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

don’t ‘ave proper trainin’ don’t mean you can’t do the job.

Especially for somethin’ like gardenin’. Seems to me that all

it takes is a strong back and a willingness to dig and weed

and prune.”

He hoped he wasn’t going too far in his attempt to convince her he was just a bloke looking for work, and he hoped she wouldn’t stop talking.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do an honest

day’s work,” Alicia replied. “But there’s nothin’ honest

about the reasons Grantham come to work for Sir George.”

“Wouldn’t ‘e be workin’ for the same reasons as any of us?”

Alicia shook her head. “Not him. He was workin’ there

because he didn’t have a choice. It was either work for the

old master or go to prison.”

C H A P T E R 6

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“Do you know where Constable Barnes might be?” Witherspoon asked the maid who was coming out of the dry larder.

She was carrying a scrub brush and bucket.

“He was in the kitchen talking to Mrs. Cobb,” the girl

replied. “But I heard him go outside a few minutes ago.”

“Thank you.” Witherspoon smiled at her. He noticed her

hands were cracked, and blood was seeping out of one of her

knuckles. “Er, excuse me, miss, but did you realize your

hand is bleeding?”

“It’s the soap, sir, it’s hard on the skin.” she smiled

brightly. “But Mrs. Cobb’s got an ointment for us to use. So

it’ll be fine.”

“Mind you take care of it,” he said gently. He suddenly

felt so very sorry for the girl. She was young and pretty and

would no doubt spend the rest of her days fetching and

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carrying for people like the Braxtons. It didn’t seem right,

yet at the same time, he couldn’t quite decide what was

wrong. He hated it when these kind of thoughts crept into

his head. It never did him any good at all. Besides, he knew

it was his duty to find out who killed Sir George Braxton,

whether the man was a decent human being or not. “You

don’t want infection to set in.”

“I will, sir.” She bobbed a little curtsey, smiled, and

started back toward the kitchen.

“Excuse me, but do you happen to know if anyone’s feeding the cat?” He’d no idea why he blurted out the question, especially as it was a cat that probably wouldn’t be grateful

for his interest, but the words had slipped out before he

could stop them.

“One of the maids has been making sure the monster’s

been fed,” she replied with a grin. “We’ll not let the animal

starve, sir”—she glanced toward the front of the house—

“no matter what some say.”

“Did the Misses Braxton forbid you to feed the animal?”

he asked.

She hesitated.

“Don’t worry, I’ll not tell anyone I’ve spoken with you,”

he assured her.

“They don’t like Samson, sir, who does? Miss Lucinda

told Mrs. Merryhill not to waste any more food on the cat.

That’s not right, sir. The animal doesn’t know how to fend

for itself. We don’t know how it survived those few days it

was lost before the master died. I think someone around

here was feeding it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sir, someone must have been. Samson wasn’t that

hungry when he got home. Turned his nose up at Mrs.

Cobb’s leftover fish stew, he did.”

Mrs. Jeffries and the Silent Knight

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“Inspector, is that you?” Constable Barnes voice came

from the doorway.

“Excuse me, miss.” Witherspoon nodded politely at the

maid, who smiled shyly and went off toward the kitchen.

“Yes, Constable,” he called out. “I’m coming.” He went

back down the hall to the side door and stuck his head out.

“I think you’d best take a look at this, sir,” Constable

Barnes was standing in the doorway of the conservatory.

Perplexed, the inspector stared at Barnes. “When did you

come out here? I was just in there a few minutes ago. I interviewed Clarence Clark.”

“I was looking for you, sir, and one of the maids told me

the last place she’d seen you was in the conservatory, so I

popped inside.” He gestured for the inspector to follow. “I

found something.”

“Found something?” Witherspoon repeated as he stepped

inside behind the constable. “But wasn’t this place already

searched?” He surveyed the area, looking for Clark, but the

man was nowhere to be seen.

“It was, sir.” Barnes turned and walked down the first

aisle in front of the row of plants up against the conservatory

windows. “And it was searched properly. But this was easy

to miss.” He stopped about a quarter of the way down the

aisle and bent down. “Take a look, sir.”

Witherspoon squatted next to Barnes and peered under

the wooden table. There on the gray paving stone was a

dried pool of dark red. A tiny mass of what looked like hair

and tissue rested in the center of the stain. “Oh, dear, is this

what I think it is?”

“I don’t know, sir.” Barnes reached past him and gently

picked up the tiny bundle. “But I thought you ought to see

this for yourself.” He stood up, holding the object between

his thumb and forefinger so that it dangled at eye level. “I’ll

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warrant that this hair came from the victim, sir. But for the

life of me, I can’t see how it got under the table in here.

There’s no sign of a murder weapon in here.”

“And the lads checked all the gardening tools?”

“We did that straightaway on the first search, sir. There

was nothing on anything, no blood, no tissue, no hair. We

checked every spade, shovel, and hoe on the whole place, sir,

and found nothing. P.C. Baggers was in charge of it, and he’s

very thorough.”

“I’m sure that he is, constable. I was simply double-

checking.” He frowned. “How did you happen to see it? It’s

quite small.”

Barnes grinned. “When I stepped inside and saw that the

place was empty, I thought I’d have a good look around and

see if I couldn’t pick up some growing ideas for the missus.

You know, see how the seedbeds was planted and that sort of

thing. You know how the wife loves her gardening, and

she’s always wanted to grow her own orchids. But she’s

never had much luck, sir. So I had a gander down the rows,

and I happened to drop my notebook just here,” he pointed

down at spot near their feet. “I saw it when I bent down to

get the