Authors: Carola Dunn

Rattle His Bones (14 page)

BOOK: Rattle His Bones

11.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

“Hello, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said. “I'm so sorry to hear Nana's in hot water.”

“It's kind of you to come,” snapped Mrs. Fletcher, her tone making plain that “interfering” would be a more accurate reflection of her thoughts. “But the dog will have to go. It has completely ruined a perfectly good slipper.”

“Too maddening!”

Taken aback by Daisy's commiseration, Mrs. Fletcher said, “It's not the slipper so muchâone can always purchase another pairâas the possibility that next time it will chew up something more valuable.”

“Yes, of course. Puppies can be a bit destructive, especially when they're teething. Like babies. I expect Alec chewed things like mad when his baby teeth were coming in.”

“So did I,” Belinda put in eagerly. “Daddy said I used to gnaw his finger.”

“Neither you nor your father ever destroyed anything,” Mrs. Fletcher pointed out, her mouth pursed. “Nor left hair all over the carpets.”

“No,” Daisy agreed, “and there's no reason why Nana should be allowed to. She shouldn't be left alone in a room where there are things she can damage, Bel. When no one can be with her, you should shut her in the kitchen or the scullery. Make sure she has sticks and hard rusks to chew. But mostly she will chew only when she's bored and hasn't
had enough exercise. Did you play with her and walk her today?”

“No, Aunt Daisy,” Belinda admitted, head hanging. She bit her lip. “I went to play with Annette after tea, and she's afraid of dogs.”

“If you want to keep Nana, you're going to have to take responsibility for her, you know.”

“I know. I'm frightfully sorry, Granny. I'll save up my pocket money and buy you some new slippers. And I'll absolutely walk Nana after school every single day and play with her lots and make sure she's shut up somewhere safe,
and
brush her oftener, so please,
please
can she stay?”

“Sooner or later, you'll forget,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “or the dog will get out.”

All too likely, Daisy thought, but she said, “It won't be forever. Puppies grow out of chewing. It just takes patience.”

“Derek's dog, Tinker Bell, doesn't chew things up,” Belinda earnestly informed her grandmother. “When she's not going for walks or playing, she mostly just sleeps, doesn't she, Aunt Daisy? So
please
can I keep Nana?”

Mrs. Fletcher sighed. “We'll see what your father says when he comes home.”

Belinda, knowing perfectly well what her father would say, correctly interpreted this as grudging surrender and beamed. “Thank you, Gran, most frightfully,” she said, and went to give her grandmother's cheek a decorous kiss. Then she ran to Daisy and hugged her, whispering, “Thank you most even more frightfully, Aunt Daisy, for coming to the rescue.”

At that moment, the Fletchers' cook-maid came in and announced supper.

Daisy knew that when Alec was not expected, his mother
and daughter ate together early. “I must be on my way,” she said, gathering up her handbag.

“If you have no other plans, do join us,” said Mrs. Fletcher, if not exactly gracious then at least not altogether hostile.

Daisy had, after all, given her a way out of an untenable position. She probably had not realized how fearfully upset her granddaughter would be. She did, one presumed, love Belinda in her way.

“Yes, do stay, Aunt Daisy!” cried Belinda with enthusiasm.

“Thank you, I'd like to.”

“Belinda, go and wash your hands and face while Dobson sets another place at table. And the dog is to stay outside until after we have eaten,” commanded Mrs. Fletcher.

Whatever her usual expectations of a child's table manners in the presence of her elders, over the Brown Windsor soup Mrs. Fletcher encouraged Belinda to talk, perhaps as a buffer. Bel chattered about Derek and Tinker Bell, then moved on to Derek's inexplicable keenness on dinosaurs.

“He liked the one with the big teeth best,” she said.

“The Megalosaurus,” said Daisy.

“That's right. Can you imagine what it'd be like to have a baby Megalosaurus instead of a puppy?” Belinda giggled, then glanced at her grandmother and stifled the giggle. “I thought its teeth were horrid. I'm glad the other dinosaurs were so tall you couldn't see their teeth properly, aren't you, Aunt Daisy? They're gigantic, Gran, bigger than a house, some of them.”

“And who dusts them, I'd like to know?” said Mrs. Fletcher. “A gigantic waste of time and money, if you ask me.” Thus having put herself firmly on the late Dr. Pettigrew's side, she changed the subject back to Daisy's nephew.

“I must say Derek is a polite child, if rather rumbustious. But then, boys will be boys,” she added tolerantly.

