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

body. He fought back a wave of nausea and forced himself to

make a thorough examination.

The body was face down in the pond. The water was shallow enough that it only came up to his ears, so the inspector could see that the back of the head was horribly crushed.

The victim wore a dressing gown over his nightshirt and

had slippers on his feet. “It must have been the blow to his

head that killed him.”

Goring snorted.

“Do you have something to add, Constable,” Barnes

snapped.

“No, sir,” Goring replied.

“Then move off out of our way,” he ordered. He knelt

down on the other side of the corpse. “I think you’re right,

sir. I doubt anyone could survive a blow like this. But what

do you make of this?” He pointed to the man’s head. “His

face is under water.”

Witherspoon nodded. “And the pond is completely

frozen over.”

“That means whoever did this had to chip the ice to

shove Sir George’s head into it.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Why on earth would the killer go to the trouble to do that when he must have known Sir George was already

dead? This pond is frozen hard, chipping a hole in it

wouldn’t have been that easy.”

Witherspoon shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t know his

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blow had been successful. Perhaps he wanted to make sure

his victim was dead.”

“Then why not whack him again, sir?” Barnes asked.

“Seems to me, drowning the man in a frozen pond is doing

it the hard way.”

C H A P T E R 2

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“Thanks, mate.” Smythe paid the hansom driver and started

toward the end of the road.

“You’ve given me too much,” the cabbie called after him.

Smythe waved him off and quickened his pace. “You earned

it, mate. The roads are still a mess, and you got me ‘ere

lickety-split.” He’d gotten to the cab stand on the Holland

Park Road and managed to grab one just as he saw the one

the inspector and Barnes had gotten into turn the corner.

He’d told the driver to stay back but to follow the inspector’s cab. The man had done a good job, and Smythe had rewarded him for his efforts. Even better, the cabbie hadn’t asked any nosy questions. Besides, Smythe thought as he

slowed his pace and examined his surroundings, he had

plenty of money.

Smythe noted that there were two constables standing at

the drive of the house at the far end of the road. That must

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be the place. The constables were standing there, not doing

much of anything except staring down the road, but Smythe

didn’t think they’d spotted him.

He stopped and studied his surroundings. Blast, he

couldn’t go any farther. It was too dangerous. This wasn’t a

busy street in London where he could blend into a crowd

and pick up bits and pieces of information from the locals.

This was a road of big houses with lots of empty space between them and not near enough places for a bloke to hide.

There weren’t even that many trees, and because it was winter, there was very little foliage about to cover him.

He ducked behind the trunk of an elm tree, standing

sideways because the trunk wasn’t big enough to cloak him

completely. He had to think what to do. How to get close

enough to suss out what was what. He peeked out and saw

one of the constables heading his way. Blast a Spaniard, one

of them must have seen him!

Inspector Witherspoon forced himself to look closely at the

victim’s head again. Bile rose in his throat, but he fought it

back. He knew everyone expected him to examine everything where the murder had occurred and then come up with the killer based on “his methods.” The truth was he

wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be seeing and even

worse, he wasn’t sure what his “methods” were. They

seemed to vary from case to case. Except for this, leaving the

body where it was, undisturbed. But what a horrid mess of

blood, matted hair, and what was probably bit and pieces of

the poor man’s brain were supposed to tell him, he couldn’t

fathom. He got to his feet.

Barnes rose as well and turned slowly in a circle, his gaze

locked onto the ground. It took a moment before Witherspoon realized what he was doing.

Mrs. Jeffries and the Silent Knight

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“He wasn’t killed here.” Barnes pointed to the area by

the victim’s feet. The inspector looked down at the ground

as well and saw the faint outlines of a trail that extended

from the tip of the slipper toe outward for a good two feet

before disappearing underneath a sea of footprints.

“And we’ll likely not know exactly where the poor fellow

was murdered.” The constable shook his head in disgust.

“Not with all these footprints. They’re everywhere, sir. The

ground by the pond is so covered with them we’d never get

any useful evidence; they’re all over the terrace. Good gracious, they’re even over near the ruddy greenhouse.” He glared at the two constables who were standing on the other

side of the pond, but were close enough to hear them.

“What did you do,” he asked angrily, “invite the whole

household out to have a good look? Why wasn’t this area

roped off?”

Becker bit his lip, but Constable Goring didn’t flinch. “It

wasn’t our fault, sir. By the time we got here, the damage

had been done. We kept people away as soon as we realized

it was murder.”

“Realized it was murder,” Barnes exclaimed. “Ye Gods,

man, the poor fellow’s had his head bashed in and stuck in a

pond. Did you think it was suicide?”

Goring glared right back. “When the call came in, it just

said there was a body here. By the time we got here, the

whole household was outside and tramping around the

place.”

“But no one had pulled Sir George’s head out of the

pond?” Witherspoon asked. He kept his voice neutral, not

wanting to add more tension to the situation. He didn’t

wish to undermine his constable, he quite understood what

Barnes was doing, but on the other hand, he didn’t want the

local lads to feel bad. He was sure they’d done their best.

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“That’s odd, isn’t it? Generally, family members would have

pulled him out, if for no other reason than to make sure he’s

actually dead.”

Goring turned his attention to the inspector.