The Gentle Art of Murder

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Alan pulled himself together and stopped grumbling. ‘It could mean nothing at all, but it’s curious. Sometimes the airlines give these things back to you after they’ve issued the boarding passes. They’re useless at that point, but I’ve seen people tuck them into pockets for some reason or other.’

  ‘But that would mean that someone returned to the college from Greece. And the only person from the college who went to Greece never came back. And yet he had to come back, didn’t he, because he was found dead here. Alan, none of it makes sense!’

  ‘Chandler is the only person we know went to Greece recently,’ Alan pointed out with that annoying logic of his. ‘There could have been any number of others. And this piece of paper could have been lying about for any length of time. Didn’t someone say that the studios weren’t cleaned very often?’

  ‘I think someone at the college mentioned it, and Bob says Ada only works there a few times a month now, except of course when there’s a disaster like the one in the print room. Budget problems again, I suppose. I wish we could read the date!’

  ‘And the name. I’ll take this to Derek this afternoon and see if he can send it to a lab. They can do amazing things with filters and so on.’ He patted my hand. ‘Sorry I was cross. It’s an important find, and I’m happy you managed to retrieve it.’

  I grinned. ‘I’m happy you’re over the sulks! Now, how about helping me finish off that crumble from the other night?’

  We hadn’t seen a lot of Gillian the past few days. She was out of the house before we got up, most days, and staying at the college until quite late, working frantically on new sculptures for the London gallery. Tonight she came home for a supper break, before going back to work some more, and we told her all about the find. She was only mildly interested. ‘Probably something someone dropped ages ago. Students are forever going to Greece. Well, it’s a Mecca for anyone interested in classical art, isn’t it? And I don’t see that it’s going to help find Matt. We’re all getting really worried about him, you know?’

  ‘No one’s heard anything from him, then?’ I put down my fork, not very hungry anymore.

  ‘Not as far as I know. His students are getting upset, too. He’s not just a super artist, you know, he’s a terrific teacher, too. No one else in the department knows a lot about woodcuts or lithographs or etchings or any of that, so they’re all working on those giclée prints, which isn’t really proper printmaking at all, is it? And nasty Will is trying to talk them into dropping printmaking and enrolling in his painting classes.’

  ‘Is he any better at teaching than he is at painting?’ asked Alan, one eyebrow raised.

  ‘Not really. Some of his students are pretty good, but it’s more or less in spite of him. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in class, which isn’t such a bad thing, actually. He’s always off to galleries or shows or other pathetic attempts to promote his work.’

  ‘Penny said his latest work is better than his older stuff.’

  ‘She mentioned that to me, too. She’s nice, isn’t she? I try never to look at Will’s paintings if I can help it. They give me indigestion.’

  ‘Well, then, how about your own work? How’s it coming?’ Alan and I had been ferrying quite a lot of clay to the college at intervals.

  ‘Oh, it’s just super! I don’t mean the finished products. They’re not far enough along yet that I can judge, though Dennis is less critical than usual, so I have hopes. I’m doing a series of heads, did I tell you?’

  She had, but I smiled and gestured for her to go on.

  ‘They’re different nationalities, and it’s such a challenge! Did you know that a Japanese head is usually slightly wider side to side than from front to back? Europeans are just the opposite, and Africans vary a lot from country to country. So it isn’t just the facial features that have to be right! And then there are the clothes, not much, of course, for just a head, but the Japanese woman – I’ve named her Masako, after a friend – she has to have the suggestion of a kimono, and her hair has to be in a geisha style. And the Ethiopian man is so splendid, old, but strong and proud, with a beard and a turban – oh, it’s just so great to have my hands in clay all the time, to be doing what I want to do!’

  ‘What you were born to do,’ said Alan gently.

  Gillian got up from the table and gave him a hug. ‘Thank you for that! And thanks, Dorothy, for another marvellous meal. And now I need to get on my bike.’

