Mrs. Jeffries Delivers the Goods

by Emily Brightwell

  “I would have,” John muttered. “Go on.”

  “One evening when Mabel was serving dinner, Elise told her cousin that James was going to propose as soon as the mourning year for her father ended, but that didn’t happen. The next day, Elise was at the house alone and Stephen Bremmer practically forced his way inside. Mabel wasn’t able to keep him out, but she did go to the kitchen and get a heavy cast-iron frying pan. She was afraid something was going to happen.”

  “She thought Bremmer was going to hurt the girl?”

  “Yes, so she stood outside the drawing room door just in case. That’s when she heard Bremmer tell Elise that James Pierce had impregnated Louise Lyndhurst and that the two of them were going to the Continent to get married.”

  “Why would Elise believe him?” John’s expression was skeptical. “He was known to be a liar.”

  “I asked Miss Philpot and she said that James and Elise had quarreled over Louise more than once. Elise claimed that the woman had set her cap for James and he told her she was being absurd. Additionally, Pierce and Son were still very dependent on the Lyndhurst shipping line so he wasn’t going to offend Louise by telling her to stay away from him. Plus James had left the day before on business and Louise had gone to Paris, so the story did make sense.”

  “So Bremmer shows up and tells Elise that James is elopin’ with the Lyndhurst girl, right?” Luty wanted to get the sequence of events right in her own mind. “And then what happened?”

  “Bremmer left a few minutes later. Miss Philpot put the skillet back in the kitchen, and before she had a chance to see if Elise was alright, she said she heard the front door slam. When she went into the parlor, Elise was gone. When she came back, she announced that she’d taken employment with the Franklin family as a governess and was going with them to San Francisco.”

  Luty frowned. “Didn’t her cousin object?”

  “Not really. Miss Philpot told me she was certain that Nora thought once Elise was gone, she might have a chance with James Pierce. By the time James got back to London, Elise was gone. A few months later, he married Nora.”

  “Was Bremmer lying? Was there something between James and Louise Lyndhurst?”

  “It was a lie. Louise had simply gone to Europe to appease her father.” Chloe sighed.

  “Why did Bremmer do it, then?” Luty asked. “He didn’t get anything out of it.”

  “Spite probably.” Chloe looked disgusted. “He wanted Elise Newcomb to become his mistress, she refused, and this was his way of ruining her chance for happiness.”

  “That means she has a motive for murderin’ Bremmer,” Luty speculated.

  “Are you certain of that?” John said. “It doesn’t sound like she spent the rest of her days in mourning over what could have been. It appears she did very well in America. She got married to Cory.”

  “And from what Miss Philpot said, it was a good marriage.”

  “How did she know?” Luty asked.

  “She and Nora wrote to each other regularly,” Chloe said. “The only time the letters stopped was when Nora told her she and James had married. But a few months later, she wrote her cousin and all was apparently forgiven.”

  “But that lie changed the whole course of her life,” Luty said thoughtfully “Maybe the way she sees it, Bremmer kept her from marryin’ the man she really loved.”

  “I hope she doesn’t turn out to be the killer.” Chloe sighed. “Her story is very much like mine was. I, too, went to America because I’d lost someone.” She turned and smiled at her husband. “But I got very lucky and fate or circumstance or whatever one wants to call it gave me a great blessing. I found you.”

  John blushed. “I’m the lucky one, sweetheart, and if Elise Cory isn’t the killer, perhaps she and James Pierce will have another chance.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Mrs. Jeffries grabbed her heavy winter cloak from the coat tree and tossed it around her shoulders. Their morning meeting was over and the kitchen was quiet. Mrs. Jeffries had told everyone what she’d heard from the inspector, and Luty had given a full report on the information she’d found out at her dinner party.

  No one had been particularly shocked when they learned of Bremmer’s disgusting behavior and they’d been split on whether or not Elise Cory might have nursed a grudge long enough to return to England after eight years to murder him. Wiggins, Hatchet, and Smythe seemed to think it unlikely, while Phyllis, Luty, and Betsy had argued vigorously that it was not only possible but probable.

  Mrs. Jeffries had decided to reserve judgment on the matter and the cook hadn’t said one way or the other. As soon as the meeting was finished, Phyllis murmured something about going to the Bremmer neighborhood, Wiggins volunteered to walk with her to the omnibus stop as he was going to have “another go” at finding out something about Nicholas Parr, and Betsy decided that Louise Mannion’s neighborhood might be fruitful. Smythe announced he was meeting with a source this morning, Hatchet hadn’t said where he was going, and Luty, who’d been out late the night before, had said she was going home to have a rest.

  Mrs. Jeffries fastened her cloak and put on her hat. “I’ll be going, then. If I leave now, I should get to St. Thomas’ Hospital just after Dr. Bosworth has finished his morning round.” Mrs. Goodge was still at the table staring glumly at the teapot. “Don’t take it so hard, Mrs. Goodge, it was a simple mistake.”

