by Ron Benrey
Not many at all.
The museum had begun to follow its shortened winter schedule on October 15: Open to the public from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; closed all day Sunday and Wednesday. Because there were no visitors that Wednesday, the two docents and the three security guards were off as a matter of course. The curators and most of the office staff had left early in the afternoon, when the trustees’ monthly meeting had begun.
Flick began to count noses. Nigel Owen was in the building. Plus the seven other trustees. Plus three members of the museum’s staff who were on hand to support the meeting: Polly Reid, the administrative assistant who worked for both Flick and Nigel Owen; Giselle Logan, the hostess of the Duchess of Bedford Tearoom; and Conan Davies, the chief of security. A total of twelve people, including herself.
I didn’t do it, so we’re down to eleven.
And Polly Reid left before the tea break. Ten.
And Giselle merely wheeled the tea trolley into the room. It was Nigel who distributed the goodies. Nine.
And Vicar de Rudd arrived at the meeting near the end of the tea break—too late to tamper with anything that Elspeth consumed. Eight.
A determined knock made her turn. Her office door swung open before Flick could move toward it—or even say come in.
“There you are! The elusive Dr. Adams!” said Marjorie Halifax. “You have been avoiding us, haven’t you?”
It made no sense to deny the obvious. Flick responded with a guilty nod.
“The trustees took a vote,” Marjorie went on. “We decided unanimously that you shall accompany the four of us who will dine tonight at the Swan Hotel in the Pantiles.”
Flick checked her watch. It was almost six thirty, but she had lost her appetite.
“I can’t face dinner tonight. I’m too upset to eat.”
“No arguments! The matter is out of your hands.” Marjorie punctuated her edict with her imperious trademark gestures: a little laugh followed by a toss of her expensively styled blond hair.
Flick countered with a profound sigh. Marjorie instantly switched to her benevolent politician countenance. “I know you are grieving, Dr. Adams. We all are. That is precisely why we need you along. During the past three months, you got to know Elspeth better than any of us. How can we reminisce this evening without you?”
An abrupt thought stunned Flick: What if Marjorie Halifax poisoned Elspeth? Did a murderer just invite me to dinner?
Flick tried to maintain an even expression, but Marjorie apparently noticed a change.
“You look about to faint. Do you need to sit down?”
“I feel fine.” Flick segued to a different subject. “You said that only four trustees plan to eat at the Swan tonight?”
“Vicar De Rudd has gone round to Lion’s Peak to comfort Elspeth’s niece and nephew. He will undoubtedly dine with them. Archibald Meicklejohn is working with Nigel Owen to prepare a press statement about Elspeth. They may drop by later, although I doubt it—their scrivening is bound to consume most of the evening. Lastly and mercifully, Sir Simon has a previous engagement, so you needn’t fear crossing swords with him again. That leaves Iona Saxby, Dorothy McAndrews, Matthew Eaton, me—and you. Dinner for five makes a cozy but interesting table.” She smiled broadly. “Do say you will join us.”
Flick matched Marjorie’s smile. “I won’t be the best of company, but sure, I’ll tag along. It will be an excellent opportunity to apologize for the brouhaha I started this afternoon.”
“Oh, my dear, no one blames you for caring about Elspeth deeply or reacting the way you did to her unexpected demise. Frankly, Sir Simon should have explained that he was Elspeth’s personal physician. Has been for years. I expect she had a dodgy ticker.”
“Are you sure about that? I mean the physician part.”
“Absolutely. He’s also my physician. And the vicar’s.” She made a face. “I suppose Sir Simon assumed that you knew. All the other trustees do.”
“I’m glad you told me.”
“Good! Now, how long will you need to restore your charming face? I represent a hungry bunch.”
“Five minutes?” It was as much a question as an answer.
“Done! We shall await you on the ground floor.”
Flick used most of the five minutes to think.
Maybe she had been too hasty in conjuring up a stone wall? Maybe there was a way to undo what Sir Simon had done. Marjorie Halifax had been right. Flick had learned a lot about Elspeth Hawker. Possibly enough to figure out why someone would want to murder a harmless, eighty-four-year-old spinster. In her forensics classes, she had shown great skill at deducing valid conclusions from limited facts. Why not apply those skills now?