  ‘She’s a different girl from the dejected one of a while back,’ I commented as we washed dishes.

  ‘She’s doing work she loves. But if we can’t work out what’s gone so badly wrong at the college, she may not be able to keep on doing it. Derek thinks the lab can get some good results from that disgusting printout, and that may give us some sort of direction.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’

  ‘You know the story, love. The lab always has more work than it can get through, and more urgent cases take priority.’

  ‘But this is connected to a murder! How much more urgent can it get?’

  ‘We think there’s a connection. Derek thinks there’s a connection. But there’s no proof of that so far, and unless or until they can work out how Chandler died, there’s no absolute proof that a murder has in fact taken place.’

  I slapped my sponge down in the dishwater and created a miniature geyser that soaked the front of my apron. ‘Drat! But this is so frustrating!’

  Alan handed me the dish towel. ‘Most criminal investigation is.’

  EIGHTEEN

  That evening, as we sat around watching a really boring western movie on TV, I had an idea. ‘Alan, are Derek and co. doing anything about looking into Chandler’s background? You remember, you had some questions about how he managed to get a professorship, or whatever it was, at an Ivy League college. And exactly when he won that architecture award. And so on.’

  ‘He’s put out feelers. I don’t know that he’s had any replies. As I said earlier, there are never enough resources to do the job in a hurry.’

  ‘As you’ve said for years, in fact, beloved. That’s why I think, tomorrow, I’m going to look up that secretary. I can’t remember her name. The one who got fired?’

  Alan made one of his equivocal noises that can mean almost anything, but usually implies a degree of scepticism.

  ‘She’s bound to have seen his papers, from when he was hired. And she probably knows where they are now. I think she might have some very useful information.’

  ‘She has no reason to love Chandler. We don’t know that she’d tell the truth about him.’

  ‘No, we don’t. But I’m predisposed to trust her, if only because she’s been handed such a rotten deal.’

  ‘A victim is always one of the good guys in the white hats?’ said Alan, glancing at the screen where several white hats and black hats were shooting it out.

  ‘Not always, except in the movies. But in this case I’m presuming innocence until proven guilty of something.’

  ‘Ah, the great basis of English jurisprudence. I think that chap has just fired seventeen bullets from his six-shooter. Who edits these films, I wonder? And how do you propose to find a nameless woman who hasn’t worked at the college in quite some time?’

  ‘I’ll ask Dennis,’ I said smugly. ‘He’ll know. He’s sorry for her. And you can’t possibly have been counting shots and talking at the same time.’

  ‘A policeman,’ said Alan, ‘can count shots in his sleep. Would you care for a nightcap before we go up?’

  Alan obviously had little faith in my ability to find the secretary, but I was sure I could. Whether she’d talk to me was another matter. I don’t suppose she had much reason to care who killed John Chandler, but she might be interested in telling me anything she knew to his discredit. If there was anything. But darn it all, we were pretty sure Braithwaite had been blackmailing him, so there had to be something he wanted to hide.

  I woke well before dawn on Tuesday to a torrent of rain on the roof. Tha
t meant puddles to mop up. It also meant Gillian would be glad of a ride to the campus. I would have loved to snuggle back with my soft pillows and my lovely warm husband. It was that sort of morning. But duty called, so I slid out from under the covers, and Watson, as unobtrusively as I could and shrugged into my bathrobe.

  Gillian came down just as the coffee was done. I made toast and tea and we sipped and nibbled in a sleepy early-morning silence which Gillian finally broke after a stretch and a yawn. ‘I really, really do not want to get out in that rain today.’

  ‘That’s why I got up early,’ I said. ‘I have an errand to the college, and I thought I’d drive you, if you can wait a couple of minutes for me to get dressed.’

  ‘Brilliant! Take all the time you need; I’m in no hurry.’

  The sound of our voices had brought the animals to the kitchen. I asked Gilly to feed them and went up to get into some clothes. I found Alan half awake but, like me, showing no eagerness to rise and shine.

