Prime Crime Holiday Bundle

by Cleo Coyle; Emily Brightwell; Kenneth Blanchard

  “Everyone went,” Farringdon said firmly. “Stephen was adamant that we all go. He ushered us into the morning room as if we were a herd of sheep. I don’t really blame him: he’d gone to a great deal of trouble and I expect he wanted us to enjoy the sight. As I said, the tree was lovely. Very bright and colorful. Of course there was a footman on duty to ensure that the candles didn’t catch anything on fire. I expect the lad blew the candles out when poor Stephen was taken ill. The household did go into a bit of an uproar.”

  “Did everyone stay in the morning room together?” Witherspoon asked.

  “Everyone stayed for a few moments. Then, of course, there was the usual milling-about that happens at social occasions.”

  “Can you be a bit more specific, sir?” The inspector wanted to get some idea of who had been where at any given moment.

  “I don’t think so, Inspector. I wasn’t really paying attention to everyone’s comings and goings.”

  “Try, sir. It’s very important,” Barnes urged.

  Farringdon frowned in concentration. “Gracious, I don’t know that I can recall the exact sequence of who went in and out.”

  “It was only last night, sir,” Witherspoon pressed, his tone just a tad impatient.

  “Well, at one point, Mrs. Murray excused herself to have a word with the cook,” Farringdon said slowly. “I remember that because she mentioned it to Maria when she excused herself.”

  “Excellent, that’s very good,” the inspector encouraged him.

  “And Mr. Langford asked if he could help himself to another sherry, so I know that he went into the drawing room. Henry went to the water closet, and I believe Mrs. Graham excused herself to go and fetch another handkerchief from her evening wrap. Oh dear, I honestly don’t remember anymore. We were all milling about and chatting. The door opened and closed half a dozen times.”

  “Did you or Mrs. Farringdon leave the morning room during this period?” Witherspoon was careful to keep his tone very casual as he asked the question.

  Farringdon shook his head. “No, we were both there the whole time. We didn’t leave the morning room until the butler announced that dinner was being served.”

  “How long were you in the house before everyone went in to dinner?” Barnes asked. He thought it might be useful to know how long Stephen Whitfield had been drinking poisoned wine.

  “We arrived at seven and dinner was served at eight.” Farringdon smiled triumphantly. “I do remember that, because the hall clock had just gonged the hour when we went into the dining room.”

  “And Mr. Whitfield had been drinking the Bordeaux for all that time?” The constable clarified. “He didn’t drink sherry or have any other kind of aperitif?”

  “Stephen had nothing but the wine. He was drinking steadily the whole time. He must have had three-quarters of the bottle before we even went in to dinner.”

  Luty Belle charged into the kitchen, unbuttoning her fur-trimmed cloak as she walked. “Sorry we’re late, but it ain’t my fault.” She flopped into her usual spot next to Wiggins. “Blame him.” She pointed to her tall, stately, white-haired butler, Hatchet. “If he hadn’t insisted we stop and make small talk with Lord Dinsworthy . . .”

  “Don’t be absurd, madam. You were quite willing to make that stop when you thought Lord Dinsworthy might have some useful information about one of the principals in the case,” Hatchet retorted. He pulled out a chair on the other side of the footman and sat down. “You only began making a fuss when you realized that Lord Dinsworthy had absolutely nothing useful to tell us. You were rude to the poor man.”

  She snorted and slipped her cloak off her shoulders, letting it fall onto the back of her chair. “He was makin’ us late, and if you don’t make a clean getaway, the man will talk you to death.”

  “We’ve only just sat down,” Mrs. Jeffries said cheerfully. “And Betsy isn’t back yet, either. So we’ll give her a few minutes.”

  Luty and Hatchet had been present at their morning meeting and had gone out to do their investigating with the same set of facts as everyone else. Because of her wealth, Luty had enormous resources in the financial community, while Hatchet had a network of resources of his own.

  “She should be here on time,” Smythe muttered. He couldn’t decide whether to be angry with her or to throw himself at her feet and beg for forgiveness. He’d careened back and forth all day between the two courses of action, and he was dead tired. On top of that, when he’d gone to Howard’s stables to see the inspector’s horses, Bow and Arrow, they’d acted like they didn’t know who he was, either! This was turning into a right miserable homecoming.

