the floor, brushed off his hands, and came toward her.

After surveying all the shops in the area, Betsy had deliberately picked this one for her first stop. A lone male clerk was always best when it came to ferreting out information. “A pound of carrots, please.” She gave him a wide smile.

The clerk shifted to one side and reached into the shallow bin holding carrots. “Would you like them topped?”

“Yes, please.” She gave him another dazzling smile. “That’s very kind of you.”

He smiled self-consciously as he twisted the green leafy tops off the carrots, put them on the scale, and then reached back into the bin for another one to make up a pound.

“A friend of mine works in a household near here,” she began. “But I’m not sure exactly where. I wonder how far away that is.”

“I’ve lived in this area all my life. If you’ll tell me the name of the street, I can probably help,” the clerk offered.

“Oh, that’s very kind of you. Let’s see, what did her last letter say? I’ve just moved up from the country and I’d like to call on her. We’re from the same village, you see. It’s Laurel Road; yes, that’s the name of the street. I only found out this morning that it’s so close by.”

“Oh, that’s just up the road a bit.” He pointed to his left. “Not far at all. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks ever so much. I’d like half a pound of those sprouts as well.” She knew Mrs. Goodge would be glad of the extra vegetables. “I do hope my friend is still there. She’d written that she was thinking of looking for another position.” Betsy stepped a bit closer and lowered her voice. “She didn’t like the place very much.”

“She’d not have a hard time findin’ work,” he replied as he dumped sprouts on the scale. “Not these days. Do you know the name of the family she works for?”

“It’s not a family. It’s a gentleman on his own. A Mr. Boyd.”

“Lawrence Boyd, the banker?”

“I believe Emma did say her employer was a banker,” Betsy replied. This was going even better than she had hoped.

“Your poor friend’s not goin’ to be havin’ an easy time of it, then,” he declared. “Lawrence Boyd was murdered yesterday. It was in the morning papers.”

“Murdered! Goodness, that’s terrible.” Betsy widened her eyes in pretended shock.

“Poor bloke was bashed on the head,” the clerk said, repeating the information with obvious relish.

“The papers described how he was killed?” Betsy asked, her voice incredulous. The accounts she’d read this morning hadn’t given any details at all.

“Oh, no.” He leaned closed. “My mum got it from Mrs. Norton, who works next door to the Boyd house. She overheard the police talkin’ about it when they was searching the grounds next to her house. She’s got real good ears does Mrs. Norton, so I’m sure she didn’t get it wrong.”

“Why was the poor man killed?” Betsy asked.

“No one knows yet.” He dumped the sprouts on the counter next to the carrots and pulled a sheet of brown paper off the roll. “Would you like anything else, miss?”

“No, that’ll be all.”

“Mind you, Mr. Boyd wasn’t the nicest of people.” The clerk slapped the paper down and then shoved the vegetables into the center. “My mum says that’s why he never married again. No other woman would have him.”

So Boyd was a widower, Betsy thought. That was certainly interesting news. “You mother didn’t like Mr. Boyd?”

“Mum hated him. He used to buy from us, but he and Mum got into a dispute over a bill, so he took his business elsewhere.” He folded the paper so that it made a nice package. “Mum had to threaten him with the law to get him to pay what he owed. But he finally did.”

“He doesn’t sound a nice person at all,” Betsy agreed. “That’s probably why Emma—that’s my friend—wanted another position.”

“We weren’t the only merchant he squabbled with.” He pulled a length of string off a roll and deftly twisted it around the packet of vegetables. “The chemists had stopped supplying him and so had the draper’s shop over on Thornhill Lane. But I don’t think any of the merchants were angry enough to bash the bloke’s head in. That’s not a particularly useful way of getting your bills paid, is it?”

“I suppose not,” Betsy agreed. “Who do you think did kill him, then?”

“I’ve no idea.” He shrugged, and then his gaze moved over Betsy’s shoulder. He broke into a wide smile. “Good morning, Miss Devers. It’s very nice to see you.”

Betsy turned her head and saw a pretty, dark-haired young woman standing at the entrance. She wore clothes very much like Betsy’s and had a shopping basket over her arm. “Hello, Mr. Clarkson.” The girl smiled warmly at the clerk. “It’s nice to see you as well. Have you any rutabagas today. Cook needs them for a stew.”

“I’ve some lovely rutabagas,” he replied. Without taking his gaze off the newcomer, he picked up Betsy’s packet and handed it to her. “Thank you, miss,” he said dismissively.

She handed him the money for the vegetables. Betsy was no fool. She wasn’t going to get anything else out of this one, not when his lady love was right in front of him. “Thank you,” she said politely as she turned to leave.

He didn’t appear to hear her.

 

Smythe stood in front of the Dirty Duck Pub and hesitated for a moment before pushing the door open and stepping inside. He’d thought long and hard about the wisdom of asking Blimpey Groggins for help, but had decided that there was no point in not using a perfectly good source of information just to salvage his pride. He had plenty of money and he could afford Blimpey’s fees, and just because he chose to use him, it didn’t mean he couldn’t do his own investigating.