Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected (28 page)

Mrs. Jeffries thought he ought to tell them who he’d arrested, but before she could make that reasonable suggestion, he was off again.

“It was what Mr. Magil and Mr. Pump told me that put me on the right trail,” he continued. “You see, Haydon Dapeers had written them a letter. That’s why they’d gone
to the Gilded Lily the night of the murder, you see. They wanted him to name names.”

“Name names?” Wiggins repeated.

“Right. Dapeers claimed that someone was watering down their beer.”

“Watering down their beer?” Wiggins was beginning to sound like a parrot.

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Jeffries said; she fought to keep her voice calm.

“Of course you don’t,” Witherspoon exclaimed. “And neither did I until they explained it. You see, many breweries loan money to publicans to buy pubs. They do that on the condition that the pub will sell their beer exclusively. Haydon Dapeers had written and told them that one of the publicans Bestal’s had loaned money to was watering down their beer. Bestal’s doesn’t like that. None of the breweries do. As a matter of fact, if they catch a publican doing it, they call the loan.” He leaned back and smiled. “As soon as I heard that, I was fairly certain who had the strongest reason for wanting Dapeers dead. Of course, proving it was a bit of a challenge. But we came up with something in the end.”

“You mean, sir,” Mrs. Goodge asked, “the motive for this murder was watered beer?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Precisely.”

They exchanged glances around the table. Mrs. Jeffries couldn’t believe it. All their investigating, all their dashing about and talking to everyone under the sun. All of the time and effort and digging up clues and none of them had even come close to the right motive for Haydon Dapeers’s death. James McNally and his gambling debt, Moira Dapeers and her love of the Reverend Ballantine, Sarah Hewett and her desperation to keep Haydon quiet about her daughter, none of it had mattered. She felt like an utter failure. By the
stunned expressions on the faces of the others, she thought they probably felt the same way.

“Of course, once I realized what the motive was, knowing who killed him was easy,” Witherspoon continued. “As I said, it was proving it that was going to be difficult. Then, of course, Ellen Hoxton’s body turned up in the Thames and I knew for certain I was on the right track. That’s when I set my trap.”

“Who’s Ellen Hoxton?” Luty demanded.

“She was a barmaid at the Black Horse,” the inspector explained. “And she knew that the Black Horse was watering their beer. That’s why she was murdered, you see.”

Mrs. Jeffries had had enough. Their dear inspector was enjoying himself far too much; if they let him witter on like this, they’d be here until breakfast. “No, sir, we don’t see anything. First of all, who did you arrest tonight?”

“Gracious, didn’t I mention that?”

“No,” they all cried in unison.

He blinked. “Oh, sorry. I meant to tell you. It was Joanne Dapeers. That’s who the killer was. She murdered both Ellen Hoxton and Haydon Dapeers. She killed Ellen first, though. She’d sacked Ellen for talking back to her. Ellen, in turn, threatened to tell everyone that Joanne Dapeers was watering the beer at the Black Horse and their other two pubs. Joanne knew that their loans would be called if Bestal’s found out what they were up to, so she stabbed Ellen. But she made a mistake: Ellen Hoxton had already told Haydon Dapeers what was going on. He paid her for the information.” He shook his head in disgust. “Five pounds—he gave that poor woman five pounds and it cost her her life.”

“How dreadful,” Mrs. Goodge muttered.

“Go on, sir,” Mrs. Jeffries urged, “tell us the rest of it. How did you figure all this out?”

“To be perfectly honest, I didn’t understand for a couple of days. I was fairly certain that it was either Tom or Joanne Dapeers who’d done the killings, but it wasn’t until I remembered what Joanne was wearing on the night of Haydon’s murder that I was sure that she was the actual killer. It could have been either of them, you see. The killer had brought the weapon to the Gilded Lily. Molly, the barmaid, verified that the knives in the kitchen of the Lily were still in the drawer, so I knew that the murderer had to have brought the murder weapon.”

“I don’t follow you, sir,” Mrs. Jeffries said.

