The Fossil Murder

by Evelyn James

  “Come on, I’ve had enough of this,” O’Harris was scowling at the protestors and attempting to go around the group to reach the steps of the town hall.

  Every time he reached a clear space, someone jumped in front of him and thrust another leaflet in his face. It wasn’t long before he lost his temper.

  “Look, I have no interest in your damn nonsense!” He declared to the next person who pushed a paper at him. “Evolution is a fact, so you can take your Bible passages and shove them at someone else. I don’t go around yelling at you God doesn’t exist, do I?”

  O’Harris barged through the crowd and made it to the steps. Clara hurried behind him. Tommy was delayed as he was trying to be slightly politer about his refusal to accept the protestors’ claims. He finally managed to make it to the top of the steps to join Clara and O’Harris.

  “The police are coming,” Clara pointed up the road.

  The police were marching their way. Someone had summoned them, and a large body of police constables was heading for the crowd of protestors. Several people who had been going into the exhibition now stopped at the entrance to the town hall to watch.

  The police surrounded the protest group and told them they had to leave, in no uncertain terms. There were cries of frustration and hisses that this was a denial of their right to free speech, but the police were firm. They could protest, but they could not stop the exhibition or prevent people from entering the town hall. After a short argument, the protestors backed down and were successfully dispersed.

  “Well, that’s a relief!”

  Clara turned around and saw that the person who had spoken was Dr Browning. He gave her a sad smile.

  “We usually get some form of protest,” he sighed. “People find this exhibition very controversial.”

  Looking rather glum, Dr Browning headed back into the town hall. Clara watched until the last protestor was gone and then headed inside herself. O’Harris and Tommy were close behind.

  “I don’t understand how people can deny science,” O’Harris grumbled, still rankling from being detained.

  “Evolution scares people because they think it denies God. For some people, religion is their rock, their safety net. Take that from them and you leave them terrified,” Clara said, surprising herself a little with her understanding of the matter. “For them, it is like the world is ending. Scared people do drastic things. I dare say some believe what they say wholeheartedly, while others are just trying to convince themselves through action, as the alternative horrifies them too much.”

  “Like Dr Browning, I don’t consider a belief in evolution and a belief in God mutually exclusive,” Tommy added. “But I do have sympathy for people who can’t see things that way. Their views may be due to a lack of education, or too rigid a reliance on the text of the Bible. Why did you keep the leaflet they gave you Clara?”

  Clara had not realised he had noticed her stashing the paper in her handbag.

  “I want to understand these protests better,” Clara said. “I want to understand why people are getting so upset. I thought I would read the leaflet properly at home and get a better idea of what is going on.”

  “I still think it is all nonsense,” O’Harris snorted, though he was calming down.

  “At least the town hall is quieter now,” Clara tried to soothe him.

  They walked to the top of the room and took another look at the Archaeopteryx. This time there was no one behind them forcing them to move on and they could examine the fossil at their leisure. Clara bored of the bones before the boys and walked off to look at some of the other cases. Her mind was wandering, thinking about Victor Darling. Who was he really?

  They stayed at the hall for an hour and then headed for their respective homes. O’Harris took his leave of Clara at the door of her house with a tender kiss on her cheek and talk of how nice a day he had had. They promised to see each other again soon.

  “One of these days you two will figure it all out,” Tommy grinned at his sister as she stepped into the hall of the house.

  “Figure what out?” Clara asked him.

  Tommy winked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Chapter Five

  Hours later, Clara was on the verge of heading up to bed when there was a frantic knock on the front door. She shook off her weariness and went to answer it, wondering, with some concern, who would be trying to get her attention at this time of night. When she opened the door, she failed to recognise the man on her doorstep.

  “Can I help?” She asked him.

  “Clara Fitzgerald?” The man asked. He was in his thirties, a workman from the looks of his clothes and he was holding his cap in both hands, threading the edge through his anxious fingers as he stood before her.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you come to the town hall at once, miss? There has been an incident and Dr Browning heard you might be able to help with such things. He don’t care for the police, miss,” the man had nearly spun his hat in a complete circle as he worked his hands around the edge.

  “All right, I’ll come,” Clara rubbed at her tired eyes. “I’ll just get my coat and hat.”

  A short time later Clara was back at the town hall and being shown into the foyer. Her escort had revealed that his name was Wallace Sunderland, and that he was one of the workmen who went with the exhibition across the country.

  “I put everything in crates when we leave, and I take it out again when we arrive,” Wallace explained as they travelled to the town hall.

  “What has happened, Wallace?” Clara asked him.

  “I ought not to talk. Dr Browning is terribly upset,” Wallace refused to say anymore.

  Once inside the town hall, Clara noticed that there was a sizeable police presence. Several constables were in the foyer and she could see more through the doors to the exhibition room. Among them was Inspector Park-Coombs and Clara’s heart sank a little as she realised that something serious had occurred to bring the inspector out at this hour.

  Dr Browning was sitting on a chair just inside the doors, right next to the ammonite display case. When he saw Clara, he was startled.

  “You are Clara Fitzgerald?” He asked, then he shook his head. “Excuse my astonishment, it is just that I recognise you from earlier.”

