The Final Crumpet (35 page)

“It hasn’t changed much,” Nate said, as he surveyed the office. “Perhaps you can talk the trustees into newer furniture. I never could.” He turned toward Gwen. “Lay claim to the sofa—it provides the only really comfortable seating in the room.”

Gwen slipped out of her backpack and sat down; Nate sat next to her. Flick and Nigel positioned visitors’ chairs opposite the sofa.

Flick noted that Gwen smiled affectionately at Nate, who then patted her hand. Flick felt sure that Nate had told Gwen all that had been discussed the day before.

“I thought we’d begin with the obvious question,” Flick said to Gwen. “What do you remember about Etienne Makepeace?”

“A lot, actually,” Gwen replied. “Etienne visited the Hawker Foundation on three occasions that I know of. Contrary to other people’s experiences, he always behaved as a perfect gentleman—at least, he did when he was near me. I’d been informed, of course, of his unsavory side. Mary Hawker Evans loathed Makepeace. She told me that we had to tolerate him for the national good.”

“Do you recall why he visited the Foundation?”

“He attended planning meetings with ‘our friends from the government.’ That’s how Mary Hawker Evans described people from the security services.”

“MI6?”

“I suppose so, although she never discussed their affiliation with me. Everything that I know, I learned by typing Mrs. Evans’s correspondence. I should explain—as the most junior staff member at the Foundation, it fell to me to serve as her secretary on the days she visited the Hawker Foundation.”

Flick saw Nate roll his eyes. “I had to make my secretary available to her whenever Mary Hawker Evans showed up at the museum. She could be a highly demanding woman.”

“But also quite sensible,” Gwen said. “Mrs. Evans demanded that stringent guidelines be established to define how the people from the security services would go about their work. For example, she insisted that any ‘clandestine use’ of the museum’s facilities take place after hours, when there were no visitors present.”

“Consequently,” Nate said, “the ‘bigwigs’ held closed -door meetings on Wednesday, when the museum was closed to the public. I recall now that we scheduled many of Makepeace’s tea lectures for Tuesday evenings, so that he could attend the meetings the next day.”

“I’m confused,” Flick said. “Who arrived first at the museum, Etienne Makepeace or MI6?”

“As I recall,” Nate replied, “they arrived more or less simultaneously.” He looked at Gwen. “Am I right?”

She nodded. “They also departed at the same time. When Makepeace vanished, the visits from MI6 people stopped. In my mind, Etienne Makepeace and ‘our friends from the government’ are inseparable.”

Flick realized that she had frowned unintentionally when Gwen added, “Does that surprise you?”

“In a way it does. I still have great difficulty imagining Makepeace as a government agent. He seems extremely indiscreet—hardly the sort of man anyone would send on a covert mission.”

Nate laughed. “I had similar concerns about the Tea Sage, until I stopped picturing him as a tea-drinking James Bond. I believe that Makepeace was valuable chiefly because his stature as an internationally renowned tea expert enabled him to travel to the Soviet Union and China at a time when most other Westerners were excluded. He could attend conferences, visit trade fairs, tour tea plantations, meet tea importers and exporters—do all sorts of things of potential value to MI6.”

“Like serve as a surreptitious courier?” Flick asked.

“That sort of thing, exactly. The same is true of the agents who were ‘credentialed’ by the museum. As far as I know, they were all obscure academics and midlevel business people. Their apparent affiliation with the museum gave them a legitimate reason to travel behind the Iron Curtain.

“I can recall one special day when Mary Hawker Evans was in an ebullient mood. She seemed like one of those characters in a movie musical who bursts into song while walking down the sidewalk. She was full of good news and had to tell someone. So she told me more than she ought to have. One of the agents credentialed by the museum apparently played a central role in a spectacular intelligence success. He was part of a team that acquired detailed photographs of a closed Soviet ‘nuclear city’—one of those places in the middle of the steppes whose name includes both words and numbers.” Nate’s face brightened. “She said that one success made all the tumult with Etienne Makepeace worthwhile.”

“And then Makepeace simply up and disappeared,” Flick said.