  “Sometimes you can’t ’elp bein’ a bit late.” Wiggins’ mouth watered as he looked at the table. “Cor blimey, Mrs. Goodge, you’ve outdone yourself. Look at all this; freshly made brown bread, red currant jam, and a madeira cake.”

  “Why thank you, Wiggins,” the cook replied.

  “I’m sure Betsy will be here any moment,” Mrs. Jeffries said just as they heard the back door open. Betsy, her face flushed with excitement, hurried into the room a moment later. “I’m sorry to be late, but the omnibus took ages getting across the bridge.”

  “We’ve not started yet,” Mrs. Goodge assured her quickly.

  “But as you’re here now, we’ll get started,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “Who would like to begin?” She noticed that Smythe was staring at the tabletop and that Betsy was keeping her gaze on the buttons of her jacket as she undid them.

  “If it’s all the same to everyone, I’ll go ahead and start,” Mrs. Goodge volunteered. Considering the way Betsy and Smythe were avoiding even looking at one another, she thought it best to settle right down to business. She paused briefly to see whether anyone objected, and then plunged ahead. “I had a nice chat with one of my sources today, and I did find out a bit about our victim. Stephen Whitfield’s been a widower for over ten years. The gossip I heard is that his sister-in-law, Rosalind Murray, has had her eye on becoming the second Mrs. Whitfield for quite some time now.”

  Betsy muttered something, but since her chair was scraping the floor, no one except Smythe could actually hear what she said. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it sounded like “silly cow,” a reference, no doubt, to any woman wanting to marry. He snorted faintly to let Betsy know he was aware of her attitude, and then kept his attention firmly fixed on the cook.

  “Why’d she wait ten years?” Wiggins asked as he helped himself to a slice of bread. “I mean, if ’e’s been a widower all that time. Poor lady wasn’t gettin’ any younger.”

  “My source wasn’t certain, but she’d heard rumors that Mrs. Murray would lose an allowance from her husband’s family if she remarried.”

  “So what?” Betsy asked. “If they really loved each other, nothing should have kept them apart.” She glanced at her fiancé. Smythe narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. “Besides, wasn’t Whitfield wealthy?” she continued.

  “He’s supposed to be.” Mrs. Goodge shrugged. “But then again, I also heard that Rosalind Murray was considered quite an adventuress when she was a young woman. She went to India with her brother and only came home because her mother became ill.”

  “You found out quite a bit about Mrs. Murray,” Luty said admiringly.

  “She’s the only one I heard anything useful about,” the cook replied. “And I doubt the facts that the woman was an adventuress in her youth and is good at math are very helpful to our case. Supposedly she used to explain the stock market to her father. But none of my sources knew anything about the Farringdons or the other guests.”

  “Mine did.” Luty chuckled. “I got an earful from my neighbor. Her sister lives in Chelsea, right across the road from Eliza Graham. Mrs. Graham’s first husband died three years ago.”

  “How did he die?” Mrs. Jeffries asked quickly. Their previous investigations had taught them that background details about the suspects in a case were very important.

  “Lydia didn’t know.” Luty shrugged. “But I
reckon it won’t be too hard to find out something like that. I’ll try and track it down before our next meetin’. But let me tell ya what I did find out. Accordin’ to all the gossip, Eliza Graham is a sociable sort of person, if you get my meanin’. She didn’t wear widow’s weeds for the full year after her husband died, and she started goin’ out in society, too. That sure caused a few tongues to wag.”

  “What are widow’s weeds?” Wiggins asked.

  “Black clothing,” the cook explained. “The Americans call mourning clothes ‘widow’s weeds.’ ”

  “That’s right.” Luty nodded. “The only other gossip I heard about the woman was that she needs a rich husband. The family of the late Mr. Graham made sure she didn’t get much when he died. That’s about all I found out today. But I’ve got several sources lined up to visit tomorrow, so I ought to have something for our afternoon meeting.”

  “You’ve done an excellent job, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries said. She turned her attention to Hatchet. “Would you like to go next?”

