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

needed to do here. “Did you happen to see or hear

anything unusual on the day Sir George was murdered?”

Clark’s thin eyebrows creased in thought. “What do you

mean by unusual?” He glanced back down at the flower.

Witherspoon sighed inwardly. Keeping the fellow’s attention was going to be difficult. “Did anything happen 94

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that was out of the ordinary? Did Sir George receive any visitors or correspondence that upset him?”

“He was always upset about something,” Clark replied

without looking at the inspector. He whipped a pair of

tweezers out of his pocket and gently peeled back something on the bottom part of the flower. “He liked being upset. It was his nature.”

“Mr. Clark, did you have words with Sir George on the

day he died?”

Clark went still, and Witherspoon realized he finally had

the man’s full attention. “Who told you that?”

“That doesn’t matter, sir. Please answer the question. Did

you and Sir George have an argument on the day he was

murdered?”

“Yes,” Clark replied. He put the tweezers back in his

pocket.

“What did you quarrel about?”

Clark hesitated. “It was nothing, really. George was upset

because I’d ordered some extra fuel without consulting him.”

“Fuel?” Witherspoon repeated. “You mean for the

house?” He would have thought that was Mrs. Merryhill’s

domain, but perhaps not.

“Of course not for the house, for here.” Clark waved his

arm in a half circle. “For the conservatory. It’s been a dreadfully cold winter, and I’d got through my allocation of heating fuel quicker than I expected, so I ordered more. George was not pleased. Honestly, you’d think even a fool would

understand that when it was colder than normal, more fuel

would be required. But did he? Certainly not.”

“So you had words,” the inspector pressed.

“That’s right, but the argument was no worse than any

other we’ve had.” Clark pulled a pair of gloves out of his

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95

pocket and slipped them on his long, bony hands. He

started down the closest row of cuttings.

“Do you argue frequently with your cousin?” Witherspoon asked as he followed after the man. Drat, these questions weren’t going at all as he’d planned.

“No more than anyone else in the household,” Clark

replied. He stopped in front of a wooden tray of seedlings,

leaned down, and studied the soil. “George quarreled with

everyone. As I said, it was his nature, he wasn’t a nice person. The only pleasure he got out of life was tormenting others. He was quite good at it, he seemed to get better at it

with each passing year.”

“Exactly how long have you lived in his household?”

Witherspoon asked.

Clark straightened up and looked at the inspector.

“That’s an odd question. Why does it matter?”

“In a murder investigation, anything could be pertinent,” Witherspoon replied. But in truth, he’d no idea why he’d asked the question. It had simply popped into his head.

But he recalled a conversation he’d had with Mrs. Jeffries

about homicide investigations. “Trust your instincts, sir,”

she’d said. “Trust that inner voice that has led you to so

many correct conclusions.” Sometimes he couldn’t quite see

how his “inner voice” or his instincts had done such a thing,

but on the other hand, he’d solved a good number of murders, so she must be right.

Clark sighed and took off down the aisle, his attention

once again on his precious flowers. “I’ve lived here since Sir

George’s father died, and he inherited the title. That was

thirty years ago.”

“And you’re a cousin, is that correct?” the inspector

pressed. He wanted to make sure he understood all the de96

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tails correctly. Small things often turned out to be quite

important.

Clark nodded, bent down, and pulled a small wooden

tray of dirt out from under the seedling table. “Is there anything else? I’ve quite a lot of work to do.” He shoved the tray onto an empty spot next to the seedlings and began to

examine it closely.

“I’d like you to describe your movements on the night of

the murder.”

“After dinner, I came out here and worked for a while,

then I went to bed. I was awakened in the wee hours and

told that George was dead. That’s all I know about it.”

“Did you hear anything that night?”

“No, I’m a sound sleeper.”

“Where is your room? The front or the back of the

house?”

“Neither, Inspector.” He pointed toward the front of the

conservatory. “My room is on the side of the house, directly

over the conservatory. I can look out and see the place from

my study. I’ve a small study and a bedroom.”

“I see. Did you see anything unusual when you went outside that night?”

“The entire event was unusual, Inspector. One doesn’t

generally expect to see one’s cousin face down in a frozen

pond.”

“But did you notice anything untoward, anything that

struck you as odd?” He wasn’t sure what he was trying to

find out, but surely someone must have seen or heard something out of the ordinary that night.

“Like what, Inspector? I didn’t notice anyone lurking

about the grounds or scampering off in the distance,” Clark

replied. He was speaking to the inspector, but his attention

was focused on something over Witherspoon’s shoulder.

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97

Clark gasped suddenly and then took off running down

the aisle. “Good God, this is awful, it looks positively

dreadful. This is terrible. It’s the last one I’ve got. None of

the others survived. I’ll be the laughingstock of the orchid

society if it dies. This simply cannot be happening.”

Witherspoon turned to see what he was going on about,

but by that time Clark had stopped and was staring at a

bloom of pale purple flowers. The blossoms were facing

downward and appeared to be mounted on a large piece of

tree bark.

The inspector hurried after him. Clark was gazing at the

plant with a stricken look of horror on his face.

“It looks fine to me,” Witherspoon said kindly. He knew

some gardeners were inordinately attached to their plants.

Constable Barnes had complained that Mrs. Barnes got a

tad testy when their neighbor’s dog got into her flower beds.

But Clark seemed unduly upset. The poor fellow had gone

shockingly pale.

“It’s hardly all right,” Clark snapped. “This is a Leptotes

unicolor and it’s one of the finest orchids in the world. Ye

Gods, man, this is a disaster, an absolute disaster. Maybe I

can save it. I’ll try that new soil mixture that