Gwen made a vague gesture. “All of England seemed to hold its breath when its Tea Sage went missing. Speculating about what had happened to him became a national pastime. At least one of the London tabloids alleged that Makepeace had been abducted by aliens.”

“I recall rather liking that suggestion,” Nate said. “It struck me as an especially fitting way to bring down the curtain on a man of Etienne Makepeace’s character.” He smirked slyly. “Although becoming sustenance for a pair of sickly tea bushes fits nearly as well.”

Gwen slapped his knee. “That’s not funny, Nathanial. Many, many people throughout England admired, and even loved, Etienne Makepeace for his books and lectures and radio programs.” She spoke to Flick. “Which reminds me…” She retrieved her backpack. “I liberated several items of Makepeace memorabilia from our archives.” She unzipped the flap and reached inside. “I have a set of twelve handouts that summarize what he spoke about at his lectures…nine glowing reviews of his various lectures clipped from the
Kent and Sussex Courier
…and an autographed copy of
The Comprehensive Compendium to Tea Varieties,
probably his most popular book.”

Flick glanced at Nate. His expression had become decidedly self-conscious. And so it should be. For reasons of his own, he had chosen not to warn Gwen that Makepeace might be a fraud and a plagiarist. Flick wondered what those reasons might be.

I’ll bet he doesn’t want to shatter Gwen’s illusions. Along with much of Great Britain, she still thinks of Etienne Makepeace as England’s Tea Sage.

“Moving to the other side of the Makepeace coin,” Gwen said, “I also have three letters sent to the director of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum by female employees—all complaining about Makepeace’s boorish and inappropriate behavior. The authors include the clerk in the gift shop, Nate’s secretary, and the curator responsible for the preservation of paper artifacts and antiquities.”

“Aha!
I wondered what happened to those letters,” Nate said. “They vanished from my files without explanation.”

“Mary Hawker Evans…
transferred
them to the Foundation’s archives shortly before Makepeace disappeared,” Gwen said. “I believe she intended to document his transgressions at the museum, but when Makepeace disappeared, the need went away.” She handed the stack of materials to Flick. “You’ll find these things useful should you go forward with an exhibit about Makepeace.”

“We can keep these items?”

“Oh yes. They’re safer here than at the Foundation. If Jeremy Strain found them in my archives, he’d order them destroyed.”

Flick looked at Nigel and gave a tiny nod—their signal for him to bring out the retouched images of Martin Maltby and Rupert Perry. She handed them to Gwen.

“Do you recognize either of these men, Gwen?” Flick asked. “I know it won’t be easy, because these images are not true photographs; they are our best guesses of what the men look like today.”

Gwen stood and moved to the window. She looked first at one, then the other, for what seemed an eternity to Flick.

“Yes,” Gwen said. She tapped the image of Martin Maltby, as had Nate the day before. “I met this man—many years ago.

“What did I tell you?” Nate said proudly. “The best memory in London.”

“Do you remember his name?” Flick asked, increasingly doubtful that Gwen could dredge up a name heard “many” years ago.

Gwen seemed to anticipate Flick’s thoughts. “My head works in a rather strange way,” she said. “I get little glimmers of recall—feelings, really—that propel me forward, until,
bang,
the full memory suddenly bursts open like a flower.” She tapped Maltby’s face. “Now this chap makes me think of the late King George VI, Queen Elizabeth’s father.”

“That’s the king who replaced the fellow who abdicated, right?” Flick said.

“Indeed,” Nigel said. “George VI followed Edward VIII, who reigned only a year.”

Gwen spun to face them. “The penny dropped! Everyone at the Hawker Foundation called this man Bertie. He had the same
nickname
as George VI.”

Flick noticed Nigel looking at her expectantly. “Nope, I’m not going to ask you how Bertie can be a nickname for George. I am aware that he grew up as ‘Prince Albert.’ ”

“Well done!” Nigel said, with a smile.

“You betcha!”

