The Final Crumpet (10 page)

Flick grabbed the pad from his hand and scanned the list.

“Your first objection is nonsense,” she said. “Reporters are interested in Makepeace, not in the everyday operations of this museum. We’ve gone out of our way to bring them to the museum and ride the corpse’s coattails. We’ll benefit from any publicity we get.

“Your second objection is equally goofy. The murder took place about forty years ago—it’s ancient history. There’s no way that an old killing will impact our current financial dealings. But…” —Flick added a dramatic pause—“a new exhibit might well improve our finances by attracting more visitors. With luck, we’ll be able to payoff our thirty-two-million-pound debt in fewer than ten years.

“Your third objection proves that you don’t know much about running a museum. It takes many months to plan and launch a new exhibit. I see no reason to involve the board until long after our loan has closed.

“And your fourth objection completely ignores the fact that Etienne Makepeace was a national hero. Museums don’t get sued for honoring noble people—especially not by a lone, elderly sister suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.”

Nigel did his best to offer a withering glare. “This particular noble person got himself murdered and secretly buried under a tea bush—by an employee of the museum. What if there’s a less-than-noble side to the man?”

“The fact that he was buried in our garden gives us a unique responsibility. The Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum
must
have an exhibit that honors Etienne Makepeace. We’ll tell his whole story—the bad along with the good.”

“Never,” Nigel said softly.

“I am getting really tired of you saying never to me.” Flick bounded to her feet in a graceful motion, reached the door in three long strides, and slammed it with enough force to make the framed pictures shake on Nigel’s thickly plastered wall.

Nigel barely had time to catch a breath before the heavy oak door flew open. Flick stormed back into the office long enough to find Cha-Cha’s lead. “Come on, boy—you’re staying with the sane manager tonight.” The Shiba Inu followed Flick out of the room. She turned and slammed the door harder than before.

Nigel let himself sigh. He’d had no choice—he had acted for the good of the museum. Flick would surely understand that when she cooled down and thought about the full ramifications of an exhibit.

“On the other hand…” he murmured, purposely using one of her favorite idioms. He hadn’t seen Flick this mad in several months. The depth of her anger reminded him of the early days when they bickered every day—the days before he fell in love with Felicity Adams.

Perhaps a peace offering—perhaps even an apology—would be in order?

His phone rang.

Perhaps Flick had the same idea?

Nigel felt genuine disappointment when he heard a thick Scottish brogue on the other line. “It’s me, sir,” Conan said. “As promised, Mr. Garwood has arrived with our new toys. He asks if it would be possible for you to join us in the security office for a chin-wag.

Crikey!
He had forgotten his one-thirty appointment. Flick would have to wait until he finished the museum’s business.

Nigel dashed—two steps at a time—down the four flights of stairs that led from the administrative wing on the third floor to Conan Davies’s security lair in the museum’s dual-function basement. The eastern half of the subterranean space held the usual machinery—boilers, heaters, electrical equipment—that one expected to find in a cellar. The western half was a “basement” in name only; it had been purpose-built to store documents, artifacts, and other antiquities. And so it was dry, warm, and inviting—-with a high, white ceiling, black-and-white floor tile, and plastered walls the color of vanilla ice cream. Conan and his staff of security guards had a small suite of cozy, glass-walled offices near the bottom of the staircase.

Conan was sitting behind his tan metal desk. A guest—a comparably large man-bald, suntanned, fortyish, and smiling—sat opposite the chief of security on a tan metal visitor’s chair. The oversized pair made the furniture seem undersized. The smiling man leaped to his feet when Nigel stepped inside Conan’s office.

“We meet at last, Mr. Owen. I am Niles Garwood. I thought it best to deliver your new security equipment in person.”

“Deliver it?” Nigel said, with sufficient amazement to bring a wider grin to Garwood’s mouth. “We ordered the video surveillance system only two weeks ago.”

“Actually, only ten days ago,” the big man said. “Our goal is to have the network up and running by the end of the week Garwood & McHue works hard to delight our customers by exceeding their expectations.” His grin melted into an expression of concern. “We’ve found that most museums decide to install surveillance cameras after they’ve been burgled. They expect us to provide protection as quickly and discreetly as possible.
Quickly
is usually the chief requirement, although our specialty is discretion.”

Nigel glanced at Conan, who returned a surreptitious wink Garwood had jumped to the conclusion that the museum was responding to the recent well-publicized theft, and subsequent return, of a priceless set of Tunbridge Ware tea caddies. In truth, the Wescott Bank had insisted on a minor physical security upgrade before agreeing to underwrite the purchase of the Hawker collection. The museum had a state-of-the-art security system that lacked only one important feature: closed-circuit TV surveillance cameras to watch over the museum’s interior and exterior.

“You said you brought our cameras with you…” Nigel looked around the office for a stack of cardboard boxes. He had signed Conan’s purchase order for two-dozen TV cameras, an associated monitoring station, and required installation services.

Garwood snorted. “They’re here!” he said. “Every last one is sitting in plain view. You have to look harder.”

Nigel looked left and right. Nothing in view resembled the sort of industrial TV camera he expected to see: a rectangular metal box with a lens on one end. But then he noticed an acorn-shaped gadget sitting on Conan’s desk. It seemed made of black plastic and was roughly the size of a coffee mug. He reached for it.

“Well done, Mr. Owen!” Garwood clapped his hands silently in imaginary appreciation. “That’s one of the twelve external cameras that will watch over the exterior of the building.

The image sensor inside can pan, tilt, and zoom, so each camera can protect a large area. And, of course, the devices use the latest wireless technology to transmit the images they capture to your central surveillance station.” The big man made a quiet laugh. “Now, see if you can find the cameras we’ll install
inside
the museum. I warn you—they are wholly camouflaged.”

