Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  Frances walked up to him, scooting around a wheelbarrow that was tipped up against the far wall. When he saw it was her he stood up.

  “My Lady, good to see you a’gin.”

  “Thank you, Enoch, I wasn’t sure you’d be here still, in light of the recent events with Jack.”

  “I heard he was murder’d. Terrible bus’ness this house ‘as seen.”

  Enoch sat back down and continued to oil the hinge of the hedge clippers and snap them back and forth, the blades chomping against each other and making a soft whistling sound.

  “I thought with all the police coming and going from here, a man such as yourself might not want to be around.”

  “That’s a fact. But they already lock’d me up one time and I got nothin’ to do with Jack’s murder. ‘Sides, I got to fig’re out where them gold’s at.”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you about, Enoch. You were overheard passing a letter onto Jack a little while ago about this gold. Can you tell me about that.”

  Enoch didn’t look up at Lady Marmalade. He sat on his old chair, his knees wide apart and his elbows resting on each knee. His big hands covered with black stains of dirt and oil. He took a rag that was draped over his knee and he started to polish the blades of the clipper. Cleaning them and wiping the excess oil off.

  He was methodical and thorough and slow with it. You got the impression he was careful in taking good care of his tools. Especially the sharp ones.

  “I had a message fir Jack from my employ’r. T’morrow he was s’posed to bring the gold to Mr. Chan. Now ‘es dead I’ve gotta get there inst’d.”

  “What kind of gold was it, Enoch?”

  “They were big coins. Had ‘n eagle on one side an’ a lady on th’other. Bigger ‘n a shilling and shiny gold.”

  “So you’ve seen one?”

  “I did see one. Jus’ the one. Mr. Chan wanted t’ make sure that Jack brought the right ones with ‘im t’morrow.”

  “How many was he supposed to have?”

  “Thirty-six. Las’ night he was s’posd t’ pick up fifteen.”

  “So he already had twenty-one of them on him?”

  “That’s ‘bout right. But I nev’r knew where ‘e kept ‘em. I been tryin’ to figure it out but I can’t find ‘em.”

  “You won’t find them, Enoch,” said Lady Marmalade, “because they’re not here. And when they do show up, the police will take them as evidence and neither you nor Mr. Chan will get them. Because I imagine they’re not legally Mr. Chan’s.”

  Enoch looked up then and stopped his wiping.

  “That’s not gonna be good f’r me.”

  Then he went back to wiping the hedge clippers and after a few more strokes he got up and put them back in their place on the wall.

  “I imagine Mr. Chan won’t be happy with that.”

  “No ma’am they’re worth a fortune ‘e said.”

  “If I can offer some advice, Enoch. You might do well to move on somewhere else. Things aren’t likely to go well for Mr. Chan moving forward.”

  Enoch turned and looked at Frances and Florence. He was a big gnarled tree of a man. Looked like he’d been hewn roughly from wood. His hands hung by his sides like hammers. His eyes looked sad and his mouth hung down more in a frown than a grimace.

  “You can choose a better way for yourself, Enoch. Take this moment to make a fresh start.”

  Frances was looking at him and the big man stood still and thoughtful as a large oak. No inkling about what he was thinking.

  “I reck’n you been kind to me, ma’am. I hear a war migh’t be startin’. Maybe’n war I’ll find my way back ‘ome.”

  Frances turned to leave and Florence followed her out. As they walked back towards the house, leaving Enoch in the shed, Frances turned to Florence.

  “He’s a big scary man that Enoch. But I think there’s a corner somewhere inside him where the light still shines. Hopefully he’ll find it.”

  Florence didn’t say anything as they walked the rest of the way back up the way they’d come. She looked towards the house and she saw Garrett staring out the window after them. He had a puzzled look on his face.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Chapter 25

  GARRETT opened the door for them as they got back up to the house.

  “Did you find him?” he asked.