Gwen had turned back toward the window. Flick could see her reflection in the glass. She’d closed her eyes; not a muscle on her face moved. And then she finally spoke. “His full name can be a tongue twister. Bertrand Bartholomew. He was one of the government men who came to the Foundation.” She gave the print to Flick. “This picture doesn’t do him justice. Bertie was an exceptionally handsome man back then. He had a charming voice, as well.”

“Yes—I remember him now,” Nate said. “He was one of the MI6 chappies. He came to the museum several times for those hush-hush, closed-door meetings.”

“Crikey! Martin Maltby is from MI6,” Nigel said.

“Oh, I’m sure he retired years ago,” Nate said. “He’s older than me.”

“I’m still befuddled.” Nigel sighed. “A former MI6 operative dons a harebrained disguise, knocks on our door, and offers us a barrowful of disparaging information about Etienne Makepeace —the very same Etienne Makepeace who once was in the employ of MI6. Can anyone suggest why?”

Nigel didn’t wait for anyone to answer. “I freely admit that what I know about the Cold War can be written on the back of a postage stamp. But I can’t believe it was fought by knaves and lunatics. There must be a rational explanation for every crazy happenstance we’ve experienced this past week.” He shook his head sadly. “The museum director will now step down from his soapbox.”

Flick raised her hand. “I vote that the museum director bring the name ‘Bertrand Bartholomew’ to the attention of Conan Davies, who has eagerly sought the true identity of Martin Maltby.”

Nigel sprang from his chair. “My mind is mush this morning. Here I am complaining when we’ve actually made spectacular progress, thanks to Gwen’s memory.”

“I’ll tag along with you,” Nate said. “Conan is one of my favorite people.”

“What would you like to do now?” Flick asked Gwen, when Nigel and Nate had left.

“I’d love to see Makepeace’s grave in the tea garden.”

“Easily done. Step over to the window on the far wall of Nigel’s office. The gravesite is still a designated crime scene, and the police have placed barrier screens around the area, but you can see the corner of the improvised grave from up here.”

Gwen moved to the window. “Yes, I see it. Most interesting. But rather odd.”

“Odd. In what way?”

“Nate told me that an irate husband might have done the deed. I can certainly understand a man committing a crime of passion—or an act of revenge—but when I look at your tea garden, I can’t imagine the selfsame husband going to the trouble of burying the corpse beneath a tea tree.” She looked back at Flick. “You may laugh at me for saying this, but this sort of spontaneous funeral seems much too complicated to have been thought up by a man. Are there any female suspects?”

“None that I’ve heard of.” Flick wondered if the police also considered Clara Doyle a suspect. Then she realized that it would have taken a person much stronger than Clara to break into the museum, lug the body into the tea garden, dig a grave, and then replant two tea bushes over the corpse. No, a large man must have disposed of Etienne Makepeace.

Gwen abruptly changed tack. “Let me have another look at the second photograph.”

“Are you feeling an unexpected ‘glimpse of recall’?”

“Merely a little tickle. But it might mean something.” Flick sat next to Gwen on the sofa while she studied the retouched image of Rupert Perry. Nigel’s office was quiet enough for Flick to hear Gwen breathing and the gentle tick of the antique coach clock that reposed on a shelf above their heads.

Gwen finally spoke. “The tickle has become a gentle throb. I’m confident that I’ve seen this face before, probably at least twenty years ago. But the completely bald head seems wrong. More than that—I think it’s confusing me.”

“We can fix it,” Flick said. “Follow me.”

Flick guided Gwen to Hannah Kerrigan’s cubicle in the Conservation Laboratory. Not unexpectedly, a British Shorthair cat lay sprawled across Hannah’s workstation. That would be another mystery to solve someday: Why did the museum’s cats enjoy the company of the museum’s Webmistress?

“Hannah, meet Gwen,” she said. “Gwen and I come bearing a challenge. Can you please fire up Photos hop again?”

“Sure. What game am I playing this morning?”

Flick pushed the cat aside—it seemed large enough to be Lapsang—and dropped the print of Rupert Perry on the workstation. “We need an image of this man that’s twenty years younger, with hair.”