Free Mrs. Jeffries Speaks Her Mind by Emily Brightwell Page A

wasn’t just angry at the woman, they were a bit frightened of her as well.”
    “Frightened?” the cook repeated. “Why?”
    “All of them claimed she’d been acting strange lately. She claimed to hear people walking about at night or standing on her balcony. She’d wake the household up at all hours of the night and make them search the house, and I think they were getting fed up with that.”
    “They never saw anyone when they went to look,” the cook muttered. “I once worked in a household where the mistress started getting fanciful. It was very frightening. You never knew what she would do or say next. One minute, she’d be right as rain, and the next, she’d be accusing all of us of spying on her or trying to push her down the staircase. I don’t blame the staff for wanting to leave if that was the way of it.”
    “That’s not the only reason most of them had started looking for new positions,” Barnes said. “I’m sure the inspector has told you that, recently, small but valuable items were going missing from the house and she’d started accusing her servants of theft.”
    “No one likes being called a thief,” Mrs. Goodge murmured, “and once a servant gets painted with that brush, new positions are almost impossible to find.”
    “True.” He glanced at the carriage clock on the pine sideboard. “But don’t feel too sorry for them, they got a bit of their own back. The scullery maid told me that Miss Kettering had been sent some very expensive drinking chocolate from Holland. It came in a fancy tin and Miss Kettering gave strict instructions that it was only to be used for her nightly cocoa.” He grinned broadly. “But Susan Edwards told me she saw the cook switch the fancy cocoa in the tin for ordinary English drinking chocolate and that Miss Kettering never knew the difference.”
    Mrs. Goodge laughed heartily. The other two looked at her, their expressions curious. “Oh dear, I know I shouldn’t carry on so, but the truth is, I once did the very same thing,” she admitted. “At my last household, the mistress of the house had started getting nastier and nastier to me. Nothing I did was right and she found fault with every meal I cooked. A few weeks before I left, they were sent some expensive Darjeeling tea from India. I was so annoyed that I switched it with some old stuff I’d found in the dry larder. I used to laugh myself silly when I’d hear that woman going on and on to her friends about the exquisite tea she was serving. Oh, it was wonderful; I’d sneak upstairs and peek into the drawing room when she had guests and watch them try to choke that stale stuff down. I know it was a terrible thing to do, but honestly, I’m not in the least sorry.”
    Barnes, who’d began to chuckle as she told the story, said, “I don’t blame you, Mrs. Goodge. Anyone who finds fault with your cooking deserves to drink stale tea. But there’s more I need to tell you. I had a quick word with the lads that searched the grounds and did the house-to-house in the neighborhood.”
    “They found something.” Mrs. Jeffries leaned forward eagerly.
    “Not so much what they found, as what they didn’t find. Namely, the gun. So that means the killer took it with him,” he said. “But it’s also possible that he—or she—tossed it in the river. Unfortunately, there aren’t any close neighbors so no one saw anything suspicious. But we’re going to continue asking about the neighborhood. You never know what might turn up.”
    “Was the Kettering house searched?” Mrs. Goodge asked.
    Barnes frowned. “It was, but it’s such a huge place and I don’t think the lads were as thorough as they ought to have been. They were in and out in an hour. I’m going to suggest to the inspector that we have another look round.”
     
    “I’ll go first,” Mrs. Jeffries declared as they took their places around the table for their morning meeting. For once, everyone was a bit early. “I want to share