Mrs. Jeffries and the One Who Got Away (7 page)

Morecomb's eyes widened. “Dead woman?”

“Yes. Miss Durridge is being interviewed about the murder of Alice Robinson, and if you'll wait in your room, we'd like to have a word with you as well.”

*   *   *

Mrs. Jeffries raced to the front-room window as she heard a hansom cab pull up to the house. It was already past eight and she'd begun to think that the inspector was going to stay at the station till the wee hours of the night. She pushed the heavy velvet curtain to one side and saw Inspector Witherspoon stepping onto the pavement.

She was waiting by the front door when he stepped inside. He gave her a wan smile as he took off his bowler and handed it to her. “I take it you received the message that I'd been called out to a murder.”

“Yes, sir, young Davey Marsh came around earlier today.” She hung up the hat and held out her hand for his overcoat and scarf. “Your dinner is in the warming oven but I thought you might like a quick sherry before you ate.”

“You're an angel, Mrs. Jeffries, that is precisely what I need. It has been a somewhat trying day.” He headed off down the hall toward the study.

As the inspector wasn't given to exaggeration, Mrs. Jeffries frowned at his back as she hurried after him. She said nothing as he settled into his favorite chair, and she poured both of them a glass of sherry. “Here you are, sir.” She handed him a glass of his favorite drink,
Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry
.

Witherspoon tossed it down his throat and handed her the glass. “As I said, it has been a very incredible day. Another, please.”

“Of course, sir.” She smiled as if his knocking back a glass of spirits in one gulp was the most usual thing in the world. She poured him another and brought it back to his chair. “Here you are, sir. Gracious, sir, you look exhausted. Why don't you tell me what happened today.”

They had long established this pattern; he always told her about his cases and she, in turn, did her best to bolster his confidence. She took her seat and waited.

He said nothing for a few moments then, finally, he said, “Constable Barnes and I were sent to Highgate Cemetery today. The instructions from Barrows were that we were to go there to consult. When we got there, the inspector in charge of the case wasn't all that happy to see us, but nonetheless, we did our duty.”

Mrs. Jeffries watched him with growing concern. There was something wrong. She'd never seen the inspector like this.

“The victim was a woman named Alice Robinson,” he continued. “She owned a lodging house nearby and had been identified by a local constable. I couldn't quite understand why they'd called me to the scene, but when I got there, it became obvious.” He told her about the newspaper clipping.

Mrs. Jeffries went perfectly still. She had a feeling that there was more to come.

“But that wasn't the biggest surprise.” He took another sip. “When I finally looked at the body, I realized that this woman wasn't who everyone thought she was.”

“Who was she, sir?”

“Edith Durant.” His voice was a mere whisper.

Mrs. Jeffries drew a quick, uneven breath and then struggled to bring herself under control before he could notice that his announcement had knocked the wind out of her sails. But her efforts to appear calm were not needed, as the inspector wasn't looking at her, but was staring into the distance with a faraway look in his eyes.

“Odd, isn't it,” he muttered. “How one reacts when faced with a circumstance one never thought to see. I honestly thought I'd never see or hear of her again. Yet she's been right here in London for almost two years, practically under my very nose.”

“But as you said, sir, you were called to another district, to Highgate. That's nowhere near where you'd have a chance of spotting her.”

He didn't seem to hear her. “She's the one that got away, Mrs. Jeffries. She was my greatest failure, which is strange, really, when I never expected to be a success.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Right now, she wished she'd poured herself another drink; she had a feeling she might need it.

He looked at her and smiled faintly. “Oh, come now, Mrs. Jeffries, I'm hardly the sort of person that anyone would ever think would end up a policeman. I only got taken onto the police force because my aunt Euphemia used her influence on my behalf. But I wasn't a very good street constable and, well, that's why I ended up in charge of the Records Room. But when I started solving murders, when I started actually catching killers, I began to think that perhaps I was good at the job and that I was doing what the Almighty meant me to do.”