  “We did,” said Frances, walking past him and into the middle of the living room. Agnus was bringing in a tray of tea and assorted small cakes, including whipped cream, jam, scones and crumpets. She put the tray in the middle of the table which was centered in the living room and around which the two couches and a couple of chairs huddled themselves.

  “That’s a treat,” said Florence, “I was just about to die of thirst.

  Florence and Frances took the two available chairs opposite from where Meredith sat. She looked at them carefully, sipping her Tom Collins and not saying much at all. Gerald was in the living room now and he came over and sat next to Meredith. Garrett came over holding a finger’s worth of Scotch in his tumbler. He swallowed it down in one go and sat down in the second couch which he now had all to himself.

  He placed the tumbler on the edge of the table closest to him and reached across for a plate which was lined with colorful colored flowers. You could tell it came from the same set as the teacups, saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl and teapot. He placed a scone which was warm from the oven onto the plate and broke it open in half. He put a dollop of cream on each half followed by a spoon of jam. He sat back and started to eat.

  “Who’d like some tea?” asked Gerald, looking first at Lady Marmalade and then Florence, Meredith and Garrett. Frances, Florence and Garrett all asked for tea. He served them up in the order he had looked at them.

  Frances put cream and sugar in hers, as did Florence and Garrett and finally Gerald after he poured himself last. Frances took a scone and added whipped cream and jam to both sides. Florence took a crumpet which was already glossy with butter and she added a spoonful of jam to it.

  Meredith watched, almost with contempt, as the four of them took crumpets and scones. Gerald taking his time to decide upon a crumpet and a scone. Finally, perhaps with the temptation being too much, Meredith reached out and took the one and only Shrewsbury cake which she placed on a plate and rested on her lap.

  “This is exactly what I needed,” said Florence. “What a trying day it’s been.”

  “I’d say. I’ve been arrested, taken to jail and released, all in the space of few hours,” said Garrett.

  The grandfather clock chimed four times as the five of them sat in silence listening to the old clock.

  “I imagine you’ll miss Agnus, and James too,” said Frances.

  Garrett looked at her for a moment and chewed on a bit of his scone.

  “I shouldn’t think so, she’s not going anywhere that I’m aware of.”

  “But my dear Garrett, they’re both quite behind in having received their pay. They’re still owed half of it for the past year.”

  Garrett, frowned and looked at Frances.

  “Well, I didn’t know that. I’ll make sure they get paid up after the estate’s all taken care of.”

  “I’ve already promised them I’ll see to it. But you don’t even know the state of Forsyth Motor Manufacturing. It might be unsalvageable.”

  “Or it might not,” interjected Gerald.

  “That’s what I’m planning on finding out,” said Garrett.

  “Perhaps you’ll be putting up some of your new found winnings to keep the business going?” said Frances, looking at Gerald.

  Gerald looked back at her with a sour look on his face as if he’d just bitten into a lemon rather than the creamy scone that marked the corner of his mouth with cream. He didn’t say anything right away but chewed and swallowed his food.

  “I’ll say. You’ve got quite the nerve coming here and talking like that. I’d hardly call it winnings under these circumstances.”

  “What would you call it,
Gerald?” asked Lady Marmalade.

  “What it bloody well is, which is an insurance policy.”

  Meredith looked at him sideways.

  “And a large one at that. Which unfortunately, Gerald, makes you a suspect.”

  “Unfortunate indeed, for you. I didn’t kill my brother!”

  “That’s what everyone says,” said Frances, “even the guilty as sin.”

  “Do you have any guns, Gerald?” asked Garrett.

  “No I don’t.”

  Gerald looked at Garrett with fire in his eyes.

  “Inspector Gibbard suggests otherwise. He seems to think you have a hunting rifle,” said Frances.

  “Because I do. A hunting rifle is not a bloody gun. Not the kind that shot Jack.”

  “How do you know what was used to shoot Jack?”

  “Because I was there.”

