body. He fought back a wave of nausea and forced himself to
make a thorough examination.
The body was face down in the pond. The water was shallow enough that it only came up to his ears, so the inspector could see that the back of the head was horribly crushed.
The victim wore a dressing gown over his nightshirt and
had slippers on his feet. “It must have been the blow to his
head that killed him.”
Goring snorted.
“Do you have something to add, Constable,” Barnes
snapped.
“No, sir,” Goring replied.
“Then move off out of our way,” he ordered. He knelt
down on the other side of the corpse. “I think you’re right,
sir. I doubt anyone could survive a blow like this. But what
do you make of this?” He pointed to the man’s head. “His
face is under water.”
Witherspoon nodded. “And the pond is completely
frozen over.”
“That means whoever did this had to chip the ice to
shove Sir George’s head into it.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Why on earth would the killer go to the trouble to do that when he must have known Sir George was already
dead? This pond is frozen hard, chipping a hole in it
wouldn’t have been that easy.”
Witherspoon shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t know his
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Emily Brightwell
blow had been successful. Perhaps he wanted to make sure
his victim was dead.”
“Then why not whack him again, sir?” Barnes asked.
“Seems to me, drowning the man in a frozen pond is doing
it the hard way.”
C H A P T E R 2
�� ��
“Thanks, mate.” Smythe paid the hansom driver and started
toward the end of the road.
“You’ve given me too much,” the cabbie called after him.
Smythe waved him off and quickened his pace. “You earned
it, mate. The roads are still a mess, and you got me ‘ere
lickety-split.” He’d gotten to the cab stand on the Holland
Park Road and managed to grab one just as he saw the one
the inspector and Barnes had gotten into turn the corner.
He’d told the driver to stay back but to follow the inspector’s cab. The man had done a good job, and Smythe had rewarded him for his efforts. Even better, the cabbie hadn’t asked any nosy questions. Besides, Smythe thought as he
slowed his pace and examined his surroundings, he had
plenty of money.
Smythe noted that there were two constables standing at
the drive of the house at the far end of the road. That must
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Emily Brightwell
be the place. The constables were standing there, not doing
much of anything except staring down the road, but Smythe
didn’t think they’d spotted him.
He stopped and studied his surroundings. Blast, he
couldn’t go any farther. It was too dangerous. This wasn’t a
busy street in London where he could blend into a crowd
and pick up bits and pieces of information from the locals.
This was a road of big houses with lots of empty space between them and not near enough places for a bloke to hide.
There weren’t even that many trees, and because it was winter, there was very little foliage about to cover him.
He ducked behind the trunk of an elm tree, standing
sideways because the trunk wasn’t big enough to cloak him
completely. He had to think what to do. How to get close
enough to suss out what was what. He peeked out and saw
one of the constables heading his way. Blast a Spaniard, one
of them must have seen him!
Inspector Witherspoon forced himself to look closely at the
victim’s head again. Bile rose in his throat, but he fought it
back. He knew everyone expected him to examine everything where the murder had occurred and then come up with the killer based on “his methods.” The truth was he
wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be seeing and even
worse, he wasn’t sure what his “methods” were. They
seemed to vary from case to case. Except for this, leaving the
body where it was, undisturbed. But what a horrid mess of
blood, matted hair, and what was probably bit and pieces of
the poor man’s brain were supposed to tell him, he couldn’t
fathom. He got to his feet.
Barnes rose as well and turned slowly in a circle, his gaze
locked onto the ground. It took a moment before Witherspoon realized what he was doing.
Mrs. Jeffries and the Silent Knight
25
“He wasn’t killed here.” Barnes pointed to the area by
the victim’s feet. The inspector looked down at the ground
as well and saw the faint outlines of a trail that extended
from the tip of the slipper toe outward for a good two feet
before disappearing underneath a sea of footprints.
“And we’ll likely not know exactly where the poor fellow
was murdered.” The constable shook his head in disgust.
“Not with all these footprints. They’re everywhere, sir. The
ground by the pond is so covered with them we’d never get
any useful evidence; they’re all over the terrace. Good gracious, they’re even over near the ruddy greenhouse.” He glared at the two constables who were standing on the other
side of the pond, but were close enough to hear them.
“What did you do,” he asked angrily, “invite the whole
household out to have a good look? Why wasn’t this area
roped off?”
Becker bit his lip, but Constable Goring didn’t flinch. “It
wasn’t our fault, sir. By the time we got here, the damage
had been done. We kept people away as soon as we realized
it was murder.”
“Realized it was murder,” Barnes exclaimed. “Ye Gods,
man, the poor fellow’s had his head bashed in and stuck in a
pond. Did you think it was suicide?”
Goring glared right back. “When the call came in, it just
said there was a body here. By the time we got here, the
whole household was outside and tramping around the
place.”
“But no one had pulled Sir George’s head out of the
pond?” Witherspoon asked. He kept his voice neutral, not
wanting to add more tension to the situation. He didn’t
wish to undermine his constable, he quite understood what
Barnes was doing, but on the other hand, he didn’t want the
local lads to feel bad. He was sure they’d done their best.
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Emily Brightwell
“That’s odd, isn’t it? Generally, family members would have
pulled him out, if for no other reason than to make sure he’s
actually dead.”
Goring turned his attention to the inspector.
