I was browsing through Old Bailey records when I found a case about a widowed, elderly housekeeper named Betty Jeffs. She had been murdered in the servants’ hall of an otherwise empty townhouse. The killing was brutal, but what stood out to me was that the rooms above stairs had reportedly been searched—but not robbed.

The man on trial for the killing was an admitted rogue, but an eloquent one, and he walked free.

The case was brief, unresolved, and haunting. It suggested an entire world of loyalty, silence, and secrets.

That case planted the seed that became The Green Baize Door.

I moved the setting to 1900 Philadelphia, changed the details of the crime, and imagined what might happen if a murder forced the upstairs and downstairs worlds of a fine old house to collide.

🕯 One house, two worlds, and a murder in between.