Mrs. Jeffries and the Feast of St. Stephen (A Victorian Mystery) (9 page)

“When did Mrs. Murray go into the drawing room?” Barnes asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t recall seeing her come down the stairs. But that doesn’t mean much: she nips about quietly and could easily have slipped in when I was putting the coats away,” Flagg replied.

“When did Mr. Whitfield and his guests leave the drawing room?”

Flagg looked puzzled. “You mean for dinner?’

“I understand that Mr. Whitfield had one of those ‘Christmas trees’ done up,” Barnes explained. “Didn’t he take his guests in to see it?”

“Oh, that.” Flagg snorted softly. “As soon as everyone had their drink, he took them into the morning room. It was just a pine tree with some painted glass and clay ornaments, some ribbons, and those wretched candles. That caused a bit of a to-do, I’ll tell you. One of the footmen actually quit over them silly candles, told me right to my face that he wasn’t going to stand there for hours on end and then walked straight out of the house without so much as a by-your-leave. But Mr. Whitfield didn’t care what sort of trouble the ruddy tree caused. He thought Mrs. Graham would find the tree amusing, and that was all that mattered to him.”

“And did she find it amusing?” the constable pressed.

Flagg shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that, sir.”

Barnes decided to leave that line of questioning for another time. “When did your footman leave?”

“It was the day before the dinner party, sir,” Flagg explained. “And truth to tell, it wasn’t a surprise. Some lads just aren’t cut out for service, and Jacob Prine was one of them. He’s a nice enough lad, but he hated working as a servant. Twice I cuffed him for talking back to Cook. Full of himself, he was.”

“So he just quit and walked out?” Barnes queried. “Where did he go?”

“His uncle owns two very successful pubs, one in Hammersmith and one in Chiswick. He went there. He’d been champing at the bit to get out of here.” Flagg leaned across the table. “Actually, I think the boy was a bit scared of the tree. He didn’t like fire, and I don’t think he wanted to be near all them blazing candles. I didn’t much blame him, either.”

Barnes wrote down the name in his notebook. Even though the boy had left the day before the murder, it wouldn’t hurt to verify his movements. “Where is he likely to have gone? Hammersmith or Chiswick?”

“He’ll be at Hammersmith. The Lineman’s Tow is the name of the pub.”

Barnes decided that they now had a pretty good idea of who might have had access to the open Bordeaux. Apparently everyone could have slipped in and doctored it with foxglove. But he wasn’t through asking questions. He closed his notebook and looked at Flagg. “What sort of person was Mr. Whitfield?”

Flagg was taken aback. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your question. It’s hardly my place to . . .”

“You’re not stupid, Mr. Flagg. Your employer has been murdered, so that means someone wanted him dead. It’s our job to find out who that someone might be, and you’ll do the late Mr. Whitfield a great service if you’re simply honest with me. What sort of man was he?”

Flagg stared at Barnes for a long moment. “He wasn’t any worse than most men of his class.”

“What does that mean?’

“He wasn’t a kind man by any means, but he was fair and he treated us decently.” Flagg sighed. “Mind you, we didn’t like the way he’d treated Mrs. Murray recently. She deserved better.”

“What did he do to her?”

“Ever since he became acquainted with Mrs. Graham, he’s pushed Mrs. Murray aside.” Flagg sniffed disapprovingly. “Hardly the act of a gentleman.”

“Isn’t Mrs. Murray his sister-in-law?” Barnes said, taking care to keep his tone casual.

“Oh, yes, but up until he met Mrs. Graham, everyone assumed that Mr. Whitfield and Mrs. Murray would eventually marry. He always promised he’d take care of her, and frankly, unless he settled an allowance on her, I don’t think he could have taken care of her and still been married to Mrs. Graham.”

“Mr. Whitfield was going to marry Mrs. Graham?”

Barnes asked. He wanted to make sure he understood exactly what the man was telling him. “He actually told you this?”

“Not directly.” Flagg chuckled. “He was hardly in the habit of discussing his personal business with me, but one does have eyes and ears. Two weeks ago he sent for his solicitor, and then he made an appointment with a jeweler.”

