Mrs. Jeffries Weeds the Plot (16 page)

“My wife? What do you want with her? She knows nothing.”

“She may know something. She does visit her sister, doesn’t she?” Barnes said softly. “We’d be remiss in our duty if we didn’t interview her.”

“She’ll be home this afternoon. But I shall insist on being present,” Caraway warned.

“Why? Is there some reason you don’t want your wife to speak with us alone?” The inspector surprised himself by the question. He’d no idea where it came from, it simply popped out. He generally wasn’t quite this blunt with people. But the truth was, there was something about this fellow that put him off. The moment the thought entered his head, he was a little ashamed. An officer of the law oughtn’t to let personal feelings dictate the way he asked questions. That was terribly prejudicial.

“Don’t be absurd, man.” A dull flush crept up Caraway’s cheeks. “Of course there isn’t any reason she oughtn’t to speak with you. It’s simply I don’t want her upset, so I must insist on being present. You are suggesting, after all, that her sister’s life is in danger.” Glaring at them, he got to his feet. “Good day, gentlemen.”

“It’s all the same to me if you want to buy me a cup of tea.” The older woman stared at Wiggins suspiciously. But she sat down in the chair the footman had pulled out for her. “I’m in no ’urry to get ’ome.”

Wiggins took a deep breath. He’d spent most of the day trying to find someone connected to Helmsley’s Grammar School. He’d almost given up when the lad working at the greengrocer’s had remembered that Stella Avery had once been a chairwoman at the school. Luckily for Wiggins, Stella still cleaned at a theater in Notting Hill Gate. He’d managed to find her just as she was
leaving work for the day. “I’ll get us some tea,” he told her.

“And a biscuit,” she ordered. “I’m ’ungry.”

He took his time getting their tea and biscuits from the serving lady behind the counter. He was desperately trying to think of the best way to ask his questions. Stella Avery seemed a tad cranky.

He made his way toward the back of the small café. It was late afternoon and too early for the supper trade, so the place was empty. Stella Avery watched him out of sunken, brown eyes. Stringy strands of iron-gray hair poked out of the sides of her tattered bonnet, her complexion was sallow, and she was wearing a dingy, gray day dress that was badly wrinkled and had a button missing from the sleeve. She’d put her rolled-up apron on the table.

Wiggins put the tray down, served her, and then took a seat across from her. “I appreciate your agreein’ to talk to me,” he began.

“You said you’d pay me fer my trouble,” she reminded him. “A shillin’ and a cup of tea, that’s what you said. I’ll take it now, please.”

Wiggins fumbled in the pocket of his shirt and pulled out the coin. “’Ere ya are. Now, what can you tell me about Stan McIntosh?”

As he was paying for the information, he saw no reason to beat about the bush. He felt just a bit uncomfortable with the situation, he’d never paid someone to talk to him before, but it was the only way the woman had agreed to speak to him.

“What do ya want to know?” She picked up her tea and took a sip. “He was a pig of a man. I didn’t like ’im much and neither did anyone else. What else ya want to know?”

He couldn’t think of what to ask. So he asked the
obvious. “Do you know of anyone who would want to kill ’im?”

She laughed, revealing a row of uneven, rotten teeth. “Most of the pupils wouldna minded the old sod dyin’, but I doubt they’d ’ave ’ad the nerve to kill the bastard.”

“It couldn’t be any of them. Why would they wait till now?” he mused. “The school’s been closed for almost a term.”

“It closed down at the end of Easter. Place was losin’ money. Couldn’t keep any students.” She chewed her biscuit slowly.

“Did the staff dislike ’im, too?” Wiggins asked.

“Everyone disliked ’im but the head. He was always runnin’ to ’im with tales about what everyone was doin’. Couldn’t mind ’is own business if you know what I mean. ’E was such a nosey parker that one of the neighbors even ’ired McIntosh to keep an eye on ’is ’ouse when he was gone.”

“Cor blimey, why’d ’e do that?”

“’E didn’t want to come back and find ’is furniture gone.” She shrugged and took another gulp of tea. “What else ya want to know?”

Wiggins tried to think of more questions, but it was difficult. Generally, he had to be so careful when he was investigating that he didn’t have time to actually think about what to ask; it was usually just keep them chatting and get what you could. “Did ’e ever ’ave any visitors or anythin’ like that? Or did you ever see or ’ear of ’im goin’ off and meetin’ someone. What’d ’e do on ’is day out?”

“’Ow should I know? I didn’t live at the bleedin’ place. I was just a cleaner.”

Wiggins flushed. “Sorry. I guess I was just ’opin’ you’d know a bit more. It’s important, you see. This McIntosh fellow got ’imself murdered and the police ain’t askin’ the right questions. My guv wanted me to
do some snoopin’ about so’s an innocent person don’t get nicked for it.” He crossed his fingers under the table as he told this lie and silently hoped the inspector would forgive him.

Stella’s hard expression softened. “Who’s yer guv?”

Wiggins was waiting for this one. “I’m not allowed to say, ’e don’t want anyone knowin’ ’e’s lookin’ into this murder.” He glanced over his shoulder at the almost empty café and then leaned across the table. “I can tell ya this,” he whispered. “’E’s someone known for wantin’ justice. Someone who’s not afraid to do a bit of lookin’ on ’is own to make sure the innocent don’t suffer.”