“That's true, sir,” she insisted. “You are excellent at the job, and you've caught more murderers than anyone in the history of the Metropolitan Police Department, and you were a good policeman even before you solved those awful Kensington High Street murders. You'd worked your way up the ranks and were an inspector when you hired me.” She was referring to his first case, the one the press had called “The Horrible Kensington High Street Murders.”

Again, he seemed not to hear her, but just shifted his gaze to a point over her shoulder. “I only climbed the ranks because of my aunt. I've no idea how she managed it—she wasn't an aristocrat or someone with any obvious power in society. As a matter of fact, Mama and I never quite understood how she managed to acquire this house and a rather large fortune. Yet somehow she did and she used her influence with someone at the Home Office to ensure I got regular promotions.”

“Do you know that for a fact, sir, or are you only guessing?” Mrs. Jeffries got up and helped herself to another sherry.

He blinked and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “It's more than a guess but not quite a fact, if that makes sense. Aunt Euphemia never admitted it to me, but she did tell me that as I was the only reminder she had left in this world of her late husband, she'd do anything for me.” He waved his hand around the room. “As you can see, she did. Not only did she make sure I had a decent career, but she left me this house and her entire fortune.”

“Euphemia Witherspoon was married to your father's brother,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “And I take it he wasn't a wealthy man.”

“No, he was a bank clerk when they married but he died very young, leaving her a widow. She made her fortune herself, though as I said, neither Mama nor I ever understood how she managed it. But that's neither here nor there, Mrs. Jeffries. What I'm trying to say is that I always felt a complete fraud of a policeman until I started solving murders, and when Edith Durant got away, that brought back all those feelings of inadequacy and failure. As the years passed, I put it firmly behind me and managed to convince myself that I was a good officer, that I was competent and, most important, that I was doing something useful for society. Until today.”

“But you're not a failure, sir, you've solved a dozen cases since then.”

“But that doesn't matter, not when you're confronted with the evidence of your incompetence. Oh, I don't mean to wallow in self-pity, but that case has always made me feel that if it hadn't been for my late aunt's influence, I'd never even have made it as far as the Records Room. Even worse, when I saw the Durant woman lying there, when I realized who she really was, I found myself thinking that she'd finally got what she deserved.”

“But it is perfectly normal that you'd react that way,” she protested. In the back of her mind, she wondered how the others would react when she told them who the victim really was. “She committed a dreadful crime and got away with it for years.”

“That shouldn't matter. Justice is for everyone, even the guilty. Edith Durant should have been arrested and punished in a court of law. But we stopped looking for her.”

“Only when it became obvious she'd left the country,” Mrs. Jeffries argued. “As I recall, sir, you and everyone else on the force did everything possible to find her. You had constables watching the train stations, you put out notices to every police district in the country, and at one point, you and Constable Barnes spent hours checking hotels near all the seaports as well as going through all the passenger manifests for ships leaving the country. There was nothing else you could have done.”

“But we still never caught her.” He smiled bitterly. “And after today, I'm not sure of myself.”

“Don't be ridiculous, sir,” she said, feeling her temper rising. “You can't let this one incident dictate your attitude about your career. You've accomplished more for the cause of justice than anyone.”

“That's not what I meant,” he interrupted. “What I'm most afraid of is myself. I'm scared I won't do a proper job of investigating her murder.”

*   *   *

Mrs. Jeffries was already at the table when Mrs. Goodge shuffled down the hallway the next morning. “You're up early,” she said as she continued on down the passage with Samson, the mean old orange tabby she adored, trailing behind her. Wiggins, being the softhearted sort, had brought the animal here after his owner had been murdered in one of their earlier cases. It had been love at first sight between the cook and the cat.

“I couldn't sleep. Let the cat out. I've made a fresh pot of tea.” She poured a cup and sat it in the cook's place.

Mrs. Goodge grunted in reply, opened the back door, and then trundled back to the kitchen. She frowned as she studied the housekeeper's face. “You look like you haven't slept a wink.”