  “But it’s the sort of mistake we can’t afford to make.” She shook her head. “Not if we mean to do this properly and ensure that justice is done. I knew this was going to happen. I knew that there would come a time when I’d forget something important.”

  “You weren’t the only one who forgot.” Mrs. Jeffries moved to the table and sat down next to her friend. “I did, too, so stop being so hard on yourself. It’s my fault as much as yours.”

  “No, it’s not; you’re the one who we rely on to solve the case, to think things through and see all the connections and bits that none of us can see. I’m the one who is supposed to remember the details that we need to tell the constable, and I forgot. This was an important bit as well. Nora Pierce was Elise’s cousin and she married the man Elise loved because of what Stephen Bremmer did. If that’s not a motive for murder, I don’t know what is.”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s no evidence Elise Cory has spent the last eight years pining for James Pierce or plotting vengeance over her lost love. According to the information Luty found out, the Cory marriage was not only a happy one, but Elise kept up a regular correspondence with her cousin.”

  “Not when she first found out she’d married James Pierce,” the cook pointed out.

  “She probably was hurt and upset when she learned of the marriage,” Mrs. Jeffries argued. “But she got over it.”

  Mrs. Goodge dragged in a long, harsh breath and sighed. “You’re probably right, Hepzibah. I just feel so guilty that I forgot something that may end up being important.”

  “I forgot it, too, and we’ve already decided that in the future, we’ll both start writing things down. Now come on, we’ve got a case to solve and you sitting around with a long face instead of plying your sources with sweets and treats isn’t going to help us find the killer.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Constable, it seems to me that if it is true that our victim tried to blackmail James Pierce, then it’s likely he also tried to blackmail others.”

  “I agree, sir,” Barnes said as they turned the corner into Uxbridge Road. “We’ve heard he had a source of income that was unrelated to his wife’s money. I’ll bet my pension that blackmail is a good part of it. Especially since everyone who was at the table with him that night detested him.” He raised his hand at a hansom that had just dropped a fare. “Maybe they didn’t just hate him because he was obnoxious; maybe he knew something about all of them. You know, the sort of thi
ng no one wants spread about London.”

  “Indeed, I was thinking along those lines myself. All of them are people with either social or business reputations they’d not want damaged.”

  “And he was chargin’ them a pretty penny to keep his mouth shut. Where are we heading first, sir?”

  They stopped as the cab pulled up next to the curb. Barnes grabbed the handle of the cab door, yanked it open, and stepped back so the inspector could enter. But Witherspoon hesitated. “Considering the gossip we’ve heard, Constable, I think we ought to speak with Montague Pettigrew. He would be the one who would be most seriously damaged if Bremmer were blackmailing him. But let’s go to his home. It isn’t the sort of conversation Miss Houghton-Jones should hear.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Thank goodness you’ve come to see me.” Dr. Bosworth held his office door open and motioned her inside. “If you hadn’t, I was going to drop by Upper Edmonton Gardens.”

  “You’re always welcome at Upper Edmonton Gardens and the others will be annoyed if they find out my coming here deprived them of seeing you.” She took off her cloak and hung it on the coat tree. His office was much as she remembered it. The walls were the same gray green, the blind was up on the single window, and there were medical books, box files, and periodicals stacked everywhere.

  “It’s kind of you to say so, Mrs. Jeffries. I enjoy seeing the household and your friends. Perhaps at the end of this case we can all get together.” He closed the door and then swept a stack of journals off the straight-backed chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat and get comfortable. Would you like tea? I can send the porter up to the kitchen.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m fine and I promise not to take up too much of your time. You know why I’ve come?”

  He sat down. “I do, and as I said, I’m glad you’re here. As I’m certain you know already, the postmortem determined that it was arsenic poisoning that killed the victim.”

  “The report was certain it was arsenic and not some other poison,” she clarified.

  “Oh yes, but the situation isn’t as straightforward as it might appear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As you know, I spent some time in San Francisco after my medical training here.”

  “Of course. That’s why you know so much about guns and the sort of holes—oh dear, that doesn’t sound right.” She laughed at herself. “You know what I’m saying. Because of all the bullet holes you saw in San Francisco, you’re an expert on the type of wounds various weapons make when they impact and leave a human being.”

  He gave her a grateful smile. “True, but bullet wounds weren’t my only interest. There was another aspect of my training in America that might have some bearing on this case. This is hard to admit, because Dr. Haley, my mentor in San Francisco, was such a good man. But I was young and back in those days I saw all of life as a competition. Oh Lord, aren’t we stupid when we’re young.”

  She laughed. “I think that’s the nature of being young, sir.”

  He gave her a rueful smile. “So because he was an expert on the kind of entry and exit wounds guns made, I wanted to make my mark as well and, uh . . . well, I decided I needed to become a bit of an expert on something that didn’t interest him in the least.”

  “Poisons?”

  He nodded. “My reason for doing it was stupid, youthful vanity and pride, but once I began studying the subject, I became genuinely interested and wanted to know whether or not all human beings reacted to a poison with the same symptoms.”

  “And what did you find out?”

