Free Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected by Emily Brightwell

with Sarah Hewett. Witherspoon glanced wistfully around the room, his lips creasing in a smile. He hoped the artist didn’t turn out to be a murderer. Why, as a young man, the inspector had once entertained ideas about being an artist himself. Not that he’d been serious, of course. But still, he glanced longingly at the back of the easel, wondering what was on the canvas and whether or not Mr. Taggert would mind him having a quick peek. From behind him, he heard Constable Barnes clear his throat loudly. Witherspoon snapped his head around to Taggert. “Er, how long have you known Mrs. Hewett?” he asked. The question wasn’t particularly pertinent to thecase, but he might as well ask. One never knew what one could find out by a little digging.
    “About three and a half years. Sarah was living with an aunt in Bayswater when we met. We would have married three years ago except that I had a chance to go to Italy to study and Sarah made me take it.” He smashed his fist down on the table, rattling some dirty cups and making the two policemen jump. “I would to God I had married her then. Instead, she married Hewett and ended up widowed and having to live with that pig Dapeers. I’ll never forgive myself for leaving her; never.”
    “Now, now, Mr. Taggert. Please calm yourself.”
    “Calm myself! Do you know what she’s had to endure from that man?” he cried. “He never let her forget that she and her daughter were beholden to him. He taunted her with her poverty and watched her every move. She was a prisoner!”
    “Why didn’t you marry her when you came back from Italy?” Barnes asked softly.
    “I couldn’t,” Taggert replied. “She refused me; she said I’d end up hating her and the child, because if we married, I’d have to give up my work and find employment. But that’s not the case now. I’ve my inheritance.”
    Witherspoon found this all very fascinating, but it didn’t have anything to do with Dapeers’s murder. “Mr. Taggert, did you go outside to watch the brawl that broke out on the street?”
    “The brawl was starting just as I was leaving,” he replied, shaking his head. “I didn’t stay around to watch it.”
    Witherspoon and Barnes exchanged glances.
    “You and Mrs. Hewett didn’t go outside together?” he persisted.
    “No,” Taggert said. “I was gone.”
    The inspector ignored that and pressed ahead with hisown questions. “Are you absolutely certain of when you left the pub?”
    Puzzled, Taggert glanced from Barnes to Witherspoon. “Yes. Why? Did someone else tell you differently? The fight hadn’t started yet; the cabbie was just starting to yell insults when I left.”
    “Where did you go?”
    “I went for a walk.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I was really angry, so angry I didn’t trust myself to stay in the same room with Dapeers.”
    “Then how did you find out Dapeers had been murdered?” Witherspoon asked.
    “From one of the barmaids at the Black Horse. I’d stopped in there for a drink.”
    “The Black Horse?” Witherspoon repeated. “Isn’t that Tom Dapeers’s pub?”
    Taggert nodded slowly. “I drop by there every now and again. Tom’s a nice man. Not at all like his brother. Hard to believe they come from the same stock.”
    “Which barmaid?” Barnes pressed.
    “I don’t know her name,” Taggert replied. “She’s just started working there. The other girl got sacked a couple of days ago.”
    “And that’s when you found out that Dapeers had been murdered?” Witherspoon asked. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to be absolutely clear on this point, but his “inner voice” was warning him it might be important. “When you dropped into the Black Horse?”
    “Of course that’s when I heard. Everyone was talking about it,” Taggert said. “And none of them shedding any tears for him, either. Look, obviously you don’t believe me. Did someone tell you I was at the Gilded Lily when the murder happened?”
    Witherspoon hesitated