Mrs. Jeffries and the Three Wise Women

by Emily Brightwell

  “What does that mean?” Mrs. Goodge demanded.

  He shrugged. “Just that. She didn’t explain it and she was in a bloomin’ ’urry so I was practically runnin’ to keep up with her. Then she said that if anything was out of place in the ’ouse, the servants were accused of stealing.” He spoke more confidently now that he was telling the truth. “Mrs. Bruce accused one of the housemaids of stealing her little perfume bottle, which was silly as it was one of them empty ones and even when Miss Bruce found the bottle in the front garden, they were still watching the maids because Miss Bruce claimed someone had been drinkin’ her medicine.” He took another deep breath, relieved that he was done. “That’s all I found out.”

  “Thank you, Wiggins. I think you’ve done very well.” Mrs. Jeffries flicked a quick glance at the cook, who met her gaze squarely before folding her arms over her chest.

  “I’ll go next if no one objects,” Phyllis volunteered when the silence started to get awkward. “Actually, I’ve not much to report. The local merchants either didn’t know or wouldn’t say a word about Ann Holter.”

  “Did you go to her house?” Ruth asked.

  Phyllis seemed surprised by the question. “No, I just talked to the shop clerks on the high street.”

  “And no one knew anything?” Ruth gave an exasperated sigh. “Well, this isn’t doing us any good at all, is it.”

  “I tried my best,” Phyllis said defensively. “But if people won’t talk to you, there isn’t much you can do about it.” In truth, she’d gone into only one shop and that clerk hadn’t been at all helpful. When she’d come out, she’d noticed the omnibus was coming and, on impulse, she’d got on board and gone to the theater district. She’d spent most of the afternoon there and had even treated herself to a light, early tea. But now she felt miserable and she was sure that everyone at the table knew what she’d done.

  “Don’t feel bad.” Betsy gave Phyllis a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t find out very much, either. Some days are like that.”

  “I forget where you said you was goin’.” Luty said to Betsy. “Was it to the Longworth neighborhood?”

  “It was, but the only thing I managed to find out was that Robert Longworth goes to church every day. He’s Roman Catholic.”

  “Bloomin’ Ada, guess they’re a strict lot, aren’t they,” Smythe muttered.

  “I don’t think Catholics have to go to church every day.” Betsy smiled at her husband. “Longworth only started doing it about three months ago.”

  “So you did find out somethin’ useful.” Luty nodded in approval. “Could be that Mr. Longworth has a guilty conscience over something.”

  “Yes, but it couldn’t be Gilhaney’s murder,” Ruth pointed out. “He was only killed six weeks ago.”

  “That’s true, but he could have felt guilty about something connected to Gilhaney from before that.” The cook looked at the clock. “We’d better get a move on, it’s getting late. I’ll go next. Today was a good one for me; one of my sources had plenty to say. To begin with, Leon Webster knew the victim; he didn’t just meet him that night at the Chase home. Gilhaney had worked at Webster’s Metals before he went to Manchester. It’s not that big a firm so Leon must have known him. Secondly, right after Gilhaney’s murder was in the newspapers, there was a huge family row at the Webster house. Apparently, they were all afraid that the murder investigation would dig up an old scandal they’d pushed under the rug.”

  “Did your source know what kind of scandal it was?” Ruth asked.

  “No, only that the family was very upset and that Leon Webster was in the middle of it. When the newspapers began writing that the crime was a robbery gone bad, the Websters were very relieved.” The cook helped herself to a slice of cake. “That’s all I’ve got for right now, but I’ve three more sources coming round tomorrow.”

  “Gracious, Mrs. Goodge, that’s amazing,” Ruth gushed. “You found out that one of the suspects knew Gilhaney.” She turned her attention to Mrs. Jeffries. “Can you be sure and find out what Leon Webster tells the inspector?”

  Mrs. Jeffries nodded. “Of course.”

  “If we keep diggin’, we’ll find out everything we need to know,” Luty declared. She noted with satisfaction that Mrs. Jeffries looked interested in what was being said. “I’ll go next unless someone else has something they’re dying to tell us.” She broke off and looked at Hatchet. “From that long face of yours, I can see it won’t be you.” She chuckled.

