Rattle His Bones (23 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: Rattle His Bones
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“I thought I'd better telephone, Gov'nor, him coming this time on a Sunday, and in all this muck … .”
“Well done—Culver, is it? I'll remember you. Now, who has the key? Right, open up. One of you inside and one stationed just outside—Steadman is not to be allowed to leave on any pretext whatsoever. You can arrest him if he refuses to stay with you. There will be more men arriving any minute in case we have to chase him all over this damn pile. Tring, Culver, come with me.”
They could have done with Piper to lead them to the nearest staircase, but with the aid of Tom's torch, they found it. Only when he saw the door at the top did Alec remember that it was kept locked to bar the public from the basement.
In the lead, Tom, his weariness forgotten now that an arrest was in sight, turned the handle. The door opened. Maybe Steadman had left it unlocked to facilitate his escape.
“Stay here, Culver,” Alec ordered in a low voice.
He and Tom emerged into the North Hall and paused to listen. Not a sound. The massive building felt like a mausoleum—as indeed it was, for the corpses and bare bones of countless creatures.
“I bet Steadman wears rubber-soled shoes, Chief.” No morbid fancies for Tom Tring, the ever-practical. “He'd never have got away with it else.”
“Yes. Keep your eyes peeled. The dinosaur gallery's the obvious place to try first. I'm suspicious of that new skeleton he's been setting up.”
“Salty puss,” said Tom with a muted chuckle.
“You take this side.”
The elephantine sentinel loomed through the fog-hazed twilight of the Central Hall. “The vasty hall of death”: The phrase sprang unbidden into Alec's mind. Matthew Arnold,
Requiescat
, he supplied automatically. Someone's spirit “doth inherit the vasty hall …” Whose?
Strew on her daisies, daisies, and never a spray of yew. A girl, then. A nameless girl.
But of course it was roses, not daisies. Not Daisy. A prickle of unease shivered down his spine. She
couldn't
be here, not on a foggy Sunday night, her research finished, as she herself had told him.
Wise Tom, to eschew fancies. Yet that was why he'd never advanced beyond the rank of sergeant. In Murder Squad parlance, he hadn't the “nose.” Alec had. Something was wrong.
Ahead, the electric light in the police post made a circle of cheer, though it would have been more cheering if any of the officers had been there. They must be on patrol somewhere about the place. Alec was not sure whether to hope they came upon Steadman or not.
As Tom joined him, he glanced at the panel which controlled all the lights in the museum—one could not have visiting children messing about with switches. It must cost a fortune to light the place. At night, he knew, only a few dim lights were used, because of the expense. Given the evening's early darkness, why had they not been switched on?
“I wouldn't mess with that, Chief.” Tom might not have the nose, but he sometimes read Alec's thoughts.
“No, it's far too complicated,” he agreed reluctantly, “and sudden light might warn Steadman. Let's go.”
Though neither was an Ernie Piper, after studying the plans and reconnoitring the territory, they could have found their way in complete darkness. As they reached the arch to the reptile gallery, Alec whispered, “You go round through the cephalopod gallery, Tom. Remember Steadman has keys. He can get away by the door to the General Library and those stairs to the basement. We may have secured the back door, but I'd rather not have to hunt for him down there.”
Alec waited a couple of minutes to let Tom reach the connecting archway. Then he crossed the reptile gallery and peered into the dinosaur gallery. The far end was lost in shadows. Scanning the nearer part, he saw a dark heap on the floor some twenty yards away, with two whitish objects lying beside it.
As he moved to investigate, a scraping sound came from the other end. Tom's bulk flitted across the centre to a point between the source of the noise and the library door, then receded into the shadows.
Hurrying to join him, Alec stopped dead as the dark heap sat up and said with shaky indignation, in Daisy's voice, “The Grand Duke hit me!”
“Daisy, it's not …” Alec babbled, dropping to his knees beside her, “it can't … What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
From the far corner of the gallery came a crash—bang—thump—groan, followed by Tom Tring's boom: “James Steadman, in the name of the law, I arrest you for larceny. Other charges may be preferred against you. I must warn you that you have the right not to speak, but anything you choose to say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.” Handcuffs clicked.
“It's not what it looks like,” squeaked Steadman.
“The Grand Duke hit you?” queried Alec, his arms around Daisy.
“Everything under control here, Chief,” Tom reported. “What's going on? Did I hear Miss Dalrymple?”
“She says the Grand Duke hit her.”
“That's right,” Steadman confirmed in a shaky voice. “It was the Grand Duke. I saw everything. I was just collecting the stolen jewels to hand over to the police.”
“Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“Yes. Sort of. My head aches frightfully.”
“Mine's beginning to. What happened?”
“We caught Rudolf Maximilian extracting the jewels from the dinosaurs' skulls.” Daisy leaned back against Alec's comfortingly broad chest. “The others chased him, but I came back to make sure the jewels were safe. He must have eluded them and followed me, and hit me on the head.”
“With this.” Alec reached out for one of the white objects, long, heavy, curved, tapering, “a broken rib, if I'm not mistaken.”
Daisy started to laugh. She couldn't help it, though it made her head hurt worse.
“My poor darling,” Alec said tenderly, kissing her ear. “But this is no time to get hysterical.”
“Shall I let Mr. Steadman go?” Tom called.
“No, not yet, though I can't see him breaking a precious dinosaur bone.”
“I wouldn't,” Steadman affirmed.
“But it's not!” said Daisy.
“She's concussed,” Alec said worriedly.
At that moment the lights went on.
Over by Saltopus, a ladder lay on the floor. Steadman sprawled beside it, on his back, his hands cuffed before him. Tom stood over him, splinters of shattered Saltopus skull scattered about his feet. Amidst the shards, gems winked red, purple, and green.
