Dead as a Scone (33 page)

Nigel saw Sir Simon stiffen at the word “fire.”

“During the next two years,” Flick continued, “Elspeth had five different operations—skin grafts of some sort, I presume.”

Flick paused. Sir Simon said nothing. Flick went on. “We also saw a photo of Elspeth taken nine years after the fire. The setting is the seaside in Brighton on a sunny day. Elspeth has on a long-sleeved dress and stockings—a rather odd outfit for a day at the beach, especially since other young women in the background are wearing one-piece swimsuits, or bathing costumes, as the Brits say.”

Sir Simon glared at Flick. “Does your fashion chronicle have a point?”

“A sad point. I believe that the fire at Lion’s Peak left Elspeth with disfiguring scars. At least, she considered her scars disfiguring. And so she wore concealing clothing all her life, she never married, and she lived in self-imposed exile at Lion’s Peak until she became a trustee of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. The scars were so distressing to Elspeth that her personal physician helped her to maintain her secret, even after she died a suspicious death.”

Sir Simon seemed to shrink in his chair. His head dipped; his shoulders sagged. He gazed awhile at the antique Persian Kerman rug on his floor, then finally said, “You are a very clever woman, Dr. Adams.” He sighed. “You have managed to deduce half of Elspeth’s secret. She was cruelly burned in the fire. And she did obsess about her large, livid scars. As you surmise, her arms and legs suffered the worst damage. But there was nothing suspicious about her death.”

“Dame Elspeth died of an overdose of barbiturates.”

“Probably,” he said, with a half nod. “Undoubtedly self-administered. I saw no need to burden the family or the museum with that painful truth.”

Flick slid forward in her chair. “I don’t believe Elspeth committed suicide. I considered the possibility—it made no sense to me.”

“Of course, it didn’t. You don’t have all the facts.” Sir Simon peered earnestly at Flick. “I know that you became Elspeth’s friend, because she told me so. But her friendship with you did not alter her deeply secretive nature. I doubt she told you that she was dying.”

Flick frowned, then gave a slight shake of her head.

“Elspeth’s heart was failing,” Sir Simon continued. “She knew there was a significant risk of a debilitating stroke from the medications she was taking. She greatly feared that possibility and also the absolute certainty that she would grow increasingly feeble as her illness progressed. On two separate occasions Elspeth asked me to prescribe a lethal dose of medication she could use ‘if the need arose,’ as she put it. Naturally, I refused. She evidently acquired the drugs elsewhere.”

The clock in the hallway began to chime the hour. Sir Simon glanced at his watch, then rose from his chair. “I promised you ten minutes.”

Nigel had listened patiently, waiting for the appropriate time to speak up. He cleared his throat and said, “I am afraid, Sir Simon, that you don’t have all the facts, either. Two hours before Dame Elspeth died, she visited me and shared her intentions to reveal a systematic theft of antiquities to the trustees.”

“Theft?” The doctor stared at Nigel in puzzlement. “From the museum?”

“Nineteen authentic antiquities worth approximately one half million pounds have been replaced by forgeries—apparently by one of the trustees.” He added, “You, by the way, are not under suspicion.”

The doctor’s eyes widened. He sat down again slowly. “Marjorie Halifax told me that the story Dr. Adams told to the police was untrue…” He let his words trail off.

“My story was quite true,” Flick said.

Nigel held his breath, silently urging Flick not to gloat. Blessedly, she did nothing other than send a stealthy smile his way.

“There is more, Sir Simon,” Nigel said. “Sometime after the impromptu trustee meeting that you were unable to attend, a tea canister in Felicity’s office was contaminated with oleander leaves.”

“Good heavens,” he said hollowly. He frowned. “I have not heard of anyone being poisoned.”

“We haven’t told anyone other than you…yet.”

Sir Simon turned to Flick. “What proof do you have of these allegations?”

Flick seemed to have anticipated the question. She counted off her four answers on her fingers. “We have persuasive evidence that Elspeth discovered the scheme to steal antiquities. We have the nineteen sham antiquities themselves. We have the tainted tea. And we have Nigel’s observation of Elspeth’s state of mind before the trustees’ meeting—a woman about to reveal a crime is not likely to commit suicide before she gets the chance to speak.”

The doctor stared at his hands, seemingly lost in thought. Slowly, the confusion on his face gave way to agonized resolve. He shook his head resolutely. “Not enough!” he said. “I need more. Present me with convincing evidence that one of my fellow trustees poisoned Elspeth and I will withdraw my original finding on cause of death. I will go to the Kent police immediately and recommend the exhumation of Elspeth’s body for a postmortem examination.”

“Thank you, Sir Simon,” Flick said as she stood, in a voice without emotion. “The evidence that will convince you exists. We’ll find it.”

He looked up at her and responded with a vague wave. “Please show yourselves out. I need time to think before my guests arrive.”

Nigel followed Flick to his car. Neither spoke until Nigel steered the BMW across Bishops Down and turned southeast on Major York’s Road.

“I hope we can keep the promise you made,” he said.

“The knot on the bag is beginning to untangle, Nigel. A few more tugs and the rest of the truth will spill out.” She added in a somewhat sheepish tone, “Can you break free again tomorrow to go on another trek?”

“Sorry, but I am up to my hips in museum work. I have to talk the trustees into yet another special meeting. On Friday afternoon, they shall gather with Bleasdale and the Hawker heirs to finalize the acquisition of the Hawker collection.”

Flick sighed. “Rats!”

“What do you have planned?”

