Murder at the Manchester Museum

by Jim Eldridge

  Bernard Steggles sat at his desk on Friday and reread the letter he’d received from Henry Eeles Dresser with a sense of shock.

  Dear Mr Steggles,

  It is with great regret that I have to write to you at such short notice to advise you that I have recently contracted an infection of the throat that has resulted in my losing my voice. Because of this I will be unable to give my talk at the museum. I am deeply sorry about this and hope that we can reorganise it for a later date.

  With apologies again.

  Yours sincerely,

  Henry E. Dresser

  This was a disaster! This talk was going to be one of the jewels in the crown of the museum. As he’d proudly told Abigail Fenton and Daniel Wilson, Dresser was not just famous as an ornithologist in Britain but across the world! Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithologists Union! Secretary of the British Ornithologists Union! Devotees of birdwatching would have flocked to the museum in their hundreds to hear Dresser talk. The evening would have been reported in the most prestigious ornithology magazines. And now … nothing!

  As soon as Steggles had received Dresser’s letter he’d sent a telegram to Thomas Coward asking if he could take Dresser’s place. Coward was perhaps not as famous as Dresser, but he was still a noted and highly respected figure in British ornithology. He was also a local man, a former student at Owens College, living in Hale.

  Alas, the reply from Coward’s family had dashed Steggles’s hopes: Thomas Coward was in Cornwall, so not available. Who else could he get, and at such short notice? The truth was, there was no one to match Dresser.

  The telephone on his desk rang, and he picked it up to hear Mrs Wedburn say, ‘Mr Steggles. Mr Jesse Haworth is here to see you, if you’ve got a moment.’

  Jesse Haworth. One of the museum’s prime benefactors!

  ‘Of course. Please send him in.’

  Jesse Haworth, sixty years old and still in fine fettle, as he kept assuring everyone. A partner in James Dilworth and Son, one of Manchester’s main textile merchants, but most importantly one of the major sponsors of archaeological expeditions to Egypt, which had led to the Manchester Museum having one of the best collections of ancient Egyptian artefacts in the country.

  The door opened and Haworth entered, stopping when he saw the look of anguish plain on Steggles’s face.

  ‘You’re looking a mite frazzled, Bernard,’ he commented.

  ‘We have a disaster on our hands!’ groaned Steggles.

  ‘Aye, the two dead women,’ said Haworth.

  ‘No, worse than that!’ Then Steggles corrected himself. ‘No, obviously not as bad as that. But it’s a more immediate problem. Henry Eeles Dresser has lost his voice! He can’t talk!’ He thrust the letter at Haworth. ‘See, he’s written in urgency to tell me.’

  Haworth scanned the letter then handed it back. ‘So he won’t be able to give his talk.’

  ‘No!’ Steggles groaned. ‘A disaster! At this short notice! I tried Thomas Coward …’

  ‘A good man,’ said Haworth. ‘None better when it comes to birds.’ Though he added cautiously, ‘But British birds are Thomas’s speciality. I’m not sure if he’s the man to give a talk on exotic birds.’

  ‘He can’t do it anyway, he’s in Cornwall,’ groaned Steggles. ‘What am I going to do? We have to cancel the evening! It will be a major blow against the museum’s reputation!’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Haworth.

  ‘You have someone else in mind?’ asked Steggles, a light of hope dawning in his eyes.

  ‘I do,’ said Haworth. ‘The reason I was coming to see you was because I saw in the paper …’

  ‘About the two murdered women!’ groaned Steggles.

  ‘Well, yes and no. It said you had Abigail Fenton here.’

  ‘Yes, she’s here with Daniel Wilson investigating the murders.’

  ‘You know who she is,’ asked Haworth. ‘When she’s not detecting.’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘One of the most respected Egyptologists in Europe. If not the world,’ continued Haworth.

  ‘We are very privileged to have her here,’ said Steggles.

  ‘So I was going to suggest you see if she can’t do a talk about her experiences as an archaeologist in Egypt while she’s here. With Henry Dresser having to cancel, it seems to me you’ve got a space to fill. Why not ask her if she can do a session that evening instead? As many people would come to hear her talk about ancient Egypt as would hear Henry Dresser talk about birds.’

