Dead as a Scone (14 page)

“You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Whoa! It’s a terrible idea. Do I have to remind you that I was kidding?”

“I won’t use secobarbital, Cory. I promise. I have a more benign substance in mind.”

Flick said her good-byes, put down the phone, and went looking for Cha-Cha. She found him curled up in the middle of the sofa in the parlor.

“You’re lucky that sofa is a rental,” she said.

Cha-Cha raised his head and stared at her quizzically.

“I don’t suppose you would like another walk in the rain? I have to find a jar of lingonberry preserves.”

Cha-Cha lowered his head without further comment.

Flick walked through the Pantiles, exited the northern end, and made for London Road—a thoroughfare sensible locals called the A26. She walked less than a half mile to where the road made a sharp left turn to the northwest and continued straight to the large Safeway superstore that seemed likely to stock lingonberry preserves. The store was crowded. Flick guessed that most of her fellow shoppers were professional folk who, like her, did their shopping in the evening.

Vaccinium vitisidaea.
Without trying to, Flick remembered the Latin name she had studied years earlier and other details, too. Lingonberry—a small, red, round berry with a tart, acidity taste. Also called the “mountain cranberry.” A staple on tables throughout Scandinavia.

And apparently in southern England, too. Flick found three different brands of lingonberry preserves on the shelf but decided instead to buy a bottle of German-made lingonberry syrup sweetened with sugar.

The perfect form of lingonberry for my experiment.

On her walk home, Flick lingered a moment in front of the “Bath House” at the northern end of the Pantiles. It had been built in 1804 so that well-heeled visitors to Tunbridge Wells could soak in the mineral-rich waters. The original chalybeate, or iron-bearing, spring was still accessible down a short flight of steps in the Bath House’s ornate, colonnaded façade.

Flick understood the chemistry of the water—how dissolved iron and manganese salts created its notorious metallic taste—but she enjoyed the local legend more than a cold scientific explanation. It seems that around the year 980, the devil quenched his burning nose in that very spring, thus imparting the metallic tang. Satan had foolishly tried to tempt Dunstan, the archbishop of Canterbury, by dressing up as a beautiful woman. The future saint spotted cloven hooves beneath the woman’s dress and clamped red-hot tongs on her nose. This happened in the Sussex village of Mayfield. The devil, suffering great pain, leapt all the way to Tunbridge Wells in search of an available source of cooling water.

Flick had visited the spring during the previous summer and filled two-dozen small bottles to accompany the Christmas cards she would send to friends and family in the United States. They were lined up on the bottom shelf of her refrigerator like a platoon of toy soldiers. She could still remember the bitter taste the water had left in her mouth.

Bitter like poison. A perfect standin for barbiturates in my experiment.

Flick’s experiment was simplicity itself. She poured the contents of four small bottles of spring water into a tall glass, added a teaspoonful of lingonberry syrup, and tasted—then added more syrup and tasted again.

The bitter, metallic taste slowly receded but never completely disappeared.

Flick felt a nose poke her ankle. She looked down at Cha-Cha’s hopeful face.

“Ah ha!” she said. “There’s nothing like the sound of food being prepared to catch a dog’s ear. Well, thank you for joining me in the kitchen, Cha-Cha. I appreciate your company. A second observer is always useful in scientific research.”

She transferred a few spoonfuls of the water-and-syrup mix to a saucer, then set it down on the floor. The dog sniffed at the brew, took a tentative taste, then backed away in obvious annoyance.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Flick said. “A true scientist is willing to suffer when necessary to advance the cause of science. It is not my fault that you, like all canines, have a remarkably sensitive nose and a surprisingly small supply of taste buds. That means you reacted mostly to the strange odor of the mineral water. Or maybe you don’t like lingonberries.”

Flick gave Cha-Cha a doggy treat, instantly improving his disposition.

“Your mistress, however, relied chiefly on her sense of taste to spot dangerous-to-eat foods, and as we get older, our sense of taste can fade.”

Cha-Cha begged for another treat. Flick let him eat it out of her hand.

“So let’s imagine Elspeth Hawker at the meeting last Wednesday, happily chatting with the other trustees, cheerfully spooning big dollops of lingonberry preserves on her scones. I’ll bet that she ignored the slight residual bitterness. She probably assumed that Alain Rousseau had changed his recipe or that he got hold of a batch of unripe lingonberries.”

She reached down and stroked the dog’s plush back.

“I’d say that our experiment is a success. We now know the method of murder. And Elspeth’s little black book provides the motive. Oh—that reminds me! I didn’t get a chance to tell you that I tracked down eighteen of the nineteen objects Elspeth identified as fakes. They are all on display in the Tea Antiquities Gallery. I’m not an expert on forgeries, but I’m pretty sure she was right. They don’t look quite right to me.”

Cha-Cha made a soft yipping sound.

“I agree with your assessment. We know the method and the motive—but what do we do next? Who can we tell?”

Who will believe us?

Seven

N
igel stepped out of the pharmacy at the northern end of the Pantiles. “We have time to talk this out before we meet with Augustus Hoskins,” he said to Flick. “We’re not due at the restaurant for another fifteen minutes.”

“Fine with me. Where?”

“That bench looks comfortable.”

Nigel and Flick had walked through the Pantiles so that he could buy a packet of antacid tablets. The bench he chose was on the Upper Walk, across from the colonnade, under a large linden tree. Two teenaged boys were sitting on an adjacent bench, talking, smoking, and occasionally laughing loudly.

“What do you think happened yesterday?” he asked Flick evenly.

“To repeat what I’ve already said twice, I think that the trustees tasked us to make a vital recommendation.”