  Gerald looked at Meredith and Garrett. They were both looking at him with thinly veiled hostility.

  “You two bloody well know I was there. We all saw each other and we all saw what happened. Though none of us seem to know who did it. Do we?”

  Meredith broke eye contact with him and looked longingly into her quickly disappearing drink.

  “I told you I was going to speak to him,” said Garrett.

  “Yes, well I didn’t quite trust you and from what I overheard you weren’t speaking to him about the business were you?”

  “I was going to get to it,” said Garrett.

  “But instead he got shot and now we’re left with his mess to clean up.”

  “It was, at the very least, Gerald, poor decision making to head out to the docks. Wasn’t it?” asked Frances.

  “Very easy to find fault in hindsight,” said Gerald, “but I wasn’t expecting him to get shot. I didn’t go out there to get him shot either.”

  “Well, that remains to be seen. You might have been working in conjunction with the murderer.”

  “You won’t find anything to implicate me, because there’s nothing there.”

  “Perhaps so, Gerald, but why did you decide to take out a one hundred thousand pound insurance policy on your brother with you as the only beneficiary?” asked Frances.

  Gerald finished up his scone and started on his crumpet. Florence had finished hers and placed her plate back down on the table. Frances was only half finished and took the time to sip her tea.

  “My brother Jack, as it is well known now, was careless, a cad and in trouble with bad people. I wasn’t going to let him ruin me along with himself. I thought that at the very least, if he ruins the company and his life, at least I’ll have something to start over with. As it turns out, it was a good decision.”

  “And what about this gold that we all keep hearing about. Were you not out to get it?”

  “No, I wasn’t, not like Garrett. I knew the danger that Jack was involved with. These people aren’t nice people. The last thing I wanted to get involved with were the same nasty people that Jack was involved with. And the surest way to get started down that dead end was to steal from them, or take their gold.”

  Gerald looked over at Garrett.

  “And I told you the same, didn’t I? You should have listened.”

  “Well, it makes no difference now,” said Garrett, taking the last bite of his scone and then putting his plate down on the table next to his empty tumbler, “because I never got the gold nor did I see any of it.”

  Gerald turned back to look at Lady Marmalade.

  “And I plan to make a fresh start with this money I’m due, which will likely take months to collect. In the meantime, Garrett and I will try and salvage what we can from the business before the vultures pick it bare.”

  “I’m sure the company is quite sound,” said Meredith, finally speaking up.

  They all looked at her with confused faces.

  “You’ve got to be joking, and have you not been paying attention to anything we’ve said this whole time?” asked Garrett.

  Meredith looked at Garrett harshly and pursed her lips.

  “Jack assured me that everything was fine, that he just needed to pay off his last few debts and that he was going to get back on track with the business so we could be together happily.”

  Garrett shook his head and laughed.

  “Meredith, are you that blind to what kind of a man Jack was?” asked Gerald. “He was a thief, a liar and a cheat.”

  “Not with me he wasn’t.”

  Meredith was getting her hackles up. She didn’t like getting attacked, especially regarding her feelings for Jack. None of them knew him like she did. And he was honest and kind and loving with her.

  “After everything you’ve seen and heard. After I showed you that bloody letter from that other woman...Rachel I think it was, you still believe my father was your knight in shining armor?” asked Garrett.

  Frances was watching the back and forth as if she was watching a tennis match. Only now the volleys were getting harder and more pointed.

  “Jack promised me that there was no one else. I don’t care what that stupid letter said, I believe Jack. He was a handsome man and women liked him. That couldn’t be helped, she was obviously very misled by any simple kindness he might have offered her at one point.”

  Frances couldn’t help but shake her head. She couldn’t have found Jack to be handsome in a thousand tries and his kindness, well, he was more like a snake in the grass or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But love is blind and it’ll have you do all sorts of silly, and even dangerous, regrettable things. Meredith looked up at Frances and saw her shaking her head.