  ‘You think she might?’

  ‘The only way to find that out is to ask her. Personally, I’ve always found her to be very professional. Not that I’ve actually met her, but I funded the dig she and others did at Hawara, so I know what a hard and excellent worker she is. And it will be my pleasure to meet her face-to-face.’

  Abigail and Daniel were comparing notes on what they’d discovered so far about the case, and trying to make sense of the different strands, when there was a knock at the door of their hotel room. Daniel opened it, and a pageboy handed him an envelope addressed to him.

  Abigail looked at Daniel enquiringly as he opened the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper.

  ‘News?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s from Inspector Grimley,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Oh?’ said Abigail. ‘What’s he say?’

  ‘Terry Brady’s been found.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘That’s all,’ said Daniel, passing her the note.

  ‘A man of few words,’ observed Abigail, reading it and passing it back to him.

  ‘I suppose we have to go and see him to find out anything further,’ said Daniel.

  ‘If he’ll share it with us,’ said Abigail doubtfully.

  ‘Oh, he will,’ said Daniel. ‘This is to put us in our place. He’s done his job. If we want to know more we have to go and ask him.’

  This time Grimley seemed almost pleased to see them when they arrived at Newton Street police station. At least, he wasn’t as aggressively hostile as he’d been on Daniel’s last visit.

  ‘We got your note, Inspector,’ said Daniel. ‘So, Terry Brady has been found.’

  Grimley nodded. ‘He has.’

  ‘Where is he? Can we talk to him?’

  Grimley gave a chuckle. ‘You can talk to him, but don’t expect much in the way of an answer. What’s left of him is in the mortuary. It looks like someone hit him over the head with an axe. So if it’s our killer who did it, it looks like he’s graduated on from knives.’

  Abigail expressed her seething anger as they walked to the mortuary.

  ‘He was playing with us,’ she said angrily. ‘He took delight in telling us that Brady was dead.’

  ‘He did,’ agreed Daniel.

  ‘The man is a moron,’ continued Abigail. ‘How could he be pleased that a man has been viciously murdered? One who might have been able to give us a clue as to what all this is about!’

  ‘I’m not sure that the inspector is very bothered about finding out who killed Kathleen or Eileen,’ said Daniel. ‘Or Eve Preston, for that matter. As far as he’s concerned they’re people of no importance. He’d rather their cases were just forgotten, and they would have been if it hadn’t been for us being in the picture. As it is, he’s going through the motions because Superintendent Mossop showed interest, but he’s hoping that will wane.’

  ‘How can he call himself a policeman!’ burst out Abigail in disgust.

  ‘He sees the job of policeman differently,’ said Daniel. ‘I believe he sees it as being one who keeps the peace, stops disorder.’

  ‘But allows murder and violence to flourish!’

  ‘On a small scale, rather than large-scale social disorder.’

  ‘Which is what William Bickerstaff was suggesting in his article,’ said Abigail.

  By now they had arrived at the infirmary. They made their way down to the basement and the mortuary.

  ‘Our third visit,’ observed Daniel.
‘We’re becoming part of the fabric of the place.’ He stopped suddenly as they neared the door of the mortuary. ‘But this may be different. Grimley said he’d been attacked with an axe. This may be one body you may choose not to view.’

  ‘I am perfectly capable of controlling my emotions,’ retorted Abigail tartly.

  ‘It’s not your emotions I’m thinking of,’ replied Daniel. ‘I’ve seen victims of axe attacks, and the way the body responds to such a sight …’

  ‘My body is under the same control as my emotions,’ responded Abigail curtly. ‘We’ll go in.’

  She pushed the door open and they walked in, their noses receiving the same smell of disinfectant and decaying flesh as before. Karl the attendant was on duty, as he had been before during their visits, and he gave them a smile of welcome.

  ‘Inspector Grimley said you might be along,’ he told them. ‘But I have to tell you that this one is rather unpleasant, if you’re not familiar with murder by axe.’

  ‘Thank you for your concern, but I assure you I will be fine,’ said Abigail. ‘When I was in Egypt I saw many people who’d been maimed by sharp implements.’