“The knife had a ten-inch blade,” he explained. “It would be very difficult for a man to carry a knife of that size in his coat or trouser pockets; he’d be in danger of cutting himself quite badly. No one walked in that night with any parcels or packages on their person and the other women all had on light summer frocks and no parasols. Joanne Dapeers had on a brilliant red dress and carried both a parasol and a huge, matching muff. When I remembered that, I knew it had to be her.”

“She brought the knife in the muff,” Mrs. Jeffries said thoughtfully. She was impressed with the inspector’s reasoning. “She’d planned on killing him.”

“Precisely.” Witherspoon beamed. “She’d already killed once.”

“Ellen Hoxton,” Betsy said, “to keep her quiet about the watered beer.”

“Right.” The inspector reached for his tea. “Poor Ellen Hoxton. I think that she was probably foolish enough to tell Joanne what she’d done. From what the barman at the Black Horse told me, Ellen was quite hot-tempered and bold. Joanne knew she had to do something, she knew that Haydon wouldn’t hesitate to go straight to the brewery. If that happened, they’d lose the loans on all three of their
pubs and they’d be ruined. I think she planned on killing him that night, but when she walked in and saw that Pump and Magil were already there, she decided to do it quickly. Luckily for her, the brawl broke out just as Haydon went into the taproom. She slipped down the hall, coshed him on the head with her parasol to stun him, shoved the knife in his back and screamed her head off for help. Clever, really, and quite daring. She almost got away with it too.” He picked up his cup and drained the last of his tea. “I’m quite tired,” he announced with a yawn. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed now.”

Several of them opened their mouths to protest, but Mrs. Jeffries silenced them with a look. “Of course, sir. You must be dreadfully tired.”

Witherspoon rose, said good night and left the kitchen. As soon as he was out of earshot, they all started talking at once.

“He didn’t tell us the half of it,” Luty complained.

“What was this plan of ’is, then?” Wiggins muttered.

“Why was everyone at the pub tonight?” Hatchet asked.

“What’s this about Smythe bein’ brave?” Betsy demanded. “Where is he anyway? He should be home by now.”

Mrs. Jeffries raised a hand for silence. “We’ll find out the rest from Smythe. He should be home anytime now. It’s no good badgering the inspector when he’s tired; he’ll only get us all confused.”

But Smythe didn’t show up for another half hour. When he walked in, whistling as he came down the back hall, Betsy was pacing the kitchen. Luty was glaring at the clock, Hatchet was drumming his fingers on the tabletop and Mrs. Goodge was clearing the table. Wiggins was asleep.

“Where’ve you been?” Betsy demanded the moment he stepped into the kitchen.

“Good evenin’, all.” He gave them a wide grin. “I’ve been seein’ to the ’orses. They ’ad quite a run today, they did.”

“And what’s this about you bein’ so bloomin’ brave?” Betsy snapped. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Do sit down, Smythe,” Mrs. Jeffries invited. “The inspector has told us some of what happened, but not all of it.”

“But make it quick,” Luty ordered. “It’s gettin’ late.” She reached over and poked Wiggins in the ribs. “Wake up if you want to hear what happened.”

Wiggins jerked awake and looked around in confusion.

Smythe sat down at the table. “Did he tell you it was Joanne Dapeers?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Jeffries said, “and he told us how he’d figured out she was the killer, but he didn’t say a word about how he trapped her.”

Smythe grinned. “It worked too, I was sure ’e were fixin’ to ruin ’is career.” He told the others how he’d driven the inspector all over London that day. “We stopped at Bestal’s and the inspector was in talkin’ to ’em a long time. He told me later he were confirmin’ that all three of Tom and Joanne’s pubs were bought on loans from the Bestal’s and that they still owed a pretty penny for all of ’em. After that, he made me drive him to Scotland Yard. I dawdled all I could, but we finally got there. When we pulled up, the inspector asked me to come inside. Scared the life out of me, it did. Him standin’ in front of the chief inspector and talkin’ about this daft plan of ’is.”

“What plan?” Mrs. Goodge asked querulously. She was tired, sleepy and getting crankier by the minute.

