Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected (9 page)

“I expect you know why we’re here,” Witherspoon began. Taggert nodded. “So I’ll get right to it. You were at the Gilded Lily Pub yesterday evening, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Were you an invited guest?” Barnes asked.

Taggert grinned. “I’m the last person that Haydon Dapeers would have invited. But I was there anyway.”

“Would you tell us why?” Witherspoon asked.

“Two reasons.” Taggert held up two fingers. “One, I
wanted to see Sarah Hewett, and two, I wanted to collect the money that Haydon owed me.”

“Dapeers owed you money?” Witherspoon said. Of course, he already knew this, but he’d found that sometimes pretending that one didn’t know something was the very best way of getting an enormous amount of information out of a suspect. And frankly, from what the inspector had heard today, Michael Taggert was the only suspect he had.

“I’d done quite a bit of work for Dapeers,” Taggert explained. “He hired me to etch the designs on the glass partitions in the pub and to do the carving on the wood panels behind the bar.”

“I thought you were a painter, sir,” Barnes said, glancing at the canvas near the window. He couldn’t see what was on the thing, only the back of the easel.

“Painting is my main interest,” Taggert said, “but I do a few other things as well. I’d done this work for Dapeers, finished it last week, but Dapeers wouldn’t pay me.”

“Why?”

“How should I know why?” Taggert exclaimed. “He was a tightfisted sod, but I didn’t think he’d stoop so low as to not pay what he owed.”

“Did you threaten Mr. Dapeers?” Witherspoon asked quietly. Goodness, the man was certainly being honest. He didn’t try to hide his true feelings about the victim.

Taggert hesitated. He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “Threaten? Yes, you could say that. I told him if he didn’t pay what he owed, I’d have him in court.”

“Is that when Mr. Dapeers asked you to leave?” Witherspoon asked.

Taggert laughed harshly. “He tried to throw me out when I warned him to keep his hands off Sarah. But just then Mrs. Dapeers came along, so Haydon had to behave himself and pretend that we were just talking.”

Surprised by the man’s honesty, Witherspoon stared at him. He’d rather expected Taggert to start lying about now. “He was forcing his attentions on this young woman?” he pressed.

“That’s a polite way of saying he couldn’t keep his bloody hands to himself.” Taggert sneered. “Haydon hadn’t actually gone so far as rape, but he wouldn’t leave Sarah alone and she was trapped in that damned house with him. I was warning him off when Mrs. Dapeers came over.”

“Did you threaten him?”

“I didn’t have time,” Taggert admitted. “Besides, Sarah didn’t want me to make a scene. But Dapeers got my point.”

“I take it you and Mrs. Hewett are, er, close friends,” the inspector said.

Taggert’s expression softened. “We’re going to be married. I’m coming into an inheritance soon; the minute I get it I’m marrying Sarah and taking her and her daughter away from here.”

Drat. The inspector sighed silently. There was something about Taggert that he rather liked. He was obviously very much in love with Sarah Hewett. Witherspoon glanced wistfully around the room, his lips creasing in a smile. He hoped the artist didn’t turn out to be a murderer. Why, as a young man, the inspector had once entertained ideas about being an artist himself. Not that he’d been serious, of course. But still, he glanced longingly at the back of the easel, wondering what was on the canvas and whether or not Mr. Taggert would mind him having a quick peek. From behind him, he heard Constable Barnes clear his throat loudly. Witherspoon snapped his head around to Taggert. “Er, how long have you known Mrs. Hewett?” he asked. The question wasn’t particularly pertinent to the
case, but he might as well ask. One never knew what one could find out by a little digging.

“About three and a half years. Sarah was living with an aunt in Bayswater when we met. We would have married three years ago except that I had a chance to go to Italy to study and Sarah made me take it.” He smashed his fist down on the table, rattling some dirty cups and making the two policemen jump. “I would to God I had married her then. Instead, she married Hewett and ended up widowed and having to live with that pig Dapeers. I’ll never forgive myself for leaving her; never.”

“Now, now, Mr. Taggert. Please calm yourself.”

“Calm myself! Do you know what she’s had to endure from that man?” he cried. “He never let her forget that she and her daughter were beholden to him. He taunted her with her poverty and watched her every move. She was a prisoner!”

“Why didn’t you marry her when you came back from Italy?” Barnes asked softly.

“I couldn’t,” Taggert replied. “She refused me; she said I’d end up hating her and the child, because if we married, I’d have to give up my work and find employment. But that’s not the case now. I’ve my inheritance.”

Witherspoon found this all very fascinating, but it didn’t have anything to do with Dapeers’s murder. “Mr. Taggert, did you go outside to watch the brawl that broke out on the street?”

“The brawl was starting just as I was leaving,” he replied, shaking his head. “I didn’t stay around to watch it.”

Witherspoon and Barnes exchanged glances.

“You and Mrs. Hewett didn’t go outside together?” he persisted.

“No,” Taggert said. “I was gone.”

The inspector ignored that and pressed ahead with his
own questions. “Are you absolutely certain of when you left the pub?”

Puzzled, Taggert glanced from Barnes to Witherspoon. “Yes. Why? Did someone else tell you differently? The fight hadn’t started yet; the cabbie was just starting to yell insults when I left.”

“Where did you go?”

“I went for a walk.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I was really angry, so angry I didn’t trust myself to stay in the same room with Dapeers.”

“Then how did you find out Dapeers had been murdered?” Witherspoon asked.

“From one of the barmaids at the Black Horse. I’d stopped in there for a drink.”

“The Black Horse?” Witherspoon repeated. “Isn’t that Tom Dapeers’s pub?”

