The Green Jade Dragon Read online

  The Green Jade Dragon

  A Clara Fitzgerald Mystery

  Book 10

  By

  Evelyn James

  Red Raven Publications

  2017

  © Evelyn James 2017

  First published 2017

  Red Raven Publications

  The right of Evelyn James to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the permission in writing from the author

  The Green Jade Dragon is the tenth book in the Clara Fitzgerald series

  Other titles in the Series:

  Memories of the Dead

  Flight of Fancy

  Murder in Mink

  Carnival of Criminals

  Mistletoe and Murder

  The Poisoned Pen

  Grave Suspicions of Murder

  The Woman Died Thrice

  Murder and Mascara

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter One

  It was a fine early September day. The sort where the weather is trying to pretend that summer is not really over and that autumn is just a figment of the imagination. Clara Fitzgerald, Brighton’s first female private detective, sat in her office and contemplated some paperwork from a case involving suspected embezzlement of the church flower fund. It had proved a simple problem to solve. There was no thief, no naughty Christian helping themselves to the pot of donations. It all boiled down to an error in the accounting system. As it turned out, the fund was surprisingly healthy with surplus in it rather than any loss.

  Clara was finishing up her report on the case to be handed to the little committee that controlled, among other things, the flower fund. She was relieved for once to be able to report that no one had died or been found to be a dastardly criminal. It was just the sort of case she had started out on, in those early days of her work when life seemed a lot simpler. Now many of her cases revolved around murder or other such sinister crimes and, though the work paid well, it had a tendency to leave a bad taste in the mouth, very unlike these quiet, mundane affairs.

  She was just signing her name to the report when she heard the bell ring at her front door. Clara rose and stretched, then headed downstairs to see who had come calling. Clara rented a set of rooms above a haberdashery shop, and these served as her working space, though invariably her work would also find her at home. As much as she liked to keep her business and domestic lives separate, her clients often had other ideas. She walked down the tight staircase to the front door and opened it. Before her stood Mrs Wilton.

  Clara’s heart sank a little. Mrs Wilton had given Clara her first murder case and set her on a new path in her career. She should really be grateful to her, but Mrs Wilton had a habit of frustrating people and annoying them. She was interfering, slightly eccentric and often silly. Since she had hired Clara that first time, she had felt it her duty to find work for poor Clara and was always pressing her friends upon her – not that her friends seemed to appreciate the situation either. After all, does someone really want to hire a private detective just to discover who picked the daffodils from their front garden? Or why the postman had been replaced by a new man? Or to learn who had been knocking over the bins and scattering the contents? The answer was of course no, but all these matters had been dragged before Clara, along with the unfortunate friend or neighbour who had been foolish enough to mention them to Mrs Wilton in the first place. Remarkably, Mrs Wilton always had new friends to impose upon. She was that sort of woman.

  “Clara!” Mrs Wilton declared, looking to all the world as if a great calamity had just befallen her and the world were about to end. She was a woman of middle years, with the sort of wiry hair that reminded Clara of a terrier. It had been black once, but was now going very grey and was determinedly swept back into a bun. Mrs Wilton wore black, she was a widow and was perpetually in mourning for her husband who died in the war. She stood before Clara and wrung her hands. “We must talk at once! It is dreadfully urgent!”

  Many things were urgent to Mrs Wilton and Clara had long ago learned to take such statements with a pinch of salt. Probably the paperboy had forgotten to deliver her magazine and she was perceiving this as something dire, perhaps a terrible conspiracy within the publishing industry to deprive her of information. That was the way Mrs Wilton’s mind worked. Nothing was simply a fluke of fate, everything was part of a sinister and dastardly plot to destroy her life. Clara did have some sympathy for the woman, after all, she had been told by the War Office that her son was dead only to have Clara discover him alive. And she had been briefly accused of murdering a fraudulent clairvoyant. All this made her a little prone to overreacting.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs?” Clara said reluctantly.

  Fortunately, she had nothing else to do and if she could settle Mrs Wilton and send her home feeling more herself that would benefit them both. What Clara did not want was to become embroiled in another of Mrs Wilton’s wild goose chases.

  They retreated upstairs and Mrs Wilton gave a respectful nod to the portrait of Clara’s father hanging on the wall. It was a habit Mrs Wilton seemed unable to break. She acted as if the eyes of the portrait were really looking down upon her. Clara offered her a chair and then sat down in her own behind the desk. The September sun still had power and beamed onto Clara’s back warming her shoulders.

  “Now, Mrs Wilton, what is the problem?”

  Mrs Wilton took a long, deep breath and then exhaled it as a sigh of relief.