For example: If Dr. Clowes wanted to kill a patient, he wouldn’t need to do it publicly. Therefore, someone else was probably responsible.
Seven suspects left on the list.
Another example: If Dr. Clowes’s diagnosis was a surprise to Flick, it must have amazed the poisoner. He—or she—couldn’t have expected a doctor to ignore the signs of barbiturate poisoning and jump to a faulty conclusion. Therefore, whoever had poisoned Elspeth must have invented a devious way to feed her the drugs.
A third example: Sir Simon adamantly stuck to his guns despite Flick’s noisy protests. Therefore, he has a reason for wanting Elspeth’s death to be considered natural.
Not bad! Not bad at all.
All was silent when Flick left her fourth-floor office—or should she say third floor? Flick had figured out English money and had mastered driving on the left rather than the right, but floor numbers in England still caught her off guard. She often had to remind herself that one flight up is the first floor in England, not the second. Her office on the museum’s fourth story was on the third floor.
From the outside, the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum resembled a large Georgian manor house, but inside it was more like an office building, with a utility core toward the rear that housed the main staircase, the elevator, the fire exits, and the rest rooms. The useful space on each floor wrapped around the core like a large U.
The top floor U was divided into three areas:
The right “stroke” was the curators’ wing, encompassing Flick’s office, the curating staff room (divided into cubicles), the Conservation Laboratory, and a small office for the docents.
The bottom “stroke”—running along the front of the museum—contained the Hawker Memorial Library and the boardroom.
The left “stroke” accommodated the administrative staff offices. The director’s office was a mirror image of the chief curator’s, except that it overlooked the museum’s gardens and the greenhouse. Life is unfair, Flick thought the first time she saw the spectacular view that Nigel Owen neither appreciated nor understood. The Hawker Foundation’s money had done the impossible. Hot water flowing through subterranean pipes gently heated the screened, open-air garden, so that tropical tea shrubs could grow outdoors in England. Not exceptionally fine tea, mind you, but then the garden’s purpose was to educate visitors, few of whom had seen a live tea bush.
Flick sprinted down the main staircase, a lovely marble-stepped affair with dark oak banisters and risers. The four trustees were waiting near the Welcome Centre kiosk on the ground floor. Marjorie Halifax flashed another of her high-voltage politician smiles, and Matthew Eaton extended his arms to hug Flick; but neither Iona Saxby nor Dorothy McAndrews acted especially eager to dine with her. Iona, wearing a sprawling blue hat that matched her eyes, gave Flick a decidedly dyspeptic glance and straightaway made for the bronze front doors. Dorothy offered a lukewarm smile from afar, seemingly wanting to keep her distance.
They’re probably annoyed that the only man at our table decided to squire me.
Flick waved good night to Conan Davies, who stood patiently like a sentinel near the doors, waiting for an opportunity to lock up and set the alarm system. Conan, a large man of few words, returned a wink.
The night air felt chilly. Flick tightened the belt on
her Burberry and tried to ignore the cars speeding by on Eridge Road. Marjorie and the others didn’t seem to notice, but Flick found them alarmingly close—even with tall, solid Matthew Eaton walking next to her on the sidewalk. Happily, she knew the Pantiles and the Swan were only a five-minute walk away.
When Flick had first visited England at the age of eleven, some twenty-five years ago, the country’s narrow lanes, high hedgerows, and twisty curves had enchanted her. Back then, the English favored small cars, appropriate to the width of their roads. But now, like Americans, they drove full-sized sport-utility vehicles and minivans. These big vehicles seemed to overflow the still-narrow roads and overpower the woefully inadequate in-town car parks. She marveled that local drivers managed to whiz past each other without colliding and then park their big Mercedes SUVs and Range Rovers in “stalls” that were laid out decades ago for tiny Austins and Morris Minors.
Matthew Eaton gently tapped her arm. “If I may ask a possibly impertinent question, Dr. Adams… how did a woman born and raised in faraway Pennsylvania acquire two veddy, veddy English monikers?”
