The Final Crumpet (19 page)

“Most of these pages are a working copy of the legal brief that Clive Wyatt gave us,” she said. “I put the original in our archives for safekeeping—it’s a fantastic document.” Nigel nodded. Flick continued, “I learned something new about Etienne Makepeace. During his heyday—the early and midsixties—the Tea Sage made his home in Cambridge, traveled weekly to London to be on the radio, and took occasional trips to Tunbridge Wells to visit the museum. He behaved badly in all three cities.

“In Cambridge, he had several smashups in local pubs over subjects ranging from politics to football to the quality of ale on tap. In London, he skipped out on a gambling debt, which started an ongoing feud with an criminally nasty turf bookie who had a penchant for making people disappear. And in Tunbridge Wells, he allegedly got involved with a married woman who reportedly had an exceptionally jealous husband, a man who had previously served a jail term for ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm.’ ”

“Hmm.
The turf bookie sounds interesting.”

“Forget him—he’s a dead end. Had he been responsible for Etienne’s disappearance, the corpse might have been buried in Dartmoor or consigned to the North Sea, but definitely not planted in our tea garden. We need a suspect connected to the museum. The irate husband is a more likely candidate.”

“By any chance, was he a member of the museum’s staff?” Flick shrugged. “I don’t know who he is. The anecdote is unattributed. Clive stuck it in a footnote to illustrate the kind of stories his private investigator heard about Makepeace. Remember, the brief was designed to portray Etienne’s reputation.”

“Ah. Then the story maybe a cargo of codswallop.”

“That’s what I thought, too.” She smiled. A lovely smile, Nigel thought. “But then Hannah Kerrigan told me that folks have begun to respond to our offer of a reward for information about Etienne Makepeace. I have here part of a message on our Web site message board that was signed ‘Anonymous Bystander.’ ” Flick read aloud from one of her pieces of paper. “ ‘Etienne Makepeace had an eye for good-looking ladies. One evening, he made the mistake of wooing a married barmaid. Her husband, a large man noted for his jealousy, confronted the Tea Sage and threatened to kill him where he stood. Fortunately for Makepeace, the landlord was a former professional boxer and was able to restore order. Although Makepeace left in one piece, the husband swore vengeance. He announced that he intended to settle up with Makepeace in full measure, no matter how long it took.’ ”

“Makepeace certainly had more than his share of pub fights,” Nigel said. “How do we get in touch with ‘Anonymous Bystander’?”

“I left a follow-up note on the Web site message board requesting that he—or she—contact me.”

“An outraged spouse…” Nigel made a soft whistle. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“His three sisters theorized that Makepeace was murdered by a jealous husband.”

“I know—but it seems such a trite explanation. Almost a cliché.”

“Yeah, a cliché that explains everything we know. Etienne puts the moves on nubile barmaid…Hubby waits for an opportunity to blow him away…Hubby, who is somehow connected to the museum, shoots Etienne and buries him in the tea garden under a pair of stripling Assam tea trees.”

“Where does Hubby get a Russian-made pistol?”

“For all we know, the man hails from Minsk.” Nigel could hear a happy tinkle in Flick’s voice. He abruptly realized that he was staring at her and that she had never looked lovelier.

Put her out of your mind. It’s over.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

“We keep searching for information about Makepeace. We amass everything that makes sense and deliver the lot to Sir James.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“We also have to marshal our time. I’ve taken it upon myself to create a schedule for the next few days. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all—you’re leading the investigation.”

“We’re presenting in London next Monday. We can create our presentation on Sunday. That means all our facts must be collected by Saturday. Obviously, we’ll have to work evenings and during the weekend.”

“I’m game, but not this evening. Tonight is the ‘clippings party’ at Stuart Battlebridge’s office. He wants to show off the deluge of media coverage we received during the past five days.”

“I didn’t forget. I had hoped I could use our investigation as an excuse not to go. I’ve spent more than enough time this week with Stuart Battlebridge.”