“I haven't.”

“What's wrong?”

Mrs. Jeffries smiled wanly. “Quite a bit, I'm afraid.”

Inspector Witherspoon had dutifully listened to her protests and her assurances that a man of his character would always, always do his duty, but she'd not been sure he'd believed her. As for the details of the crime itself, she'd not gotten much information out of him as he'd decided he wanted his supper. But when she'd gone to clear the table, she'd noticed he'd eaten very little. “The victim we thought was Alice Robinson, isn't.”

“Isn't what?” Mrs. Goodge took a big gulp of the hot tea.

“She's Edith Durant,” Mrs. Jeffries blurted.

Mrs. Goodge put her mug down. “Edith Durant? I don't believe it.”

“It's true and it's upset the inspector greatly.” She stopped, unsure of how much of Witherspoon's confession she ought to share. She didn't want to be disloyal, but on the other hand, Mrs. Goodge was both discreet and devoted to their employer. So she told her everything.

When she'd finished her recital, the cook said nothing; she merely sat there with her hands wrapped around her tea mug.

Mrs. Jeffries waited patiently. Finally she said, “Well, what do you think? What should we do?”

“I don't know.” Mrs. Goodge shrugged. “But I understand how the inspector feels. That horrible woman committed terrible crimes and left her accomplice to face the music. They hung him.”

“Many would say he deserved to hang,” Mrs. Jeffries said. She was afraid this was going to happen—that once the others knew who the victim was, they would not be so keen to find her killer. That, as well as her concerns about the inspector, was what had really kept her awake in the night. “He was no innocent who'd been dragged into the situation against his will. He killed so he could have what he wanted. Carl Christopher murdered Jasper Claypool.”

“I'm not disputin' that. But Edith Durant did something far worse, for goodness' sake: She killed her own sister.”

Mrs. Jeffries nodded but said nothing. When the others got here, she'd have to go over the details of Edith Durant's previous crimes so that Ruth and Phyllis would understand why this was such a disturbing case and, more important, why there might be those in the household who were less than enthusiastic to track down this particular killer.

They sat in the early-morning quiet of the silent house, both of them lost in thoughts of the past. The back door rattled and the cook got up. “I'll let Samson in. He always does his business quickly when it's cold outside.”

*   *   *

Constable Barnes cocked his head to one side and studied the two women. “She was a killer and I'm not going to be losing a lot of sleep over the fact that she was dispatched to meet her Maker by someone of her own ilk. So I can understand how the inspector feels.”

“Not just the inspector,” Mrs. Goodge muttered. “I'm havin' a hard time with it as well. Maybe that woman did get what she deserved. She might have been murdered, but she's had years of freedom and happiness that her victims didn't have. Maybe this is the Lord's way of doin' justice.”

“If this were the Lord's justice,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured thoughtfully, “he'd not have dumped the woman's body right under our noses unless, of course, he was testing our own commitment to doing what was right.” She wasn't sure she meant the words coming out of her mouth.

“We'll do what's right, Mrs. Jeffries,” Barnes protested. “Investigating this murder is our job and we'll do it properly. No one has the right to take the law into his or her own hands. I'm just sayin' I can understand how the inspector feels.”

As was his habit, Barnes had stopped in to have a quick word with them before getting out with the inspector. He did it every time there was a murder to be investigated. During the course of his work with Witherspoon, it hadn't taken Barnes long to suss out that the inspector had help with his cases, and being a clever sort, he'd soon figured out precisely how his superior was being assisted. But Barnes was a wily old fox, and he'd also realized that the household of Upper Edmonton Gardens and their friends had access to information that the police might never get.

People who'd die before they spoke to a copper would tell them all manner of useful bits and pieces. Even better, they could worm information out of confidential sources such as bankers and even solicitors. So Barnes had made the decision to help them, and now they had a system in place where they passed facts, rumors, and gossip back and forth.