Mrs. Jeffries Defends Her Own by Emily Brightwell Page A

she decided to come and see me.”
    “So our activities on the inspector’s behalf haven’t become general knowledge in London,” Hatchet pressed.
    “That’s correct and I didn’t admit, even to Fiona, that what Nivens said was true. I merely said we’d do our best to help her.”
    “Go on, then, tell us about the murder.” Mrs. Goodge frowned impatiently as she glanced at the clock. “Time’s gettin’ on.”
    “The victim is a man named Ronald Dearman. He was the deputy manager of Sutcliffe Manufacturing. Fiona’s husband owns the company; he’s the major shareholder. She and the victim’s wife found the body this morning.” She told them everything she knew.
    When she’d finished, Ruth spoke first. “Sutcliffe, Sutcliffe,” she repeated softly. “I’ve heard that name before. They’re from Yorkshire originally?”
    “That’s right, from York. That’s where Fiona met John Sutcliffe and married him,” she said. “She was originally a companion to John’s sister, Lucretia.”
    “Lucretia then married Ronald Dearman, the victim?” Mrs. Goodge was disappointed. She’d spent her life working in the most elegant, wealthy, and exclusive households in England, but she’d never heard of the Yorkshire Sutcliffes nor of any family named Dearman. She had a vast network of former colleagues that extended across the country; add to that the local tradesmen, delivery boys, and rag and bones men here in London, and she could do her fair share in the investigation without leaving the kitchen.
    “Yes, she was the one who actually found the body.”
    “The murder took place at his office,” Ruth said. “Do we know exactly when the killing occurred?”
    “Fiona said it must have been sometime between six o’clock yesterday evening and eight o’clock this morning. The office closes at six and if he’d been murdered before then, one of the staff would have heard the shot and raised the alarm. But we need to confirm this information. Frankly, I don’t think Fiona really knows precisely how the office functions.”
    “Why did it take Mrs. Dearman so long to raise the alarm?” Hatchet asked. “Surely she must have worried when he didn’t come home last night.”
    “She probably didn’t know,” Ruth answered. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Jeffries, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
    “No, no, don’t concern yourself.” Mrs. Jeffries knew that Ruth spoke only when she had something important to say. “Go on, what were you going to say?”
    “But why wouldn’t she ’ave known he ’adn’t come in?” Wiggins asked curiously.
    “Amongst the upper classes, the husband and wife often don’t share a bedroom. If Mrs. Dearman has her own room, she might not have realized until he didn’t appear for breakfast that he’d not come home the night before.”
    “But the servants would ’ave known he wasn’t ’ome,” Wiggins pointed out. “They probably did the lockin’ up at night. Surely they’d ’ave said somethin’.”
    “Unless they were used to him not coming home,” Phyllis said. “One of the girls I used to take my afternoon out with when I first came to London said their household never waited for the master to come home at night before locking up. The wife claimed that if he didn’t get home at a reasonable time, his”—she hesitated and then grinned—“floozy could take care of him.”
    Everyone laughed. “We’ll have to find out if Mr. Dearman was in the same situation,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “But whatever the reason the alarm wasn’t raised when he didn’t come home, that bought the killer additional time before the body was discovered.”
    “What I don’t understand is how on earth we’re goin’ to find out what the police know,” Luty complained. “Let’snot fool ourselves. A lot of our information about our murders comes directly from Inspector Witherspoon. He talks freely to Mrs. Jeffries, and between that and Constable Barnes tellin’ us bits and pieces, we know