Nigel quickly spotted another item that seemed out of place on Conan’s desk: an antique, leather-bound book He picked it up and saw a small lens embedded in the book’s spine.

“Quite right, sir!” Garwood said merrily. “We installed a wireless TV camera inside a real nineteenth-century hardback book. What better disguise for the surveillance camera that will watch over your library?”

Nigel nodded slowly as he turned the book in his hands. Place the volume on a high shelf, and the camera would be virtually undetectable by anyone in the room.

“Keep looking,” Garwood continued. “There are eleven more disguised cameras on display in this office. I’ll wager you won’t find them all.”

Nigel peered, in turn, at every object he could see in Conan’s office. His slow, methodical search eventually revealed a one-liter chemical bottle with a lens beneath its label (“that will surveil the Conservation Laboratory”); he noticed an antique teapot whose spout glittered back at him (“it will sit high on a shelf in the Tea Antiquities Collection; no one will notice that the spout was reshaped to hold a lens assembly that can take in the entire room”); and he recognized a small, wooden globe that looked out of place on a shelf above Conan’s desk (“it’s an inexpensive replica of an antique on display in the World of Tea Map Room; we bought it in your gift shop and installed a miniature camera inside”).

“Eight more interior cameras to go,” Garwood said cheerfully. “As you can see, our electronic eyes are essentially nondisruptive to your exhibits. We did our very best to keep your chief curator happy.”

My chief curator! Blimey!

Nigel abruptly remembered that Flick had asked to attend the meeting with Niles Garwood. She would be furious if she discovered he had forgotten to bring her along.

Perhaps she never has to know? Perhaps she’ll forget about the meeting? Perhaps the sun will rise in the west?

“Your cameras clearly represent the pinnacle of discreet surveillance,” Nigel said. “I wish I had the time to finish the game, but I must get back to my other duties.” He silently added,
Not to mention restoring my relationship with Felicity Adams.

He shook Garwood’s hand, wished him well, and made a mental note to have Conan prepare an easy-to-follow map of the surveillance network. He would never remember the locations—or the disguises—of the dozen tricked-up TV cameras hidden inside the building.

Nigel was huffing slightly when he reached the third floor.

Why not,
he thought,
visit Flick right now? Chances are, she’s cooled down.
He made for the curators’ wing.

No joy.
After not finding either Flick or Cha-Cha, he asked a white-coated curator working at a large comparator microscope.

“Flick took Cha-Cha for a walk,” the woman said, not looking up from her eyepiece. “She left about twenty minutes ago.”

“Thank you,” Nigel mumbled. Well, he was off the hook for not bringing Flick to meet Niles Garwood—but what possible reason did she have to take a walk in midafternoon?

Feeling curiously glum, Nigel tramped to his office. He found Polly Reid placing a thick envelope in a prominent position atop his desk

“This letter came in the morning post,” she said, “but I just got around to opening it. I didn’t notice the proof of delivery certificate.” Polly made a little grimace. “We have a bit of a fuss concerning Cha-Cha. It seems that our dog killed a prize ferret. The owner of the deceased champion—a Mr. Bertram Holloway—is claiming significant damages.”

“A ferret? When and where did Cha-Cha dispatch a ferret?”

“According to this complaint, the ferret breathed his last on the Sunday following Dame Elspeth’s funeral. It happened somewhere in her vast back garden. We received Cha-Cha and the other animals the following day—a Monday. I looked it up.”

Nigel yanked the letter out of its envelope and snapped, “How can the museum be responsible for something that happened before we took custody of the mutt?”

“That is a question I suggest you put to Solicitor Bleasdale, sir—especially in your present aggravated mood. I’ve written his private number on the back of the envelope.”

“Mea culpa.” Nigel held up his hands in mock surrender. “Forgive me for shooting the messenger.”

Polly responded with a “forget it” wave of her hand as he dialed his telephone.

“Bleasdale here,” spoke a curt voice. Nigel countered with, “Owen, ditto.”

A deep sigh. “These frequent calls from the museum are becoming tedious. I shall soon consider billing you for my time.”

“While you’re at it, Barrington, consider the enormous fee you will earn when our loan closes and we purchase the Hawker collection from your clients.”

Another deep sigh. Nigel imagined the portly solicitor wringing his hands in despair. Bleasdale did not like to be reminded of his nineteenth-century first name.

“How may I be of assistance, Nigel?” the attorney asked.

“I have here in front of me a paper that says the museum is about to be sued by a lunatic named Holloway, who seeks to recover the exorbitant cost of a prize ferret that Cha-Cha is accused of murdering the day before you delivered him to us.”

“A lunatic? Not at all—Bertram Holloway is the very model of a sane and stable gentleman. He owns the estate adjacent to Lion’s Peak I believe he was on quite friendly terms with Dame Elspeth.”

“You know the man?”

“Indeed. He approached me and described his distress. I, of course, referred him to you.”

“Ah. Then you know that stable Mr. Holloway wants five thousand pounds compensation for a dead ferret.”

“That does seem a lot of money for a small mammal, although I am really not qualified to comment.”

“I urge you to get qualified—quickly. Let me remind you that Cha-Cha was in your care at the time of the alleged murder. The murdered ferret is your problem.”

“The dog’s caregiver at the time is wholly irrelevant,” Bleasdale said calmly.

“Irrelevant? How can the museum be responsible for a dog that was not in its possession and therefore not in a position to control?”

“I shall be happy to explain. There are two significant concepts for you to consider. First, dogs of the Shiba Inu breed are well-known to be superb hunters of small animals.”

“I know that, Barrington. Cha-Cha caught a squirrel in our greenhouse two months ago. He carried it to the Duchess of Bedford Tearoom so he could eat it in pleasant surroundings.”