Murder in the Smithsonian

by Margaret Truman

  Chapter 10

  Heather McBean gave a complete statement about the previous night’s attack to an MPD stenographer. When she was finished and the stenographer had left the office, Hanrahan asked, “What are your plans now?”

  Heather looked at him quizzically. “I told you my plans, Captain. I intend to stay here until Lewis’s murderer is brought to justice.”

  “I knew what your plans were, Miss McBean, but considering what’s happened to you over the past twenty-four hours, I thought you might be thinking about returning to England.”

  “That never crossed my mind.”

  Hanrahan shuffled loose papers into a pile, put a paper clip on them. “I happen to find your determination admirable, and obviously I can’t force you to go home, but frankly I’d like to convince you to do just that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think you’d be safer there.” He sat back and folded his hands on his chest. “It would also make my job easier if you weren’t in Washington—”

  “I don’t understand. You told me that I could be of help to you—”

  “That was true when I said it, but yesterday’s events have changed things. Heather McBean, I don’t want to have to worry about your safety and at the same time look for Dr. Tunney’s killer.” He saw her stiffen in the chair. “Try to understand, Miss McBean. I’m not—”

  “I understand, but you must understand me too. I don’t want you to be concerned about my personal safety. I’m also fairly capable of taking care of myself. I always have been. I was careless yesterday. I admit it. It never occurred to me to look over my shoulder while I was walking your streets, nor was I thinking that someone might ransack my hotel room. I’ve learned my American lesson and I won’t make the same mistake twice. No… I’d never be able to live with myself if I left Washington for London and sat there, thousands of miles away, waiting for news. Somehow I feel close to Lewis here. That may sound strange, Captain, but that’s the way it is… and Miss Prentwhistle has been helpful… And I know I’ll meet others… In the meantime I’ll just follow my uncle’s advice.”

  “Which was?”

  “No offense, Captain, but he said ‘Do it yourself if you want it done right.’”

  “No offense taken, Miss McBean…” Well almost none, he thought… “but I must tell you police officers can be right once in a while, and even helpful… Well, it’s up to you, of course, but if you stay you’ll have to follow my orders and accept that the investigation is my territory.”

  “I assure you I won’t be underfoot, Captain, although I don’t intend to pretend I’m a helpless little woman… another thing my uncle taught me was that any action is better than no action, which is why I’ve hired a private investigator in London.”

  “To do what?” He didn’t like the churlish tone in his voice.

  “To find out what happened in Lewis’s life the week before he left London. I want to know what it was that so upset him that week.”

  Hanrahan rubbed his eyes. “I’d say you’re wasting your money, Miss McBean. I’ve already been in touch with Scotland Yard, they promise full cooperation—”

  “Money is not exactly a problem or the point, Captain.”

  “Yes… I realize that… who’s this investigator?”

  “Someone I found in the London phone directory. His name is Elwood Paley and he sounds quite trustworthy. I called him last night and he’s agreed to take the case.”

  Agreed? Hanrahan wanted to say. What private op ever turns down a case when money’s no object? Instead, he said, “If I can provide your Mr. Paley with any information, you just let me know.”

  “That’s very kind of you. I’ll keep it in mind. And you can continue to depend upon my cooperation, which you seemed to want twenty-four hours ago—”

  Hanrahan’s phone rang. He picked it up and heard a desk sergeant say, “Captain, the Air and Space Museum this time. That Smithsonian nut left another bomb threat.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Hanrahan said. And to Heather, “I’m sorry, but—”

  “Please don’t apologize,” Heather told him. “I’m not that delicate, and I heard much stronger stuff from my uncle… What is it?”

  Hanrahan smiled. “The looney running around town threatening to blow up the Smithsonian has left another note. He claims he’s related to Smithson.”

  “Is he?”

  “Am I? Half the people in this city have elevators that don’t reach the top floor.”

