Murder in the Museum (Fethering Mysteries)

by Brett, Simon

  ‘Oh,’ said Jude, as if she’d never heard the name before.

  ‘In my role as a consultant to the County Records Office . . .’ He bathed in self-admiration ‘ . . . I often check through documents which have been offered by members of the public . . . decide which ones should genuinely be kept, which ones justify use of the limited storage space we have available to us.’

  ‘And the . . . what did you say . . . Strider family letters? Those did seem worth keeping?’

  ‘Very definitely, yes.’

  ‘So when Professor Teischbaum’s biography comes out, and it gets wonderful reviews, really the credit should go to you . . .?’

  ‘Oh, I think that would be excessive.’ Though his manner suggested he didn’t, really.

  ‘Well, I think she’s behaved very badly. To be so ungrateful after all the help you’ve given her.’

  ‘I would have given her more . . . if she’d played her cards right,’ he added coyly.

  The image appeared in Jude’s mind of George Ferris rationing out gobbets of research to Marla Teischbaum in exchange for sexual favours. It was too revolting to contemplate.

  ‘So you do have other information . . . that you didn’t give her . . .?’

  ‘Oh yes. As I say, with my consultancy to the County Records Office hat on, I do have access to all kinds of private documentation . . .’ he sniggered ‘ . . . and, without my pointing her in the right direction, there are certain connections she’s never going to make on her own.’

  ‘It must be a very responsible job,’ said Jude, still apparently awestruck by his brilliance.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he agreed. ‘I do have to make some pretty important decisions. For instance,’ he went on, in case she still hadn’t taken on board quite how important he was, ‘there was an old lady came to see me last year, name of Hidebourne. She had some letters, didn’t want them to get chucked out when she died, did I think there’d be a place for them in the County Records Office? She showed me a few, and I thought they would be very interesting, particularly because . . .’ He smiled at his own cunning ‘ . . . and this is the bit I didn’t tell Professor Teischbaum . . . there was a connection with the Strider family. Some letters from a Lieutenant Strider, who had a connection with Esmond Chadleigh. So . . . old Miss Hidebourne didn’t want to hand the documents over then and there . . . she still enjoys reading them . . . but it’s all been sorted out legally . . . and, soon as she pops her clogs, the letters will come here . . . to the County Records Office, that is.’

  ‘And you sorted all that out?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied airily.

  ‘Fancy,’ breathed Jude, tapping her copy of How To Get The Best From The Facilities Of The County Records Office, ‘being able to do all that, and write books too.’

  ‘Just something I do.’

  He made a self-deprecating wide-handed shrug, then looked at Jude closely. He seemed to realize for the first time that she was an attractive woman.

  ‘Maybe I could get you another drink . . .?’

  Though thwarted in his pursuit of Professor Marla Teischbaum, a man as attractive as George Ferris wouldn’t have to go long without female company. Maybe it was time to strike out in a new direction. Jude could see the thoughts going through his head.

  Deciding that she had maintained her masquerade quite long enough, she politely made her excuses and left the Cathedral. Just as she was about to enter the County Records Office, she looked back and saw George Ferris also leaving the pub and moving, a little unsteadily, in the direction of the car park.

  Jude found Laurence Hawker sitting in the Reception area. He was coughing, of course; and continuing to smoke, of course. In fact, he only took the cigarette out of his mouth to take swigs from the half-bottle of whisky he held in his other hand.

  The frosty woman behind the counter was clearly having a problem with him. She disapproved of his smoking. Now he’d added drinking to his crimes, her disapproval was even greater. But his appearance made her uncertain as to what she should do. She knew the protocol for ringing security to get rid of the usual type of drunk or dosser from her domain. But this visitor looked too elegant, too cultured, to be dealt with in that way. He confused her, and she didn’t like being confused.

  Laurence looked up languidly at Jude’s entrance. ‘I knew you’d come back eventually,’ he said, and coughed.

  She sat beside him and asked in a low voice, ‘Did Marla come back?’

