The Detective Club: The Maze by Philip Macdonald

Author:Philip Macdonald [Philip Macdonald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2016-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

XIII

SARAH MARGARET RUBY JENNINGS, Cook-HOUSEKEEPER TO THE BRUNTON HOUSEHOLD

WHAT is your full name?

Sarah Margaret Ruby Jennings.

Will you now please take the oath?

… I swear by Halmighty God that what I shall say in evidence in this Court shall be the truth, the ’ole truth and nothink but the truth.

You are Sarah Jennings and you are, I believe, employed as cook-housekeeper to the Brunton household?

I am that, sir.

How long have you held the position?

Two year come next October, sir.

And are you conversant, Mrs Jennings, with the general ways of the Brunton family?

That I am, sir. I’ve always been considered sufficient. I don’t want to seem to be standing up ’ere a-blowin’ of my own strumpet, but what I can do I knows I can do, and I ’aven’t no shame in admittin’. I was engaged as a cook-’ousekeeper and I cooks well and I ’ousekeeps better. So that answers your question—you can’t be a good cook no more than you can be a good ’ousekeeper—and certainly you can’t be both—if you don’t know the ways of the gentry that you’re serving. There’s far too many women goin’ about—

Please, Mrs Jennings, you must let me speak! I’m afraid you misunderstood my last question. What I meant to ask you was this: Were you at all conversant with the relations of the Brunton family and their guests—er—one to the other?

I don’t azackly quite see ’ow you mean, sir.

Dear me, we shall have to try again! What I am trying to get at is this, Mrs Jennings: being not only cook but housekeeper to the household it struck me that you must know their—how shall I put it?—their relations to one another: that you must know, in other words, of any particular friendships, dislikes, jealousies and that sort of thing.

Oh, I see what you mean, sir. Oh no, I know nothink o’ that sort. I’m one as believes in bein’ busy about my own work, not minding other folks’ business—the which I might say doesn’t seem to be the rule followed by a good many people whose names I might mention but for the sake of good manners will not do so. No, sir, I goes about me work and I does me work. So long as my employers are satisfied with me and treats me right and proper and befittin’, as you might say, I’m satisfied. I never was one to ’old with a-introdoocin’ foreigners into domestic service. Keep yourself to yourself, says I. And what I says to myself I keeps to. So if you was hopin’ sir, with all due respect, as ’ow I should agree with all these other evidences what you’ve just twisted out, I beg to be allowed to state, sir, that you are in herror. I ’ave one rule in life and that is—

One moment, Mrs Jennings, one moment! In your position as cook-housekeeper did you frequently see the deceased?

Lor’ bless me, no sir! Not ’alf so frequent as I should of liked, because if ever there was a real gentleman the master was that.

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