  At first, she didn’t understand, then did and smiled back. “May I come with you?”

  Hanrahan stood up and took up his jacket from a clothes tree. “I don’t think that would be too good an idea… Thanks very much for coming by with your statement… We’ll be in touch—”

  “But what if this so-called Smithson bomber has something to do with Lewis’s murder? I told you, and I meant it, Captain, I wanted to be involved in every phase of the investigation. I deserve that—”

  “And I told you, Miss McBean, that I thought it would be best if you went back to England. This is what I do for a living… I’ll have to decide…”

  She understood, of course, but she didn’t like it. Strangely, she did like him…

  Hanrahan entered the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum through the Jefferson Drive entrance. Two uniformed MPD officers stood with museum security guards next to “Friendship Seven,” which had carried John Glenn on America’s first manned orbiting flight in 1962. The note, neatly typed, was taped to a small window through which Glenn had viewed the earth as no American had ever viewed it before.

  The note read:

  My patience is running out. I have given you more than enough time to realize that my claims are legitimate, my threats serious. Your theft of the Smithsonian from my family is an offense to every decent person and must be corrected. Therefore, unless there is immediate attention to my rightful heritage and demands, I will destroy everything that is Smithsonian. Cease taking me lightly. I mean what I say.

  It was signed “The Wronged.”

  “You questioned your men about anyone who might have left the note?” Hanrahan asked the museum security chief.

  “Yes, sir, I did, but it’s been a heavy morning. Summer, you know.”

  “Nobody unusual?”

  The security chief shook his head.

  “Keep asking.”

  Hanrahan told one of his men to take down the note and take it to the lab for prints, then walked outside into a hot, humid, festering Washington summer day. Two reporters who’d responded to the call over the police radio came up behind him. One of them, a pretty young woman wearing a yellow sundress and carrying a pad and pen, asked him if the bomber’s note was connected with the Tunney murder.

  Hanrahan had no comment.

  “Are you still claiming it’s just a coincidence?”

  “I’m claiming nothing.” How could he? He knew little more than they did.

  He got in his car, slammed the door, started the engine and turned the air conditioning to its lowest setting. He drove around the perimeter of the Mall and parked near the Castle, a red sandstone building with eight crenelated towers that symbolized the entire Smithsonian for millions of visitors. During the Smithsonian’s early years it had housed all of its operations, including a science museum, lecture hall, art gallery, research laboratories and administrative offices. Since the building of new, individual museums, the Castle had become the Smithsonian’s administrative offices, as well as home for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. It also housed the tomb of James Smithson.

  Hanrahan circled the Castle to the Mall entrance, stopping to admire species of flora identified by small signs, one of which read, “Poison Ivy.” He climbed the steps and paused in the lobby. Immediately to his left was the Smithson crypt.

  He entered the small room and looked around. The symbol of the Smithsonian was, according to a placard beneath it, designed to represent the life of Smithson. There was a demi-lion with ruby eye
s from the Smithson family coat of arms set in Smithsonite, a mineral also named after him.

  Smithson, according to printed material on the walls, had been the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Hungerford Keate (Macie) and Sir Hugh Smithson, Duke of Northumberland. The younger Smithson was characterized as a gentleman-scientist in the eighteenth-century tradition, pursuing his interests in the same era as Beethoven and Mozart, Voltaire and George III, Cavendish, Priestley, Arago, Lavoisier, Lord Byron, Napoleon and, in America, Washington, Jefferson and Adams. He’d graduated from Oxford in 1786 as James Lewis Macie, and later was admitted to the Royal Society as a gentleman well versed in natural philosophy, chemistry and mineralogy.