  “I thought that was why you had sent for me?” Clara said.

  “No,” Dr Browning managed to smile, though he still looked sad. “I summoned you because that gentleman said you were the best private detective in town.”

  Clara looked in the direction he pointed and recognised Oliver Bankes, a friend of the Fitzgeralds and part-time police photographer. Whenever a serious crime was committed, Oliver was called to take pictures of the crime scene for future reference. His presence at the town hall was further indication that something dreadful had indeed occurred.

  “Dr Browning, why do you need a private detective?” Clara could see that Inspector Park-Coombs and Oliver Bankes were gathered near the top of the room, in front of the Archaeopteryx display case, but the other displays blocked her view of what they were looking at. “Has someone tried to steal something?”

  “No,” Dr Browning said in a hollow voice. “A man has died.”

  The academic shook his head miserably.

  “And the police think I might have killed him!”

  Clara looked over in the direction of the inspector. No one appeared to be paying a lot of attention to Dr Browning, there were no constables keeping a watch on him. She suspected he was being overly dramatic, certainly no one seemed in a hurry to arrest him.

  “I need you to find out who has done this thing,” Dr Browning said desperately. “The repercussions are awful to think about. It could cause so many problems for the future of this tour, and we must continue to travel and display the Archaeopteryx, so that everyone has the opportunity to see it!”

  “Let me have a chat with the inspector,” Clara said, moving away from Dr Browning and further up the room. She paused near Oliver.<
br />
  Oliver Bankes ran a photography shop in town but moonlighted as a police photographer. His services were not needed often enough to warrant the force employing him full-time for the purpose, so he made his bread and butter by taking photographs of the living. He was a little soft on Clara, but the arrival of Captain O’Harris had dashed his hopes. They had, however, remained friends.

  “You suggested Dr Browning hire me?” Clara asked Oliver with a smile on her lips.

  “He was rather fraught when I got here, and when the police started questioning him about where he was at the time of the incident, he became quite distressed. He is convinced he is about to be arrested. I thought you might be able to help him out,” Oliver shrugged.

  “We’ll see,” Clara said without committing herself. “He may not need my help if the police do not consider him a suspect. What has happened?”

  Oliver moved a step to the side, enabling Clara to look around the edge of a display cabinet and to the floor before the Archaeopteryx case. A man was lying face down on the wooden floor. His hands were splayed alongside his head and a hammer had seemingly fallen from his hand as he crashed down. The hair on the back of his skull looked dark and wet. Clara guessed this indicated blood.

  “Clara,” Inspector Park-Coombs nodded to her. “You’ve managed to get here quickly.”

  “I was asked to come,” Clara replied.

  She motioned with her hand to the glass case.

  “Dr Browning appears rather distressed and seems to think you are about to arrest him for murder,” she added.

  Inspector Park-Coombs was amused.

  “Does he now? Well, I am not ruling him out just yet, but I don’t have the evidence to arrest him. Has he hired you?”

  “I haven’t accepted the case yet,” Clara answered, glancing down at the body. “I wanted to see what was going on first.”

  “Well, it is a murder,” Park-Coombs said drily. “I don’t know the fellow’s name yet, but we believe he may be with a group of protestors who were making a fuss outside the town hall earlier today.”

  “I encountered them. Anti-Darwinists,” Clara hefted her shoulders to demonstrate what she thought of their views. “Looks like he was up to no good?”

  “As far as we can tell, he broke in via a back window and it looks like he was going to try to destroy or steal the Archaeopteryx fossil. Unluckily for him, Dr Browning sleeps on a camp bed at the back of the room for security purposes. He claims he heard a muffled cry which woke him up. The room was pitch black, but he keeps a torch by his bed. He shone it about the room and spotted this man on the floor. He quickly realised the fellow was beyond help and ran outside to find a constable on patrol and summon us,” Inspector Park-Coombs gave a flick of his fingers which was meant to indicate the police force at large. “By the time we had arrived, Dr Browning had managed to get word to the boarding house where the rest of the exhibition team were staying, and they were on the scene. It was a real muddle when we got here, with people all about the place.”

  “One of the workmen for the exhibition fetched me,” Clara added. “From what you are saying Inspector, it would seem that Dr Browning is your only suspect. He was alone in this room when the man was killed.”

  “It would appear that way,” Inspector Park-Coombs nodded. “But I have my reservations. For a start, the murder weapon is nowhere to be found and the constable who first encountered Dr Browning and raised the alarm tells me he was in a terrible state and looked fit to collapse from the shock. He didn’t have the appearance of a man who could think rationally enough to hide a murder weapon.

  “Then I find myself thinking about the circumstances. Dr Browning was in here alone, everyone knew that. He has stated it himself. Why bother to hide the murder weapon when he is the only one who could have killed the man anyway? If he killed the man in a fit of panic when he found him trespassing, the law is on his side. He can claim self-defence. Hiding the murder weapon looks suspicious.”

  “Only, Dr Browning does not claim he struck and killed this man,” Clara pointed out.