“I am going to track down Philip Oxley this evening and make an appointment to see him in Oxford. Remember those sketchy details you mentioned? I’m hoping that he knows more about the relationship between Desmond Hawker and Neville Brackenbury than he wrote in his manuscript.”

“You are welcome to borrow the BMW.”

“No way! I haven’t driven a car with a manual transmission in five years. I’m not going to start off with a hundred-mile trip halfway across England. I’ll take the train.”

Nigel laughed. “I thank you and so does my clutch.”

“But you can do me a big favor,” she said.

“Name it.”

“Keep Cha-Cha for a second night. I don’t want to leave him alone in my apartment all day.”

The Shiba Inu gave a little yip at the sound of his name.

“With pleasure,” Nigel said.

To his surprise, he really meant it.

Flick stood among the crowd of commuters at the Central Railway Station in Tunbridge Wells who were traveling to their jobs in London and wondered if she had lost any of her “visiting American” look during the past three months.

No one seemed to be gawking at her, even though she was doing more than her share of gazing at different parts of the elaborate redbrick station that had been built in 1912.

Perhaps the sheer excitement of taking a
real
train journey showed on her face. Flick could count on two hands the number of train trips she had made in the United States. As she waited for the 06:57 to London, she totaled her various day trips from Baltimore to New York and one long round-trip from Baltimore to central Florida when she was a kid. Eight, possibly nine in all.

Flick had been surprised to learn that one couldn’t travel directly from Tunbridge Wells to Oxford on England’s celebrated rail network. The trip involved two different railroads—Tunbridge Wells to London on South Eastern Trains, then London to Oxford on Thames Trains—and was made even more interesting by the need to take a
tube
ride on the London Underground. The Tunbridge Wells train arrived in London Bridge Station; the Oxford train departed from Paddington Station.

She used the journey to read—and reread—the relevant chapters of Philip Oxley’s manuscript. The evening before, she had found Oxley’s telephone number on her first try at directory inquiry and reached him at home with her first call. Professor Oxley was delighted to talk with the chief curator of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. Flick had to pull the telephone away from her when he bellowed, “I am thunderstruck to learn that a copy of
Transformation in the Tea Trade
still exists and utterly bowled over that another scholar wants to talk about it.” He immediately agreed to see Flick at ten thirty on Wednesday morning in his office at the History Faculty Building on Broad Street.

The 08:48 from London Paddington pulled into Oxford Railway Station two minutes late at 9:52. Oxley had predicted “a fifteen-to-twenty-minute walk from the station to Broad Street.” The morning was crisp and Flick was in high spirits; she reached her ornate destination in less than thirteen minutes. Her guidebook explained that the History Faculty Building had been completed in 1896 as the Indian Institute, a place to foster and facilitate Indian studies and to showcase the languages, literature, and industries of India. “Well, that explains why the decorative carvings are Hindu gods and tiger heads,” Flick muttered to herself, “and why the weather vane on top of the building is an elephant.”

Dr. Philip Oxley—short, dark, plump, intense, in his midforties—welcomed Flick into a typically small professorial office that, also typically, seemed overwhelmed by books. He had set out tea and digestive biscuits on his desk.

“You know all about tea, right?” he said after he poured two cuppas. “What do you know about these things?” He held up the green box of biscuits and said, “I’ve always wondered where the dreadful name come from.”

Flick laughed. “Back in the States we call them whole wheat cookies. However, one of our exhibits at the museum presents a simple, plausible explanation of ‘digestive biscuit.’ ”

“Good. You talk whilst I munch away.”

“Early in the nineteenth century, so the story goes, the need was seen to increase the amount of fiber in the everyday British diet to aid…
uh
…digestion. Someone invented a high-fiber biscuit made of whole wheat flour and other grains.”

“Do you mean that this
cookie
is the precursor to the bran loaf?”

Another laugh. “An apt description.”

“You have convinced me to visit your museum. I’ve heard of it, of course, but I have never made the trip south.” Oxley leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers over his generous stomach. “Now, you told me you were conducting a research project about the relationship between Desmond Hawker and Neville Brackenbury.”

It was a statement, but also an invitation for Flick to explain her evening phone call requesting an immediate appointment. Flick took a sip of tea and used the moment to collect her thoughts. Describing her search for more information as a “research project” hardly stretched the truth. She didn’t want to lie to Oxley, but neither did she want to share the real reasons for her interest in Desmond and Neville.

“In many ways,” Flick began, “the tea museum is a memorial to Desmond Hawker. However, I feel it’s a mistake to sugarcoat his life in our exhibits. We owe our visitors the whole truth about Desmond, including his warts and shortcomings. His conduct probably wasn’t any worse or better than those of his peers. He was ruthless in business, which many considered a virtue in the nineteenth century.” She hesitated. This part of her “explanation” required a little white lie. “I’m in rather a hurry because we are planning our budget for next year. I need to decide quickly about any new exhibits.”

Oxley’s face filled with amusement. “I take it, Dr. Adams, that the recent death of Dame Elspeth Hawker has changed the rules at the museum. Let me assure you that the Hawkers I met—Mary and Elspeth—had no interest in airing Desmond’s dirty linens.” Oxley let his amusement break into a full smile. “The truth is, I accepted Mary Hawker Evans’s commission to write a detailed history of the commodore’s accomplishments for one reason only—I was a struggling postdoctoral fellow with a pregnant wife. I needed the Hawkers’ money, and I fully understood that the Hawkers would not want the whole sordid story told. Alas, I naively assumed that the details of the vendetta—which fascinated me—wouldn’t upset them.”