“Both of my parents are determined Anglophiles,” she said. “My mother chose Felicity and my father immediately added the appropriate English nickname, Flick.”
“Well done!”
“I agree. I’ve always thought that Flick Adams has an interesting ring to it.”
Somewhere in the distance a siren warbled. Flick immediately thought about Elspeth Hawker. If I were a real detective investigating her murder, what questions would I ask my suspects?
Flick caught her breath. “Good heavens!” she muttered softly. “I have to treat them all like secret suspects. I hope I can manage that.”
“Did you say something?” Matthew asked.
“No! I didn’t!” she answered, much louder than she meant to.
It’s time to start lying to my friends and superiors.
Flick looked up at Matthew’s bewildered face and smiled.
Three
“What makes my job especially difficult, you see, is that Dame Elspeth Hawker offers no obvious media handles.”
The earnest public relations practitioner paused to let his gloomy pronouncement sink in. Nigel Owen duly jotted the words “no media handles” on his yellow pad. He even added an underline to emphasize the severity of the problem, although he had no idea what kind of handles Elspeth might have possessed or why her lack of the media variety would cause such despair.
Nigel set down his pen and nodded in agreement. It simply wouldn’t do to display his ignorance of communications jargon in front of Archibald Meicklejohn. It had been Nigel, after all, who suggested that they get assistance crafting the statement about Elspeth’s death. “This sort of writing needs a deft professional touch,” he had said to Archibald. In fact, Nigel saw no reason to invest hours of his own time learning enough about the Hawker clan to write Elspeth’s obituary. Six months from now, the Hawkers would be a fading memory.
The corpulent, fiftyish PR man heaved a melancholy sigh and went on. “Elspeth seems to have spent her long life growing tea roses and taking the odd trip to Bath. No occupation. No husband or children. No hobbies. No observable idiosyncrasies. Nothing! Not a single media handle I can see.”
Nigel thought about asking for clarification, but as he weighed the pros and cons, Archibald beat him to the punch. “Stuart, what pray tell is a media handle? And how might Elspeth Hawker be so equipped?”
Nigel relaxed. Good! The spotlight is on Stuart, where it belongs.
Stuart Battlebridge was a principal in the firm of Gordon & Battlebridge, the agency that provided public relations support for the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. Nigel admired the brochures and news releases that G&B developed, but he thought the firm worked a tad too hard to stay on the cutting edge of societal trends. To wit: The only beverages on offer were bottled waters and decaffeinated soft drinks. The photos on the walls showcased endangered species. The staff wore business casual clothing every day; Stuart’s khaki slacks and wool Aran sweater presented a decided contrast to Nigel’s and Archibald’s three-piece suits. And Stuart’s office, where the three of them now chatted, featured an eclectic hodgepodge of furniture that supposedly connoted creativity. Nigel sat on a plain wooden rocker, Archibald in a leather upholstered club chair, and Stuart on the edge of his glass and metal desk.
Nigel leaned back in his chair as Stuart prefaced his explanation with a toothy smile. “We want our public relations efforts for the museum to pay dividends,” Stuart said. “Recall what happened fourteen years ago when we announced the demise of Mary Hawker Evans. She was such a fascinating character that our news release read like a novel. It generated no less than seven major feature articles.”
Archibald pressed his inquiry: “And a handle is?”
“An idea that a reporter can pick up and run with. For example, Mary Hawker Evans was an accomplished yachts-woman who once sailed to India using nineteenth-century tea-route charts that are now on display in the museum’s map room. The details we provided the press grew into a story about the museum’s superb map collection.”
Archibald abruptly grunted an acknowledgment, then said, “In other words, Elspeth led a boring life of no possible interest to reporters.”
Stuart shrugged. “One doesn’t make bread without flour or feature articles without media handles.”
The mention of bread made Nigel realize that he felt peckish. At the trustees’ meeting, he had nibbled the edges of a scone—but that had been hours earlier. He glanced out the window. The offices of Gordon & Battlebridge were on Monson Road, a short street in Tunbridge Wells’s town centre known for its varied shops and businesses. A few doors away was a bakery that did lovely French pastries and brewed an excellent cup of coffee. Perhaps he could persuade Stuart to send out for a snack.