And girls must be young ladies,
Daisy completed the hated maxim, one of her mother's favourites. Really, if Mrs. Fletcher and the Dowager Viscountess ever got to know each other well, they would get on like a house on fire.

While Daisy meddled in his home as a change from meddling in his work, Alec was supervising a search of all the museum staff as they departed for the day.

Fortunately, almost all were men, who could be checked, even asked to remove their jackets, by uniformed constables under the watchful eyes of Tring or D.C.s Piper or Ross. But there were the ladies' room attendant and the switchboard girl, as well as two saleswomen (what they sold he did not enquire) and four artists under contract to draw or paint botany and entomology specimens.

Alec did not see these as serious suspects in the burglary, but the thief might have inveigled one into carrying his spoils out of the museum. To search them, Alec requested one of the new woman constables. He was sent a police matron.

These matrons were more like prison wardresses than police officers. They took charge of arrested females, often drunk and disorderly, and rarely had anything to do with the innocent public. As a result, they tended to be hefty viragos, and to take a jaundiced view of all women they dealt with in their work, automatically regarding themâand inclined to treat themâas criminals. Tom Tring, who was not afraid of anything in trousers, claimed to be terrified of police matrons.

Mrs. Morble, sent round by Chelsea Division, was no
exception. Tall and robust, with a red face and very pale eyes, she had a harsh voice and a bovine expression.

Bulls, as Alec reminded himself, are stubborn and belligerent as well as not exceptionally bright. What he needed was a women who was an ordinary officer, accustomed to frequent contact with law-abiding people, but the search could not wait.

He explained to Mrs. Morble what he wanted her to do. “I consider it highly unlikely that any of these women are involved,” he stressed.

“There's a bad apple in every barrel,” said Mrs. Morble.

“Somewhere in the museum, yes. But I doubt it's any of the women.”

“The female of the species is more deadlier than the male,” said Mrs. Morble.

“Er, possibly, though it's quite impossible that any of them murdered Pettigrew. It's the jewel theft we are concerned with here.”

“Set a thief to catch a thief,” said Mrs. Morble obscurely.

“It's more a matter of catching the thief and hoping he'll turn out to be, or at least lead us to, the murderer.”

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink,” said Mrs. Morble. She elaborated. “If you was to ask me, there's a lot to be said for what the Yankees call the Third Degree.”

Trying not to quail visibly, Alec stringently reminded her, “However, such methods are against the law in Britain. What is more, these women are not under any particular suspicion. They are to be searched as a general precaution, and they are to be treated with proper courtesy. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. What can't be cured must be endured. But you can be sure, sir, if any of âem's got so much as a jet bead on
'em, I'll find it, and let the devil take the hindmost,” said Mrs. Morble.

“No jet has been stolen. Here's the list.” With deep misgivings, Alec repeated his instructions and let the matron loose on her prey.

Either none of those unfortunates was deeply disturbed by her notion of proper courtesy, or none was brave enough to complain.

Obviously disappointed, she reported back to Alec: “All clean as a whistle. Leastways, far as I can tell without making 'em peel. The which you said not to do, sir,” added Mrs. Morble reproachfully.

Relieved that she had not tried, Alec thanked her and thankfully dismissed her.

Searching the men proved equally unproductive. Alec had not really expected the thief to attempt to walk out with his booty when the museum was under siege by the police, but it was a possibility which had to be covered. Though the museum had yet to be searched, the odds were that the jewels were long gone, either already sold or concealed at home.

Alec had applied for warrants to search his chief suspects' homes. The only way to bring them down to a manageable number was to assume the thief and the murderer were one, which was Superintendent Crane's view, fortunately. As Daisy had pointed out in her notes, the assumption simplified matters no end, even if one included the Grand Duke and ffinch-Brown.

Alec did, since the two were high on the murder list, though like Daisy he considered them unlikely thieves. The magistrate agreed, and refused to grant search warrants. He also refused in the case of Grange, who had raised the alarm,
but allowed Randell, both added to the list by Alec on the grounds of opportunity.

That left the four curators and the junior mineralogy assistant, too many to cope with in one evening. As Randell was not a murder suspect, Alec sent a detective sergeant and constable from the Yard to his lodgings.

Leaving Detective Inspector Wotherspoon in charge of the cohorts of constables who were to start searching the museum, Alec departed with his own little troop. Little in numbers, not in size: with Tom Tring beside him in the front and both Piper and Ross in the back, the Austin Chummy was heavily laden. He hoped the springs would stand up to the load.