  “What?” said Meredith with spite thick as treacle in her voice.

  “Nothing, my dear, I just think you and I have very different tastes when it comes to the attractiveness of men.”

  “Quite,” said Florence, “Jack was not an attractive man by my standards.”

  “Each to his own,” said Meredith getting up and walking over to the bar where she mixed herself another drink. She wobbled a bit getting there. Probably had enjoyed way more Tom Collins’ than she needed.

  “What I’m curious about,” said Frances, looking from Gerald to Garrett and across to the bar at Meredith, “is that the three of you are now partners in Forsyth Motor Manufacturing and yet only one of you seems likely to come out ahead financially from Jack’s death.”

  “That’s purely coincidental and quite by accident,” said Gerald.

  “Yes, but you set up the insurance policy just in case.”

  “Well, as it turns out my instinct was right then, wasn’t it? In any event, one could argue that we all, sadly, in a way, benefit from Jack’s untimely departure because the company might now be salvageable.”

  “You might be right, and I’m not intimate with business and financial matters as you likely are, but I fear that the company might not be as salvageable as you all think. And from what I gather, none of you seemed to have taken any interest in the company until very recently and, correct me if I’m wrong but none of you have actually looked at the books, have you?”

  Frances looked around the room. Meredith had decided to stand up by the bar and lean against it for support, moral and otherwise it seemed. Gerald finished up what was on his plate and as Lady Marmalade waited for them to answer she finished her scone and put her plate down on the table. None of them would say anything.

  “I didn’t think so,” she said. “And this brings me to the crux of the matter. All three of you were there at the docks when Jack was killed. All three of you could have been working with the fourth. The murderer, and I imagine if I look closely that the thread that weaves all of this together, including to a degree, Ginnie’s murder, is Forsyth Motor Manufacturing.”

  “That is outrageous and preposterous,” said Gerald.

  “Listen, Lady Marmalade,” said Garrett, “you spoke with Lottie, I was there, but I didn’t have anything to do with my father’s death. Hell, my revolver didn’t even have any bullets in it.”

  “Quite right
, doesn’t mean that you all couldn’t have been playing a role in some big conspiracy to kill Jack.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Gerald.

  Meredith leaned up against the bar her eyelids heavy, her lips resting on the rim of her glass, saying nothing. Garrett just looked and blinked and stared blankly at Frances without saying anything.

  “If it is some great big conspiracy then what have I gained from it all, if as you say, the company is bankrupt?” asked Garrett at last.

  “That’s what we shall find out. Because you are correct, you haven’t gained anything from this directly have you. Nobody here has seen the gold, have they?”

  Frances looked around again at each of them in turn. Garrett shook his head, as did Gerald. Frances stared at Meredith until finally she shook her head.

  “I told you already that I haven’t seen any of the gold.”

  “That’s right. So then, where is it?”

  “Maybe there wasn’t any,” offered Meredith.

  “Exactly,” said Gerald.

  Frances stood up. It was almost four thirty now and she needed the afternoon and evening to piece this mess back together. She also wanted to speak with Eric about gold and eagles and things of that matter. She looked at Florence.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” said Frances, “we must be off. There is no need to trouble the three of you anymore until tomorrow. If you don’t know, Inspector Gibbard and I will be here tomorrow at noon to arrest the guilty. Good day.”

  Florence walked with Frances out the living room and down the hall until they were out of the house. Nobody had risen as they had left and nobody had said farewell. Florence thought it quite rude of them, but then again, it seemed like Frances made quite the abrupt departure.

  “That was awful quick,” said Florence as they climbed into her car.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Do you really think that this might be some big conspiracy?”

  “I don’t know, Flo, that’s why I need to take my time this evening and review all the evidence. I was hoping to unnerve them all and keep them on their toes until tomorrow. I also want to ask Eric about a few matters related to gold. And at the end of the day, I was tired and I didn’t have any other questions to ask them.”