The Final Crumpet (27 page)

Be gone from my life, Etienne Makepeace—and every nutter who knew you.

Rupert Perry telephoned them first.

Flick caught her breath when the mobile phone rang.

They had been standing silently for nearly ten minutes, and her mind had wandered to thoughts of whether Nigel and Olivia Hart had a future together.

Nigel yanked the device out of his mackintosh’s side pocket as if it were about to explode. He bent sideways so that both he and Flick could listen to the small speaker.

“You follow instructions well,” Perry said. “Where are you?” Nigel replied.

“Watching the two of you from a convenient vantage point, much like I’ve done for nearly ninety minutes. In fact, I rode up with you on the train from Tunbridge Wells.”

“We didn’t see you.”

“Then I didn’t want you to, but now is different. Come, buy a burger for me, and we’ll have a friendly conversation.”

He abruptly rang off

Nigel made a face. “That’s the second time today that Rupert Perry has hung up on me. I’m beginning to take offense.”

Flick decided not to remind Nigel that Perry wanted to see her, not him. “What did he mean by ‘buy a burger for me’?”

“There’s a Burger King on the other side of the concourse, near the passage to Track 1. I suppose it’s his sly and fly way of saying that we should meet him there.”

“Why toy with us? He seems to enjoy cloak-and-dagger games.”

“Why indeed?” Nigel seemed pensive. “He may have inadvertently given us a piece of interesting information. I didn’t see anyone over forty-five board the train at the Wells. If he did accompany us, he must have got on in Wadhurst. We’ve assumed that Perry lives in London, because that’s what Maltby suggested. Do you suppose that Perry might actually live near Tunbridge Wells?”

“I haven’t the vaguest.” Flick peeked at her watch. She wondered how long they could keep Perry waiting.

“And then there’s the question of Perry’s slightly off accent. It’s mostly Oxbridge, but with peculiar overtones I don’t recognize.”

“Thank you, Henry Higgins, for your lucid analysis.”

“I’m serious. I can’t get a bead on the man.”

“Maybe he was educated outside of England?”

“That’s one possibility, I suppose.” He stared off into the distance. “However, I attended graduate school in France, and I don’t recall hearing an accent like his before.”

“Um
…shouldn’t we beat feet over to Burger King?”

“Let the twit cool his heels a while like we did.”

Flick forced herself to speak calmly. “Nigel, we can play tit for tat after we’ve spoken with Perry. We don’t want the
twit
to get away.”

“Oh, very well. Give me a moment to activate the surveillance camera I’m wearing.”

He surreptitiously slid his thumb beneath his tie. Flick heard a muted click.

“That’s it?” she asked.

“That’s it. Conan assured me I’m encumbered with the latest solid-state recording technology—so I won’t feel my knickers humming. Lead the way.” Flick scanned faces as she walked toward the big Burger King sign. She soon picked out a lone male, perhaps seventy years old, standing to the left side of the restaurant. He appeared to be watching her intently. As Flick moved closer, the man began to beam.

I’ll bet you’re Rupert Perry.

He looked the quintessential English country squire. Medium height. Solid physique. Strong hands and arms. Hair and eyebrows that mixed brown and white in even proportions. A full round face with rosy cheeks that seemed to glow. And what would such a man wear, she asked herself. Exactly what Perry had on today: a heavy Harris Tweed sport coat, with leather elbow patches, baggy wool slacks, and a schoolmaster’s leather satchel hung on his left shoulder.

A character right out of a Thomas Hardy novel.

He extended his hand. “Good afternoon, Dr. Adams. Thank you for coming.”

Flick hid her surprise. His voice had sounded thin and reedy through the inexpensive mobile phone, but she heard a hearty resonance now that they were face-to-face. Rupert Perry would have made a first-rate radio announcer.

“We found your invitation too compelling to pass up, Mr. Perry. Your colleague left a fascinating…
calling card
with us.”

“The article draft? Yes, I suppose it came as an unpleasant shock to see irrefutable evidence of Etienne Makepeace’s duplicity.” Perry chuckled. “And yet, I’m astonished that someone as young as you even recognizes a carbon copy. Surely the only typewriters you’ve seen have been in museum displays.”

When Flick smiled at the compliment, she heard a firm “ahem” next to her.
Oops, I forgot about Nigel.
She took a step backwards. “Mr. Perry, I’d like you to meet Nigel Owen, the director of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum.”

“I’m quite familiar with Mr. Owen—we became acquainted over the telephone.” Flick noted that they didn’t exchange handshakes. Perry didn’t seem to like Nigel any more than Nigel liked Perry.

“You don’t really want a burger, do you?” Nigel asked.

“Of course not. But perhaps you are hungry?” Perry gestured toward the Burger King. “Dr. Adams and I can chat while you eat.”

Nigel glared at Perry. “No, thank you. We’ve both eaten.”

“Well then,” he said, “let us explore the inner concourse. Window-shopping is an excellent reason for three friends to talk together without attracting undue attention. To achieve the most natural appearance, one should occasionally point to the goodies on display. It also helps to be a greedy person; true window-shoppers wear delightfully covetous expressions.”

Perry offered his right arm to Flick. She took it, leaving Nigel a half pace behind. He seemed displeased but also willing to let the “inning play out.”

