The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2)

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘He was Alaric’s. I suppose you know? The dog doesn’t seem to like me much, never did really. He tolerates Hugo, but hates me. He likes to annoy me by being sick on my nice Persian carpet. Wretched animal! But I’ve never really got on with dogs, especially not this one. I think they sense my fear. He’s missing Alaric awfully, and Hugo has had to go out and leave him behind today, so he’s feeling doubly deserted. But won’t you sit down?’

  Her manner was vague and off-hand, slightly annoyed at being disturbed. Posie came straight to the point:

  ‘I appreciate we don’t know each other, Lady Cosima. But I need your help. I have something here which belonged to Alaric, and whilst I know this must be a sensitive subject for you, I hope you may be able to shed some light on how I might be able to find him.’

  She passed across the bee coin.

  ‘Does this mean anything to you at all? I think it’s important.’

  Cosima held onto it and swigged her white wine down in one go, her flame-red hair swinging wildly into her face like uncoiled serpents.

  Posie waited with bated breath. Cosima then told her the same thing Lord Roderick and Lady Violet had done: that it was a necklace which Alaric wore almost always, that it was almost unthinkable he would go anywhere without it.

  ‘But do you know where it’s from?’ persisted Posie. ‘Did you give it to Alaric, perhaps? Is the clue in its origins? A love-token, maybe? I know you were lovers…’

  Cosima shook her head firmly, coldly. ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid. Alaric and I were in love briefly, but I decided we had to part, and I don’t regret that decision one jot: it was for the best. He loved me far more than I loved him. My love for Alaric was not strong enough to make it work in the long-term. I need my marriage with Hugo to work. Both Hugo and Alaric know the score on that point, and we are all fine with it. What is past is past. Over. Fini. I can’t help you I’m afraid.’

  Posie cursed silently: she felt like she was at a dead end. From outside came the BEEP! BEEP! of the police car horn. Her ten minutes was up.

  ‘Thank you anyway,’ she said politely, reaching out for the coin again.

  ‘Wait! Just wait!’ said Lady Cosima, her pupils dilated suddenly with more than just the effect of too much wine.

  ‘Did you see the words on the back?’

  Posie nodded, biting her lip. ‘I don’t understand them though. I thought they might be names?’

  Cosima turned her enchanting green gaze on Posie for a minute, a flicker of recognition illuminating her eyes.

  ‘I have no idea what “Serafina” is,’ she said quickly. ‘But I do know what “Hyblaea” is!’

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘Alaric spoke of it. I think he used to compare his honey to it, said he was striving to make his better year upon year, like Hyblaean honey! It was a type of honey! A true honey! A mythical honey! It was known to be the best honey in the world.’

  Posie stared, open-mouthed and uncomprehending. ‘Where was it?’ she asked, trembling.

  Cosima passed the coin back and sighed. Her whole body seemed to sag with the effort her revelation had cost her.

  ‘Oh, good grief! I have no idea,’ she said wearily, bored now. She flung an arm out theatrically, indicating the conversation was at an end.

  ‘I don’t know if it really exists. I don’t even know if it was a real honey. Maybe Alaric told me, but in truth, I probably wasn’t listening. Sometimes I just drifted off when he was talking. You know, you can only hear so much about ruddy honey. It’s boring. Honey is honey. It’s all the same to me.’

  ****

  Inspector Lovelace was slightly interested but not overly encouraging when Posie reported Lady Cosima’s words back to him in the car. She showed him the bee coin but he didn’t think it was much of a lead, and not worth pursuing.

  ‘This however, is,’ he declared. He brought out Posie’s telegram to him from the previous day and Posie could see that he had filled the reverse side almost completely with his tiny neat handwriting.

  ‘I was going to cable you this morning about the information I got from the solicitors’ office about Alaric’s Will,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘But then I found circumstances had overtaken me and I was meeting you here in the Cotswolds anyway.’

  ‘What did you find out? That was quick! I expected you to go to their office today.’