  ‘This is rather more than being maimed,’ said Karl.

  ‘I will be fine,’ Abigail repeated.

  ‘Very well,’ said Karl. ‘He’s over here.’

  Karl led the way to a cloth-covered shape on a table at the far side of the room. As the attendant peeled back the sheet and revealed the remains beneath, Abigail let out a gasp of horror.

  ‘My God!’

  ‘Are you sure you want to be here?’ asked Daniel, concerned. Abigail had gone deathly white and was swaying slightly, and he was afraid she was going to fall.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Abigail in a faint voice, though Daniel could tell she wasn’t. He wasn’t surprised. For all her insistence that she’d seen dead people before in Egypt and elsewhere, he doubted if anyone could be prepared for the butchery that was on display here. The head had certainly been split in half from top to bottom, the two sides of the skull, left and right, having been tied around the temples to hold the head together. In addition, the killer had attacked the rest of the body with the axe: the left arm was smashed and almost severed just below the shoulder, the broken right collarbone was poking through the skin, and there were gaping open wounds in the skin on the chest. Daniel had thought he was immune to being affected by violence inflicted on the human body after the Jack the Ripper investigations and the eviscerated corpses he’d had to examine, but this attack was monstrous.

  ‘I think I will wait outside,’ said Abigail suddenly, and she left the room and the horror that was on the table.

  ‘Thank you, we’ve seen enough,’ Daniel thanked the attendant, and he followed her.

  Abigail was on a chair just outside the mortuary, her head down and almost in her lap, and Daniel wondered if she’d fainted. He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, and immediately she jerked upright.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she managed to say.

  ‘If you want to be sick, there’s a toilet just along the corridor,’ said Daniel.

  She shook her head.

  ‘There’s no shame in it,’ said Daniel. ‘I was sick when I was a constable and saw my first body.’

  ‘Was it as bad as this?’ she asked.

  Daniel hesitated, then said, ‘Yes, I’m afraid it was.’

  ‘Who could do such a thing?’ burst out Abigail. ‘That’s not murder, that’s … that’s …’

  ‘Slaughterhouse butchery,’ said Daniel.

  He sat down on the chair beside her and took her hand in his.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a faint voice.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ve just said, it happens to everyone the first time we see something as terrible as this.’ He paused, then said quietly, ‘One thing it tells us, this was done by a different person to the one who killed Kathleen. The way that Kathleen was killed was controlled, methodical. The killer did it in the museum and slipped away without anyone noticing. That’s about being in control. The way that Terry Brady was killed is someone filled with rage, bringing the axe down hard enough to split his head almost in two and then continuing to batter the body …’ He stopped as he saw her close her eyes and shiver. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t talk about it any more.’

  ‘We have to,’ she said. ‘It’s what we do.’

  ‘It’s what I do,’ Daniel corrected her.

  She turned to him, and although her face was still white, there was anger in her eyes. ‘We’re partners,’ she snapped. ‘Equal partners.’ Then she dropped her gaze. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be angry with you. I’m not. I’m just …’

  ‘Shocked?’ said Daniel.

  She nodded. ‘Talk to me,’ she said. ‘If this isn’t the same killer, who is it?’

  ‘I’m guessing it was someone who wanted revenge for something. Someone driven mad by fury. Why? What had Brady done to merit that much anger and violence?’

  ‘Killed Eve Preston,’ said Abigail.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Daniel. ‘It has to be. The person who killed Brady did it because he was in love with Eve Preston. Passionately in love with her. And when he found out it was Brady who’d killed her, he went after him with an axe.’

  ‘But why would Brady kill Eve Preston?’

  ‘Because in some way he’d found out that she’d come to us and named him as the one who’d killed the woman in the paper.’

  ‘So he killed her in revenge?’

  ‘Or anger.’

  Abigail fell silent, thinking this over. Finally, she said, ‘If you’re thinking of going to Inspector Grimley with this, he’ll say it’s all speculation.’

  ‘And he’d be right, but it’s a feasible explanation,’ said Daniel. ‘I believe that if we find the person who was in love with Eve Preston, we’ll find the person who killed Terry Brady.’