  He nodded, jerking his head back towards the Reading Room. Jude looked through the glass and saw the backview of Marla Teischbaum. She was once again arched over her books, absorbed in her research. She gave no signs of being affected by her recent encounter with the mistakenly amorous George Ferris.

  ‘Did you get any useful information, Laurence?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Let’s go and have a drink somewhere and pool what we’ve got.’

  The Cathedral was the nearest source of alcohol, and Jude had seen George Ferris leave, so she felt safe to return there. From Laurence’s slow pace of walking, the rattling and rasping of his breathing, he wouldn’t have been able to make it much further, anyway.

  After the lunchtime rush, the pub was fairly empty. Jude got another white wine for herself, and a quadruple Scotch for Laurence. No point in rushing back and forth to the bar every five minutes.

  ‘You go first, Laurence. Did you manage to get a look at what Marla had been studying?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s an academic skill you don’t lose. Get very used to peering over people’s shoulders in libraries, finding out what the opposition is up to. Sadly, though, I fear it’s a skill that won’t be valuable for a lot longer. As more and more research is done through the internet . . . Hm, a dying art.’ He grinned sardonically. ‘Probably see me out, though.’

  Jude didn’t react to the morbid joking. ‘What was she looking for then?’

  ‘The lovely Marla appeared to be following up on the history of the Strider family.’

  ‘Strider as in Lieutenant Hugo Strider who was mentioned in those documents?’

  ‘I imagine so. She had some letters. And from the other stuff she had out – parish records, Land Registry documents, I’d say she was trying to trace any living descendants of Lieutenant Hugo Strider.’

  ‘But you don’t know whether she’d found any?’

  He shook his head, sardonically regretful. ‘Rather thoughtlessly, she hadn’t left a notebook open on the desk with the name and addresses of the people she was next going to talk to.’

  ‘And even if she had,’ said Jude, ‘there’d be one very significant name and address missing from the list.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘An old woman who has in her possession some letters written by Lieutenant Hugo Strider. Her name’s Miss Hidebourne.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  ‘I’ve spoken to Gina,’ said Carole. ‘She’s quite happy for me to have a look around Bracketts tomorrow.’

  ‘To inspect the Priest’s Hole?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going over about twelve.’

  ‘The police haven’t been there yet?’

  ‘Apparently not. Maybe they’ve got more important questions to ask Mervyn Hunter than where he spent the nights he was on the loose. Will they actually be questioning him in Austen Prison?’

  ‘No way.’ Jude shook her head. ‘I asked Sandy. Anyone who’s captured after an escape from an open prison goes straight into a Cat B or C one, at least initially. Mervyn’ll probably be in Lewes . . . if he’s not still with the police.’

  ‘Maybe he did kill Sheila Cartwright . . .’ said Carole, with an air almost of despondency.

  ‘Don’t even think it. I’m sure he didn’t.’

  ‘Where’s Laurence?’

  The question was posed casually enough, but Carole really wanted to know the answer. Although her attitude to Laurence Hawker had thawed a little, she’d still be glad to receive the news that he’d left Woodside
Cottage for good.

  ‘He’s having an early night. Wasn’t feeling so hot.’ That was an understatement. The day out in Chichester, following on his weekend away, had taken a lot out of Laurence. He’d coughed up more blood after the cab brought them back. Jude was beginning to wonder how much longer he could continue without being hospitalized. But it was not a subject to raise over a glass of wine in the neatness of Carole’s kitchen.

  ‘Incidentally,’ said Carole. ‘One detail I got from Gina . . . about the first body in the kitchen garden . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Still been no official identification, but Gina had found some old letters about one of the Bracketts stable-boys who’d disappeared about the right time. Called Pat Heggarty. Son of the Chadleighs’ housekeeper. The thinking at the time was that he’d done a runner to escape conscription. I don’t know. It’s a thought.’

  ‘Yes, that body seems rather to have paled into insignificance since the death of Sheila Cartwright.’