  “No, madam, it won’t.”

  Luty could see his nose was out of joint and that was exactly what they wanted. It turned out that Nelson loved gossip as much as his brother and he’d given her an earful. “I found out a lot today. To begin with, when Newton Walker hired Gilhaney, he was supposed to start working on the Monday, November ninth, after Guy Fawkes Night.”

  “How is that important, madam?” Hatchet snapped.

  “We don’t know that yet,” she shot back. “Turns out that on the morning of November fifth at the executive meeting, Newton Walker told them that Gilhaney would be starting the next day, Friday morning, November sixth. He was murdered that night. So you see”—she looked at Hatchet—“it might be important after all.”

  “I don’t see how,” he muttered.

  “That’s very interesting,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured. Something tugged at the back of her mind, but she ignored it. “But I tend to agree with Hatchet: I don’t see how it would impact Gilhaney’s murder.”

  “But it’s conceivable it did,” Ruth argued. “He was murdered that very evening.”

  “And don’t you always say that it’s impossible to know what will or won’t be important in an investigation until we have all of the facts?” Mrs. Goodge added.

  Mrs. Jeffries hesitated. “Well, yes, I suppose I have said that.”

  “I wasn’t done,” Luty said. “I also found out that two years ago, Hazel Bruce wanted to get a divorce from her husband. But her father was against it. He was afraid the scandal would ruin her socially. What’s more, he’d given Ted Bruce carte blanche in running the company and it would upset the apple cart to try and get rid of him if the two of them divorced. What’s more, it’s danged expensive. But this past October, Walker seemed to have changed his mind. He asked a firm of solicitors what steps would need to be taken for her to be free and how much it would cost.”

  “Is she going to divorce him?” Betsy asked. “They’re still living together.”

  “Yep, but they hate each other,” Luty said. “And, like Wiggins’ source said, they watch each other like hawks. Accordin’ to my source, Newton Walker has bribed someone at the Bruce house to spy on Ted Bruce.”

  “Which would imply he’s definitely relented about helping his daughter get a divorce,” Ruth murmured.

  “Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe seein’ his young’un be miserable for the rest of her life hurt him too much,” Luty suggested.

  “But Ted Bruce doesn’t own the house,” Phyllis pointed out. “He could be forced to leave it. Socially, that would be much easier on Mrs. Bruce than a divorce.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Ruth agreed. “Usually, that’s how it is done amongst upper-class marriages where the couples can’t abide one another. They simply lead separate lives. I wonder what made Walker change his mind about divorce. He’s right, you know—as unfair as it is, Hazel Bruce will be the one who is ruined.” She shook her head. “If it’s all the same to everyone, I’ll take my turn. I didn’t learn a great deal, but I found out that prior to living with her brother, Florence Bruce took care of their mother in the family home. When she died, Ted Bruce inherited the house and he immediately sold it. Florence was going to go and live with a cousin in the north until Hazel Bruce insisted she come live with them. The two women are very close.”

  “So it seems,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “Anything else?”

  “No, I’m finished. I feel badly about having so little information to share. I’ll try harder tomorrow.”

  “No
nsense, Ruth, you’ve done very well,” Mrs. Goodge exclaimed.

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed. “Does anyone else have a report?”

  There was silence around the table.

  “Well, at least some of us had something.” Luty frowned heavily.

  “We’re doing our best, madam,” Hatchet said coldly.

  “Are ya?” She cocked her head to one side and stared at him. “Did you contact those rich friends of yours that have helped in the past? You know who I mean, the fellow that’s an artist. He and his wife know everyone in town. I’ll bet they could help us. So just tell me, Hatchet, what the heck did you do today?”

  • • •

  “Robert Longworth is the last of the guests that were at the Chase home on Bonfire Night,” Barnes said as they got out of the hansom cab. “Once we’re done with him, we may have time to go back and take a good look through Gilhaney’s possessions.”