“I'll leave most of the searching to the three of you,” he said. “I shan't do any formal questioning this evening, but I want to get a feel for the way they live. Tom, try to manage a word with any servants, just to break the ice. You can go back later to pump them, if necessary. Ernie, you've worked out the best route?”

“Mr. Mummery first, Chief, in Wimbledon. Start out across Vauxhall Bridge. I can give you directions when you need 'em. After him, Mr. Ruddlestone in Twickenham, Mr. Steadman in Ealing, then back to Mr. Witt in Mayfair.”

“You know how to find all their houses?”

“Course, Chief.”

“Y'ought to be a taxi-driver,” Ross said admiringly.

“Very efficient, but I'm afraid it's going to be a long evening anyway,” said Alec, glad that he seemed to have got his second wind. “We'll stop for a quick bite later. How's the cold, Tom?”

“None so bad, Chief. Just a bit of a cough now and then. I'll leave tearing up floorboards and crawling through attics to the young uns.”

“You wouldn't fit in an attic anyways, Sarge,” said Piper.

“You watch your lip, young fella-me-lad, or I'll have you climbing chimneys,” Tom threatened mildly. “And don't neither of you go tearing up any floorboards till I've had a dekko and said they look suspicious, or the repairs'll come out of your pay. Nor I don't want anyone to be able to see that we've been through their things.”

Though addressed to both constables, the words were directed at Ross. Young Piper had worked with Tom Tring often enough to know what the sergeant expected. Tom had picked Ross to help tonight, saying he seemed a quick learner.

Alec was sure one of the things Ross had learnt quickly was to keep quiet about Daisy's presence at several interviews. Her notes made it plain she knew exactly who the murder suspects were, and Alec had not told her. He only wished he could believe for a moment that the knowledge would make her steer clear of them.

I
n the dusk, Alec drew up in the street outside Septimus Mummery's abode. It was not one of the mansions with acres of gardens backing onto Wimbledon Common, once a favourite haunt of highwaymen. Nonetheless it was sizable, built of red brick, with an air of solid worth. Judging from the extent of the front garden, separated from the street by a neat beech hedge, the house probably stood on a good half acre.

“Cor,” said Ross in dismay, disengaging long legs from the Austin Seven's less than spacious back seat, “a house that big's going to take forever to search.”

“Not too bad,” Piper disagreed from the vantage point of experience. “There'll be servants, and where there's servants there's not many places they don't stick their noses in. Right, Sarge?”

“Right, laddie. Doesn't look as if Mr. Mummery's short of a penny, Chief.”

Though Alec had not yet seen the numbers, he doubted a Natural History Museum curator earned much more than a Met Detective Chief Inspector. He himself had inherited his house from his father, a bank manager. It looked as if Mummery had money in the family, which meant there was a
chance he was living beyond his income in an effort to keep up appearances.

The garden appeared well kept, the visible part all trees and shrubs rather than labour-exacting flowerbeds. The house was in good condition too, with no sign of peeling or flaking paint on window frames or doors.

At one of the ground floor windows, a light shone behind drawn curtains. A cheerful-looking middle-aged parlourmaid answered the doorâjust the sort Tom Tring got on with best. While remaining devoted to his wife, Tom had a way with female servants that often provided useful information.

The maid's eyes widened when Alec showed his warrant card. “You've not come to arrest the master?” she gasped.

“No, I'd like to speak to him.”

Leaving the others in the hall, he followed close on her heels as she headed towards a door at the rear. He wanted to see Mummery's reaction to his arrival.

Unfortunately, the Curator of Fossil Reptiles was facing the other way, only his untamable mop of hair visible above his chair's back. He was seated by a cheerful fire, with a chess board on a small table in front of him. His opponent was a young man in a wheelchair.

In spite of the scars, the black patch over one eye, and the pallor of ill-health, the round facial bone structure and mismatched hook nose revealed the relationship. Mummery's son had no right arm. When he turned the wheelchair to look towards the door, Alec saw his legs ended above the knee. He had to pivot the wheelchair to see, because his head was immovably tilted towards his right shoulder.

Unfortunately, young Mummery's condition did not alter Alec's duty to search the house. It just made him feel like an absolute rotter.

He hoped he had at least succeeded in hiding his shock.

