Mrs. Jeffries Turns the Tide by Emily Brightwell

Author:Emily Brightwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

“Last night an old friend from Scotland Yard stopped in to see me,” Barnes said. “Eddie Harwood’s an old mate of mine and he said he’d heard something I ought to know about. He tends to keep his ears open for anything concerning Inspector Witherspoon or me. Eddie used to walk patrol but his knees started givin’ him trouble well before he could get a pension. He’s a good man so I had a word with the inspector and he recommended him for the post at the Yard and Eddie ended up with the day shift behind reception.”

“That was kind of you, Constable,” Mrs. Jeffries murmured. “I take it your friend heard something about this case?”

Barnes nodded. “My wife had gone to bed because of her cold, and I didn’t want to disturb her so Eddie and I went to the pub and had a pint. At Scotland Yard, everyone other than policemen have to report to him when they come into the building, and yesterday afternoon, two gents from the Home Office showed up. They were talking as they crossed the room. Eddie distinctly heard one of them say that there was nothing to worry about, that Inspector Witherspoon didn’t have any political power so there was nothing he could do. When they got to Eddie, one of them said they were there to see two people, Chief Inspector Barrows and Inspector Nigel Nivens.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Mrs. Goodge muttered. “It’s never good news when someone mentions Nivens in the same conversation as our inspector.”

Mrs. Jeffries didn’t like it, either, but she held her peace. Nivens was an old enemy of the household. He’d spent years trying to prove that Witherspoon had help with his cases, and of course, he was correct. But he was an odious toad of a man who’d obtained his position because of his family’s wealth and political connections. Even worse, he wasn’t a good policeman. He bullied his subordinates and there were some that claimed he wasn’t above beating a suspect to gain a confession.

Barnes took a sip of his tea. “It’s not good news now. Nivens is back to his old tricks. It was bound to happen—men like him don’t stay grateful for long.”

“Political connections or not, if it hadn’t of been for Inspector Witherspoon, he’d have been tossed off the Force without so much as a by-your-leave,” Mrs. Goodge exclaimed.

She was referring to an earlier case where Inspector Nivens had withheld evidence, probably in an attempt to make Witherspoon look incompetent. When Nivens had finally done the right thing and turned over the material, Inspector Witherspoon had been decent about the whole matter. Nivens had been so thankful, he’d given up trying to prove their inspector was able to solve so many homicides only because he had a small army of helpers.

“As time passes, men like Nivens forget what they owe and he’s back to his true self. It looks like he’s using his political connections to get Inspector Witherspoon pulled off the case,” Barnes said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.