  “I am most distressed with my neighbour, Mrs Butterworth,” she explained. “But I need to go backwards a little and explain myself. Mrs Butterworth has suffered the misfortune of her husband absconding from the marital home.”

  “Oh dear,” Clara said without enthusiasm, cases involving adultery or abandonment were always messy and emotionally draining. She tried to avoid them as they never had happy endings.

  “It is even worse than that,” Mrs Wilton persisted. “Mr Butterworth took Agamemnon with him when he left.”

  “Agamemnon?” Clara asked with a touch of concern.

  “The cat. A Persian, I believe, and rather expensive, or so you would think the way Mrs Butterworth goes on. Anyway, Mr Butterworth disappeared three weeks ago, with the cat, and his wife is now beside herself.”

  “I can imagine,” Clara said politely, still trying to keep the case at arm’s length.

  “She came to me for advice,” Mrs Wilton plumped herself up, as if this gave her a new aura of importance. Clara had to wonder why anyone would go to Mrs Wilton
for advice. “I suggested she hire a private detective and I gave her your name.”

  “Oh,” Clara said, wondering now if the matter was not that Mrs Wilton had a case for her, but rather that somehow the affair with Mrs Butterworth had slipped her attention and she was to be accused of negligence. “I haven’t heard anything from Mrs Butterworth, as far as I am aware.”

  “Well you wouldn’t have!” Mrs Wilton declared. “That’s the problem! She only went and hired another private detective!”

  “Oh,” Clara repeated herself, this time because she was truly surprised by the information. As far as Clara was aware there were no other detectives operating in Brighton but, of course, there was no reason someone should not start up their own business.

  “You don’t understand the implication!” Mrs Wilton persisted, almost bouncing in her chair with ire. “She went and hired a female private detective!”

  Now Clara was interested. Another woman had set herself up in the detective business? Well, why not, there was no restriction upon it, even if it did give Clara a pang of concern.

  “I do not have a monopoly on the detective business,” Clara said carefully to Mrs Wilton. “Nor can I deny another woman the opportunity to set herself up as a private detective if she wishes.”

  “But… but you are Brighton’s first female private detective!” Mrs Wilton insisted. “It isn’t on, it just isn’t!”

  “I don’t know what you wish me to do about it,” Clara smiled at her gently. “I can’t stop this woman, no more than the greengrocer can stop another person opening a greengrocer’s shop.”

  “Surely you can investigate her?” Mrs Wilton leaned forward, her tone now urgent and a little desperate. “She could be a troublemaker!”

  “Or she could be someone wishing to make their way in the world independently,” Clara countered. “I suppose, considering the successes I have had, it was inevitable that someone would eventually decide to copy me.”

  Mrs Wilton pursed her lips, this was clearly not the response she had either anticipated or desired. She wanted Clara to be as outraged as she was. She was affronted that after comforting Mrs Butterworth in her despair and offering Clara’s name when it was asked for, the woman had then gone off and done her own thing, including hiring this new detective, this usurper on Clara’s home turf. Mrs Wilton thought the whole matter was underhand and disloyal.

  “Her name is Sarah Butler,” she said, her tone surly since Clara was not as upset as she was. “I have no idea who she is. Seems to have popped up out of thin air.”

  “People do,” Clara shrugged. “The name is not familiar to me, either.”

  “And after all you have done for this town, Clara. All the help you have given and the cases you have solved. Why, I consider it most ungrateful of Mrs Butterworth to go with this new person instead.”

  Clara was rather relieved she had not been given the case and thought Miss Butler could have it. She would soon discover how disagreeable marital cases were. It was no real skin off Clara’s nose.

  “Never mind Mrs Wilton,” she attempted to appease the woman. “I am sure there will still be plenty of work for me. If I can cope with having a rival private detective in Brighton, I am sure you can.”

  Mrs Wilton gave a slight huff. She was hardly mollified, but she realised she was not going to get any further. She rose and picked up her handbag.

  “You are too nice, Clara. I just hope your generosity will not come back to bite you.”

  “Even if I wanted to do something about Miss Butler, I hardly could,” Clara replied, as she showed Mrs Wilton downstairs. “She is doing nothing illegal.”

  “Yet!” Mrs Wilton held up a warning finger, then she made her farewells and disappeared off.

  Clara returned to the flower fund report she had just finished and placed it in an envelope and addressed it. She neatened her desk and emptied the teapot she kept by the fire. With a final glance at her father, who had been gone now these last five years, she departed for home.