“When we go our separate ways,” Perry said to Flick, “you will leave with my leather satchel. Inside, you will find many fascinating items packed in four separate envelopes. The first envelope contains seven issues of a long-defunct Russian language magazine that was published in the old Soviet Union between 1949 and 1970. Its rather boring name in English is Journal of the Peoples’ Tea Manufactory. Do you know the publication, Dr. Adams?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “Only a handful of Westerners have seen it.

The seven issues you will soon possess date back to the early 1950s. Do you read Russian, Dr. Adams?”

“A smattering of technical Russian, no more.”

“Then I urge you to have the magazines translated into English. A tea expert such as yourself will find the content quite interesting. There are essays on the history of tea…monographs on the correct way to brew tea…medical treatises on the health benefits of tea…botanic discourses on different tea varieties…articles about various tea-processing technologies…all written by obscure experts in the Soviet Union.

“The second envelope contains photocopies of fifteen articles allegedly written by Etienne Makepeace. They appeared in several different English magazines between 1955 and 1958. When you compare the English articles and the earlier Russian articles, you will find that their content and substance are virtually identical.”

Flick leaned closer to Perry. “Are you telling me that Etienne Makepeace systematically plagiarized from a Russian tea magazine?”

“I find your question painfully ironic, Dr. Adams. The brutal truth is that Etienne Makepeace didn’t have sufficient skills to be a proper plagiarist. He didn’t speak or read Russian. Consequently, he hired me to translate the articles into English. I speak Russian fluently; I learned it from my mother, an expatriate Muscovite. In fact, Russian was my primary language until I was almost seven. That’s when my veddy, veddy British father insisted that I learn to speak the King’s English properly.”

Flick glanced at Nigel. He returned a quick nod. They had solved the mystery of Perry’s “slightly off” accent.

“How did Etienne find you?” she asked.

“Through a mutual friend at Cambridge University. I read history, too, some twenty years later than Etienne did. Coincidentally, my favorite senior lecturer in medieval history had been Etienne’s housemate during their student days.” He broke into a grin. “I was perennially short of money in those days. I saw the chance to work for Etienne as a godsend. One does imprudent things at the age of nineteen years.”

Flick decided to bring Perry back from his reminiscences.

“What’s in the third envelope?”

“An agricultural textbook from the late 1930s. Also in Russian. It has a surprisingly simple title—
Tchai.”

“The Russian word for ‘tea.’ ”

Perry nodded. “I translated the book for Etienne in 1954. He adapted the content for his first book on tea—the one that established him as a tea expert.”

“We have a copy in our library.”

“I thought as much. Compare Etienne’s book with a translation of Tchai. You’ll discover that the volumes are virtually identical.”

“What do you mean that he ‘adapted’ the Russian book?”

“That’s a term that Etienne often used. He believed that the act of paying for the translation from Russian to English represented a sufficient adaptation to make the material his.”

“The idea is…
ludicrous.”

“I agree, but you must realize that Etienne was never the sharpest knife in the drawer. He bumbled along largely on his good looks and personality. He could be unreservedly charming when he chose to be.”

Flick glanced at Nigel again. He seemed spellbound by Perry’s revelations and no longer angry at the supposedly cavalier treatment he’d suffered. Nigel had taken to darting back and forth—walking first next to Flick, then next to Perry—to escape the background noise in Charing Cross Station and hear everything that she and Perry said.

It’s time to find an oasis for this caravan.

“Walking around the concourse is getting somewhat tedious for me, Mr. Perry,” she said. “Do you suppose we might choose a place to sit down?”

“There’s an Italian coffee shop scarcely fifty feet away.

Will that suffice? I don’t know if they serve tea.”

“Oh, I’m getting to like Italian coffee.”

You’d better. These days there seem to be more Italian coffee shops in England than tea shops.

“In that case,
avanti.”

Flick found a small table in the shop’s eat-in area, close to a window that overlooked the station concourse. They would still be in a “public” area. Nigel went off to buy refreshments—almost joyfully, Flick thought—and returned with three cups of
caffi americano
and three blueberry muffins.

“Grazie mille,”
Perry said.

“Prego,”
Nigel replied. Then,
“Mangiare.”

Flick and the others sipped in silence until Nigel said, “Tell us about the fourth envelope.”

“It contains drafts of a dozen of Etienne’s radio scripts and speeches.”

“I presume you wrote them, too.”

“Not entirely.” Perry’s eyes sparkled. He sat back in his chair and laid his hands in his lap. “You see, I continued translating for Etienne after I finished my degree at Cambridge. In time, the inevitable happened.”

Flick and Nigel asked, “What happened?” in unison.

“I became a tea expert in my own right, of course. I no longer needed old Russian publications and textbooks as my sources. I began to ghostwrite Etienne’s articles directly, so to speak. The draft that Martin Maltby gave you is one of mine. I also wrote Etienne’s other books.”

“What was Maltby’s role in this…
deception?”
Flick asked.

“He didn’t tell you? Pity! Martin is not a people person, but he is a superb speechwriter. I brought him into our little circle when Etienne began to receive invitations to speak. I provided the details about tea, while Martin wrote all of Etienne’s speeches and his radio scripts and his museum lectures—down to the last bon mot. Martin is truly responsible for transforming Etienne Makepeace into England’s ‘Tea Sage.’ ”