Mrs. Jeffries & the Silent Knight by Emily Brightwell (black female authors .TXT) 📕

the desk.

She stared at him coldly. She was a thin woman with

brown hair, pale skin, and hazel eyes, and she was wearing a

high-collared green dress with lace at the cuffs and neck.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Witherspoon said politely.

“I’m Inspector Witherspoon.”

“I know,” she replied. “I’m Fiona Burleigh. But I expect

you know that already.”

He hesitated for a moment and then went behind the

desk and sat down. Sitting in a dead man’s spot felt a bit

awkward, but as she was already seated, he had no other

choice. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course you do,” she replied. “That’s why I’ve come.

But I don’t know what I can tell you. I was asleep when Sir

George was killed.”

“Did you hear anything in the night?” he asked.

“No, I’m a sound sleeper. The first I knew that Sir

George was dead was when I went down to breakfast. Of

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course, there wasn’t any. They didn’t think to feed us for

hours, can you imagine that? I finally had to find Miss Merryhill and insist she send up food. I mean, really, just because someone’s died is no reason to starve your houseguests.

Raleigh was quite famished. He gets light-headed when

he’s hungry.”

“Are you sure you heard nothing, ma’am?” Witherspoon

wasn’t sure what to make of this, especially as Miss Charlotte Braxton had apparently had hysterics in the wee hours of the morning and had been quite noisy.

“Quite sure, Inspector,” she sniffed disapprovingly. “I

wouldn’t have said so if I wasn’t.”

“Where is your room located?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Does it face the front or the back of the house?” he

asked.

For a moment, she simply stared at him, and he was

afraid she wasn’t going to answer at all. Finally, she said.

“It’s at the back of the house, Inspector. I overlook the back

garden.”

“And you didn’t see or hear anything the night Sir

George was murdered?” He really found that difficult to believe. But some people did sleep very soundly. Perhaps she was one of them.

“I’ve already told you I didn’t,” she said.

“How long have you been a guest in the house?”

“I arrived on Saturday,” she said. “Raleigh and I took the

train down from London together. We’d been invited to stay

over Christmas.”

“And once you were here, did you see or hear anything

that seemed odd?” The moment the question was out of his

mouth, he wished he could take it back. This entire household was strange.

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Emily Brightwell

She thought for a moment. “Not really. The household

was much as it was the last time I was here.”

“You come often for a visit?”

“Yes, Inspector,” she said. “We’re cousins, and as I’ve

very few relatives, I tend to come occasionally to visit. Family is family.”

Witherspoon nodded. “Can you describe what happened

on the evening of the murder?” He’d found that was sometimes a useful question to ask. It would be interesting to compare her version of the evening with what he’d heard

from the servants and from Lucinda Braxton. Sometimes,

people lived through the same moments but saw the events

in those minutes very differently.

Her thin face creased in a frown. “I don’t really know

where to begin. Let’s see, Raleigh and Lucinda and I went

for a walk late that afternoon.”

“You went for a walk? But the weather was dreadful that

day. It snowed.”

“A little bit of snow never hurt anyone,” she snapped.

“Besides, it was supposed to just be Raleigh and myself. But

of course, Lucinda was dogging his heels, and we couldn’t

get away without her tagging along. Honestly, some people

just don’t know when they’re not wanted.”

“What time was this?”

“Just before dark,” she replied. “We didn’t go very far because as you’ve said, it was snowing. It came down hard as well, it was covering the grounds by the time we got back

to the house.”

“Did you leave the grounds?”

“Yes, we went up the road about a hundred yards.”

“Who all was here that night?” He already knew the answer to this one, but it never hurt to get the answer verified from an independent source.

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“Myself, of course, and Sir George. Raleigh and the sisters. Clarence was here as well, but then, you knew that, he lives here.”

“What did you do after your walk?” Witherspoon

pressed.

“I went up to my room to rest before dinner. Raleigh

went upstairs to write some letters, and Lucinda went into

the drawing room to have a word with her sisters.”

“Did anything unusual happen at dinner that night?”

She shrugged. “Not really. It was quite cold, and I recall

Charlotte asked her father to put more logs on the fire. But

he simply told her to put on another garment. He was in a

foul mood, that silly cat of his had gone missing, and he was

worried sick about the stupid animal. He blamed the girls.”

“The girls?” Witherspoon repeated. He wasn’t sure if she

meant the servants or the Braxton daughters.

“His daughters,” Fiona explained. “He claimed that one

of them had run off the cat out of spite. He thought they

were jealous of his affection for the beast. Of course, that

was nonsense, they loathed the creature.”

“So I take it dinner wasn’t a very pleasant affair.”

“It was miserable, Inspector.” Fiona looked him straight

in the eye. “The only reason I came was because Raleigh was

going to be here. We’ve become quite fond of one another

and, frankly, once I knew that Lucinda had invited him for

Christmas, I made sure I was invited as well. The woman

will stop at nothing to get her hooks into him. Raleigh is

very much the innocent when it comes to dealing with

strong-minded people like Lucinda.” She sighed. “I don’t

know what I shall do now.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders again. “Isn’t it obvious?

Now that Sir George is gone, the girls will get their inheri78

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tance. That means Lucinda will have quite a bit of money at

her disposal.”

“I see,” he replied. He wondered if the dispersal of Sir

George’s estate was common knowledge.

“Sir George’s death has worked out very well for Lucinda,” Fiona said harshly. “Now that she has money, she and Raleigh will be able to marry. I hope she has the good

grace to wait a