Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Cake Read Online Free PDF

Ashbury’s managed to gethimself murdered in my house, I’ve a number of things to take care of, so please get on with it.”
    Mary Anne Frommer stared at her husband with undisguised loathing. Then she giggled, apparently delighted that her husband was so annoyed.
    Frommer’s jaw dropped. His mouth opened and closed rapidly, as though he were trying to say something but couldn’t quite find the right words. Mrs. Frommer, seeing her husband silenced—perhaps for the first time in their marriage, Witherspoon caught himself thinking—giggled again and said, “Dear, dear, Andrew, don’t you think you ought to wait before you answer any questions? Unless, of course, you have a perfect alibi for where you’ve been this afternoon.”
    “Why…you…how dare you…” Frommer sputtered as he finally found his voice.
    “Oh, now that dear old Papa is dead,” she hissed, “you’ll find I dare quite a bit.”
    Whatever was going on, the inspector thought, enough is enough. “All right, Mr. Frommer,” he said firmly. “If you’ll please sit down, we’ll take your statement.” He turned his attention to Mrs. Frommer. “Madam, you have my deepest sympathies. If you don’t mind, we’d like to take your husband’s statement now.”
    She gazed at him curiously. “Does that mean you want me to leave?”
    “Just for a little while,” Witherspoon said.
    She nodded regally and then, completely ignoring her husband, rose to her feet and left the room. The inspector wondered what had happened to change her so completely and so quickly. When Mr. Frommer had first entered the room, she’d cringed like a kicked pup. But within minutes she was baiting the man and virtually accusing him of being a liar.
    Frommer sat down on the settee his wife had just vacated. He tapped his fingers restlessly against his knee. “Well, get on with it, man. I don’t have all evening.”
    The inspector glanced at Barnes, making sure the constable’s notebook was out and ready before beginning. This was one statement he wanted taken down word for word. Having not been invited to sit, he stood next to the ornate marble fireplace. “When was the last time you saw your father-in-law?”
    “As my wife said, it was in the garden after lunch.” He shrugged his shoulders casually. “I’d quite forgotten seeing Roland then.”
    “Your wife was quite sure you were having an argument with her father,” Barnes said.
    “She was mistaken,” Frommer returned disdainfully. “To be perfectly truthful, my wife tends to imagine things. I saw Roland leaving and stopped to say good-bye and to wish him a safe journey.”
    “What were you doing in the garden, sir?” Witherspoon asked. It sounded a bit like a silly question, but the inspector was amazed at the number of times seemingly stupid questions had led to the arrest of a murderer.
    “I was getting some fresh air,” Frommer replied. “We’d had a rather heavy lunch and I had a lot of work to do. I’d gone to the garden to get some air, hoping to refresh myself so I could take care of a number of important matters.”
    “Your servants have said that the entire household was coming back this evening. Is that correct?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Did everyone in your household come back to the city separately?”
    “I don’t understand the question?” Frommer wrinkled his nose in distaste. “What do you mean?”
    “Exactly what I said, sir,” Witherspoon explained. “Apparently the victim, Mr. Ashbury, came up early, as did the other servants. It was your ’tweeny, Maisie Donovan, who discovered the body,” the inspector continued. “Then your wife came home and you arrived a good fifteen minutes after she did. I was merely curious as to what your traveling arrangements had been.”
    “I don’t see how my household’s movements can have any bearing on Roland’s death, but if you must know, the servants came back with our cases by coach.”
    “How many servants do you