anything unusual on the day Sir George was murdered?”
Clark’s thin eyebrows creased in thought. “What do you
mean by unusual?” He glanced back down at the flower.
Witherspoon sighed inwardly. Keeping the fellow’s attention was going to be difficult. “Did anything happen 94
Emily Brightwell
that was out of the ordinary? Did Sir George receive any visitors or correspondence that upset him?”
“He was always upset about something,” Clark replied
without looking at the inspector. He whipped a pair of
tweezers out of his pocket and gently peeled back something on the bottom part of the flower. “He liked being upset. It was his nature.”
“Mr. Clark, did you have words with Sir George on the
day he died?”
Clark went still, and Witherspoon realized he finally had
the man’s full attention. “Who told you that?”
“That doesn’t matter, sir. Please answer the question. Did
you and Sir George have an argument on the day he was
murdered?”
“Yes,” Clark replied. He put the tweezers back in his
pocket.
“What did you quarrel about?”
Clark hesitated. “It was nothing, really. George was upset
because I’d ordered some extra fuel without consulting him.”
“Fuel?” Witherspoon repeated. “You mean for the
house?” He would have thought that was Mrs. Merryhill’s
domain, but perhaps not.
“Of course not for the house, for here.” Clark waved his
arm in a half circle. “For the conservatory. It’s been a dreadfully cold winter, and I’d got through my allocation of heating fuel quicker than I expected, so I ordered more. George was not pleased. Honestly, you’d think even a fool would
understand that when it was colder than normal, more fuel
would be required. But did he? Certainly not.”
“So you had words,” the inspector pressed.
“That’s right, but the argument was no worse than any
other we’ve had.” Clark pulled a pair of gloves out of his
Mrs. Jeffries and the Silent Knight
95
pocket and slipped them on his long, bony hands. He
started down the closest row of cuttings.
“Do you argue frequently with your cousin?” Witherspoon asked as he followed after the man. Drat, these questions weren’t going at all as he’d planned.
“No more than anyone else in the household,” Clark
replied. He stopped in front of a wooden tray of seedlings,
leaned down, and studied the soil. “George quarreled with
everyone. As I said, it was his nature, he wasn’t a nice person. The only pleasure he got out of life was tormenting others. He was quite good at it, he seemed to get better at it
with each passing year.”
“Exactly how long have you lived in his household?”
Witherspoon asked.
Clark straightened up and looked at the inspector.
“That’s an odd question. Why does it matter?”
“In a murder investigation, anything could be pertinent,” Witherspoon replied. But in truth, he’d no idea why he’d asked the question. It had simply popped into his head.
But he recalled a conversation he’d had with Mrs. Jeffries
about homicide investigations. “Trust your instincts, sir,”
she’d said. “Trust that inner voice that has led you to so
many correct conclusions.” Sometimes he couldn’t quite see
how his “inner voice” or his instincts had done such a thing,
but on the other hand, he’d solved a good number of murders, so she must be right.
Clark sighed and took off down the aisle, his attention
once again on his precious flowers. “I’ve lived here since Sir
George’s father died, and he inherited the title. That was
thirty years ago.”
“And you’re a cousin, is that correct?” the inspector
pressed. He wanted to make sure he understood all the de96
Emily Brightwell
tails correctly. Small things often turned out to be quite
important.
Clark nodded, bent down, and pulled a small wooden
tray of dirt out from under the seedling table. “Is there anything else? I’ve quite a lot of work to do.” He shoved the tray onto an empty spot next to the seedlings and began to
examine it closely.
“I’d like you to describe your movements on the night of
the murder.”
“After dinner, I came out here and worked for a while,
then I went to bed. I was awakened in the wee hours and
told that George was dead. That’s all I know about it.”
“Did you hear anything that night?”
“No, I’m a sound sleeper.”
“Where is your room? The front or the back of the
house?”
“Neither, Inspector.” He pointed toward the front of the
conservatory. “My room is on the side of the house, directly
over the conservatory. I can look out and see the place from
my study. I’ve a small study and a bedroom.”
“I see. Did you see anything unusual when you went outside that night?”
“The entire event was unusual, Inspector. One doesn’t
generally expect to see one’s cousin face down in a frozen
pond.”
“But did you notice anything untoward, anything that
struck you as odd?” He wasn’t sure what he was trying to
find out, but surely someone must have seen or heard something out of the ordinary that night.
“Like what, Inspector? I didn’t notice anyone lurking
about the grounds or scampering off in the distance,” Clark
replied. He was speaking to the inspector, but his attention
was focused on something over Witherspoon’s shoulder.
Mrs. Jeffries and the Silent Knight
97
Clark gasped suddenly and then took off running down
the aisle. “Good God, this is awful, it looks positively
dreadful. This is terrible. It’s the last one I’ve got. None of
the others survived. I’ll be the laughingstock of the orchid
society if it dies. This simply cannot be happening.”
Witherspoon turned to see what he was going on about,
but by that time Clark had stopped and was staring at a
bloom of pale purple flowers. The blossoms were facing
downward and appeared to be mounted on a large piece of
tree bark.
The inspector hurried after him. Clark was gazing at the
plant with a stricken look of horror on his face.
“It looks fine to me,” Witherspoon said kindly. He knew
some gardeners were inordinately attached to their plants.
Constable Barnes had complained that Mrs. Barnes got a
tad testy when their neighbor’s dog got into her flower beds.
But Clark seemed unduly upset. The poor fellow had gone
shockingly pale.
“It’s hardly all right,” Clark snapped. “This is a Leptotes
unicolor and it’s one of the finest orchids in the world. Ye
Gods, man, this is a disaster, an absolute disaster. Maybe I
can save it. I’ll try that new soil mixture that
