The woman by the window spoke, startling her out of her reverie. “Excuse me, ma’am, but I need to get out, my stop is next.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Jeffries rose and stood in the aisle for the lady to pass. She had a long way to go so she took the seat just vacated and once again gazed out at the city.
The evidence was beginning to show that the champagne flute must have been tampered with before the lights went out. But by who? The only person seen near the table before the ball started was Elise Cory and she claimed she was simply looking at the place cards. Mrs. Jeffries gasped. The place cards, of course. How could she have forgotten? She snapped to attention as the vehicle trundled slowly up Whitehall. Drat, they weren’t even at Charing Cross yet. Right now, getting home was important. She debated getting off at the next stop and taking a hansom, but the traffic was so terrible it probably wouldn’t be any faster. Double drat. She crossed her fingers, hoping she’d get home in time to have a quick word with Wiggins.
* * *
• • •
“I’m sorry, I can’t allow that without Mrs. Bremmer’s consent. Please wait here.” Mrs. Martin disappeared, leaving Witherspoon and Barnes standing in the foyer.
“We can insist if we need to.” The constable’s gaze was fixed on the open drawing room door, where they could both hear the low murmur of voices.
“Let’s hope she’ll cooperate.” Witherspoon smiled politely as Anne Bremmer stepped into the hallway and charged toward them. The housekeeper followed at a more sedate pace.
“What do you mean, you want to speak to my servants?” she demanded.
“That’s normal procedure.” The inspector shifted his bowler from his right hand to his left. “We can either do it here or we can ask your staff to come to the station. Additionally, I’ve more questions for you, Mrs. Bremmer.”
“This is outrageous,” she snapped.
Behind her, Barnes saw the housekeeper lower her head to hide a smile.
“Your superiors will hear about this.” Mrs. Bremmer looked over her shoulder. “Mrs. Martin, go fetch the footman and then bring me my writing case. He can take my note directly to Chief Superintendent Barrows at Scotland Yard.” She started to turn but was stopped by the inspector’s next words.
“Mrs. Bremmer, we have it on good authority that your husband was blackmailing your friends and neighbors.”
She flinched and stared at him with an expression of horror. “That’s a lie. I don’t know who is saying such things but it isn’t true.”
“It is true, Mrs. Bremmer,” Barnes added. “We’ve confirmed it with three separate sources. You wouldn’t be the first to complain to Chief Superintendent Barrows, but after he hears our evidence, it wouldn’t do you any good.”
Barrows wasn’t immune to the machinations of the rich and powerful, but he was also a good policeman who had come up through the ranks and believed in following the law, so the constable was fairly certain he could pull off this bluff. Add to that, Witherspoon had his own supporters in the Home Office and senior officers were wary of interfering in ongoing investigations.
She stared at them for a long moment and then she seemed to collapse into herself. “Oh God, this is a nightmare. I thought when he died, I’d have some peace, but it’s getting worse and worse.” Her eyes glazed over, her skin had taken on a deathly pallor, and she seemed to be talking to herself. “Even now he’s found a way to torment me. My father was right, Stephen was a devil. No matter how dead he is, he’ll not stop until he destroys me.”
Alarmed, Witherspoon looked at the housekeeper. “Can you bring tea, please, I think your mistress needs to sit down.”
Mrs. Martin nodded and disappeared down the hall. Witherspoon jerked his chin toward the disappearing housekeeper, indicating that Barnes should follow her. Then he took Anne Bremmer’s arm and led her into the drawing room.
“He’s found a way to ruin me.” She muttered it over and over as the inspector tugged her across the room and eased her gently onto the sofa.
Witherspoon sat down beside her and gazed at her sympathetically. She was staring at the floor and still murmuring something he couldn’t quite catch under her breath. He had no wish to cause her further distress but he also knew his duty. “Mrs. Bremmer, I’m very sorry you’re upset. Mrs. Martin is bringing tea.”
“Tea? That’s not going to do me any good.” She raised her chin and pointed to a cabinet across the room. “If you want to help, get me a whiskey.”
Downstairs, Barnes followed the housekeeper into the noisy kitchen. The room went silent as the cook, two maids, and a young man in a footman’s livery caught sight of the constable.
“Devlin, get a pot of tea ready,” Mrs. Martin ordered.
“We’ve just made a fresh pot,” the cook said. She’d been rolling out pastry but she stopped, her rolling pin in her hand, and stared at Barnes.
The maids hurried to get the tea tray ready, and a few moments later Mrs. Martin picked it up. She hesitated. “Rankin, show the constable into the old butler’s pantry. He needs to speak to all of you. Constable”—she started for the back stairs—“start questioning whoever you’d like.”
“This way.” Rankin, a lanky youth with a baby face and curly blond hair, waved him down the corridor and into a room with a long, narrow table and half a dozen rickety-looking chairs. Shelves filled with old crockery, pots and pans, and iron kitchen utensils lined one wall and opposite it was a line of locked cabinets.
Barnes pulled out a chair and sat down. “Don’t go,” he said as the footman started to leave. “I might as well start with you. Come and sit down.”