“To quote Stuart, we are ‘the stars’ of his public relations campaign. If we don’t make an appearance, he’ll throw a hissy fit. Unfortunately, his audience will also include several of the museum’s trustees. He’s invited the lot.”

“And they agreed to attend a ‘clippings party’?”

“Are you joking? Stuart has laid on a buffet dinner. Our trustees would walk barefoot across burning coals for a free meal. I’ll wager that at least half of them show up this evening.” Nigel took a flutter and added, “The forecast calls for rain to continue all night. Shall we drive to Monson Road together? I can pick you up at your apartment.”

Flick seemed at a loss. “Well, since I plan to wear high heels…” She managed a timid nod. “Okay, but—”

“But nothing else has changed. I know.”

Nigel hoped that Flick would disagree. When she didn’t, he moved to a new topic. “Are you going to share those documents with DI Pennyman?”

“Yes—although I can’t imagine that the police don’t know everything we do.” She smiled again. “That’s probably why the police have stopped digging in our garden. They consider the jealous husband their prime suspect.”

“What do we do next?”

“Something we should have done yesterday. We talk to people who worked at the museum when the Tea Sage was in residence.”

Nigel unfolded himself from the chair and reached for his phone. He dialed Polly Reid’s extension.

“Polly—please join us for a moment.”

“Certainly,
Mr. Owen.”

Uh-oh. A bad sign. Polly’s switched to my last name.

Nigel sat on the edge of his desk and endeavored to look nonchalant as Polly opened the door, crossed the threshold, and stopped one pace inside his office. She glared briefly at Flick, then continuously at him.

“How may I be of service,
sir?”

“We need to know which of our current employees were on staff in 1966.”

“Jim Sizer, of course, and”—she paused to think—“and no one else, unless you consider Mirabelle Hubbard and Trevor Dangerfield, our volunteer docents, as current employees. Back in 1966, he was a security guard and she was secretary to Nathanial Swithin.” She added, “Will that be all,
sir?”

“Yes, thank…”

Polly didn’t wait for Nigel to finish. She took two backward steps and pulled the door shut.

“She seems angry at us,” Flick said.

Nigel grunted. “Mostly me—but I haven’t a clue why.”

“I do. Polly heard everything we said earlier.”

“Please tell me why our quarrel would make her throw a wobbler?”

“I don’t know…” Flick stared thoughtfully at the closed door for several moments. “Let’s track down Jim Sizer,” she finally said.

They found Jim in the museum’s greenhouse beyond the Duchess of Bedford Tearoom. He was leaning over a workbench, fiddling with a small petrol-powered machine that Nigel recognized as a lawn edger. Jim, visibly surprised to see them, immediately wiped his oily hands on a rag.

“Gran’ morning, ma’am—and sir.”

“And to you, Jim,” Flick said. “We need your help.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.” He smiled slyly. “Does another body want digging up?”

“Heaven forbid! We’re still dealing with the first one. In fact, that’s why we’re here. What do you remember about Etienne Makepeace?”

“What I told you the other day covers most of it. I attended two of his lectures in the Grand Hall. Both times the room was full to overflowing. Very knowledgeable Mr. Makepeace was about tea.” Jim chortled. “And very debonair with the ladies, as I recall. They crowded around him during the reception after each lecture. He had them giggling in no time.”

“He gave more than two lectures, didn’t he?”

“Oh yes, ma’am, at least a half dozen.” Jim, seemingly embarrassed, gazed at his hands. “I could have gone to the others, but, well—it’s like this, ma’am. I fancy a good cup of tea as much as the next man, but all those tea facts Mr. Makepeace talked about made my head swim.”

Nigel couldn’t help laughing. Flick ignored his amusement and asked another question: “Jim, do you remember how often Etienne Makepeace visited the museum?”

“Well, let me see, Ma’am,” Jim said. “Mr. Makepeace mostly came to Tunbridge Wells by train. The museum had its own car in those days, and I fetched him from the Central Station. It had to be twice a month—maybe more often—over the course of a year.”