“Are ya ’aving me on?” she demanded. But despite her harsh tone, she wanted to believe him. He could see it in her sad, tired eyes. She wanted to believe that somewhere out in what was for her a hard, cruel world, there really was a champion of justice.

A feeling of elation he’d never experienced before swept through him. He’d played about with a few of the details, but basically, he’d told the truth. He and others at Upper Edmonton Gardens were champions of justice. Maybe they didn’t get their names in the newspapers and maybe they’d started their snooping because they were bored or they wanted to help their inspector, but now that they’d done it for a while, they were doing it for the best of reasons.

Justice. A commodity generally in short supply for people like Stella Avery. “Would I pay you for what you know if I was ’avin’ you on?” he asked. “Stan McIntosh might ’ave been a right miserable person, but no one ’ad the right to kill ’im.”

She hesitated briefly. “Well, bein’ as you put it like that, I do sort of remember seein’ some funny things goin’ on a time or two.”

“What kind of things?”

She glanced down at her empty cup. “Get me some more tea and I’ll give ya what I know about old Stan.”

“I’ll get us both another cup.” He picked up their cups and went to the counter. “Can we ’ave two more, please?”

“And some more biscuits,” Stella called. “I want one of them kinds that’s got chocolate on it.”

“She’s a right old tartar, she is,” declared Eliza Adderly, maid to the Reverend Cooksey and his wife. “It’s not that I mind hard work, I don’t, but working for that woman is awful.”

“Is she mean to you, then? Is that why you’re going home?” Betsy glanced around the ladies’ waiting room at St. Pancras station. She’d followed Eliza Adderly here and then struck up a conversation.

Eliza pursed her lips and shook her head. She was a tall, red-haired girl with a pale complexion and bright blue eyes. “It’s my day out. I’m going to Little Chalfont to see my gran.” She snorted. “If she’d had her way, I’d have had to be back tonight, but the reverend said I could stay over until tomorrow as I didn’t get a day out last week. I’m only staying long enough to get a reference. Then I’m off.”

Betsy tried to see the departure board through the window of the waiting room, but she was sitting at the wrong angle. “When’s your train, then? I’m stuck here for a bit.” She smiled and shrugged. “It’s nice having some company.”

Eliza laughed. “Oh, my train’s not for another hour. I came early just so that I could get out of the house. Those two were getting ready to have another quarrel.”

Betsy pretended to be shocked. “How awful for you. What a strange way for a vicar to behave. I always thought they were nice men.”

“Those two go at it like cats and dogs.” Eliza leaned
forward eagerly. “Used to be they just fussed about money. About how it was all his fault they were destitute and about how she was always spending. But now they’ve got something even better to fight about. Mrs. Cooksey’s sister inherited a fortune a few months ago and now they’re always fighting over how they can get it away from her.”

Betsy’s jaw dropped and this time she wasn’t pretending surprise. While she wasn’t shocked that the good vicar and his wife were after Annabeth Gentry’s fortune, she was amazed to learn they were stupid enough to discuss the matter in front of witnesses. “Gracious, they talk of such things in front of you?”

“Oh, they start out talking all quiet like, but before five minutes is gone they’re screaming at each other like a couple of fishwives.”

“That’s terrible. How do they think they’re going to get this poor woman’s money?”

Eliza shrugged her thin shoulders. “First they tried to talk her into letting Reverend Cooksey handle it for her, to take over the investments and the business part. But Miss Gentry is a spinster lady and she’s lived on her own a good long while. She told them both she’d handle her own affairs.” Eliza laughed again. “They were both madder than wet cats when she wouldn’t give in on that one. Then they said they thought it would be a good idea if they all moved into Miss Gentry’s big house together…but Miss Gentry wasn’t havin’ that either and told them so straight out. There was a right old dustup about that one, I can tell you that. Mrs. Cooksey just about screamed her head off at her husband—said he’d jumped the gun and if he’d left things to her, they’d be sitting pretty now.”

“What’d she mean by that?” Betsy didn’t try to be cautious in her questioning. Eliza Adderly was a talker;
either that, or life at the Cookseys was unimaginably lonely.

“She didn’t say; about that time, Reverend Cooksey must have remembered I was in the house, too, because he told her to lower her voice. For once, she actually listened and did what he asked.”

“Why are they so badly off?” Betsy asked. “You said he’s a vicar.”

“Oh, he is,” Eliza replied. “But he’s not got a parish. That’s another thing they fight about. Accordin’ to Mrs. Cooksey, that’s all his fault, too. He used to be the vicar of St. Andrew’s over in Clapham. But something happened and he and Mrs. Cooksey had to leave.”

Betsy made a mental note to find out what had happened in Clapham. Vicars didn’t just lose parishs like they lost buttons. There had to be a reason. “You poor dear, it must be awful for you, living in a house like that.”

Eliza shrugged. “It’s not for much longer. Like I say, I’m just stayin’ long enough for a reference.”

“Will they give you one?” Betsy asked. “Some people get right nasty when you give notice.”

“They’ll give me one, all right,” Eliza said flatly. “If they don’t, I’ll go right to that nice Miss Gentry and tell her what they’re plannin’ on doin’ next.”