  ‘True. I wonder if there is a connection between the two deaths,’ said Carole thoughtfully. ‘When Sheila died, I was convinced there was. Now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘I think there is a connection . . . at least through Bracketts. Something that’s happened in this house was important enough to make someone commit a murder . . . By the way,’ Jude went on, ‘am I included in this invitation?’

  ‘Invitation?’

  ‘For Priest’s Hole exploration.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Carole began awkwardly.

  Jude picked up the hint very quickly. ‘Say no more. You’re wangling your way in as a Trustee. Justifying bringing a friend along might prove more difficult.’

  ‘That, I’m afraid, is the situation exactly, Jude.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got things to do tomorrow.’ Trying to persuade Laurence to see a doctor being one of them, she thought grimly. But she said, ‘There’s an Esmond Chadleigh lead Marla Teischbaum’s been following up. Some letters from Hugo Strider.’

  ‘Did you get to see them?’

  ‘Laurence had a quick look after the Professor had left. They’d been written to a distant cousin while he was living at Bracketts.’

  ‘Useful stuff?’ asked Carole eagerly.

  ‘Not really. All very correct and British and giving nothing away. I’m afraid upper-class English gentlemen between the Wars didn’t go in for baring their souls much. Laurence says he’ll go back and have another look at them, but he wasn’t very hopeful of finding anything.’

  ‘Another blind alley then?’

  ‘That one may be, but there’s something else,’ Jude announced proudly. ‘Another Strider connection about which Marla Teischbaum knows nothing at all.’

  ‘Really?’

  So Jude told Carole about what George Ferris had told her. ‘And, because Laurence is such a whiz at research and positively zipped around the County Records Office, I now have an address and telephone number for Miss Hidebourne.’

  Even as she spoke, Jude was keying numbers into her mobile phone.

  When Carole arrived at the Bracketts Administrative Office at noon the next day, Gina Locke was still in her post-Sheila Cartwright pomp. Her brown eyes sparkled, and her confidence was almost overweening.

  ‘Had a really brilliant day yesterday, Carole. Went to see a major potential sponsor. Better not mention the name, because everything’s still a bit under wraps, but they are seriously big. Multinational food company, I can tell you that much. Anyway, they’ve had a bit of a battering in the media recently, because one of their American subsidiaries used a lot of GM produce, and basically they need a mega-public relations make-over. To show how caring they really are as a company, how involved in the local community and the arts. And I think I’ve persuaded them that sponsoring the Museum here at Bracketts would give them just the kind of image-transplant they need.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Yes. As I say, it was a good day. You know, some days you feel really competent and fluent and like you could take on the world . . .’

  Carole didn’t have many days like that, but she still nodded, not wishing to interrupt Gina’s flow.

  ‘I saw the guy who Sheila had been cultivating, but I think I was probably more effective than she would have been. He clearly had an eye for the ladies and the younger woman . . .’ She grinned. ‘Have to be prepared to use any wiles to get sponsorship these days, you know.’

  ‘And did you use the “what a tragedy about Sheila” wile?’

  ‘You bet I did. Damn nearly got his condolences in the form of a cheque. No, I said all the right things . . . how much she’d enjoyed her meetings with him . . . how optimistic she’d been about a happy outcome to their discussions . . . how the Museum would become like a memorial to Sheila Cartwright . . . and how good it would be for the compassionate image of any company involved in such a project.’

  Had Jude been there, Carole would have exchanged a raised eyebrow with her, but as she was on her own, she just nodded.

  ‘So . . .’ Gina Locke rubbed her hands gleefully ‘ . . . with a bit of luck I might get the whole Museum paid for by this one company. An exclusive sponsorship, just what I need. And, if it goes through quickly, we could open the Museum in 2004 on the centenary of Esmond Chadleigh’s birth.’

  ‘Will there be time for that?’

  ‘You bet. The architects’ plans were drawn up over a year ago. The Planning Permission’s sorted. Only waiting for the money to make it happen.’