“And those actions led you to believe he was going to propose to Mrs. Graham?”

“Those, and the fact that Cook overheard Mrs. Murray and Mr. Whitfield having words on the subject,” Flagg replied. “Of course, Cook wouldn’t say precisely what she overheard. She does that, you know—pretends that she doesn’t like gossip—but she’s no better than anyone else.” He leaned across the table again. “But she told me that Mrs. Murray and Mr. Whitfield had some very strong words after the solicitor was here last week. Mrs. Murray is a lady; she never raises her voice. But Cook claims she was screaming her head off last week.”

 
“You look dreadfully tired, Dr. Bosworth,” Mrs. Jeffries said as she took a chair opposite him. He was sitting behind his desk, his pale skin even paler after a night of hard work. His red hair was mussed and tufts of it were standing on end. There was a faint air of disinfectant about his person. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. This could have waited till later.”

“Don’t be sorry. I was expecting you’d be here this morning.” Bosworth covered his mouth with his hand to hide a yawn. “That’s one of the reasons I came to my office—I was fairly sure this would be where you’d look for me. You’re here about Stephen Whitfield.”

“I am. Was it poison?”

“It was. He had enough foxglove in his stomach to kill an elephant. That’s one of the reasons that death occurred so rapidly—he ingested a massive dose,” he replied. “Luckily, as the postmortem was done so quickly, the contents of the stomach were still fresh, and I found an enormous amount of crushed leaves.”

“And you’re certain it was foxglove?” she asked. She wanted to be sure about this fact. Foxglove was a poison anyone would be able to obtain. It grew all over the countryside, especially in the woodlands. If Whitfield had died of some other kind of poison, it might limit the number of people who could reasonably acquire a large enough supply to kill someone.

“I’m sure.” He smiled. “I’ve seen it before.”

“And it was in the Bordeaux?”

He nodded. “Correct.”

“You had the wine tested?”

“I didn’t need to have it tested. I simply poured a bit out, and the foxglove was floating in the wine as clear as day. It’s a wonder no one noticed the leaves in the liquid. They were certainly big enough to be seen.”

She thought about that for a moment. “That is very odd. If the leaves were that visible, the killer was taking a terrible risk. If Whitfield had noticed them, he probably wouldn’t have drunk the wine.”

“Perhaps.” Bosworth shrugged. “But perhaps not. The bottle itself is a very dark color, so the leaves couldn’t have been seen unless one held it up to a lamp or took it out in strong sunlight for a good look.”

“But once the wine was poured into a glass, the leaves should have been spotted,” she argued.

“Only if the person drinking the wine bothered to look.” Bosworth leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Jeffries, there are a number of people who are . . . Well, I’m not sure how to put it, but their need for alcoholic beverages is so great, they simply pour down their throats whatever is handed to them. Stephen Whitfield might have been one of those people.”

“You mean an alcoholic?” Mrs. Jeffries had heard the word before but wasn’t precisely sure this was the correct context. “But aren’t those simply people who lie about in gin palaces and end up in the streets?”

“That’s generally what happens if you’re poor. If you’ve money, you can avoid ending up in those circumstances,” he said. “Take my word for it—it’s not just the poor that suffer from this affliction. There are just as many of the wealthy who have the same compulsion to drink; they simply have the means to hide it better. I’m not saying that this has anything to do with Whitfield’s murder. I am saying that a craving for alcohol could be the reason he didn’t bother to so much as glance at the contents of his cup.”

“I see.” She nodded in understanding. “Dr. Bosworth, wouldn’t a massive dose like that have changed the taste of the wine?”

“Of course it would, but as we just noted, if he was a person with a craving for alcohol, he wouldn’t have cared what it tasted like. He’d have been concerned only with getting it down his throat.”

“But what if he wasn’t one of those sort of people, one of those alcoholics? What if he had no craving? Wouldn’t he have noticed that the wine tasted peculiar?”

Bosworth thought for a moment before he spoke. “He certainly should have noticed—unless, of course, he had a limited sense of taste. That could well be the case. He wasn’t a young man.”

“I’m not young, either, but I can tell if something tastes odd.”

