Mrs. Jeffries and the Merry Gentlemen by Emily Brightwell

Bagshot and, as Mrs. Clarridge pointed out, the other gentleman is Charles Downing.”
    â€œWe’re all business associates,” Bagshot said quickly. “This is unbelievable, I’m not sure I can take it in.” He moved to the sofa and flopped down. “Murder? That simply doesn’t happen to people like us.”
    â€œI assure you it does, sir,” Witherspoon said as he moved toward the door. He stuck his head into the foyer. “Can you please go and get Constable Barnes and Constable Griffiths,” he called to the policeman at the door. Barnes and Griffiths were both downstairs reinterviewing the servants.
    He turned back to the drawing room. “How is it that all three of you arrived here together?”
    It was Downing who answered. “We had an early morning meeting together, Inspector, at my home. We heard talk that he’d died and came round to see if it was true.”
    â€œHow did you learn of his death?”
    â€œFrom my housekeeper,” Downing said. “She’d heard about it from someone in the neighborhood. I live very close by, just around the corner. She mentioned it to my wife, who mentioned it to me.”
    Witherspoon wished Barnes and Griffiths would get here soon. He wasn’t sure questioning them all together in the same room was wise. Yet now that he’d started, it was difficult to stop. He tried to think of a somewhat innocuous one. “Was Mr. Edison supposed to be at your meeting this morning?”
    â€œAbsolutely not.” Bagshot’s heavy brows drew together.
    Oh dear, Witherspoon thought, perhaps this line of inquiry wasn’t prudent, either. “And why is that? You said Mr. Edison was a business associate, and apparently he was closely enough involved in your affairs that you rushed over here to confirm whether or not he was dead.”
    â€œEdison wasn’t there because we were trying to decide if we ought to take action against him.” Ralston smiled faintly. “Legal action, Inspector. We think we might have had grounds to show he’d deliberately misled and defrauded us.”
    * * *
    Phyllis hummed faintly as she rounded the corner onto the high street. She daydreamed as she made her way up past the butcher’s, not bothering to notice that the place was empty and she’d have had a good chance to talk to the girl behind the counter. Her mind was full of the story she’d seen again at the theater, the tale of Bessie Brent, a working girl like herself who had been discovered to be the long-lost daughter of a miner and she herself an heiress. Well, she wasn’t exactly like the heroine in the play—Bessie worked in a London shop while Phyllis was only a housemaid—but it was close enough to her own life, except that she didn’t have a young man in her life like Bessie did.
    A scruffy lad raced past her, bumping her arm just as she came to the baker’s shop. “Sorry, miss,” the boy yelled over his shoulder. Sighing, her reverie interrupted, she glanced in the window and saw Hilda Ferguson, housekeeper to one of their neighbors from Upper Edmonton Gardens, talking to the clerk. Mrs. Ferguson wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise, so she moved on, crossing the road to the butcher’s shop. But there were three people in line waiting to be served. She moved on toward the greengrocer’s. It was empty but that was probably because it was more of an open stall than a proper shop and it was freezing. But beggars couldn’t be choosers and she had promised Mrs. Goodge she’d pick up the vegetables.
    Stepping inside, she smiled at Dulcie, the clerk on the far side of the bins. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “Is your mum not working today?”
    â€œShe’s got the sniffles so she’s stayin’ home this morning. It’s cold today.” Dulcie Preston, a thin, red-haired girl wearing a heavy jacket under her