Rankin, his mouth slightly agape, did as he was told.
“What’s your name?” He opened his notebook.
“Lewis Rankin, I’m the footman here.”
“How old are you?” The constable was hoping a few innocent questions might get the lad to relax a bit.
“Fifteen, sir.” He swallowed nervously.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Just over a year.”
“Do you like it here?”
Lewis blinked. “Uh, I don’t know, I guess it’s alright.”
“Just alright,” Barnes pressed. “Come on, lad, your master has been murdered. We already know he wasn’t a very nice person, so just answer my questions honestly. There’s no one here but you and me and I promise, I’ll not repeat anything you’ve said to Mrs. Bremmer or the housekeeper.”
Lewis smiled in relief. “Good. I don’t like it here but it pays decent and I want to keep my job. Truth is, none of us like it here much. They was always arguin’ upstairs and making life miserable for us down here.”
“Did anything unusual happen on the day that Mr. Bremmer was murdered?”
“Not that I can remember,” he said.
“How about in any of the days prior to his death. Anything odd occur?”
“Well, it weren’t unusual, but the day before he died, they had one of their nasty rows.” Lewis shrugged. “They was screamin’ so loud I could hear them all the way down the hall.”
“What were they shouting about?”
“Mrs. Bremmer was shoutin’ that he was a monster and that one of these days he’d be punished for being so horrible. She told him he was goin’ to end up dead and she’d not pay for his funeral.”
“Do you know specifically what they were arguing about?”
“Not really, they argued a lot but this was a real nasty one.” He brightened. “But the funny bit was he did end up dead and now she is havin’ to pay for the funeral. I didn’t hear any more because Lily came up and told me that Mrs. Martin wanted me to polish the brass fireplace sets. They’re right fancy ones and take ages to do but the mistress wanted them cleaned for the fancy luncheon she was having that day. You might want to talk to Lily. She needed to clear the dining room so she migh
t have heard more.”
“Right, then, could you go fetch Lily for me?”
Lewis got up, but when he reached the door, he stopped. “Oh, there is one more thing. That was the day that Mrs. Martin sent me to the chemist’s to buy rat poison.”
* * *
• • •
Upstairs, Witherspoon handed Mrs. Bremmer a second shot of whiskey. She gulped it down. Mrs. Martin put the tea tray on a side table, gave her mistress an anxious glance, and then retreated, pulling the door closed behind her.
Anne Bremmer’s color was better and her lips had stopped trembling. She put the glass down next to the tea tray and looked at him. “I suppose your constable is downstairs.”
“That is correct, ma’am,” the inspector replied. “We have a right to question any and all witnesses that may have pertinent information while investigating a murder.”
“The only information they’ll be able to tell you is what you already know; my husband and I loathed each other.”
Witherspoon wasn’t in the habit of sharing information with suspects, and she was most definitely a suspect, but in this case, he thought it might work to his advantage. “We have been told that your marriage wasn’t a happy one.”
“And you think that means I murdered him.” She laughed. “Don’t be absurd, Inspector, half of the women in London hate their spouses. Stephen was a dreadful husband and an even worse person, but I didn’t kill him.”
“No one has accused you of that, Mrs. Bremmer. As Constable Barnes said earlier, we do have confirmation that your husband was a blackmailer and that he was targeting his friends and acquaintances.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I suspected he might be doing something like that, but I didn’t know for certain. The truth is, I didn’t want to know.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“I honestly don’t know.” She shook her head. “When we married, I gave him a generous allowance but it was never enough. Before we returned from our honeymoon I realized I’d made a terrible mistake by marrying him. From the very beginning, he rarely spent an evening at home and had no interest in me whatsoever. But he needed me, you see. Stephen had very expensive tastes. Only the best restaurants, the most expensive champagne, the finest clothing would do for him and he had no money of his own. We hadn’t been wed six months before he started badgering me to raise his quarterly allowance, but I refused.”
“What made you suspect he was blackmailing people?”
“He stopped harassing me constantly. He still wanted money, but it wasn’t a continuous stream of lying or whining or complaining. At first I thought he was stealing from me, so I kept a close watch on all the valuables in the house. But he wasn’t as stupid as I thought; he knew not to steal from me. Then I noticed some of my friends were very uncomfortable around Stephen; before they’d accept an invitation from me, they’d want to know if he was going to be present.”
Witherspoon wasn’t sure she’d be able to answer his next question, but he had to ask. “How did he get information on his victims?”
“I don’t know, Inspector. It wasn’t a subject we ever discussed. But he was always a cunning, sly sort of person. Before we were married, my father found him going through the desk drawers in our study and I know he eavesdropped on private conversations. Twice I’ve caught him listening at doors, once when we were at the Fellingham estate and once at the Mannion house.”
* * *
• • •
“Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday,” Blimpey apologized as Smythe took the stool across from him. “But Nell’s aunt had one of her fainting spells, and as she’s her only living relative, we had to go and see she was alright.”
“Is she?”