  Another sign told Hanrahan that Smithson’s will had directed that “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men” be founded at Washington under the name Smithsonian Institution. His reasons were unstated, although there was speculation that he wanted to leave a name greater than his illegitimate birth had given him. The decision to establish his center of learning in Washington was especially mysterious because Smithson had never set foot in America. Again, one could only speculate, according to the placard’s author, that America represented an illegitimate offspring of Mother England, and perhaps was thereby metaphorically appealing to Smithson. Distant relatives of Smithson had contested his will. It was only after a lengthy battle that the United States won. That happened in 1838, and for the next eight years Congress debated the nature of the institution; should it be a college, arboretum, library, observatory or scientific research organization? Finally in 1846 the Smithsonian was created mainly for scientific research patterned after Smithson’s own life of scientific achievement. The final bit of information Hanrahan tried to take in before leaving was that Smithson’s papers and personal effects had been lost in an 1865 fire that destroyed the second floor of the Castle.

  Hanrahan went on to the office of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Borden G. Costain. Costain’s secretary told Hanrahan that he was in Central America supervising an archaeological dig. Hanrahan wasn’t exactly sure why he wanted to see Costain. He wasn’t a suspect, hadn’t, so he was told, even been in Washington at the time of Tunney’s murder. But Hanrahan recognized, felt an increasing need to spend more time with the Smithsonian, absorb its atmosphere, and knew he’d been avoiding it because, for whatever maybe psychological reasons, he was somehow intimidated by it.

  As he drove back to MPD he decided that that better not be the case any longer. It was pretty clear that this bizarre case was all wrapped up in the memorial to the illegitimate “gentleman-scientist.”

  Chapter 11

  Alfred Throckly read the telegram slowly, for dramatic effect. Ford Saunders and Chloe Prentwhistle sat across the desk from him.

  “Returning in three days STOP Expect solid and positive progress in Tunney matter STOP Entire Institution at stake STOP Costain.”

  Saunders examined his fingernails. “So?”

  “So?” Throckly mimicked. “He means it.”

  “What are we supposed to do, reach into a display case and produce Lewis Tunney’s killer?”

  “I wish we could,” said Throckly. He sounded appropriately oppressed.

  Chloe, who wore a tailored powder-blue suit, ruffled navy-blue silk blouse, patterned blue stockings, and black pumps, touched Saunders on the arm. “Relax, Ford, Borden is very much under the gun. We can’t expect him to return to his domain, the scene of a murder of a leading historian, pat us on our heads and offer bonuses.”

  Throckly stood and paced. “This museum, my museum, is where Dr. Lewis Tunney was murdered with Thomas Jefferson’s own sword. A precious medal has been stolen. What Costain is saying is that he wants this house cleaned by those who live in it, us. What I want to know is what we’re going to do to accomplish that?”

  “What can we do?” Chloe asked. “It’s a police matter. Yes, it’s unfortunate that the murder and theft happened here, but that doesn’t make it our problem, certainly not our fault. We don’t solve murders, the police do.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to be the one to explain that to Costain when he returns.”

  “With the salary and title of director come certain unpleasant tasks,” Saunders said.

  “That doesn’t help,” Throckly said.

  “Sorry.”

  Throckly drummed his fingers on a windowpane, turned. “Look, I have other meetings. Let me ask you… do you think it would be a good idea to hire our own private investigator?”

  “I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Saunders.

  Chloe stood, tucked her large leather handbag underneath her arm and took a few steps toward the door.

  “You agree with Ford?” Throckly asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Leave it to the police. It isn’t our business. Coming, Ford? I want to go over those plans with you for the Roosevelt reception.”

  If they had left Throckly’s office a few moments later they would have seen a Hispanic man come up the back stairs, pause in front of the third-floor directory, then walk toward Throckly’s office. He told the receptionist that he wished to speak with Mr. Throckly. She asked whether he had an appointment. He said he didn’t. She told him Throckly was busy. He said it was important that he talk to Throckly right away. “He’ll want to see me…” The receptionist sighed, and buzzed Throckly, explained the situation.

  Throckly began to say through the intercom that he was too busy when the man broke in, “I know where the medal is.”