  “I’m hoping we’ll be able to find out who his solicitor was.” Witherspoon stepped onto the pavement. “If not, we’ll have to send another telegram to Manchester.” Overhead, the sky was threatening rain and the air had gone very cold. He flipped his coat collar up as he studied the Longworth home while Barnes paid the driver.

  It was a three-story brown brick house with a small, paved front garden surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. “This is an expensive area,” Witherspoon murmured as the constable joined him.

  “It is, sir. The house is well maintained but not particularly opulent. Not as big as some of the others on this street.”

  “Let’s go see what Mr. Longworth has to say,” the inspector said as they stepped through the gate and onto the brick walkway.

  The front door suddenly opened and a man with thinning blond hair and a mustache watched them approach. His skin was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. He wore a red cravat around his neck, and both his blue suit and white shirt seemed too big for his thin frame.

  He smiled politely. “Good day. You’re the police. Abigail Chase told me that you’d probably come and speak with me. Please come inside.”

  “I’m Inspector Witherspoon and this is Constable Barnes,” Witherspoon said as they stepped inside and followed him through a dimly lighted foyer and into the drawing room. The furniture was old-fashioned, with thick claw feet on the cabinets and tables, cream-colored crocheted antimacassars on the backs of the overstuffed brown settee and chairs, and a faded Oriental carpet that was fraying along the borders.

  “Please sit down.” Longworth motioned toward the chairs while he sat down in the middle of the settee.

  “Mrs. Chase told you we were coming?” Witherspoon was surprised to find the chair quite comfortable.

  “Indeed, I saw her this morning. We ran into one another at the bank. She’s a lovely woman. I was sorry to see her Bonfire Night party ruined.”

  “Was that dinner party the first time you’d met Christopher Gilhaney?” Witherspoon asked.

  “No, I met him a long time ago. He worked for my family’s firm. Longworth’s Metal Fasteners and Fittings. We had a manufacturing site in Battersea Park.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Ten years.” Longworth smiled faintly. “He was hired as a clerk in our accounts department. We manufactured metal parts for the building industry: nails, screws, hand tools, that sort of thing.”

  “You used the past tense, sir,” Witherspoon said. “Does that mean your family company is no longer in business?”

  “That’s correct, Inspector. The business closed nine and a half years ago, six months after Gilhaney was sacked.”

  “Why was he let go?”

  Longworth smiled bitterly. “He was suspected of embezzling funds, so my father let him go. What the old man forgot was that Gilhaney had one of those very rare abilities—he remembered everything he saw.”

  “Yes, we’ve heard that about him,” Witherspoon said.

  “And it is true. He knew to the penny how much it cost to manufacture, transport, and package a hook or nail or a hoe or a pair of brass fittings. He remembered everything. He took that knowledge to our biggest competitor, who then undercut all our prices. Sales dropped precipitously, we lost one contract after another, and within six months, we were closing our doors. Seventy men lost their livelihood. It killed my father.”

  Witherspoon thought his admissions very odd. He’d just admitted to a motive for Gilhaney’s murder. He wondered if he understood they were here to question him and that he might be a suspect. “You blamed Gilhaney for this?”

  Longworth blinked. “Blamed? Of course not, it wasn’t his fault, my father knew that Gilhaney had a remarkable memory. He shouldn’t have sacked him in the first place.”

  “But if he was embezzling—”

  “It wasn’t him, Inspector,” Longworth interrupted. “I was the one doing it. I’m quite clever with numbers—not on Gilhaney’s level, certainly, but I was very good at it, until he had a look at the books. It didn’t take him long to see what I was up to so I made certain that he took the blame for the crime.” He smiled sadly. “For such a brilliant man, he was quite naive back in those days.”

  “How have you made a living since then?” Barnes asked bluntly.

  “I haven’t,” Longworth replied. “A few months after my family died and our assets were sold to pay off our creditors, my mother and I inherited this house from her brother, as well as a modest annual income. We lived quite happily here until she passed away two years ago.”

  “How did you happen to be appointed as a director at Walker and Company?” Witherspoon thought this one of the strangest statements he’d ever heard.

  “My father and Newton were friends. We were one of their suppliers and we’ve stayed in touch over the years. He’s been very kind to me. When he took the company public, he asked me to serve as a director. There’s a small stipend attached to the position.”