  ‘And we take this to the inspector?’

  ‘No,’ said Daniel. ‘I take it to him. With the negative attitude he’s got towards us, it’s highly likely he’ll become abusive and throw us out. And you’ve had enough nastiness today. There’s no need for us both to suffer the inspector’s anger.’

  Abigail still felt queasy as she entered the Mayflower Hotel. Despite her best efforts to control her emotions, she couldn’t put the image of Terry Brady’s shattered body out of her mind.

  I need to do something to take my mind off it, she thought. Sitting alone in our hotel room won’t help me.

  Suddenly reaching a decision, she turned and left the hotel and made her way to the museum. As she walked through its main entrance, she almost bumped into Jonty Hawkins, who was wearing his outdoor coat and heading somewhere in a hurry.

  ‘My apologies,’ she said.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Hawkins.

  ‘Please, don’t let your sense of politeness towards me detain you.’ Abigail smiled at him. ‘You’re obviously off somewhere important.’

  ‘Yes, to see you,’ said Hawkins. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘This was delivered here for your attention. I was just about to bring it to the hotel and leave it for you.’

  ‘Why thank you,’ said Abigail.

  She examined the envelope. It was addressed in very neat handwriting to Miss Abigail Fenton, care of the Manchester Museum. She didn’t recognise the handwriting.

  ‘I thought it might be important,’ said Hawkins.

  ‘It might be,’ said Abigail. ‘Thank you, Mr Hawkins.’

  ‘Actually it’s opportune that you’ve come in,’ added Hawkins. ‘Mr Steggles said if you did, he’d be grateful if you’d call on him. He’s in his office.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Abigail. ‘I’ll go and see him now.’

  She put the envelope in her pocket and made her way to Bernard Steggles’s office, wondering what possible new turn of events had made him want to see her. Would it be good news, or bad? Despite his obvious support for them, he must be aware that th
e reality was they were no further forward in their investigations. They had suppositions, but no firm evidence pointing the finger at any individual. Her tap on the door received the response ‘Enter!’

  Steggles’s face lit up with a welcoming smile as Abigail entered the room, allaying her fears that this might turn out to be an awkward interview.

  ‘Miss Fenton. Please, sit down.’

  As Abigail took her seat opposite him, he lifted a sheet of paper from his desk and held it out to her. ‘I received today this from Mr C. P. Scott, the editor of the Manchester Guardian.’

  Abigail took the letter and read it. It was polite and apologetic in tone.

  ‘You’ll see that he accepts full responsibility for the article that appeared and makes it quite clear that Mr Bickerstaff rewrote it after I’d seen and approved it, without Mr Scott’s knowledge or consent. As a result, he has dismissed Mr Bickerstaff from the staff of the Guardian.’

  ‘Harsh, but understandable,’ she commented, handing the letter back.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Steggles. ‘Unfortunate, but Mr Bickerstaff brought it on himself by his actions.’ He looked inquisitively at Abigail. ‘Are there any new developments on the case?’ he asked.

  Abigail filled him in on the murders of Eve Preston, and of Terry Brady, and noted the look of shock and disgust when she told him that Brady had been killed with what appeared to have been an axe.

  ‘How dreadful!’ he gasped. He shook his head. ‘It seems the case is getting out of hand. We now have four people dead, and the manner in which they’ve been murdered seems to be escalating into extreme violence.’

  ‘We don’t know that the murders of Eve Preston and Terry Brady are connected with those of Kathleen Donlan and Eileen O’Donnell,’ said Abigail. ‘Mr Wilson is convinced they are separate to the other two.’

  ‘Are you and Mr Wilson still of the opinion the murders of these poor unfortunate women are connected in some way to the army?’

  ‘We are,’ said Abigail. ‘The problem is that the army appears to be a law unto itself, its own military judicial procedures apparently having precedence over civilian law.’ As she saw a look of concern cloud Steggles’s face, she added with a confidence she didn’t really feel, ‘However, we believe we may be able to circumvent that, and we’ll be putting a plan of action into operation to effect that very shortly.’