  ‘I’m driving Gilly to the college,’ I said, ‘and then going to try to talk to Dennis. Expect me back when you see me.’

  My reply was an inarticulate grunt.

  Gilly was truly awake by the time we got on our way. ‘What’s your mission at the college today, Dorothy?’ she asked.

  ‘I need to talk to Dennis. I hope he’ll be there.’

  ‘He won’t be happy, but he’ll be there. He doesn’t like early mornings, but Charming Chandler arranged his schedule this term to have early classes four days a week. He wasn’t best pleased when he found out.’

  I grinned. ‘That’s a wonderful example of the British understatement I enjoy so much. Will he be too grumpy to talk to me?’

  ‘Not if you take him some coffee. He really misses the office coffee pot.’

  So I made a quick stop at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and an insulated mug to keep it warm, dropped Gilly as close to the Fine Arts building as I could, and searched for a parking space, which took me another fifteen minutes. I was glad I’d bought the mug.

  The campus hummed with activity. Students, dressed in everything from shorts and tees to full rain gear, trotted from one building to another. Actually, the ones in waterproofs were probably staff, old enough to worry about chills. The young never seem to mind being soaking wet or freezing cold. I suppose looking cool, or whatever the current word was, was more important to them than being comfortable. One’s willingness to tolerate discomfort wanes, I had found, with increasing years.

  I was quite wet enough myself by the time I walked into the building. My shoes were squishing. It would, I mused, have made more sense to wait until a bit later in the day, when the rain might have slacked off and Dennis might be in a better mood. Too late now. I found my way to the sculpture studios and walked into a class in progress.

  In my long experience in the classroom, first as a child, then in college, and then teaching myself, a class was a well-organized affair, with recognizable patterns. The teacher was up front, demonstrating or explaining or lecturing. The students sat at desks and listened (or didn’t), took notes (or didn’t), put into practice what they had been taught (or goofed off). I had never, at any stage of my life, had the slightest degree of artistic ability, so had never taken an art class beyond the kindergarten painting with huge brushes and tempera paints. In my own teaching career, my art lessons were fairly pathetic efforts more aptly described as crafts.

  So this class was a revelation to me. These were plainly advanced students, working in clay to be cast in whatever material was available. Dennis roamed about the room, suggesting here, correcting there, calling everyone to attention to demonstrate something that most of the students needed to see. I stood in the back and watched. I couldn’t make sense of what the students were doing for the most part, but they were hard at work and seemed themselves to know what they were doing. One of them looked up at me, smiled, and shouted, ‘Dennis! One of your lady friends!’

  I would have flown out the classroom window before I’d addressed one of my college professors by his first name. As Gillian had so rightly said, ‘autres temps, autres moeurs’.

  Dennis, after taking a swipe or two at a student’s work with a small tool of some sort, came over to me. ‘And what’s my lady friend up to?’

  ‘Not much, and I’m hoping you can get me going. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

  He shrugged and gestured to the big room.

  I shook my head, only a slight gesture, but the student who had noticed me caught it and gave us a knowing look.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dennis, I need to sit down in a proper chair!’ I pitched my voice a little louder than necessary and in more of an old-lady croak than necessary. The student lost interest as Dennis led me into small room used apparently to store that miscellany of things that just might come in handy sometime. There was in fact a chair, though ‘proper’ wasn’t exactly the adjective I’d have chosen for it. I stayed standing.

  ‘I didn’t want the students to hear,’ I said very quietly. ‘Things get so badly distorted. But I’m checking into a few things about Chandler, and I wondered if you had an address and or phone number for the former secretary. I’ve forgotten her name.’

  He looked at me with suspicion. ‘You don’t think she had anything to do with his death, do you? Because I can tell you right now, she didn’t. She couldn’t.’