“I’m comin’ to that,” Smythe said. “It were a good plan, actually. But at the time I thought it was daft. You see, no one knew that Ellen Hoxton’s body ’ad been found.
The inspector got everyone together at the Lily that night because he was goin’ to trick the killer. ’E fixed it so Constable Griffith would pop in and tell the inspector that there was an eyewitness to the Hoxton murder, but it were a petty crook who wouldn’t come into a police station to talk and ’e’d only talk to Witherspoon. Griffith was told to make sure he said the inspector was to meet this crook at the spot where Ellen’s body was found. She’d been pulled out of the Thames with a stab wound in her back, just like Haydon Dapeers.”

“Then why didn’t her body float off?” Wiggins asked.

“’Cause her dress got caught on a piling,” Smythe replied. “Anyway, the inspector reasoned that only the killer would know where Ellen’s murder took place. So he played like ’e was right irritated and told Griffith ’e’d meet this witness. Griffith made a point of sayin’ that the man would be waitin’ for him at ten o’clock.” Smythe laughed. “The inspector did that on purpose too. He wanted to give the murderer a chance to get there first and try to kill the witness. You’da been proud of him, playactin’ with the best of ’em.”

“And who was this man?” Betsy asked archly. “This witness.”

Smythe shifted in his chair and glanced down at the table. “Well, uh, they was goin’ to use a police constable, but the chief inspector was afraid that wouldn’t look right when the case got to court.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “So the inspector asked me to ’ave a go at it.”

Betsy’s eyes narrowed. “So you was standing there waitin’ for this crazy woman to slip up and shove a knife in your back.”

“Now, it wasn’t like that, lass,” he soothed. “There were police all over the dock.” Smythe thought it best not to go into any more details about what had really happened
on the pier. “They nabbed her before she got close to me.”

“So his plan worked,” Mrs. Jeffries said thoughtfully.

“Worked all right, they caught her red-handed. Joanne Dapeers killed two people. She’s goin’ to ’ang.”

The next morning, the household waited until after Witherspoon had left for the day before gathering around the kitchen table.

“We’ve spent most of this bloomin’ case around this table,” Wiggins complained. “Might as well ’ave not even bothered tryin’ to do any investigatin’ at all. Fat lot of good it did us.”

“Now, Wiggins,” Mrs. Jeffries said soothingly. “We did the best we could.” She was as disgusted as the rest of them, but she certainly didn’t want it to show. They mustn’t be petty. Occasionally, the inspector was going to solve a case on his own.

“Wiggins is right,” Betsy grumbled. “We shouldn’a bothered. All that running around I did, following that silly McNally, talking my way into that missionary society, going to that stupid pub with Hamilton. None of it had a thing to do with the murder. Not a ruddy thing.”

“Think how I feel?” Mrs. Goodge cried. “I had my sources out sussing up nonsense on a dead publican. My reputation’s in shreds, it is.”

Smythe shrugged. “We was tryin’ to ’elp, so we shouldn’t feel too bad about it.”

“You’re only sayin’ that because you was in on it at the end,” Betsy said accusingly. She was sure there was a lot he wasn’t telling them about the previous night’s activities.

“This is pointless,” Mrs. Jeffries said bluntly. “We’re all sitting around here with long faces and grumbling because we’re annoyed the inspector solved the crime on his own.”

“Maybe we ain’t as clever as we thought we were,” Wiggins suggested morosely. “We didn’t even come close to figurin’ out this one.”

As Mis. Jeffries and the others were well aware of that fact, they didn’t find the footman’s statement particularly helpful. “We would have figured it out eventually.”

“Do you really think so?” Wiggins asked, looking hopeful.

“Of course.” Mrs. Jeffries forced herself to smile. “There will be other cases.”

“I think we’ve lost our touch,” Betsy said. “I don’t think we’ll ever solve another murder again.”

“He’ll hog them all,” Mrs. Goodge announced darkly. “He’s got a taste for it now that’s he gotten lucky—”

“Lucky?” Mrs. Jeffries interrupted. “Really, Mrs. Goodge, I’m as upset as you are about our failure on this case, but I hardly think it’s fair to say the inspector got ‘lucky.’ He solved this case with logic and reason.”

“And listenin’ to his inner voice,” Wiggins interjected rudely. “If it ’adn’t been for that bloomin’ inner voice, we’da ’ad a decent crack at the case.”