  Inspector Lovelace shook his head. ‘I popped around last night after work to Pring & Proudfoot. They work late, these lawyer fellows. I had a warrant with me, just in case, but old man Proudfoot was obliging enough without it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser. Alaric did change his Will. In a mad hurry, apparently. About a month ago. Everything, including the end proceeds of a nice fat Trust, passes to his sister Violet on his death. He signed it in the office in front of the lawyers as his witnesses. But then he did something strange. He told old man Proudfoot that he was taking the new Will with him, to keep it safe.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’ Posie asked.

  The Inspector nodded. ‘Unusual and dangerous. Normally Wills are locked in the client strongrooms at the offices of Pring & Proudfoot. Old Proudfoot said he pleaded with Alaric to leave it behind with him; he knew Alaric led an “adventurous” life and he feared for the safety of the new paperwork.’

  ‘Hmmm. What happens if Alaric dies and this new Will is found to be missing?’

  ‘There’s the rub!’ said Inspector Lovelace, unhappily. ‘And that’s what has been causing poor old Proudfoot sleepless nights! If the new Will can’t be found, the old Will steps in and replaces it. And that old Will is the exact opposite of what Alaric wanted to happen.’

  ‘You mean everything, including the Trust money, goes to Roderick?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Lovelace, a glint in his eye. ‘And therefore, if Lord Roderick knew that Alaric had changed his Will it would be worth him making sure that this new Will favouring Violet never came to light. That the old Will was used.’

  Posie remembered the chaos in the annexe, the papers thrown willy-nilly all over the place as if someone had frantically been rummaging there for a particular purpose.

  ‘So at the moment Lord Roderick is the main suspect?’

  Lovelace winked at Posie. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said. ‘Good detective work is all about keeping an open mind.’

  ****

  Back in London, they dropped Posie off in Victoria. It was Thursday night, which was late-night shopping night in central London, and she was dangerously close to the Army & Navy Store. She felt in dire need of some retail therapy.

  Somehow, by seven o’clock, Posie had emerged from the depths of the store, and she found herself tripping gaily along Victoria Street armed not just with her carpet bag and her overnighter, but weighed down by two carrier bags containing a smart cream linen trouser suit, a new pair of sunglasses, a new crimson lipstick and a bottle of expensive sun-tanning oil. As if she were going on holiday!

  She also found herself (somewhat surprisingly) the proud new owner of a number of things she had no idea when she would ever use: a clever and expensive little sleeping-bag which packed down to the size of a small rucksack, a glossy Swiss army knife and some silk travelling scarves. It seemed to Posie that she had floated through the store in a subconscious daze, thinking more about the Boynton-Dales and their exciting lifestyles than about the realities of her own daily London life. But she clutched her new purchases with some degree of pride.

  Standing at Victoria Station on the dirty hot tarmac, in two minds about whether or not to head home to her bedsit in Nightingale Mews, Posie found herself inexplicably turning on her heel and heading back towards the city, towards Bloomsbury and the Grape Street Bureau. The thought of her bedsit, so unhomely and unwelcoming, with Mrs Rapier, her old dragon of a landlady making her presence felt at every step, filled her with gloom; she longed to be back in the busy hustle of the city, and to see Mr Minks again after what seemed like an age. Uncuddly th
ough he was, the cat would at least be pleased to see her in his own haughty way, which was more than could be said for Mrs Rapier. Besides, Posie now had her expensive little sleeping-bag to try out, and there might be news awaiting her at the office from Len, a letter or a telegram from France perhaps?

  She hadn’t spoken to Inspector Lovelace about Len at all in the car, despite the kind telegram he had sent her about Len’s location the previous week. There had been too much going on with the Boynton-Dale case, of course. That, and she hadn’t wanted to put the poor Inspector on the spot, especially if he knew more than he was letting on from his colleague Leferb.

  As she passed a news-stand in Covent Garden Posie saw a few cheap paperback copies of Dame Ianthe Flowers’ most recent novels for sale. She chose one at random and added it to her hoard of new purchases. It would occupy the evening ahead at any rate, and would help turn her mind from thoughts of Len if there was still no news from him. And it would remind her of Ianthe, of course.