Nigel’s immediate thought was that he disliked hearing “task” used as a verb, but he didn’t want to argue with Flick’s choice of words. There were far bigger issues to deal with.

“The trustees took the easy way out,” he said. “They dropped a crisis into our laps.”

“That’s where it belongs. We manage the museum; it’s our job to solve tough problems. Anyway, this is a simple decision to make. We go with the creative financing option and buy our collection.”

Nigel heaved a heavy sigh—heavy enough, he hoped, to signal his growing frustration. He opened a roll of antacids and put one in his mouth. His stomach had been churning most of the morning.

“You are missing my point,” he said. “Of course, the museum will buy the collection. The problem is that the trustees have put you and me on the spot. We will take the blame should anything go wrong.”

“What can go wrong? It seems a straightforward transaction. The collection will serve as collateral for the loan. If the museum can’t make the payments for some reason, we’ll simply sell off the antiquities. We’d be no worse off than we are today.”

“That depends,” Nigel said.

“On what?”

“Think back to the dismal possibility articulated by Archibald Meicklejohn.”

“You mean about organizations being dragged to their doom by similar commitments?”

Nigel nodded. “Think what might happen if Britain experienced a serious economic recession during the coming few years. Fund-raising would slow down at the same time paintings, maps, crockery, and whatever become less valuable. We might not be able to sell off enough of the collection to cover the outstanding balance.”

He enjoyed watching a look of understanding spread across Flick’s face. “Ouch!” she said with obvious sincerity.

“Ouch indeed! Therein lies the downward spiral that leads to doom. In the worst case, the museum would go bankrupt.”

“But how could anyone pin the blame on us?”

“Clearly you misled the trustees about the long-term value of the antiquities, while I encouraged them to approve an excessively risky transaction.” Nigel grimaced. “As least, that’s what the trustees will tell their friends, colleagues, newspaper reporters, government boards of inquiry—anyone who asks why a successful museum went under. When two plump, wholly defenseless scapegoats come along, no smart executive will miss the opportunity to make full use of them.”

Flick took a few seconds to respond. “Wow. I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“I assumed you were being paranoid—seeing bogeymen under your desk.”

Nigel offered the roll of antacids. “Would you like a piece of museum-director’s candy?”

Flick laughed. “No. But now I understand why you wanted me to come to lunch. We seem to be in this together.”

“Like peas in the proverbial pod, although should the bottom fall out, my reputation will suffer far more than yours. The trustees are bound to take pity on the sitting chief curator, whereas I will be an irresistible target: the former acting director. I can imagine Archibald claiming that my temporary status encouraged me to be reckless.”

“Then maybe we should be cautious and recommend one of the other options.”

Nigel shook his head. “As you said earlier, there is only one choice to make. Doing nothing would be absurd, and dragging our heels accomplishes nothing. We must buy the antiquities. Or else the museum will go the way of the Wolseley Six Saloon.”

“I’ve never heard of a Wolseley Six Saloon.”

“I’m not surprised! My dad bought one of the last Sixes to be built—in
1975
. I learned to drive in that car.”

“What’s our plan for today?” Flick asked.

“The fellow we are meeting for lunch at Barn and Rafters in Lonsdale Gardens…” Nigel glanced at his watch. “We had better move along.” He stood up. “The chappie’s name is Augustus Hoskins, a world-class whiz at raising money for museums. He is so good, in fact, that two of his fund-raising campaigns have been turned into case histories for business-school textbooks. His nickname in the museum biz is ‘the Great Hope.’ We will pick his brain. Perhaps there is an option four?”

“Do I have to curtsy when I meet him?”

“A discreet kiss to his ring undoubtedly will be sufficient.”

They left the Pantiles, looped around the Church of King Charles the Martyr on the corner of Neville and London Roads, and walked through Chapel Place to reach High Street. Nigel had to slow his pace so that Flick could stay with him.

“I assumed when you invited me to lunch that we would drive,” Flick said. “Otherwise I’d have left my look-good pumps in my office and worn my comfortable walking shoes.”

“It’s scarcely more than a kilometer stroll from the museum to Lonsdale Gardens. Besides, walking in Tunbridge Wells is easier than parking.”

“Frankly, I’m amazed at how much walking I do these days, despite the many hills. My friends back home don’t believe me. They can’t imagine that I have survived three whole months without buying a car.”

“Remind me of where you are from.”

“York. A small city in southeastern Pennsylvania.”

“We have a York in England. Ours is somewhat older, though, and I’ll wager more historic.”

“Older maybe; my York dates back only to 1741. But more historic—
piffle!
The words ‘United States of America’ were first spoken in York. That was in 1777, when the Continental Congress met in York to adopt the Articles of Confederation, America’s original constitution. York was the first U.S. capital.”

Nigel held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I stand corrected.”

They crossed to Mount Pleasant Road and trod uphill next to Central Railway Station. A train had just arrived. Several people ran past them into the station, clearly trying to catch the train.

“How large is your York?” Nigel asked.

“Slightly smaller than Tunbridge Wells—but otherwise quite comparable. I feel right at home here.”

“You and Hoskins should get along like old mates. He grew up in the Wells.”

“That’s a coincidence.”

“My very words to him yesterday.” He hesitated. “Flick
—
there is something I need to say before we meet Augustus. I am afraid that I must be blunt with you. We don’t want to give Hoskins the impression that anything criminal has gone on at the museum.”

“By any chance are you thinking about the intentional poisoning of Dame Elspeth Hawker, followed by the negligent ignoring of obvious barbiturate overdose symptoms by one of England’s leading physicians?”

Nigel stopped in his tracks and peered at Flick’s face. She was grinning at him. “Ah!” he said. “You are pulling my leg.”