  “What I learned was fascinating. Not everyone responds in precisely the same manner when they’ve been poisoned.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t misunderstand; a lethal dose of a poison is precisely that: a lethal dose. But the point is, most murderers have no idea about how much to use in order to ensure their victim actually dies. For instance, one of the cases I examined was a wife who wanted to rid herself of a violent, drunken husband so she put an arsenic-based rat poison in his whiskey. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t use enough to actually kill the fellow. The man lived and testified against her at her trial. On another case, a man used foxglove to poison his business partner. Foxglove, as I’m sure you’re aware, is used to make digitalis. But the killer used a very small amount, not nearly enough to harm someone. Yet his victim died.”

  “Why would he die?”

  “Because unbeknownst to anyone, the victim had an undiagnosed heart condition—he had an irregular heartbeat, so even a small amount of foxglove was enough to put the poor man six feet under. Foxglove is generally used to treat heart problems, but with some heart conditions, it can also kill.” Bosworth shrugged. “My point is that poison, even though we’ve a number of tests that can detect its presence in the human body, can have different effects on different people.”

  “You mean, if someone already has a medical condition, the effect of the poison can either be exaggerated or even nullified? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not necessarily nullified; as I said, a fatal dose is a fatal dose. What I’m saying is most people have no idea about how much to shove in someone’s food or drink. Additionally, we know very little about how poisons interact with other medications, and that’s what worries me about this murder. The victim died far too quickly.”

  She realized the accounts she’d heard of Bremmer’s death were what had been bothering her about this murder. She was no expert on poisons but she had read about them. “Yes, I agree, there’s something odd about the sequence of events, don’t you think? He shouldn’t have died so fast.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. “You think so, too? Of course, I should have realized, you know more than the average layman when it comes to poison and murder.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk. “It was definitely arsenic that killed him. But there’s something strange about what was found in the contents of his stomach.”

  “In what way?”

  “The police surgeon was surprised there were very few granules of arsenic in the victim’s stomach. But a number of them in his mouth and throat.”

  “You’re concerned about this?” Mrs. Jeffries was concerned about it as well. The last thing this case needed was complication about how the victim had actually met his demise.

  “Of course, the arsenic was in the victim’s champagne flute. We found both granules and dissolved traces on the glass. But the reason I’m worried is that the form of arsenic we found, which was ordinary run-of-the-mill vermin poison, isn’t easily soluble in cold liquids, and champagne is a cold liquid.”

  “But you just said you found granules.” Mrs. Jeffries was getting a bit confused.

  “We did, and that was to be expected, but the trace arsenic we found smeared on the inside of the flute wasn’t enough to have caused the symptoms Bremmer expressed before he died.” Bosworth’s brows drew together. “It’s a very odd situation.”

  “So what are you saying? That Bremmer wasn’t killed by arsenic after all?”

  “No, he definitely was, but I think there might be other mitigating circumstances about his death. The man had a number of ailments, some of which the police surgeon detailed in the postmortem. Bremmer was taking at least three other medications. One was a digitalis pill for his heart and the other two medicines were for his gout and indigestion. That could certainly have changed his symptoms.” He sighed heavily. “I’m not sure what to tell you, Mrs. Jeffries. All I know is that Stephen Bremmer shouldn’t have dropped dead so quickly. According to my research, the fastest arsenic has ever killed someone is two hours after ingestion. Normally, it takes two to four days for death to occur but this man died within minutes. But then again, as I said, there is a lot about poison and individual reactions to it that we simply don’t know.”

  * * *

&nbs
p; • • •

  Montague Pettigrew wasn’t happy to see them. He lived in the bottom flat of a five-story redbrick building with a gray stone façade. They’d been let into the small sitting room by an elderly old man wearing a threadbare black butler’s coat and a frayed white shirt. The walls of the room were covered in a pale lavender and gray striped paper, the faded purple drapes had seen better days, and the floor was covered with a frayed gold and blue Oriental carpet. Pettigrew, who’d been reading the Times in an overstuffed horsehair chair by the window, leapt to his feet as they entered. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t wait for them to reply; instead he glared at his manservant. “Collins, why didn’t you announce these people? I’m too busy to see anyone now. I’ve an appointment.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Collins muttered as he shuffled out of the room, closing the door behind him with a definite bang.

  “Well, what do you want?” Pettigrew tossed his paper onto the chair.

  “We want to ask you some questions,” Barnes replied. “We’ve learned some information that might be important, sir, and we’d like to speak with you about it.”

  Pettigrew’s eyes widened and he swallowed nervously. “Alright, then, get on with it.” He swept the paper off his chair and flopped back down, leaving the two policemen to stand.

  “Mr. Pettigrew, are you aware that Stephen Bremmer was a blackmailer?” Witherspoon watched him carefully as he asked the question. He wasn’t as adept at reading expressions as he’d like, but he was getting better at it. Pettigrew’s face paled as the blood drained out.

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I know nothing about such a matter. Why would someone like me have any idea about whether or not Bremmer blackmailed people?”