  “Thank you. I would, actually. Unfortunately my day wasn’t terribly productive. The source I had hoped to speak with is currently indisposed with a bad cold.” Hatchet hoped the Farringdon butler wasn’t the malingering type. “The only information I managed to obtain is that Stephen Whitfield spends several weeks every summer at the Thompson Hotel in Dover.” He smiled apologetically. “Apparently he’s very fond of the gardens, which my sources assure me are rather spectacular.”

  “At least you found out something,” Betsy said. “My day was miserable. I didn’t find one shopkeeper that knew anything about Whitfield. Honestly, you’d think the man didn’t buy food or drink or anything else. What did the household live on? Air?”

  “Maybe Whitfield didn’t buy from the local shops,” Smythe speculated. He resisted the urge to reach for her hand under the table. “Maybe he buys his provisions elsewhere. There’s lots of shopping areas in that part of London.”

  “I know,” she replied glumly. “But people usually shop close to home, so that’s where I started. There’s another street of shops about half a mile away. Maybe I’ll have better luck there tomorrow. Oh, wait a minute—I tell a lie. I did find out something. Whitfield did buy his vegetables at the local greengrocer’s, and I found out he didn’t care for beets. That’s right useful information, isn’t it?”

  Everyone laughed. Then Mrs. Jeffries said, “Don’t worry, Betsy. Tomorrow will be better. I didn’t find out all that much myself. But Dr. Bosworth confirmed that Whitfield had been poisoned.” She told them the rest of the details she’d learned from the good doctor. “So at least we know we’re on the right track, so to speak,” she concluded. “It was most definitely foxglove.”

  “Cor blimey.” Wiggins shook his head. “Anyone who takes a stroll in the country could find that plant, then, couldn’t they? The government ought to do something about that. Why, it’s a wonder that hundreds of people don’t end up poisoned.”

  “That wouldn’t do any good, Wiggins,” Luty said quickly. “Even if they ripped up every foxglove plant in the country, there are dozens of other things that are just as deadly. Yew trees, hemlock, horsetail, nightshade—and those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. If the government tried to get rid of everything that could kill a person, there wouldn’t be much countryside left!”

  “Don’t put anything in your mouth when you’re walking in the country. That’s my motto,” Mrs. Goodge said wisely. “I learned that when I was just a girl.”

  “In America, we’ve got even more stuff that can kill ya,” Luty added enthusiastically. “Oleander, locoweed, castor beans, mistletoe, rhododendrons, pokeweed, morning glory . . .”

  “We’ve got mistletoe and morning glory here, too,” Wiggins interrupted eagerly.

  “Obviously there is no shortage of poisonous plants on either side of the Atlantic,” Mrs. Jeffries interjected. “But we must get on with our meeting. The inspector might be home soon, and it’s important that we hear everyone’s report.” She looked at Wiggins. “Would you like to go next?”

  “I ’ad a bit of luck today,” he began. “I met up with a maid from the Whitfield house, and she told me the servants was all scared they’d be lookin’ for other positions now that the master was dead.”

  “Wouldn’t the person who inherits the Whitfield house need a staff?” Betsy asked.

  “Yeah, but none of them know who is inheritin’ the house,” the footman replied. “And that’s why they’re all worried. Up until recently, the servants thought that everything would go to Mrs. Murray, seein’ as she’s his only relation. But Rosie—that’s the maid—she told me that a few weeks back, Whitfield made an appointment to see his solicitor and change his will. He and Mrs. Murray had a huge row about it. They was screamin’ at each other so loudly the entire household heard ’em.”

  “What were they saying?” Mrs. Jeffries prompted.

  “Rosie says Mrs. Murray was yelling that she’d given him the best years of her life and she wasn’t going to be pushed aside now, and he was screamin’ that he was the master and he’d do as he pleased. Then Rosie said it went all quiet-like, but you could hear Mrs. Murray crying. Mr. Whitfield started talkin’ nicer to her then . . .”

  Mrs. Jeffries interrupted. “Where were they when they were having this conversation? I mean, where in the house? Was it somewhere close enough for Rosie to actually overhear them, or is she just taking a guess on what was said when the shouting ended?”