Taggert nodded slowly. “I drop by there every now and again. Tom’s a nice man. Not at all like his brother. Hard to believe they come from the same stock.”

“Which barmaid?” Barnes pressed.

“I don’t know her name,” Taggert replied. “She’s just started working there. The other girl got sacked a couple of days ago.”

“And that’s when you found out that Dapeers had been murdered?” Witherspoon asked. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to be absolutely clear on this point, but his “inner voice” was warning him it might be important. “When you dropped into the Black Horse?”

“Of course that’s when I heard. Everyone was talking about it,” Taggert said. “And none of them shedding any tears for him, either. Look, obviously you don’t believe me. Did someone tell you I was at the Gilded Lily when the murder happened?”

Witherspoon hesitated briefly. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Someone did.”

“Who?” Taggert asked belligerently. “I want to know who said I was there so I can call him a liar to his face.”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t a him, sir,” Witherspoon said softly. “It was a her. It was Sarah Hewett.”

“Would you care for more sherry, sir?” Mrs. Jeffries asked the inspector. Goodness, she thought, he wasn’t very talkative this evening. “Dinner won’t be ready for a few minutes, so you’ve plenty of time for another one.”

“This one will do me fine, Mrs. Jeffries,” the inspector replied, waving his half-full glass in her direction.

“How is the investigation going, sir?” she asked.

“Oh, we’re moving right along.”

“Did you manage to talk with the other suspects today?”

“Of course.” He yawned. “Quite a busy day it was too. By the way, have you had any more letters from Lady Cannonberry?”

Drat, Mrs. Jeffries thought, he was changing the subject again. He’d done that twice since he’d come home. “Only a short note to tell us she was having a nice time. She enjoys the country, even if she isn’t overly fond of her late husband’s relatives.”

Witherspoon frowned. “It’s jolly decent of her to go at all. I was rather hoping she might have mentioned when she would be returning to London.”

“She didn’t say, sir. Did you find out—”

“Isn’t it time for dinner yet?” Witherspoon queried. “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.”

Mrs. Jeffries gave up. She’d try again once the man had his stomach full.

“I’m afraid the inspector wasn’t very forthcoming last night,” Mrs. Jeffries told the others at breakfast the next morning. “He didn’t tell me very much.” To be precise, he hadn’t really told her anything worthwhile at all.

“’Ow much is ’very much’?” Smythe asked cautiously.

“Well,” Mrs. Jeffries said slowly, “I’m afraid he really didn’t say anything at all.”

“Nothing at all!” Mrs. Goodge exclaimed. “What’s gotten into the man?”

Betsy reached for a slice of toast. “I’m not sure what you mean? Are you saying the inspector doesn’t know anything or that he deliberately avoided answering your questions?”

“I mean,” Mrs. Jeffries said irritably, “that he talked about everything under the sun except this murder case. I tried all my usual methods of questioning him, but he rather neatly sidestepped my queries. He kept asking me all sorts of silly questions about women’s clothing.”

“Maybe he was just tired,” Wiggins suggested softly. He hadn’t said more than three words to anyone since he’d come into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and clutching his stomach.

“He wasn’t tired,” Mrs. Jeffries replied flatly. “He was deliberately avoiding talking about the murder.” She’d spent half the night worrying about the inspector’s reticence and she’d finally come to the conclusion there was only one thing to do. Confront the man. Find out precisely why he’d closed up tighter than a bank vault.

“Maybe he’s onto us,” Smythe mused. “Maybe that last case…”

Mrs. Jeffries shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the problem. Last night he was muttering something about listening to his natural instincts, his inner voice—”

“What inner voice?” Mrs. Goodge interrupted. “Is he hearin’ things now? My uncle Donald went like that when he was about the inspector’s age. It happens sometimes. Out of the clear blue they start hearing things and then they start seeing things. That’s when you’ve really got to keep a sharp eye on them; once they start seeing things that aren’t there you’ve got to lock them up. Causes all sorts of problems.”

“I’m hearin’ things,” Wiggins muttered, frowning as he turned to stare at the hall. “Either that, or Luty Belle and Hatchet’s fixin’ to come through the back door. I just ’eard a carriage pull up.”

Fred, his tail wagging furiously, suddenly jumped up and dashed out of the kitchen. There was a loud pounding on the back door and, a moment later, footsteps in the hall.

“Good morning,” Hatchet, Luty Belle Crookshank’s dignified butler, called out. “Is anyone here?”

“Good Lord, Hatchet,” Luty cried. “You should have waited till someone come to the door to let us in. We can’t
go bargin’ in on folks at this time of the mornin’.”

“We’re not barging in, madam,” Hatchet replied as he came into the kitchen. “They sent us a telegram.” He stopped and smiled broadly, sure of his welcome. He was a tall, distinguished, white-haired gentleman wearing an immaculate black suit and carrying a walking stick in one hand while holding on to his old-fashioned top hat with the other. “Hello, everyone, I do hope you don’t mind us coming around this early. But I knew you’d be up and eager to get cracking on our case.”

“What he means,” Luty said, shooting her butler a disgruntled glance, “is that he hoped you’d be up so he wouldn’t have to wait another minute to find out about this murder we’ve got.”

Luty Belle Crookshank was a white-haired, rich American. She was small of stature, sharp as a razor and had a penchant for wearing outrageously bright clothes. Today she had donned a brilliant blue day dress with a matching hat, carried a parasol festooned with lacy rosettes and, of course, her white fur muff. Luty never went anywhere without her muff. She carried a Colt .45 in it, despite both Hatchet’s and the household of Upper Edmonton Gardens’ pleas that it was dangerous. As Luty was fond of telling them, her “Peacemaker” had gotten the inspector out of trouble more than once in the past.