  I didn’t argue with him, though Alan has drilled it into me that almost anyone can kill, given the right (or probably the wrong) circumstances. ‘No, I’m just wanting to learn more about the man’s background, and I thought she might know where his credentials would be filed. You know, the paperwork submitted when he was first hired, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Haven’t the police looked at that?’

  ‘They haven’t got around to it yet. They will, in time, but I thought I might speed things up a bit. Being married to a retired policeman, I know just how understaffed they are.’

  ‘And being a Miss Marple, you want to snoop.’

  It was said with the hint of a smile, and I smiled back. ‘Exactly! So do you have contact information for Mrs What’s-her-name?’

  ‘MacInnes. Amy MacInnes. And yes, I have her address, in my office. This lot is about to move on, so if you can wait a few minutes, I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘Thank you very much. And oh, before I forget, I brought you something.’ I fished in the small bag I was carrying over my wrist and brought out the mug. ‘Still hot, I hope.’

  He bent to it and inhaled deeply. ‘Heaven! For that I’ll leave these budding geniuses to their own devices and get what you need right this minute.’ He took off the lid and took a deep swig. ‘God, I needed that. I don’t know what sadistic idiot invented eight o’clock classes. Come along.’

  When we had reached the privacy of his office, he said, ‘Okay, what’s really on your mind?’

  ‘What I said. I want more information about Chandler’s background.’

  ‘Something dicey about it?’

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t. I have no idea.’ Well, I had ideas, but they were only that, and I had no intention of discussing them with someone I barely knew. I liked Dennis, but I couldn’t afford to trust him or anyone else in the department just yet. ‘I’m grasping at straws. So if you have that address …’

  After searching various drawers, he finally found a piece of paper and handed it to me. ‘Here, but you’ll have to copy it. And the office copy machine is down. Again.’

  I found a scrap of paper and the stub of a pencil, and wrote down the address and phone number. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell me where this is. I ought to know my way around Sherebury after all these years, but I confess that I don’t, apart from a few well-travelled rounds. I still find English roads extremely confusing.’

  He gave me a thoughtful look. ‘I could tell you, but as I have a break just now, why don’t I take you there? I’ll drive, and you can follow.’

  It didn’t take much insight to read his mind. He wanted
to make sure I didn’t browbeat Mrs MacInnes or accuse her of crimes or whatever dastardly deeds he thought I might commit. I smiled sweetly. ‘That would be lovely. In that case, I’ll leave my thumbscrews in the car when we go in.’

  He just shook his head and gestured for me to leave the office first.

  He drove me to my car. His was closer, in a staff-only parking area, and the rain was still pouring down in Niagara fashion. He might not think much of me, but he was thoughtful. When I got into my own car and set out to follow him, I appreciated his slow pace and careful signals. My windshield wipers were hard put to keep up with the floods of water sweeping over the glass.

  I was glad he’d made the offer to show me the way, whatever his motives. I’d have got lost several times in the twisting streets, even if I had been able to see properly. We wound up at a biggish house near the edge of town. From what I could see of it through the rain, it looked like a once proud house now definitely in need of attention. Flaking paint on the trim, front steps in poor repair, a roof tile missing here and there. And it seemed way too large for an impoverished widow and two small children.

  I pulled my hood over my head and got out, heading for the front steps. Dennis got out of his car and took my arm. ‘Basement flat,’ he said. ‘Round this way.’

  He led me around to what must, long ago, have been the tradesmen’s entrance, and rang the bell. There was no roof over the door, no shelter from the rain and wind. I huddled in my rain gear and hoped Mrs MacInnes was home.

  She was. I heard the sound of someone climbing stairs, and the wail of a fretful child. There was a pause, then the door opened.

  The woman who stood there had certainly been beautiful once. Now her skin and hair were neglected. Her clothes hung on her, and she wore the expression of someone very nearly at the end of her rope.

  ‘Dennis! It’s good to see you, but why are you out on such a dreadful day? And have you had the measles? I think David is coming down with them.’

  Dennis looked at me, and I nodded. ‘We both have. May we come in?’