“Can you?” He grinned. “Remember, the man was drinking a full-bodied French red wine, which has a strong flavor in and of itself. He may well have thought it was supposed to taste as it did, or he might not have had any sense of taste at all. I’ve half a dozen patients who can’t taste food or drink. It’s quite a common affliction.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The sense of taste is closely allied with the sense of smell. An infection in the sinuses, a blow to the head, a high fever—any or all of those conditions can leave one without the ability to taste or smell much of anything.”

“That could explain why Whitfield didn’t notice that the wine tasted unusual,” she murmured. “Would the foxglove have changed the taste all that much?’

“I’ve no idea. Most of the people who have ever put the stuff in their mouths are dead. But I expect it would. Most poisons do have a strong taste. Perhaps it’s Mother Nature’s way of trying to keep us from ingesting things that are likely to kill us.”

“With a large dose like the one he had, wouldn’t it be obvious that Whitfield had been poisoned and not died of natural causes?” she asked.

Bosworth shook his head. “Unless they’d had some experience with foxglove poisoning, most physicians would assume he’d died of a heart attack. I only thought to look for poisioning because before Whitfield collapsed, he claimed everyone had turned blue. But if he’d collapsed without speaking, considering his age and his general health, even I would have thought it was his heart.”

“Then he was lucky you were the one they fetched to attend him,” she said with a smile. “Otherwise the killer would have gotten away with it.”

“Your killer may still get away with it,” Bosworth warned.

“Proving this kind of poisoning won’t be easy. Just about anyone in England who can go for a walk in the countryside has access to foxglove.”

“But it doesn’t grow in the dead of winter.”

“It doesn’t have to,” he replied. “The poison was in the leaves. Your killer probably gathered them this past summer, dried them out, and crushed them to be put in the wine. The poison would still be very, very potent.” He raised his hand to try to hide another yawn.

But Mrs. Jeffries was having none of that. She got to her feet. “You must go home and rest. I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

“I’m glad to help,” Bosworth replied as he got up. “Do let me know what happens. I do like learning who the culprit is before it comes out in the newspapers.”

“If this case is as difficult as I think it might be,” she replied, “you may have a long wait.”

Smythe pushed his way into the Dirty Duck Pub and hoped that his old source would be open for business. He took a deep breath, inhaling the mingled scents of beer, tobacco, wood smoke, and river. This was one of the things he’d missed the most when he was gone: the smell of home, of London. Seamen, dockworkers, street vendors, day laborers, and locals crowded the bar and filled the benches along the wall; but considering the number of people in the room, it was relatively quiet. The pub might be on the quayside, but Blimpey Groggins, the man he’d come to see and the probable owner of this establishment, kept the rowdies and troublemakers out of the place.

Smythe eased past a bread seller, taking care not to bump her basket. He craned his neck to look past a burly teamster and saw that Blimpey was sitting at his usual table near the fireplace. He was talking with two other men. Smythe hung back a moment. Blimpey looked to be conducting business, and he wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted. One of the men wore an old-fashioned black business suit, a silver and maroon cravat, and a shirt so white that it almost hurt your eyes. He appeared to be a banker. The other fellow had on a ragged gray jacket and paint-stained trousers.

Blimpey Groggins had started out in life as a thief. Breaking and entering was his specialty. But he was possessed of a superb memory and soon realized that as he had no stomach for either prison or violence, he could make far more money buying and selling information. He had sources in the Old Bailey, the magistrate courts, the financial centers in the City, the steamship lines, and the insurance companies. He also had an excellent relationship with every thief, con artist, and crook in southern England. His clients ranged from insurance companies wanting to know whether a suspicious fire had been deliberately set, to petty thieves looking for character references on which fence was the most reliable.

But Blimpey had standards. He wouldn’t trade in information that caused physical harm to a woman or a child. Smythe had used him a number of times and had found his information very dependable.

The man in the dark suit stood, picked up his top hat from the table, nodded, and left. A moment later, the day laborer rose and walked away as well.

Fearing he wasn’t the only one waiting for Blimpey, Smythe pushed his way through the crowd and slipped onto the stool opposite his quarry. “Hello, Blimpey.”