  ‘Well, congratulations on a day well spent yesterday.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There was no humility in the Director’s response. She was just taking the praise that was her due.

  But the wrapping-up of that part of the conversation did enable Carole to move on. ‘I was very interested in what you said on the phone about that stable-boy . . . Pat . . .?’

  ‘Pat Heggarty.’

  ‘Right.’ Carole was remembering a previous encounter, in the Crown and Anchor, when Gina had been very firmly trying to direct her thought processes about the body in the kitchen garden. ‘Who did you hear about him from?’ she asked diffidently.

  ‘Graham. He’s the great repository of all knowledge about everything that’s ever happened at Bracketts.’

  ‘Funny he didn’t mention it before . . . when the body was first discovered.’

  ‘Odd, yes.’ But Gina Locke didn’t sound that interested; her mind was moving ahead to the next step of her Museum-building project.

  ‘Straight after Sheila’s death . . .’ Carole persisted.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘ . . . you seemed to be convinced that Graham had killed her.’

  ‘Mm, I remember saying that.’

  ‘Presumably you don’t still think he did?’

  ‘No. Just seemed to make sense at the time. Now the police have got hold of this escaped convict . . . well, I must have been wrong.’ But there was no apology in her tone, no sense that there was possibly something reprehensible in bandying around accusations of murder.

  ‘Right.’ Carole stood up. ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind my having a look at the Priest’s Hole . . .’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Gina took a large set of keys down from a row of hooks on the wall. ‘I’ve got a few follow-up calls to make on the sponsorship. Do you mind letting yourself in . . .?’

  ‘Not at all. If you’re sure that’s all right . . .’

  ‘Look, you are a Trustee. You’re hardly going to walk away with the exhibits, are you? If there was somebody I didn’t know wanting to get into the house, that’d be different.’

  Probably, thought Carole, it was just as well she hadn’t brought Jude along.

  Carole Seddon had a logical mind; all her colleagues at the Home Office had recognized that. And logic dictated that, before she went inside Bracketts, she should look at the exterior of the house.

  She recalled the words of the white-haired kilted lady as their Guided Tour had reached the Priest’s Hole. ‘Fr
om the outside of the house no windows are visible, but comparisons of the exterior dimensions and the measurements of this landing demonstrate that there is a space within the walls unaccounted for.’

  It was a bright, bold autumn day, with a whiff of wood-smoke on the air. Carole, warm in her Burberry, moved over the dampish grass, orienting herself by the large landing window. To the right of this was the angle of the house which, on the first floor, had no corresponding concave angle inside. That’s where the Priest’s Hole was.

  Nothing looked odd from outside. The lack of windows in the relevant part of the structure raised no questions; there weren’t that many windows in the rest of the house. But, Carole noticed with a little spurt of excitement, there were no windows in the ground-floor section directly beneath the Priest’s Hole either.

  She didn’t rush, but continued to work logically. She went up to the house and, producing the tape measure she had brought specially for the purpose, took a reading from each side of the distance from the edge of the nearest window to the corner of the house. She tried to make out what lay inside, but the windows were curtained to protect the elderly furniture from the sun.

  Controlling her excitement, Carole Seddon walked round to the front of the house and let herself into Bracketts.

  She went straight to the ground-floor area directly beneath the Priest’s Hole. This involved going through a door marked ‘PRIVATE’ into a part of the house not included in the Guided Tours. But what the hell? She was a Trustee. She could go where she wanted.

  Disappointment stared her in the face. Her best fantasies had been of a jutting pair of walls, matching the area of the Priest’s Hole above. There’d either be another sliding panel, or maybe the hidden space was only accessible from the first floor.

  But, instead of walls, she was confronted by cupboards, large cupboard doors on either side of the projecting right angle. When she opened them, she found an array of vacuum cleaners, brushes, mops and other cleaning equipment.

  Oh well, it had been a nice idea. Carole was about to close the doors, when a thought struck her.