Regrettably, Nigel waited a moment too long to ask.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Archibald said. “The Hawkers are one of England’s great mercantile families. Certainly there are historical details that will intrigue the press.”
Stuart let loose another sigh. “I know the Hawker saga by heart. Stop me if I accidentally say something that strikes you as interesting:
“The Hawker dynasty was created by Commodore Desmond Hawker, the founder of the Hawker & Son Tea Merchants.” Stuart’s droning delivery reminded Nigel of a soporific history teacher he hadn’t thought of for twenty-five years. “One is advised not to look too closely at the business methods Desmond used to grow his fortune. Rumors abound of aggressive tactics and close-to-the-edge practices. Some say the man was a scoundrel. As we all know, back in the nineteenth century, scoundrel was often synonymous with successful.
“Desmond was born in 1810, during the heart of the Napoleonic War, and lived to the ripe old age of ninety-four. The Hawkers tend to be hale and hearty folk, with several octogenarians and nonagenarians in the fold. Mary Hawker Evans made it to an even ninety years.
“Desmond married late in life. His one son, Basil Hawker—born in 1865, died in 1950—is best described as a superb businessman but a bland, unimaginative individual.”
Nigel noted that Stuart looked his way when he said “bland, unimaginative individual.” The ungrateful rotter was willing to bite the hand that fed him.
Stuart droned on: “Sir Basil cleverly sold off the Hawker business assets to other companies at a significant profit before the Great Depression. He invested wisely and consolidated the family’s fortune. So, by 1930, the Hawker family was out of the tea business and enjoying a mostly quiet life of genteel leisure in Lion’s Peak, the oversized manor house that Desmond had built circa 1875. It can be found on the road to Pembury, some two miles northeast of where we sit.”
Stuart pointed to the window behind Nigel to indicate the general direction before he continued. “As an aside, the commodore lured Decimus Burton out of retirement to design Lion’s Peak. Legend has it that Decimus thought Desmond a nouveaux riches lout, which exp
lains why most students of architecture feel that the house is one of Burton’s lesser accomplishments to be seen in Tunbridge Wells. Lion’s Peak, however, made up in durability for what it lacked in aesthetic appeal. A serious fire, apparently set by a local lunatic, destroyed almost a third of the house in 1924 or 1925. Sir Basil was able to quickly rebuild and restore the old monstrosity.”
Stuart shifted his position on the edge of the desk, presumably to a more comfortable one. “Returning to Sir Basil Hawker’s personal life,” he said. “Well, he had two wives during his eighty-five years. Sarah, wife number one, died while giving birth to Mary Hawker, way back in 1897. Gwyneth, his second wife, produced two children: Edmund and Elspeth, in 1918 and 1920, respectively. Gwyneth, incidentally, was killed by a V1 Buzz Bomb explosion during World War II.
“Mary Hawker married Rupert Evans in 1921, was widowed in 1947, and took charge of the family when Sir Basil died in 1950. She encouraged the establishment of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum.
“Meanwhile, Edmund Hawker—Mary’s half brother—lived his life as a bon-vivant wastrel and died at the mere age of seventy in 1988. However, he did manage to marry and father the next generation of Hawkers: Harriet and Alfred.
“Elspeth Hawker chose a different path. She lived most of her life in self-imposed solitude. That changed when Mary Hawker Evans died in 1990. Elspeth surprised all and sundry by taking on the mantle of family leadership. She was by all accounts a benevolent despot, with few interests outside the museum.” Stuart added, “And today she died.”
Nigel didn’t respond. He looked at Archibald in time to see the banker shake his head and say, “I see your point—dull as dishwater.”
The room fell silent, giving Nigel a chance to brood over Archibald’s conclusion. If Stuart doesn’t write the silly obit, you’ll get stuck with the job.
“Hold on a moment,” Nigel said. “I’ve had a thought. Elspeth Hawker wasn’t a sailor, so perhaps we can try a different tack. She spent the golden years of her life studying the museum’s collection of antiquities. One of our docents told me that Elspeth knew more about our dusty old clobber than our professional curators did.”
