Mrs. Jeffries Appeals the Verdict

by Emily Brightwell

his head. “Not really. No, I tell a lie: when I picked them

  up, they was talking to another couple, standing all together in a group like.”

  “Would you recognize this couple if you saw them

  again?” he asked.

  “No.” He smiled apologetically. “I weren’t paying that

  much attention. Look, I’ve got to be off now.”

  “Wait,” Smythe said as Fletcher headed for the open entrance. “I’ve not paid for the information.”

  The cabbie shook his head and grinned. “Keep yer coin,

  mate. What little I know wasn’t worth much now, was it.”

  “That’s all a matter of opinion.” Smythe realized he’d offended the man’s pride and was suddenly, deeply ashamed.

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  Emily Brightwell

  He’d handled this badly from the beginning, and he was determined to make up for it. Reaching into his coat pocket, he grabbed some coins and handed them to Fletcher.

  “You’ve saved me a lot of work.”

  The cabbie looked at the coins. “By crickety, this is

  three florins!”

  “Take it. You earned it. Like I said, you’ve saved me a

  lot of trouble.”

  “Thanks, mate, this is right good of ya.” Fletcher

  walked to the entrance, then stopped and turned. “I did see

  that other couple get into the hansom just ahead of mine. I

  don’t know if that’ll do ya any good.”

  Mrs. Jeffries was the last one to arrive for their afternoon

  meeting. “I’m so sorry to be late,” she said as she hurried

  toward the coat tree, “but the traffic was dreadful today. The

  omnibus was held up for ages because of a crash between a

  hansom cab and a water cart.”

  “Not to worry, Mrs. Jeffries.” Mrs. Goodge poured the

  housekeeper a cup of tea. “We’ve only just sat down ourselves.”

  “Excellent.” She slipped into her chair, took a deep

  breath, and then looked around the table at the others. “I’d

  like to go first, if I may.” She waited for a moment and then

  plunged ahead. “I’ve asked Ruth Cannonberry to give us

  some assistance on this case. Perhaps I ought to have spoken to all of you before I took such an action, but I honestly believe she could be a great deal of help to us.”

  “Does she know that our inspector doesn’t have this

  case?” Betsy asked.

  “I told her everything,” she explained. “It didn’t seem

  fair not to tell her the whole story.”

  “And she’s not alarmed by the prospect of workin’

  behind the inspector’s back, so to speak?” Mrs. Goodge

  asked.

  “Not in the least.” Mrs. Jeffries relaxed a bit. “I know

  it was a bit of a risk, my asking her for help, but frankly,

  Mrs. Jeffries Appeals the Verdict

  49

  I really didn’t see that we’d any other choice. She has some

  very powerful connections and we might very well need

  them.”

  “If we’re lucky, maybe her connections will keep us

  from ’aving to put this on the inspector’s plate,” Smythe

  mused. “That’d be right useful.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. “I had another run of good luck by bringing her into it. She actually knew the victim. Caroline Muran occasionally came to her

  women’s suffrage meetings. They weren’t close friends

  nor did they move in the same social circles, but she was

  acquainted with her.”

  “Did she like her?” Betsy asked softly. Somehow, one

  of their own knowing the victim made it more real, more

  personal.

  Mrs. Jeffries smiled sadly. “Ruth says she was a very

  nice woman—very kind and very intelligent. She was a

  strong financial supporter of the society and gave them a

  good contribution every year.”

  “I expect they’ll miss that,” Mrs. Goodge muttered. She

  wasn’t sure how she felt about some of Ruth’s radical

  ideas. She used to be dead set against all of them. She’d always believed that the British class system was right and proper and that the lower classes should know their places.

  But over the past few years, she’d changed her thinking on

  such matters.

  “Did Lady Cannonberry know of anyone who had a reason to dislike Mrs. Muran?” Betsy asked. “Was there anyone in the society she’d had a quarrel with or anything like that?”

  “No, she was a member, but she wasn’t actively involved enough in the group to have made any enemies.”

  “I suppose that would have been too simple,” Betsy

  replied glumly. “Finding out who hated Caroline Muran

  enough to murder her isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Why wasn’t she involved?” Mrs. Goodge reached for

  her tea cup. “She ought to have been if she believed in their

  cause. She had money and she had time—”

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  Emily Brightwell

  “But that’s just it,” Mrs. Jeffries interrupted. “She didn’t

  have time. She was actively involved in running the metal

  works factory.”

  “You mean she was the manager?” Wiggins looked quite

  horrified by the idea.

  “Why shouldn’t she be the manager?” Mrs. Goodge said

  tartly. “She owned the place, she ought to have been able to

  run it as she saw fit. Women can manage factories as well

  as men.”

  “I didn’t say they couldn’t,” Wiggins insisted. “But it

  couldn’t have been a very nice place, with all them nasty

  chemicals about. I’ll bet the place stank to high heaven.”

  “She had a manager,” Mrs. Jeffries interjected quickly.