Mummery jumped up. He looked anxious, but no more so than any householder unexpectedly called upon by the police. He still had on the dark suit with sagging pockets which he wore at work when he was not in a laboratory coat. No money for evening clothes? Alec wondered. Or did he not change for dinner in deference to his son's difficulty in doing likewise?

“How can I help you, Chief Inspector?” he asked, surprisingly civilly.

“May I have a private word with you, sir?”

“Oh, no secrets here! This is my son, Andrew. Andy, Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher of Scotland Yard.”

“How do you do, Mr. Fletcher.” His voice was a hoarse, breathless gasp. Mustard gas, Alec guessedâa bad hit, attacking the tissues and followed by gangrene, but he must have managed not to breathe too deeply or he would be dead.

Not that he was likely to live long anyway, when a simple cold would inevitably lead to deadly pneumonia in those corroded lungs. Five years since the War endedâhe must have very good care. Expensive care.

He gave Alec a crooked grin and wheezed, “My father may not look it, but he's delighted at the interruption. I have him in check.”

Alec crossed to the board and studied it. He didn't have time to play often or seriously, though he had taught Bel the moves, but he could see Mummery was in trouble. “So you do, sir,” he said.

“Andy had a good teacher,” Mummery observed affectionately, “though I say it as shouldn't.”

“I shan't keep you from your game, sir. I'm afraid I have a search warrant and I must ask you not to hinder my men in the execution of their duty.”

Mummery's lips tightened, but instead of the expected outburst he said mildly, “Go ahead. My daughter's upstairs but she's not likely to take fright.”

Tom was at the hall door. Alec nodded to him, and turned back to the sitting room as Mummery asked the obvious question: “Looking for those damned gemstones, eh?âSorry, dear. My wife, Chief Inspector.”

A woman stood in the doorway connecting with the front room. Tallânearly a head taller than her husband, Alec estimatedâand fine-drawn, she wore a well-cut but plain navy wool dress and pearls, a circlet at her throat, not a fashionable knee-length rope. She gave Alec a rather remote nod, her gaze going past him to her son.

Her tense shoulders relaxed a little as Andrew produced that heartbreaking, lopsided grin and said, “Excitement upon excitement, Mother. I'm beating Dad hollow, and now, to top it, a police raid!”

“Excitement upon excitement,” she echoed dryly. “Darling, perhaps the Chief Inspector would like a sherry. I know I should.”

Mummery cocked his dishevelled head at Alec, who said, “Not for me, thank you.”

“No booze in the course of duty,” said Andrew. “I don't know that you ought, Mother. Goodness knows what effect it will have on those lectures you're working on. Mother's preparing for the Michaelmas term, Mr. Fletcher. She's a prof at Bedford College, if you haven't ferreted out that tidbit for yourself.”

“I hadn't,” Alec admitted. Two incomes, then. “Have you a desk in there, sir?” he asked as Mummery took his wife a glass of sherry. They deliberately touched hands, Alec noticed, inferring a close relationship. “Do you mind â¦ ?”

Mummery's shaggy eyebrows twitched in exasperation. “Do I have a choice? Here's the key.” He turned away. “Just you wait, Andy, I'll escape and checkmate you yet.”

“Nothing, Chief,” Tom Tring reported when they all returned to the car. “Leastways, if he split âem up and hid them all separately, we could've missed them, but I'd've thought we'd find at least one, and there'd be a big risk of someone else finding them.”

“You looked at the daughter's room?”

“Yes. There wasn't any place she or the maids wouldn't get into. Nice young lady, dolling herself up to go out with college friends, she being a student. She was worried her brother'd be upset about us. I told her he didn't seem like it to me.”

“Turn left here, Chief,” said Ernie Piper from the back seat.

It was dark now, and out here in the suburbs lamp-posts were few and far between. For a few minutes, until Piper had extricated them from the winding streets around the common, Alec concentrated on driving. Then his mind returned to the Mummerys.

The curator's desk was covered with books and journals on fossil reptiles, and a monograph in progress. Papers in the drawers, however, revealed an adequate income, from earnings and a few minor investments, with no evidence of debts. The house was freehold, unmortgaged. The latest quarterly bank statement had no extraordinary payments in or out.

The only unusual expenditures were for Miss Mummery's college fees and a nurse to care for Andrew part-time during the university terms. Neither apparently strained the family budget.