“She’s fine now, it was just a bit of light-headedness. But you know women; Nell was frettin’ so about her that I’ve hired a nurse to stay with the old girl for a few days,” Blimpey replied. “I’ve got plenty to tell you, though, some of which I suspect you and your lot have already heard.”
“Probably so, but go on.”
“First, your victim is a blackmailer. That was his mysterious source of income—” He broke off. “But your lot already found that out, right?” Smythe nodded so he continued. “Second, your victim wasn’t a very good blackmailer but he was smart enough not to try it on anyone who was outside his own social set, so none of the real toughs in town were after him and that’s good news. That means no one from outside bribed a waiter or a maid to add a bit of arsenic to his champagne.”
“We were already sure he was murdered by someone at one of the two tables in the front,” Smythe agreed.
“Right, then, I’ll get onto what we found out about that lot. There was only one person at the table next to where Bremmer was sitting who might have hated him enough to kill him and that was—”
Smythe interrupted, “Elise Cory. We already know about her. Go on.”
“Now, the only person at Bremmer’s table who wasn’t one of his victims was the American man, Nicholas Parr. He’s not been in England long enough for Bremmer to have the goods on him. Years ago, he’d tried to blackmail James Pierce but Pierce wouldn’t play along. He had some really damaging information on Montague Pettigrew. Do you need me to tell you what it was?”
“No, we know.”
“Right, then.” Blimpey continued, “So he was blackmailin’ Pettigrew and Camilla Houghton-Jones.”
“Both of them?”
“That’s right, Miss Houghton-Jones needs for her beloved to get his inheritance as soon as possible. Apparently, she’s run up big bills all over town and her creditors are gettin’ a tad impatient. Pettigrew’s uncle finding out about his love affair with an actor could ruin both their prospects. There was also a rumor that he was blackmailing Louise Mannion.”
“For what?” Smythe asked. This was definitely new information. “What did he ’ave on ’er?”
“My source wasn’t sure but he thought it was something to do with Osgood Mannion’s death. He was supposed to have accidentally drowned last spring in the lake at the Mannion estate when the skiff he was in overturned. But Osgood was a good swimmer and the local medical man found a wound on the back of his skull. Louise Mannion was the only witness to the accident. She claimed she was at the water’s edge. She’d gone to call him in to tea, and just as she arrived, she saw the boat overturn. Osgood could swim, but as he went in, he hit his head on one of the oars.”
“She didn’t jump in to save him?”
Blimpey grinned. “She claims she can’t swim, but my source says that’s a lie. Years earlier, her brother almost drowned, and after that, her father insisted both of them learn to swim.”
“Wasn’t there a coroner’s inquest?”
“Of course, but Louise’s godfather was the county magistrate, and oddly enough, the fact that Louise Mannion could swim wasn’t mentioned during the inquest. The official verdict was death by accident. Which is understandable because all the estate servants testified that the Mannions had a happy marriage.”
“So she’d have no reason to kill her husband, is that it?”
“That’s what the servants said, but as we both know, servants that need their positions will say anything to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.”
“What about Anne Bremmer, was he blackmailin’ ’er?” Smythe asked.
Blimpey thought for a moment. “I don’t know if you could call it proper blackmail, but he had somethin’ in the works that meant he could leave her, that he didn’t need to stay around because she was the one with the money.”
“And her ambition is to be presented at court.” Smythe’s heavy brows drew together. “Is bein’ deserted considered as bad as bein’ divorced?”
“Not by most people but I suspect the Queen and her courtiers might see it differently.” He leaned toward Smythe and lowered his voi
ce. “My sources tell me that in the years since Prince Albert has died, she’s become even more obsessed about the sanctity of marriage. Any woman who can’t hang on to her husband wouldn’t stand a chance at being presented at her court. She doesn’t even approve of widows remarrying.”
“But she’d allow a widow to be presented?”
“That’s what my source says, so if Anne Bremmer knew he was up and leavin’, I’d say that whoever killed him did her a great service.”
* * *
• • •
“It’s nice of you to buy me a drink.” Hilda Jackson smiled as Wiggins put a glass of gin on the table in front of her. “I don’t usually go with men I don’t know, but Joey said you’re a reporter.”
“That’s right.” Wiggins sat down. It hadn’t been difficult making contact with the tall, ginger-haired girl. He’d met Joey outside the Wrexley as the boy was coming to work and the lad had not only described her for him, but had offered to vouch for “Albert Jones.” But Hilda’s shift didn’t end until half past three so he’d spent the day trying to pick up a bit more information. He’d gone to James Pierce’s neighborhood and found out nothing and then tried his luck near the Mannion house. But he’d not found anyone there to talk to, either. Hopefully, his luck would change and he’d learn something useful here.
“It’s a nice pub, isn’t it?” Wiggins glanced around the crowded room. Working men in plain shirts and flat caps sat along the side benches, and bread sellers, railway workers, and travelers in business suits crowded the length of the bar. “We were lucky to get a table.” Luck had nothing to do with it; he’d bribed two lads who’d been sitting here to leave because he wanted her comfortable and chatting.
Mrs. Jeffries Delivers the Goods Page 20