  “But she had to sack him.” That had been the pertinent

  point she’d wanted to make. “She sacked him about a week

  before she was killed. So we know that she had at least one

  person in her life that couldn’t have been too pleased with

  her.”

  “Why’d she fire ’im?” Smythe asked eagerly.

  “Ruth didn’t know any details.” Mrs. Jeffries picked up

  her mug. “She heard the information secondhand after she

  found out about the murder. But she thought nothing of it,

  of course. Like everyone else, because Tommy was arrested

  so quickly, she assumed Mrs. Muran’s death was simply a

  robbery gone wrong.”

  “That’s what everyone seems to think,” Smythe muttered. “We need to find out the name of her factory manager, the one she sacked. I can have a go at that tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Jeffries nodded in agreement. “We definitely should

  find out the man’s name. But that’s not all I have to tell you.

  After I saw Ruth, I went to St. Thomas’s Hospital to have a

  quick word with Dr. Bosworth.”

  Dr. Bosworth was another friend who’d helped them on

  several of their earlier cases. He had some very interesting

  ideas about dead bodies, and his theories had often helped

  them when they were on the hunt.

  He’d spent several years in San Francisco and had seen

  Mrs. Jeffries Appeals the Verdict

  51

  a rather large number of homicide victims, virtually all of

  whom had been shot. Apparently, there was no shortage of

  either guns or bodies in California.

  Dr. Bosworth had come to the conclusion that you could

  tell a great deal about how a person was m
urdered simply by

  a careful examination of the death wounds. He also believed

  that a thorough study of the murder victim could reveal

  more than the mechanics of the cause of death; he believed

  it could often give clues as to who had been the killer. Like

  the household, Dr. Bosworth was quite discreet about his

  help with Inspector Witherspoon’s cases.

  “Did he do the postmortem?” Mrs. Goodge asked. “That

  would make it nice and handy for us.”

  “Unfortunately, he didn’t. But he promised he’d take a

  look at the attending doctor’s report and get back to us. I

  don’t know that it’ll help much,” she warned.

  “It might,” Wiggins mused. “Dr. Bosworth knows a lot

  about gunshot holes in a body. He might see something

  that’d be good for us to know. He might be able to guess

  what kind of gun it was. That’d narrow it down just a bit.”

  Mrs. Jeffries stared at him for a moment. “Why, Wiggins, you’re absolutely right. We need to have some idea of what kind of weapon was used.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out what kind of guns our suspects

  own,” he offered eagerly.

  “But we don’t even know who our suspects are,” the cook

  pointed out.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Wiggins explained. “I’ll just try to

  find out if anyone in Mrs. Muran’s circle owned a weapon.

  That ought to be useful.” He looked at Smythe. “And you

  ought to find out if the fellow that was sacked has a gun.”

  “I’d already thought of that,” Smythe replied. “It might

  take a day or two, though.”

  “That would be most helpful.” Mrs. Jeffries looked

  around the table. “Who would like to go next?”

  “Let me,” Betsy entreated. “It’ll not take long. I walked

  my feet off but I didn’t hear all that much. Mainly, it was

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  Emily Brightwell

  just a repeat of what you’ve already told us. Mrs. Muran

  was very nice and well liked by her servants. Her factory

  workers are going to miss her, as she was getting ready to

  have their housing redone properly. The local merchants

  are going to miss her as well. She apparently settled her accounts promptly at the end of each month.” She shrugged.

  “It’s not much, I know, but I’ll be out again tomorrow to

  see what I can find out.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself; you’ve learned a lot.”

  Smythe patted her shoulder. “Not as much as me, but

  enough so that you can hold your head up.”

  She laughed and cuffed him playfully on the arm. “You

  just wait. I’ll find out lots more than you do tomorrow.”

  “I hope I find out who owns a gun tomorrow,” Wiggins

  muttered. “I didn’t find out anything at all today.”

  “No one would talk to you?” Smythe asked, his voice

  sympathetic.

  “The only person I met was a housemaid, but she wasn’t

  much of a talker. I hung about the area for ages, but I didn’t

  see anyone else that seemed likely to speak to me. It was

  all posh ladies goin’ to tea and gentlemen comin’ home

  from work. All in all it wasn’t a good day.” He wondered if

  he ought to tell the others about how scared the poor girl

  had been. No, they might think he’d been silly and incompetent; best to leave it alone and make his own amends.

  The girl was probably fresh in from the country and he

  needed to be careful in how he approached her. If she saw

  him skulking about it would likely frighten her more.

  “Not to worry, Wiggins, you’ll do better tomorrow. We

  both will,” Betsy said cheerfully.

  “Of course you will,” Mrs. Goodge said quickly. She

  was bursting to tell them her news. “Now, I’d like to have a

  go if no one minds.”

  “You must of found out somethin’ excitin’.” Wiggins

  grinned. “I can always tell; your cheeks go all pink.”