  Supper was waiting for her. Annie, her friend and housekeeper, had prepared a simple meal using cold meat from the leftovers of the roast they had had the day before. Clara’s brother Tommy was sitting at the dining table perusing the newspaper, and just to his left was Captain O’Harris. O’Harris had recently experienced a most horrific accident in an aeroplane, which resulted in him being missing for a year. He had suffered terrible shock and was still not mentally fit to go home and live alone. He was currently staying with the local doctor while he recovered, but spent a great deal of time at the Fitzgerald household as well. He was friends with both Tommy and Clara, and their company was of enormous help to him.

  He smiled at Clara as she entered the dining room. Tommy mumbled a greeting without looking up from the article he was engrossed in.

  “A message was left for you,” O’Harris said. “I answered the door.”

  He pointed out a folded piece of paper that he had placed beside the chair Clara usually sat in.

  “I told the gentleman about your office, but he chose to leave a message here. He was a servant, a butler or valet, I think.”

  Clara picked up the piece of paper without unfolding it.

  “I had the delight of Mrs Wilton’s company today,” she sighed. “A shame this other fellow could not have called upon me as a distraction.”

  Clara twisted the paper in her fingers. There was a worry nagging at her, something she had to mention to the others to get it off her chest. Despite her words to Mrs Wilton, she had been lying when she said it did not matter that there was a new private detective in Brighton. It did matter. It worried her; it stirred up anxieties about her ability to maintain her livelihood. While the investments her father had made before his death could sustain his children, they were not substantial enough to do anything more than keep them ticking over. Clara had started working to provide the extra income the household needed. Tommy had come back from the war a cripple, and while he was slowly recovering, he was not yet fit to work. Clara was the breadwinner in the house and it scared her, just a little, to imagine a time when she could not provide them with what they needed. What if, for instance, this other private detective took all her work? It was an over-dramatic thought, but that did not make it any less troubling.

  “Mrs Wilton was telling me that another woman has started a detective business in Brighton,” Clara blurted out.

  Tommy now did look up from the newspaper.

  “Another private detective?” he said, testing out the idea. “That’s interesting.”

  “Mrs Wilton was most appalled by the idea,” Clara shrugged. “Perhaps I should be appalled too. Should I be worried?”

  “That you have a rival?” Tommy asked. He pondered his answer. “Only if she is as good as you, and that would be unlikely.”

  “Your loyalty is impeccable,” Clara said, amused. “But, in all seriousness, what if this woman was to take my business away from me?”

  “Rivals come and go,” Captain O’Harris now spoke. He held Clara with his dark eyes, boring into her. “The only way to beat them is to be the best at what you do. Then people will want to hire you instead of them. Sure, some will drift to the opposition, but the ones that matter, they will stick with you. In my time I have had plenty of rival pilots pushing for the same records and achievements. The only way I defied them was by being better than them.”

  Clara nodded. She understood, she just wasn’t confident enough to declare herself the best at anything.

  “I won’t let it worry me,” she said firmly, as much to herself as to the men. “Now, what is this note?”

  She unfolded the slip of paper and found it an invitation to call upon a gentleman named Mr Jacobs at her earliest convenience. It stated that he would be most grateful for her advice in a matter that was causing him concern. Another case. Just what Clara needed to take her mind off things. She scanned the address and recognised the road name as one of the better ones in Brighton.

  “I think
he was a butler,” O’Harris mused to himself. “The fellow who gave that to me. Now I consider it, I am certain he was. He had that sort of appearance to him.”

  Clara folded up the note. She would push worries about this new detective to one side. She had a case to work on and she would do as O’Harris had suggested and be the best she could be. She would prove that she was Brighton’s foremost private detective, even if she was not its only one anymore.

  Chapter Two

  Mr Jacobs lived in a Victorian extravagance masquerading as a house. It was the sort of thing you could not imagine anyone building in post-war England, but which had seemed such a natural thing to the Victorians. It was built over three floors and included a basement. The windows were mock-Tudor, but the walls were red brick. There was a porch over the front door which might have come from a country cottage and on the left-hand corner, as Clara walked up the gravel drive, there was an octagonal tower that finished in a conical spire roof. On the very top was a weathervane in the shape of a Welsh dragon. There was something both garish and enticing about this hodgepodge of designs and styles. It was rather like someone had gone through a catalogue of architecture, picked out all the bits they liked, and then insisted they were put together in a semi-homogenous form. It was too early for Clara to say whether the result worked or not.

  Mr Jacobs was a retired antiquities expert. He had worked at various prestigious auction houses in London, valuing and assessing lots. He had picked out more than one fake in his time, and had also been responsible for authenticating some significant finds. He had always come from money and his work had not been necessary from a financial point-of-view, but it kept him busy and amused. The house belonged to his parents and he had retained it after their deaths, intending to retire to Brighton eventually. This he had done just after the war, though he still kept busy, often travelling about the country to offer his expert insight on objects in other peoples’ collections.