  “Did Mr. Walker know of your connection to Christopher Gilhaney?”

  “He never told me so directly, but he must have known. He did his best to help my father when the firm was in trouble and I’m sure he cursed Gilhaney’s name on many an occasion.”

  The inspector didn’t know what to make of Longworth. “I understand Mr. Gilhaney was quite rude to you the night he was murdered.”

  “Not really, he made a comment or two that were aimed at me, but then he stopped. Despite his behavior the night of the Chases’ dinner, Gilhaney was a decent man. He’d had his fair share of tragedy.”

  “But he ran your family’s firm out of business.” Barnes studied Longworth carefully.

  “Only after he’d been unfairly sacked. He could have told my father I was the one doing the embezzling, and he could have proved it, but he held his tongue. He didn’t need to ruin me in order to get back at the company.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My father was a dreadful man, you see. He didn’t have Gilhaney arrested because the evidence against him wasn’t as absolute as it should have been. But if Gilhaney had wanted to, he could have easily proved that I was the criminal. If my father had found out it was me who was the culprit, he’d have prosecuted me to the fullest extent of the law. He was a tyrant at the office and a bully at home. My mother was a good woman, but the happiest day of her life was when he died. Gilhaney did me a great favor by staying silent. If he hadn’t, I’d probably still be in a prison cell.”

  Witherspoon said, “Mr. Longworth, if Mr. Gilhaney hadn’t been insulting you that night, why did you leave so early?”

  “I wanted to catch the last omnibus, Inspector. Hansom cabs are very expensive. I needed to get home. I’m ill, you see. No”—he smiled—“that’s not true. I’m dying.”

  • • •

  “I don’t know why Mrs. Goodge is makin’ it seem like we’re not doin’ our best on this one,” Wiggins said as he followed Phyllis into the drawing room. He put the brass andirons he’d finally finished polishing onto their stand by the fireplace. “It’s
not fair. We’ve been doin’ the best we can. And it weren’t just her, either. Ruth and Luty was actin’ like they didn’t think we were doin’ our share, either. Just because they found out somethin’ today, it doesn’t mean we’ve not been tryin’.”

  Phyllis pulled the heavy curtains away from one of the front windows and ran her feather duster over the sill. “I haven’t,” she admitted. “And I feel terrible about it.” She turned to face him, her eyes welling with unshed tears. “But I was so upset that we’d have to change our Christmas plans, I didn’t want to do my share.”

  “Come on, Phyllis, I’m sure that’s not true,” Wiggins cajoled. He didn’t want to hear that she’d been deliberately negligent—that hit too close to home.

  “But it’s true. The only reason I found out anything yesterday was an accident, and today, I spent less than twenty minutes in the Holter neighborhood. I only talked to one shop assistant and barely asked him anything. I went to the theater district and looked at the posters and the playbills, then I treated myself to a nice tea.”

  Wiggins had no idea what to say or do; he could only stare at her helplessly as the tears started to stream down her cheeks. “Uh, look, there’s no reason to get so upset …”

  She swiped at her face with her free hand. “There’s every reason. I’m so ashamed of myself. The inspector is the first employer I’ve had who has treated me decently. He isn’t stingy with food and he heats the house properly. He passes along his magazines and lets me read the books in his library and the one thing I can do to repay him, I failed to do because I wanted a few evenings out. I can’t believe I’ve been so selfish and stupid.”

  “You’re not selfish and you’re certainly not stupid.” Wiggins hurried over to her and patted her awkwardly on the back. “You’ve a right to want some time to yourself.”

  “I have my day out.” She moved to the other window and pulled the drapes back. “Mrs. Goodge and the other ladies are right, at least about me. I’ve been shirking my duty. And I’m not ashamed just because I’ve failed to help him; that’s only part of it. I’m ashamed because I’ve failed myself. Because of our investigations, I’ve learned to stand up for myself and to fight for what is right. We stand for the dead who can’t stand for themselves and that’s important. I never thought I’d do anything important in my life, but because of all of you, I have.”