  As she let herself into the office on Grape Street and heard Mr Minks’ familiar yowl of welcome, Posie chided herself: it really was high time she sorted out her living arrangements; she couldn’t continue to pay rent on a bedsit she hated living in, and likewise it looked unprofessional to keep staying over at the office, even if dear Prudence never raised an eyebrow about her boss’ somewhat unconventional style.

  She really needed to buy herself a nice little flat in a convenient spot. After all, she had the money now, given to her by the Earl of Cardigeon, a cool Ten Thousand Pounds, which had set her up for life. A nice little flat somewhere nearby would probably cost a couple of hundred pounds at most, leaving most of her nest egg untouched. She vowed that if this case sorted itself out quickly over her ‘holiday’, she would start searching for a flat seriously upon her return.

  But even with these misgivings playing in the back of her mind, Posie looked around her spick-and-span modern little office with a sigh of relief: everything here was exactly as she had left it, and as she liked it. She felt better already, and almost impossibly at home.

  ****

  Eight

  Posie took the telephone receiver from Prudence with a still-sleepy nod of thanks.

  ‘Posie? That you? You sound a bit muffled.’

  She had overslept and was still in her pyjamas. It was eight o’clock on the dot, and if Prudence, who was an early bird, had thought anything strange about Posie already being in the office before her and the sight of a hastily rolled-up sleeping-bag on the floor in her boss’ room, she was too polite to say so.

  ‘It’s Lovelace here. Old Poots has come up trumps with his autopsy results. And guess what? Sure enough it’s murder!’

  Inspector Lovelace sounded business-like and brisk, the opposite of how Posie felt, in fact. Prudence busied herself at her desk, trying not to listen, sorting the early mail into four wire baskets: Posie’s mail, Len’s mail, one marked ‘BILLS TO PAY’ and the other marked rather more hopefully ‘INVOICES OUT’.

  ‘It’s as he thought. Dame Flowers had been given a big enough dose of the sleeping draught to kill a horse. A normal amount of veronal for sleeping purposes is just under one gram, whereas Dame Flowers had more than four times as much in her bloodstream – 4.4 grams to be precise. And the killer wasn’t taking any chances, either. The black flush on the face is evidence of suffocation, a pillow most likely. Although let’s be grateful for small mercies: fortunately Dame Flowers wouldn’t have known a thing about it, poor soul.’

  ‘Mnnn, hmnn.’ Posie made frantic ‘I need a cup of tea’ gestures at Prudence, who was only too willing to scurry off.

  ‘So I’m going to steam ahead as suggested yesterday, Posie. The local bobbies are watching Boynton Hall. But this story will need some degree of management bearing in mind the personalities involved. I’m going to put statements out to the press now so we can at least be on the front foot. I’ll use your contact at the Associated Press, and a few other journalists too. For now I’m going to leave Alaric’s disappearance out of it. Then I’m going back to Boynton Hall later today to re-interview the whole bally lot of them again and hunt for incriminating evidence. I’m taking a big team up with me.’

  ‘Do you need me to do anything for you at all, Inspector Lovelace? And if not, do you mind if I keep on the trail of Alaric Boynton-Dale?’

  Posie kept the note of keenness out of her voice: she needed the Inspector not to curtail any of her activities and not to feel he needed to worry about her, but they both knew that the missing explorer had something to do with Ianthe’s murder and she expected the Inspector to warn her to tread cautiously.

  ‘No, I don’t need you for anything. The lot of them are under lock and key so I’m confident you’re not going to run into problems from that end. Do as you like. But be sensible, eh? No leaking of any news stories of your own to the press, either…’

  Half an hour later, cup of tea in hand and wearing her new cream linen trouser suit, Posie was standing at her window munching on a Danish pastry when Prudence knocked at her door.

  ‘Telephone message,’ she said, removing her thick spectacles and consulting her efficient secretary’s notepad with a slight squint.

  ‘It was that funny Mr Dodds on the telephone. The coin expert you told me to contact at the British Museum? He sounded terribly excited about something. Asked if you were in already – I said yes, I’m afraid – and he asked if you could go around there as soon as possible. “Now, this minute!” were his exact words…oh! Oh my goodness!’