But Alec had found a file of brochures and letters describing
a cure for gas-injured lungs. They came from America, land of medical miracles and quacks, and the price quoted was enormous. At the bottom of the file was a letter from a Harley Street doctor and professor at Guy's medical school, which mercilessly unmasked the “cure” as sheer fraud. The sheet had been screwed up, and then smoothed out again. Alec could not begin to guess at the emotions consequent on its receipt.

Yet Mummery had kept the papers. Did hope linger? If so, the jewels lying in their cases in the Mineralogy Gallery might have presented an irresistible temptation, and one difficult to condemn.

The last thing Alec had expected was to come away from Wimbledon full of sympathy for the choleric reptile curator. Now he saw the man's bad temper at work as a respite from the tight hold he must keep on his emotions at home. And his focus on the complex details of his profession could be seen as a temporary refuge from the inescapable horror of his son's condition.

“D'you reckon,” said Tom Tring, who had been meditating in silence while the two in the back talked quietly, “they could all be in it together, Chief? The family, that is, if it was for the young chap's sake.” He pitched his voice too low for the constables to hear.

“It's possible. Would you have searched differently if you had thought of that before?”

“Mebbe,” Tom admitted reluctantly.

“Forget it,” said Alec, “unless we find evidence tying Mummery to the murder.”

He drove over Richmond Bridge, and Piper directed him to Ruddlestone's house.

Ruddlestone lived at the end of a narrow street leading down to the river. The houses were also narrow but tall, quite
substantial though joined in terrace rows of five or six. The last three, at the lower end of the street, had low, gateless walls in front which had to be surmounted by stepsâa reminder that after centuries of effort, the Thames was only partly tamed. The coincidence of spring tides with heavy rains upstream still brought flooding.

One by one, the detectives tramped up the steps and down the other side, crowding the small paved forecourt already occupied by a tub of scarlet geraniums as yet untouched by frost. Alec rapped with the shell-shaped iron knocker.

No one answered, but lights glowed in windows and the sound of voices came to them. He banged again, more vigorously.

A boy in grey flannels and a Fair Isle jersey opened the door. There was no question of his welcomeâhe was thrilled to death to have four Scotland Yard 'tecs requesting admittance. As he invited them in, a small girl peered at them from behind him, then dashed off crying, “Daddy, it's the police. There's
lots
of them. Come and see.”

Through an open door on the right, Alec saw a dining table with school books spread across it. The mantelpiece beyond was crammed with shells and bits of coralâthe tools of Ruddlestone's trade, so to speakâvaried by a doll and two toy motor-cars.

The boy said dismissively, “I'll finish my homework later. Have you come to talk to my father about the museum murder?”

Alec left Tom to answer or evade the lad's questions. As Ruddlestone did not appear, he went after the girl, towards the rear of the hall.

She popped back into sight. “Daddy says he can't leave
the jam just now or Mummy will have his guts for garters, so will you please come in here.”

The fossil invertebrate curator was in his shirtsleeves, standing at the stove in a large kitchen. Face and bald dome red from the heat, wooden spoon in massive hand, he stirred a huge pan from which rose steam scented with cooking blackberries. Empty jam jars waited on the nearby table. A girl of twelve or so was washing up at the sink, with a younger boy drying.

Ruddlestone grinned at Alec. “Good evening, Fletcher. Sorry, but if I take my eyes off this for more than ten seconds, it will infallibly boil over.”

“Undoubtedly,” Alec agreed.

“It's a sort of corollary to Boyle's Second Law. You know the one? Watt's pots never Boyle.” He laughed. “My wife's upstairs putting the little ones to bed, and this stuff gets too hot for children to handle safely. What can I do for you?”

Ruddlestone kept stirring, his eyes on the bubbling, deep red contents of his pan, as Alec explained about the search warrant. The small girl, busy cutting lengths of string and squares of waxed paper to top the pots, interrupted.

“Daddy, you're s'posed to keep checking if it's ready to set, or it'll cook too much and waste all the berries we picked.”

“Quite right,” Ruddlestone said cheerfully, and dropped a splodge of jam onto a saucer. “No, still runny. All right, Fletcher, you'd better get on with it, but please try not to upset the children upstairs. James, run up and warn your mother that they're coming, please.”

“How many more?” Alec asked.

“Let's see, three in here; Roger doing his homework, I hope; that leaves three, if I'm not mistaken.”

“You know you're not, Daddy,” said the dish-drying boy severely, departing with the damp tea-towel slung rakishly around his neck.

BOOK: Rattle His Bones

11.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads