Rattle His Bones (21 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: Rattle His Bones
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Witt said Steadman had a rotten home life. A nagging wife, perhaps? Did he want money to be able to leave her? How would desertion affect his position at the museum, and thus his work with his precious dinosaurs?
Unable to answer any of these questions, Daisy tried to concentrate on her own work, but she was writing a passage about dinosaurs, so her thoughts kept returning to Steadman.
Steadman and his precious dinosaurs. Precious stones stolen. What was the connection, if any? The Grand Duke's motive was far more understandable. He was as mad about his lost country as Steadman was about dinosaurs.
His lost country and his lost ruby, doubly lost—unless
he
had pinched it—now that only a fake gem remained. Rudolf Maximilian left with a fake gem, Daisy mused, and Steadman with his fake Diplodocus. She remembered his chagrin as he explained to Derek and Belinda that the pride of his collection was just plaster of Paris.
Daisy sat bolt upright. Suddenly she remembered so clearly she practically heard Steadman's voice: “The Diplodocus was found in America. The American museums bag all the best. They have the
money …
”
… The money to send out their own expeditions. The trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) had been debating setting up an expedition for years, without a decision. Was
that
what Steadman wanted money for, pots of money—his own dinosaur-hunting expedition?
In Steadman's eyes, Daisy suspected, that would be motive enough for robbing the mineralogy gallery. After all, as his colleagues agreed, compared to once-living fossils, what importance had mere inanimate stones?
Of course, coming up with a credible motive still didn't mean she was right, but it made her more determined than ever to find out.
With that decided, she managed to write a few paragraphs before Lucy brought her a cup of tea.
“It's perfectly beastly out,” Lucy said. “Mrs. Potter laid a fire in the sitting room. I thought I'd light it later. We could turn on the wireless and eat by the fire—tomato soup, fillet of sole, runner beans, potatoes in their jackets—and have a game of parcheesi or something.”
“It sounds lovely.” Glancing at the window, Daisy shivered. The air had taken on a sickly yellowish tinge. A haze blurred the roof of Lucy's studio and the houses on the other side of the mews. “But I have to go out for a bit first.”
“Darling, must you?”
If the fog set in for several days, Alec's watchers might easily lose Steadman. She
had
to go, to keep Jameson up to the mark. “Yes, I'd better,” she sighed.
“Too, too maddening. I won't light the fire till you get back, so that we don't have to bring up more coal.”
Warmed by the tea, Daisy went quickly to put on her winter coat, hat, and gloves before the warmth vanished. As soon as she set foot outside the front door, the fog grabbed her by the throat. She coughed.
Breathing through her nose, she set out. The lamp-post at the corner was already lit, murkily haloed. Visibility was not too bad as yet. Turning into Church Street, Daisy saw a 'bus and a motor-car crossing at the top, in the Fulham Road. The few pedestrians she met had hunched shoulders and drips on their noses. They were obviously hastening home. She envied them.
Reminding herself that the game was afoot, she stiffened her sinews and, imitating the action of a sabre-toothed tiger in a hurry, she sped museum-ward.
In the quarter of an hour it took Daisy to reach Cromwell Road, the fog thickened perceptibly. The museum's towers,
which should have loomed above the plane trees, were invisible. The planes themselves were greenish blotches. A lone 'bus moved cautiously down the street, and Daisy crossed in its wake. Sundays were always quiet, but this was morguelike.
A uniformed constable stood at the museum gates. “The museum shuts in a few minutes, miss,” he said. “I'd get on home, if I was you, 'fore it gets any worser.”
“I'm meeting someone,” Daisy told him.
A couple with two children came out of the museum, stopped to stare in dismay, and scurried away. At the top of the steps, Daisy glanced back. The buildings on the far side of the street were vague shapes, details obliterated.
Successful or not, she thought, she would beg Sergeant Jameson to see her home.
A swirl of fog entered with her. Ahead, in the Central Hall, a haze softened the outline of the great elephant, as if it tramped across the dusty plains of Africa. Daisy almost expected it to raise its head and trumpet its disgust in this raw, clammy northern clime.
The earlier crowds had departed. A few stragglers were just leaving, shepherded from the galleries by commissionaires anxious to take their own leave. Each reported to the police post, where Jameson ticked them off by the light of an electric lamp. Not anxious to be seen, Daisy went and lurked out of the way, behind the nearest pillar.
Jameson's men were in the post, waiting to sign out. The evening shift sergeant leant on the counter, chatting. From the rear of the hall came two constables together, one of them coughing with uninhibited ostentation.
“That don't sound too good,” said the evening sergeant.
“I'm ever so ill, Sarge. Can I go home?”
“It's just the fog, Sarge,” the other constable said with a grin. Daisy recognized Neddle.
“Nice try, Mason.” He caught sight of Daisy. “'Scuse me, miss, the museum's about to close. Hey, don't I know … ?”
“That's Miss Dalrymple,” said Jameson. “Here, you lot, clear out. I want a word with Sergeant Drummond, private.”
The day constables were only too glad to get off five minutes early. The two latest-comers strolled to the main entrance and stood gazing out into the gloom. Daisy went to join the sergeants.
Jameson invited her to explain, which she did.
“Well now,” Drummond said cautiously, “I can't see no harm in it, long as you're careful not to bust nothing. You'll have to wait till all the commissionaires have reported everyone out of their galleries, and the front doors are locked.”
Consulting his papers, Jameson said, “Ground floor's all clear. Just upstairs to go. No staff in today, and who can blame 'em.”
A few members of the public trickled down the main stairs, followed by the commissionaires from the non-fossil mammal galleries and botany. Last of all came Pavett, from mineralogy, ushering a larger group than the others. With the stolidity of the deaf, he ignored their comments on the jewel theft.
