Free The Ghost and Mrs. Jeffries by Emily Brightwell Page B

she’d overheard about Abigail Hodges she’d wager a year’s wages that the woman had been the victim of a well-planned murder. The robbery was merely a trick. A rather clumsy attempt to divert the police’s attention from the real motive for the crime. Someone wanted Abigail Hodges dead. But who?
    Mrs. Jeffries hovered in the hallway near the backstairs. She’d finished dusting a rather ugly portrait of one of the inspector’s ancestors when she heard the backdoor slam.
    Tossing the duster into the cupboard, she dashed for the kitchen.
    “Good afternoon, Mrs. Goodge,” she said cheerfully, taking the chair next to the cook, “you certainly look like you’ve been busy today.”
    Mrs. Goodge smiled widely. “Haven’t done much cooking, but I’ve heard a thing or two.” She sat backand crossed her arms over her massive bosom. “Let’s hope the inspector’s not too particular about what he eats tonight.”
    “Don’t fret about that. The inspector enjoys everything you cook. Now, what have you found out?”
    “Well, I didn’t learn all that much about Abigail Hodges, but I heard a bit about her husband. He was married before.”
    “He was a widower when he married Mrs. Hodges?”
    “Right. He married Mrs. Hodges almost a year to the day after his first wife died. Interestin’, isn’t it?” Mrs. Goodge smiled smugly. “And his first wife died in a funny way too.”
    Mrs. Jeffries leaned forward. “A robbery?”
    The cook shook her head. “A drowning. Her name was Dorothy. She were a Throgmorton before she married Leonard Hodges.” She gazed at the housekeeper expectantly. Mrs. Jeffries knew the name was supposed to ring a bell, but it didn’t.
    “Throgmorton?” Mrs. Jeffries repeated.
    “Of Throgmorton’s Carriages. They’re up Nottingham way, surely you’ve heard of them. One of the wealthiest families in the Midlands.”
    “Oh yes, of course. Please go on.”
    “A couple of years after they was married, Dorothy Hodges went off by herself to the Lake District. She drowned when the skiff she were in overturned.”
    “Presumably, then, Mr. Hodges had a substantial amount of his own money when he married his second wife. He probably inherited quite a bit from his first wife’s death,” Mrs. Jeffries mused.
    “Not a penny,” Mrs. Goodge said smugly. “He probably thought he were going to, but them that’s got money knows how to hang on to it. When she drowned, her people made sure that Hodges got nothing. All of her money was tied up in trusts and such.”
    “Were you able to find out where Leonard Hodges was when his first wife died?”
    “He was in Scotland—he worked for Dorothy’s father. Old Mr. Throgmorton had sent Hodges to Edinburgh.” Mrs. Goodge shrugged. “But peculiar as it is—I mean, Mr. Hodges losin’ both wives in strange ways and him not even forty yet—there weren’t no hints of foul play attached to Dorothy Hodges’s death. And from what I’ve heard of the Throgmortons, if they’da thought that Hodges had anything to do with the drowning, they wouldn’t have let it go.”
    “Coincidences do happen,” Mrs. Jeffries said thoughtfully.
    “Yoo-hoo,” shouted a familiar voice from the top of the stairs. “Anyone home?”
    “What’s Luty doin’ here this time of day?” Mrs. Goodge asked as they waited for the elderly American woman to make her way down the stairs. “She and Betsy aren’t going out until this evening.”
    “Afternoon, Hepzibah, Mrs. Goodge,” Luty Belle Crookshank said as she came into the kitchen.
    They both gaped. Luty Belle, who favored bright colors despite her advanced years, had outdone herself. Today she wore an emerald-green-and-white-striped day dress with a heavily draped apron over a kilted skirt. A velvet hat with a bottle-green feather was perched jauntily on her white hair.
    “Are you two gonna gape at me all day or ask me to sit down?” Luty asked with a grin.
    “Oh please, sit down, Luty,” Mrs. Jeffries said