  “Exactly, another reason I have my doubts about him as our killer,” Inspector Park-Coombs waggled his thick moustache thoughtfully. “Only an innocent man would claim something so preposterous as that he did not kill a man who died when he was alone in a room with him.”

  “I see your point,” Clara smiled. “A truly guilty man would have either claimed self-defence or stated there was someone else in the room.”

  “And Dr Browning does not strike me as a deeply cunning man trying a double-bluff,” Park-Coombs glanced over at the scared academic, who was hunched up in a chair looking miserable. “Which leaves me with a right pickle, because the only other man I know to have been in the room with this fellow, claims he had nothing to do with his death.”

  “Did you call my name?” Wandering towards the inspector, between the cases of fossils, was Brighton’s police surgeon, the appropriately named Dr Deáth.

  “You took long enough to arrive,” Inspector Park-Coombs scowled at the surgeon in jest.

  Dr Deáth was nothing like you would expect of a man who spent his days with corpses. He was jovial and constantly smiling. He was in his late forties and not very tall, with dark-rimmed glasses and a passion for sporty waistcoats that seemed entirely out of place at a crime scene. He took the inspector’s ribbing in good humour.

  “The wife was hosting a dinner party,” he said. “We had just started a game of bridge. I had to wait until I could be replaced as a fourth hand. The wife gets very cross if I upset her bridge game.”

  Dr Deáth peered past the end of the display cabinet on his left, at the body on the floor.

  “Ah, a blunt trauma incident!” He said with the sort of enthusiasm other people reserve for works of art or pretty butterflies. “I do like the cut and dry ones, nothing elaborate or complicated.”

  The surgeon knelt by the body and dropped a doctor’s bag on the floor. He drew out a notebook, pencil and ruler, before beginning to inspect the corpse.

  “Big wound, lots of trauma over a wide area. I would suggest a wide, heavy tool like a mallet,” Dr Deáth took measurements of the wound. “Crushed the skull, but no deep lacerations. The shock of the blow would have caused grave injury to the brain and death would have come quite quickly. I suspect there are shards of bone embedded in the brain too, looking at the centre of this wound, but I’ll need to study that further in the morgue.”

  “A mallet,” Inspector Park-Coombs mused. “Haven’t seen one of those lying around. Just that hammer.”

  “The hammer has no blood on it and has not been used to harm anyone,” Dr Deáth said without looking up. “No, you will need to look for a big mallet or something similar. Like the ones used for driving metal posts into the ground.”

  “Right,” Inspector Park-Coombs scratched his head.

  “It was swung with some force too,” Dr Deáth was prodding the back of the dead man’s skull with his pencil. “To do all this damage in one blow requires either some serious strength or a great deal of fury. It really is a heavy blow.”

  “Not the sort of thing a quiet academic might do, then?” Inspector Park-Coombs was looking over at Dr Browning once again.

  “What?” Dr Deáth asked, glancing up from his examination.

  “No matter,” Inspector Park-Coombs told him, waving off the comment.

  “Where would Dr Browning get a mallet anyway,” Clara said. “It is not the sort of thing you have lying around an exhibition hall.”

  “Yet it is the sort of thing you might bring with you to smash a glass case and its fossilised contents,” Inspector Park-Coombs frowned. “There has to have been another person here.”

  “I agree, Inspector, but if you are not intending to arrest Dr Browning, I think I should get out of your way and inform him he does not require my services.”

  “Very well, Clara,” Park-Coombs nodded to her. “Sorry you got called out this late.”

  “Oh, hardly your fa
ult,” Clara replied, turning away and walking back to Dr Browning.

  The academic looked up anxiously as she approached.

  “The inspector does not think you killed this man Dr Browning,” she told him.

  Dr Browning gasped with relief.

  “Thank goodness!”

  “It appears you will not be requiring my assistance,” Clara masked a yawn. “I shall therefore get out of the way of the police.”

  She started to head to the doors, but Dr Browning jumped up and caught her arm.

  “No, please, I still want you to investigate this,” he said.

  “But, you are not a suspect,” Clara told him.

  “I know, but this horrid mess could put an end to the exhibition,” Dr Browning looked appalled at the thought. “And there is something else. I have been fearing something like this for weeks now.”

  “A murder?”

  “No, someone breaking into the exhibition and trying to destroy the Archaeopteryx. There have been threats. Its why I sleep near the exhibit,” Dr Browning had gone very pale. “I’m very worried about the intentions of these people. I have reported it all to the police, but they say they can do nothing. The threats are anonymous. But now it looks like these people are prepared to kill. What if that blow was meant for me?”

  Dr Browning looked over at the corpse with some horror.

  “In the dark, what if they thought I was stood by that case.”

  “No, Dr Browning, whoever did this probably came in with the dead man. He would have known who he was striking.”

  Dr Browning looked unconvinced.

  “They are killers, Miss Fitzgerald, monsters,” Dr Browning trembled from head to foot. “I need you to find out who these people are and stop them. I know the police will do nothing, so I must turn to you. I don’t think this is the end of things, I think it is only the beginning.”

  He clasped her arm tightly, looking like a man who has stared into a nightmare and is terrified it won’t leave him when he wakes up. Clara said the words before she had even given a thought to what she was doing.