“Really? That’s more visits than I expected. What did Mr. Makepeace do at the museum when he didn’t lecture?”

Jim pondered a few seconds before he answered. “Mostly he worked in our archives and hobnobbed with the bigwigs on the third floor.”

“We have bigwigs?” she said.

Jim blushed. “Well, you see, ma’am, bigwigs is what the junior staff called Mrs. Mary Hawker Evans and the people from the Hawker Foundation.”

Nigel laughed again. He’d never met Mary Hawker Evans—the granddaughter of Commodore Desmond Hawker had died in 1990, some fourteen years before he arrived at the museum—but he had come to know her well through the many tales and legends spawned by her eccentricities. Mary, who thought herself the biggest wig in town, would have undoubtedly relished the label. She’d worked tirelessly to encourage—many said browbeat—the Hawker Foundation to fund the museum. It soon became her project. She contributed to the building’s design, oversaw its construction, and personally selected the founding staff.

“One last question, Jim,” Flick said. “Do you remember Etienne Makepeace getting into a fight with anyone—either at the museum or in Tunbridge Wells?”

“A fight, ma’am?” Jim’s voice had suddenly become less confident, Nigel thought. “Well, if you want the truth, Mr. Makepeace was an easy man to fight with—the sort to have many disagreements. Once or twice, I thought about booting his bum from here to the Common. I might have, too, if he had had fewer friends in high places to look after him.”

Nigel wanted to ask what Jim had meant by “friends in high places,” but Flick ended the impromptu interview by thanking him. Nigel added his own “thank you” and trailed Flick into the museum building. They rode the elevator to the third floor.

“An easy man to fight with…” Flick murmured.

“It does make one wonder how Makepeace preserved his public persona,” Nigel said. “His offstage behavior seems so at odds with tea sagaciousness, to coin a felicitous phrase.”

Flick’s expression grew serious. “Nigel, when you think of tea, you picture little old ladies with their pinkies up in the air, serving sandwiches with the crusts cut off.” She poked his chest. “You need to spend an hour in our History of Tea Colonnade. The real story of tea in England is replete with robber barons, cutthroat business practices, wars, murder, imperialism, even piracy at sea. Tea is a civilized drink built atop centuries of sometimes-uncivilized behavior. Etienne the hero and Etienne the scoundrel both fit right in.”

“I stand corrected,” he said, as he sprinted after Flick through the third-floor reception area. “In fact, let’s redecorate the Duchess of Bedford Tearoom in the style of a pirate ship.”

Nigel received the reaction he’d hoped for: Flick looked back at him and stuck her tongue out.

I wish I could change my stripes.

He followed her into the Docent’s Office, a small room next to the Conservation Laboratory that Nigel considered the most comfortably furnished space in the museum. The office was filled with overstuffed chairs and well-padded sofas to give the docents—all volunteers, all retirees—a cozy place to recuperate after shepherding visitors around the museum.

Flick knocked on the door. A woman’s voice replied, “Come in.”

Nigel worked the knob, then stepped aside to let Flick enter first. Mirabelle Hubbard and Trevor Dangerfield were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, both reading. She, a lively, attractive widow in her midseventies. He, a tall, robust bachelor of nearly eighty who had served as a sergeant in the Royal Marines. They had met on the first day that the museum opened to the public in 1964 and had been friends ever since. Both were extremely knowledgeable about the museum’s exhibits. On more than one occasion, Nigel knew, Flick had asked Mirabelle’s opinion about specific antiquities on display.

“Good heavens!” Mirabelle said. “We have managerial visitors.”

“That’s impossible,” Trevor said. “Managers never visit docents.”

“Perfectly true,” Nigel said. “The docent team is the one thing in this museum that functions perfectly. We wouldn’t dream of mucking it up.”

Trevor made a move to stand. “Please don’t,” Flick said.

“I’ll join you on the sofa.”

She sat down between Mirabelle and Trevor. Nigel chose an extravagant reclining chair. He pushed backwards to raise the footrest, which sprang into position with a noisy clank.