  Wiggins grinned broadly. “I wondered about that, too, but Rosie did overhear ’em. She and one of the tweenies crept up and put their ears to his study door. But it’s a ruddy thick door, and all they could hear was him sayin’ somethin’ like, ‘There’s only so much I can do with my money, you know that.’ Anyways, they’d no idea what those words meant, and frankly I can’t figure it out, either.”

  “It could mean most of his estate is entailed,” Hatchet murmured. “But if that’s the case, why would he even bother calling in his solicitor?”

  “Maybe only the house is entailed,” Wiggins suggested. “He might ’ave made investments and such that aren’t part of the entailment. Besides, he doesn’t have any close relations, so even if his property is entailed, maybe there’s no one to get it if it doesn’t go to Mrs. Murray.”

  “In which case I believe the estate goes to the crown,” Mrs. Jeffries replied. “But before we come to any conclusions about Whitfield’s estate, let’s try to find out the facts. Rosie could easily have misinterpreted the argument that happened between Mrs. Murray and Whitfield.”

  “I might be able to find out a few bits and pieces about Whitfield’s estate by our meetin’ tomorrow,” Luty offered. “I ain’t promisin’ anything for certain—sometimes it takes a day or two to shake any information out of them close-mouthed lawyers—but I can try.”

  “Anything you can find out would be very useful, Luty.” Mrs. Jeffries turned back to the footman. “Is that all you heard?”

  “The only other thing I found out is that the servants all like Mrs. Murray,” Wiggins said. “And I hope she isn’t the killer. Rosie said she’s a right decent sort. She doesn’t take advantage of the servants. She let Rosie have a whole day out because she missed her afternoon off last week. She’d been ’elpin’ Mr. Whitfield deliver his fancy port to all his friends. Then, when they got back to the house, there was such a mess in the kitchen from where he’d been corkin’ the liquor, she had to help clean it up.”

  “Just because Mrs. Murray is kind to servants doesn’t mean she didn’t kill him,” Betsy said. “But I understand how you feel. We always want the killer to be someone mean and nasty. But it doesn’t always happen that way, does it? Even decent-seeming people can turn out to be murderers.”

  “I still ’ope it isn’t Mrs. Murray,” Wiggins said.

  “If everyone else is finished, I’ll go next,” Smythe said. “I didn’t learn much today, but my source did confirm that Whitfield had been poisoned. He also sa
id that Hugh Langford has a reputation as a cad, and that Basil Farringdon is from an old aristocratic family but it’s his wife that has the cash.”

  “You mean he married her for her money?” Mrs. Goodge snorted. “There’s a surprise.”

  Smythe grinned. “Don’t be so cynical, Mrs. Goodge.

  Maybe she married him for his position. I also found out that Henry Becker played whist with Whitfield on Thursday nights. Becker almost always lost.”

  “Doesn’t it take four people for whist?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

  The coachman nodded. “Two other men played as well. One is named Thornton and one is named Rogers.”

  “You’d have to be a pretty sore loser to murder someone over a whist game,” Luty muttered. “But I’ve seen people get real fed up with always gettin’ whipped. It’s not much of a motive, but you never know.”

  “It does seem an unlikely motive,” Mrs. Jeffries agreed. “But, as you said, one never knows. We’ll have to have a close look at Henry Becker.”

  “We’d have done so in any case,” Hatchet commented. “He was at the dinner party.”

  “Tomorrow I’m going to make the round of the pubs near the Whitfield house and see what I can pick up,” Smythe said.

  “That’s a very good idea,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “And as Hatchet has reminded us, we need to find out what we can about all the guests that were at the Whitfield house.”

  “I’ll have a go at seeing what I can learn about Eliza Graham,” Luty volunteered. “I was goin’ to find out how her husband died anyways.”

  “Don’t forget that you’re going to try and find out what you can about Whitfield’s estate,” Mrs. Jeffries reminded her. Information about who inherited from the dead man would be very useful.

  “I didn’t forget,” Luty replied. “I can do both.”

  “And I’ll see what my sources know about Henry Becker,” Hatchet added. “And perhaps I can manage to learn a thing or two about Hugh Langford.”

  “I’ll suss out the Farringdons’ neighborhood,” Wiggins said. “Maybe I’ll get lucky again and find another housemaid that likes to chat.”