  “Send him in,” Throckly said.

  The man entered Throckly’s office, closed the door behind him. He wore baggy white kitchen-workers’ pants, scuffed black shoes, a flowered shirt in yellow and green colors, a wrinkled, stained tan jacket.

  “Well?” Throckly said.

  “I work in the kitchen.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Carlos Montenez. I wish to speak to you about the medal that is missing…”

  “Go on.”

  “I know where it is—”

  The director impatiently shook his head. “Don’t play games with me, Mr. Montenez. That medal is not only very valuable, it’s involved with a murder.”

  “I know that, Señor Throckly. It is why I’ve come to you. You must want it back very much.”

  Montenez sat in a chair and lighted a cigarette. “I will tell you where it is for money.”

  “Blackmail?”

  Montenez shook his head. “A reward. When something worth a lot of money is missing, the owner must pay to have it returned.”

  “I’ll call the police—”

  “If you do that you will never see it again.”

  “How much do you want?”

  “Five thousand dollars… and I know it is worth a lot more.”

  Throckly hesitated, then, “How did you get it?”

  “It does not matter.”

  Maybe it didn’t, Throckly thought… “I’ll have to talk to someone else about this. I don’t have the authority to pay rewards for stolen items. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Montenez snubbed out his cigarette. He obviously hadn’t planned for this. It was taking too long. “Five minutes,” he said.

  “All right, all right.” Throckly quickly moved into the reception area, then into the hallway and hurried to Chloe Prentwhistle’s office. She was with Ford Saunders. “You won’t believe this,” Throckly said, “but there’s someone in my office who claims he has the Harsa.”

  Saunders and Chloe looked at each other. Chloe said, “Who is he?”

  “A Spanish kitchen worker. Look, it doesn’t matter, he says he can lead us to the Harsa for five thousand dollars—”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I know but—”

  “I don’t mean paying him is impossible, Alfred, I mean his having the medal. Where did he get it?”

  “I don’t know, I think we should call the police—”

  “God, no,” Chloe said. She opened her purse a
nd took out a checkbook. “I’ll pay him.”

  “With a check?” Saunders said.

  “I’ll go to the bank if he insists.”

  “Chloe that’s—”

  “Calm down, Alfred,” she said. “Think a moment. Costain wants us to clean our own house. If we call in the police, this man in your office might well panic and run. Then what do we have? Nothing. But if we can actually get the Harsa back in our hands, we’ll have the satisfaction of having accomplished it ourselves, and we’ll have it. That’s what counts…”

  “There’s only one thing to do,” Saunders said, “and that’s get the Harsa back. Chloe’s right. We’ll worry about the rest later—”

  “But what if he stole it? What if he’s fronting for someone—?”

  “Alfred, this is no time to play what if. Let’s not lose this chance.”

  Back in Throckly’s office, Montenez was on the verge of bolting. “Too late, too late, good-by—”

  “Wait, Mr. Montenez,” Throckly said, “it means you may get what you want.”

  Chloe told him to sit down. She stood over him, checkbook in hand. “I understand you want five thousand dollars for the Harsa medal. Do you have it with you?”

  “No.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I will tell you when I have the reward.”

  “Do you think we’d turn over five thousand dollars to you without the medal?” Saunders asked.

  Chloe motioned him to be quiet, turned to Montenez. “We’ll go together to the bank and I’ll cash this check.”

  They left the museum, drove in Saunders’s red Chevy Citation to a suburban branch of Chloe’s bank, where she cashed the check, then drove to Florida Avenue near Fourteenth Street, one of Washington’s ghettos.

  Saunders reluctantly pulled up to the curb. Two men drinking wine from bottles in paper bags scrutinized them as they got out and stood in front of a decrepit four-story building. The ground floor was occupied by a plumbing supply company. The windows were dirty; pipes and fittings strewn about on a carpeted ledge were barely visible.