  Mrs. Goodge laughed. “Really? I’d no idea. You’re right,

  though, I did find out something exciting and it was almost

  Mrs. Jeffries Appeals the Verdict

  53

  by accident, but that’s neither here nor there. It seems the

  housekeeper for Mr. and Mrs. Muran has melancholia and

  has taken to her bed. She’s had it ever since she heard about

  Mrs. Muran’s murder.”

  “Melancholia?” Wiggins frowned. “Is that the sad

  sickness?”

  “It’s generally more of a mental or nervous condition,”

  Mrs. Jeffries replied. “At least that’s what I’ve always

  heard. Sorry, Mrs. Goodge, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Do

  go on.”

  The cook told them about her visit from young Tom

  Briggs. She left out the part where she had to chase him

  clear across the communal garden with promises of seed

  cake and sticky buns in order to get him to come back.

  “According to what Tom overheard his mother tellin’ his

  father, his aunt Helen hasn’t set foot back in the Muran

  household since she heard about the murder.”

  “Where does she live?” Smythe asked.

  “Number Eighteen Cedar Road, near the Waltham

  Green railway station.”

  “She wasn’t a live-in housekeeper?” Mrs. Jeffries

  queried.

  “No, she used to come in before breakfast and then

  leave as soon as the dinner was served.”

  “That’s an odd way to run a ’ousehold, isn’t it?” Wiggins

  asked curiously.

  “It’s actually becoming more and more common,” Mrs.

  Jeffries replied. “I wonder if the other staff lived out as well.”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Goodge frowned. “That isn’t the

  sort of detail I’d expect Tom to know.”

  “We can find out easily enough,” Betsy said. She

  reached for the teapot and poured herself a second cup.

  “I’ll go along tomorrow and see what’s what,” Wiggins

  offered. “I was plannin’ on goin’ back anyway, you know to

  suss out who’s got a gun or not. Or would you rather I go

  along to where the housekeeper lives and see what I can

  find out there?”

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  Emily Brightwell

  Mrs. Jeffries thought for a moment. “Go back to the

  Muran neighborhood. We’ve learned a bit about the victim,

  but I think we need to learn something about the rest of the

  household as well.”

  “I can go along to Cedar Road,” Betsy offered. “The

  shopkeepers can wait for another day.”

  “Good.” the housekeeper looked at Smythe. “How did

  you do today?”

  “Not as well as Mrs. Goodge, but a bit better than Wiggins,” he grinned. “I found the cabbie that dropped the Murans off on the night of the murder. Accordin’ to ’im, when they first got in the hansom, Mr. Muran told the driver to

  take them home. But then he suddenly sticks his head out

  and tells the driver to take them across the river to Barrick

  Street. Last he saw of them, they were walking down the

  road.”

  “Did he see anyone else in the area?” Mrs. Goodge

  helped herself to another slice of bread.

  “No, he said the place was deserted. It’s one of them are
as that’s full of little factories and warehouses. Once the workday ends, there’s no one about. The cabbie, who seems

  to know the neighborhood, claims most of those businesses

  don’t even have watchmen at night.” He told them the rest

  of the information he’d gotten that day, taking care to tell

  them every little detail, including the comments of the other

  two cabbies about the night of the murder. Previous cases

  had taught them that sometimes it was the unimportant detail that solved the case.

  “Some businesses are so cheap,” Mrs. Goodge muttered

  darkly. “You’d think they’d pay for a watchman or two. A

  deserted street in the middle of the night isn’t exactly going to have many witnesses about.”

  Smythe sat back in his chair. “I thought I’d go around

  and have a good look at the road where they got let off. It’d

  be ’elpful if we knew exactly where the murder happened,

  you know, the exact spot.”

  “Will you have enough time?” Mrs. Jeffries asked. “It

  Mrs. Jeffries Appeals the Verdict

  55

  might take hours for you to find out the name of the sacked

  manager and track him down.”

  “And you’ll ’ave to find out if he’s got a gun,” Wiggins

  added. “That’ll not be easy, either.”

  Smythe realized he also had to go see Blimpey, but he

  wasn’t going to share that information with the rest of

  them. “We’ve got a bit of time,” he replied. “I’ll put goin’

  to the murder scene at the bottom of the list and if I can’t

  get to it tomorrow, I’ll go the day after.”

  “That’s an excellent idea,” Mrs. Jeffries said. She put

  her mug down. “If everyone agrees, I’d like to have a quick

  word with Constable Barnes tomorrow. He might be able to

  get us a copy of the original police report.”

  “That would be very useful,” the cook said. “But we’d not

  want to put the constable in any sort of awkward position.”

  “He’s a clever man,” Betsy said. “He’d be very able to

  help us out a little without putting his own position as a police officer in any sort of . . .” she couldn’t think what the proper word might be.

  “We won’t let him compromise himself,” Mrs. Jeffries

  said quickly. “I’ll be very discreet. As I’ve mentioned before, there are times when I think the good constable is very aware of what we’re doing.” Actually, she knew for a

  fact that Constable Barnes knew exactly what they did, but