  Prudence had replaced her glasses hurriedly and was staring at Posie – or rather, at the new cream trouser suit – in disbelief.

  ‘Oh, dear! I say!’ Prudence goggled at Posie, on and on.

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Posie, rather tetchily.

  Her aim had been to be modern, bright and summery, not to be the object of incredulous stares. She worried for a second – could she really carry this off? – but then she thought of Lady Violet and her effortless film star chic and she grabbed her carpet bag and headed for the door.

  ****

  The Royal Numismatic Society had no headquarters of its own, and had been at the British Museum in a few dark rooms in the basement for as long as anyone could remember.

  Binkie Dodds, or rather Professor William Dodds (to give him his full, correct title), was a Cambridge-trained coin and medal specialist and moonlighted between his official day job as one of the keepers of coins at the British Museum and working as a secretary for the President of the Numismatic Society, Sir Harry Omman, who kept Binkie busy as his right-hand man.

  It was into one of the dim brown-painted rooms in the basement that Posie now found herself being ushered, and she took in the sparse details with interest: books and papers everywhere, paper charts depicting various coins tacked to the surface of every wall, the strip of bubbled, frosted glass in the ceiling which was the underside of a pavement somewhere outside in the real world, over which women’s sharp high-heeled shoes could be heard clicking.

  Binkie was sitting at his desk in a state of high excitement. In fact, Posie had never seen him look so alive. He was young to hold such an eminent position, around thirty-two (the same age her brother Richard would have been right now if he had survived the trenches of the Great War) and he had a shiny round face with small peering eyes behind the thickest spectacles Posie had ever known a person to wear. Binkie had been at school with Posie’s brother, and for many years Binkie had spent parts of the Eton summer holidays at the Norfolk Vicarage which had been Posie’s home, his own parents being far away in Delhi.

  But with his bookish ways, his general lack of fitness, his highly-strung manner and his terrible eyesight he had always been rather more of a favourite of Posie’s father, the Reverend Parker, than of the outdoorsy, adventure-seeking Richard, who seemed to have spent most of his childhood sitting in the tops of trees.

  ‘So? Have you got it?’ Binkie said, wasting no time on niceties or introductions. Posie saw ano
ther, younger man hanging back behind Binkie, an embarrassed smile playing about his lips.

  ‘Nice to see you too, Binkie,’ Posie said, hunting around inside the depths of her bag.

  She presented him with Alaric’s bee coin without further ado and watched as Binkie sat silently at his desk, a magnifying glass and a small strange tubular light fixed firmly over the coin. Next to him a thick book on the desk lay open at what looked like a blown-up picture of the very same coin. Posie looked on with interest. Binkie motioned to his as-yet-unnamed colleague, who came over and stared at the coin too. The second man let out a low, appreciative whistle.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s come home,’ Binkie said reverently. ‘At last.’

  He was turning the bee coin over and over in his long pale hands. ‘I can’t believe he’s drilled this wretched hole into the top of it, for a necklace to go through by the look of things. But it’s essentially undamaged, which is a relief. And it’s come home! Where it belongs!’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Posie countered, confused.

  ‘Well, it belongs here! At the British Museum, of course! Surely you saw the inscription on the back of it? That was our cataloguing system for coins more than a hundred years ago. The inscription shows where it came from. I hoped beyond hope when you sent me that shabby little wax rubbing that this was the real deal! And I was right! Do you realise quite how special this piece is, Posie? Or how old it is? There will be a huge celebration here when everyone hears about this. Perhaps even a whole new exhibition will be constructed around it!’

  Binkie’s words were coming faster and faster and he was getting more and more flushed in the face. Posie stared at him in mild disbelief and then smartly reached across the desk, taking back the bee coin in one quick move and placing it into her bag again.

  ‘Now just you wait a minute,’ she said sharply. ‘I happen to know that this coin is personal property. I came here today to ask for information about it, not to return it here as if this were a London Underground Lost & Found Bureau!’