He came over to the police post. “Everyone out, lights off, inner doors locked,” he reported laconically. Laying two keys on the counter, he took himself off.
“All yours, mate,” said Jameson, coming out through the flap in the counter.
Drummond locked the main entrance doors behind the last visitors, and returned to the police post. “Right, I'm going up to bar and bolt the Mineral Gallery,” he said, “after the horse has been stolen as you might say. The dinosaurs are all yours, miss. I'll look in to see how you're doing when I come down. Neddle, you stay here. Mason, go and report
everyone out to the chap watching the back door, then come back.”
Sergeant Drummond and Constable Mason tramped off through the Central Hall on their way to the stairs up and down respectively. Daisy and Sergeant Jameson went round to the fossil mammal gallery.
The electric lights, on for the last half hour because of the fog, had been turned off. In the dingy daylight coming through the windows, the mammoths loomed larger than ever. But the fog had not penetrated thus far.
“What a difference!” Daisy exclaimed. “I didn't realize so much fog had got in back there.”
“Nasty stuff,” said Jameson.
“Beastly. I was wondering if you'd very much mind seeing me home afterwards.”
“Don't you worry, miss. We'll get you home right and tight.”
Jameson's boots echoed hollowly on the mosaic floor as they went through the hall to the fossil reptiles. Empty of people, lit only by the dreary light from the opaque skylights, the gallery seemed a fitting place for murder. Crossing it, they entered the dinosaur gallery.
The far end was lost in gloom. Daisy had taken several steps at the sergeant's side before she saw that someone was there before them.
“Hey, you!” yelled Jameson.
The figure on the stepladder, just withdrawing his hand from the Iguanodon's head, turned an aghast face. The Grand Duke!
While Jameson, immobilized by surprise, fumbled for his whistle, Rudolf Maximilian slithered down the rocking ladder and dashed through the arch to the cephalopods. Jameson blew a short sharp blast, then took off after the Grand
Duke, his whistle shrilling between his lips. The sound, designed to call help from streets away, rang on after the sergeant had disappeared.
Daisy was about to follow when she noticed a white blob at the foot of the ladder. It was a handkerchief, embroidered with an elaborate crest, holding several gems embedded in some sort of putty. She was reaching to pick it up when heavy footsteps raced towards her from behind.
“What's happened?” cried Constable Neddle. “Where's Sergeant Jameson?”
“They went thataway,” said Daisy, pointing. The picture-shows her brother used to drag her to in Ludlow, before the War, had often included William S. Hart cowboy films.
Neddle galloped off in hot pursuit. Daisy realized that the Grand Duke's way was blocked by the work room and Geological Library. From invertebrates, he would have to go out into the reptile gallery. She hurried back to the dinosaurs' main entrance arch, and stepped out into reptiles just as Jameson—still whistling—emerged from invertebrates.
However, instead of doubling back, Rudolf Maximilian had turned left. He was a vague shadow at the far end of the reptile gallery. Jameson tore after him. Daisy followed, meeting Neddle at the invertebrate entrance and continuing at his side.
Rudolf led them through the hall at the end, back along the mammal gallery, and into the Central Hall, now a somber cavern. There he headed for the main staircase, but as he reached the foot, Sergeant Drummond appeared at the top, a hazy figure in the intruding fog. The Grand Duke raced on under the arches to the North Hall, where he disappeared into the eastern enclosed staircase. Jameson, Neddle, and Drummond streamed after him.
Constable Mason, scarcely recognizable in the all-pervading
gloom, came out of the stairs on the west side of the hall, roared “What … ?” and joined the hunt.
Daisy did not fancy running up stairs. She knew the North Hall stairs were closed to the public above the first floor, so she went back to stand at the foot of the main staircase, looking up.
A moment later, the Grand Duke arrived at the top of the main stairs, apparently intending to descend. He saw Daisy at the bottom, changed his mind, and sped on along the giraffe gallery, still going strong, intermittently visible between the pillars.
Drummond led the pursuers now, Mason at his heels, Jameson and Neddle beginning to flag. From below, Daisy watched them chase Rudolf to the upper stairs. He took the lower flight two at a time, but he was panting now. Mason leapt up after him, Drummond trotted, the other two policemen stumbled behind. No matter, Rudolf would be trapped on the second floor.
But he didn't go on up. Loping across the half landing, he went down the opposite flight, and turned right to return through the British Nesting Birds.
Where he was aiming for, Daisy could not guess. There was no way out of the museum for him. Yet as long as the idiotic police failed to spread out and head him off, they would never catch him—as long as any of them was capable of movement. Everyone's speed had slowed considerably.
However, the Grand Duke, unlike the policemen, was young, slim, and desperate. He just might get far enough ahead to lose them temporarily. In that case he might conceivably double back to pick up the jewels, in the surely vain hope of hiding and somehow eluding searchers. He had, after all, hidden well enough not to be ejected from the museum when it closed.
The hunt disappeared into the passage leading back past the Refreshment Room to the stairs down to the North Hall—or round and back to the giraffes. Daisy decided to return to the dinosaur gallery.
That she had been astonished to see Rudolf Maximilian retrieving the jewels from the dinosaurs was the understatement of the year. His credentials as murderer were excellent, but he failed dismally as a burglary candidate. Could he have been in league with someone? Randell the junior mineralogy assistant, perhaps?
The theft would have been comparatively easy for Randell, but Daisy could not see why he needed the Grand Duke's help. Still less likely was it that either of them should hide the loot among the dinosaurs. No, the dinosaur man had to be involved. For some inscrutable reason, Steadman was in league with Rudolf.
So which of them was the murderer?

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