“It's plaster of Paris,” said Daisy, “like the Diplodocus rib. I think I understand, now.”
“I don't!” Alec and Tom chorused.
The unmistakable sound of police boots approached beyond the entrance arch. Sergeant Jameson appeared, followed by Constables Mason and Neddle, with a sullen, disconsolate, handcuffed Grand Duke between them.
“Miss Dalrymple!” cried Jameson, running forward. “What the … ? Oh lor', Chief Inspector Fletcher!” He skidded to a halt, saluting, then saw Tom Tring and Steadman. “Oh lor', what's happened?”
“The Grand Duke hit Miss Dalrymple over the head with a dinosaur bone,” said Alec, without any great degree of conviction.
“I do not! Chentlemans not hit ladies. Only want mine ruby, de odders for police to find I was leave. I not never will not hit Miss Dalrymple,” declared Rudolf Maximilian passionately.
“Can't've, sir, and that's the truth. We was chasing him, four of us, right up till he went up to the Upper Mammals on the second floor and we nabbed him when he tried to hide in with the chimpanzees.”
“'Sright, sir,” said Sergeant Drummond, coming in behind the others. “Had him in sight the whole time, if it was only his heels. What's been going on here, then?”
Alec, still kneeling with his arm around Daisy's shoulders, looked down at her and said, “Miss Dalrymple claims to know.”
“Not
know,”
Daisy demurred, “but it's more of an educated deduction than sheer guesswork.”
“Pray tell,” said Alec.
“Mr. Tring, those jewels at your feet, are they actually embedded in the plaster?”
Tom bent down and picked up a chunk in one massive hand. With the other, he hauled Steadman to his feet as he straightened, keeping hold of the curator's arm. “Yes, Miss Dalrymple, right inside.”
“That settles it, I think.” Her head aching like billy-oh, Daisy cut her explanation as short as possible. “Mr. Steadman stole the jewels and hid them in the dinosaurs' heads. Grand
Duke Rudolf could conceivably have done so, but he couldn't possibly have moulded some into the Saltopus skull. I believe he overheard Sergeant Jameson and me discussing it, and decided to try for his ruby, but he must have missed our planning to search tonight.”
“Was lots noisy pee-ople,” said Rudolf sulkily.
“He must have come in here very soon after Atkins cleared the public out. Mr. Jameson and I found him here, assumed he was the thief, and gave chase. I hadn't considered that this was the logical time for Mr. Steadman to retrieve his loot, on a Sunday evening, when none of his colleagues would be working late.”
There, that would have to satisfy them for now. Daisy's head was pounding and swimming at the same time, and she simply did not have the pep to go into more detail. As for the murder, she didn't even want to think about it. She had to leave something for Alec to solve.
“And now, please, darling, I want to go home!”
“Can you stand, love? Careful.” He helped her to rise, steadied her when she wobbled, then swept her up into his arms. “Sergeant Tring, you're in charge. You can take both of 'em in. We have evidence and witnesses enough to hold them both.”
 
The sun shone bright on Primrose Hill. The night's hoar frost lingered in shady spots, but the air was warm. Ginger pigtails flying, Belinda raced ahead with Nana on the lead.
“They make me feel old,” said Daisy.
“How's the bump?”
“Still there. And painful to the touch,” she warned as Alec unceremoniously pulled off her hat and ran his fingers gently through her curls. “No headache for the past three days, thank heaven.”
“I could kill the brute!” Alec said savagely, then he sighed. “No, I couldn't. He certainly didn't intend to kill you, or he'd have succeeded. Weedy as he looks, he's actually quite muscular.”
“From heaving dinosaur bones about, I expect. That is, I take it you mean Steadman, not Grand Duke Rudolf?”
“Oh, yes, it was Steadman who hit you, and who killed Pettigrew. Your educated deductions were remarkably correct in all essentials.”
Daisy frowned up at him, indignant. “What do you mean, remarkably?”
“Pax, sweetheart!” Alec kissed her nose. “Just that you really were slightly concussed at the time you expounded your theory.”
“Oh, right-oh. But that was all about the jewels. Did he confess to murdering Pettigrew?”
“In the end. Once we focused on Steadman, and asked the right questions, we obtained other evidence with which to confront him.”
“Such as?”
“He told the assistants in the work room he was going to compare the bones he was working on with some in the reptile gallery, not leaving to go home, as he told us. We could have eliminated the Grand Duke early on, incidentally, and ffinch-Brown as well, if I'd taken note of the hammer shaft's being found in the basement. Neither had access.”
“Gosh, I never thought of that, either,” Daisy admitted. Seeing Alec on the point of asking who had told her about the shaft, she hurried on: “Steadman met Pettigrew in the reptile gallery purely by chance?”
“Yes. Steadman's claiming self-defense. With a good lawyer, he might get away with manslaughter, though the theft will count against him. He'll be put away for a good
long stretch for that, I'm sure. The odd thing is, all he seems worried about is that we shouldn't think he stole the gems for personal reasons. He …”
“Don't tell me! He wanted to set up his own expedition to hunt dinosaurs?”
“Daisy, how the deuce … ?”
“You know my methods, Watson.”
“He told you!”
“Yes, actually. Alec, what about Rudolf Maximilian?”
“We're dropping charges. He's dropping his claim to the ruby. There's some talk of a royal pension for his family.”
“Oh, good!”
“Daddy! Aunt Daisy!” Belinda came tearing down the slope towards them, laughing as the puppy almost pulled her off her feet.
“Just one quick question, love, before they get here. I've been promised a fortnight's leave. Will you marry me right away? I'm afraid there won't be time to arrange an elaborate wedding.”

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