Murder at the Natural History Museum

by Jim Eldridge

  Five pounds. A fortune. Nora hadn’t asked what he’d been given the bonus for, she’d just taken it gratefully. And then, at intervals, Raymond had handed over other money he’d received, some as bonuses, others, he told her, were presents. She didn’t ask why people were giving him money as presents, that was his business. The truth was that for the first time in her life she was able to afford nice things for the house, good furniture. And new, not shabby second-hand as it had been with George.

  And then that policeman had called with the terrible news about Raymond dying. Being killed. Was that because of the presents and bonuses? She’d warned him once when he came home with a particularly large sum of money to be careful. ‘Some people might get worried about giving you this money,’ she said. ‘They might get upset. And upset people can do bad things.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ he’d reassured her. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  And now he was dead, and because of that nosey policeman she’d been forced to move home. Luckily, she still had some of the money that Raymond had given her squirrelled away. With Raymond gone, she’d have to be more careful in the future. It did occur to her to find out the names of some of the people who’d given Raymond money. He’d mentioned a few, but she hadn’t wanted to ask too much. That way, if things went wrong and he was caught out, she could always deny any knowledge of what he’d been up to. But now things had changed. Raymond was gone, and so was her source of income. It was time to rack her brains for those names he’d mentioned. Only one or two, but if she dug deep she might find out about the others. Then she’d go and see them, tell them that Raymond had told her she was to see them if anything happened to him. It was worth a try.

  There was a knock at the door. That would be the carters with her furniture, she thought in relief as she went to the door. When she hadn’t heard anything back from Mr Dobbs, she’d wondered if he’d got it organised. He’d been a decent enough landlord, but sometimes he’d struck her as not the most efficient of men. Except when it came to collecting his rent. But then, she had only written to him two days before.

  She opened the door and gasped as she recognised the man standing there. That detective inspector from Scotland Yard! And he was with another man, different from the one he’d turned up with at her old house, but this other one was also a policeman, she could tell.

  ‘Mrs Simpson,’ he greeted her. ‘Detective Inspector Feather from Scotland Yard. We met before. This is Detective Sergeant Cribbens.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to say to you,’ she burst out. She began to close the door, but Feather stuck his boot in.

  ‘We can talk here, or I can have you taken to Scotland Yard,’ said Feather. ‘In handcuffs if you resist. I can’t see your new neighbours being impressed by that, if it happens.’

  Simpson glared at him with such hatred that if looks could kill he would have dropped dead on the spot. Instead, she grudgingly opened the door and let them in.

  ‘I hope this won’t take long. I’m expecting the carters with my furniture.’

  ‘I also hope it won’t take long, Mrs Simpson,’ said Feather. ‘We want to find the person who killed your son. I’m assuming you want the same thing.’

  ‘Of course I do. He was everything to me.’

  ‘We know he was blackmailing people,’ said Feather. ‘We need to know the names of his victims because it’s likely that one of them may have been his murderer.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she said, defiantly. ‘As far as I was concerned he was a good boy.’

  ‘A good boy to you because he gave you the money to buy all your furniture and everything else,’ said Feather, firmly.

  ‘And thank heavens he did!’ shouted Mrs Simpson, angrily. ‘When my George died he left me with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was faced with going into the workhouse.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you, Mrs Simpson, that unless you cooperate I’ll have all this furniture and everything else you own impounded because it was bought with the proceeds of crime,’ said Feather.

  ‘It wasn’t. You can’t do that.’

  ‘We have proof he was blackmailing people,’ said Feather. ‘And yes, I can. I’ll have this house stripped and you’ll end up a pauper, in the workhouse after all. So, what’s it to be, Mrs Simpson?’

  ‘If I knew I’d tell you,’ she retorted, angrily. ‘And not just for the furniture and other stuff, but because someone killed my son. I want justice for him.’

  ‘So, tell me who the people were he was blackmailing.’

  ‘He never told me,’ said Simpson. ‘He kept his business dealings away from me. He didn’t want me to get in trouble.’

  ‘But you are in trouble, Mrs Simpson,’ said Feather. ‘I can have you arrested for receiving money from the proceeds of blackmail—’

  ‘He never told me their names!’ she shouted at him. ‘Lately he said that one of them was a trustee at the museum where he worked. He said he had something good on them which was worth a lot of money. And that’s the most he ever said. I swear it. You can arrest me and put me in prison, or take everything and put me in the workhouse, but it won’t change anything. He never said any names.’

  There was a knock on the door. Feather opened it and saw a short man wearing brown overalls standing on the doorstep.

  The man beamed. ‘Blooms the Carters, with furniture for Mrs Simpson.’

  Feather nodded and turned to Simpson. ‘Your things have arrived,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave you now. But if you do remember any names, or anything at all, come and see me at the Yard.’

  As Feather and Cribbens left the house, Sergeant Cribbens asked: ‘Was that right about taking her furniture, sir? I didn’t know that.’

  Feather shook his head. ‘No, and neither does she. I tried that because it’s pretty obvious the only thing she cares about is money and her possessions, so it was the only lever I had left.’

  ‘So, one of the trustees, she says. Would that be Mr Radley, do you suppose? The one who’s done a runner?’

  ‘Unless he was blackmailing more than one of them. But for the moment, let’s be staying with Mason Radley, and let’s hope we can lay our hands on him.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Daniel and Inspector Feather sat in the hansom cab as they headed for the Lyceum to collect Bram Stoker.

  ‘I’m surprised you persuaded him to agree to come with us,’ said Feather. ‘I never thought he would.’

  ‘It gives him the opportunity to see his old friend,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Which makes me wonder why he hasn’t been to see him already,’ commented Feather.

  ‘I think he finds the idea of Wilde in prison in those conditions difficult,’ said Daniel. ‘How did you get on with Mrs Simpson? Was she there when you went to the house?’

  ‘She was and initially reluctant to talk to me. But she did in the end, although she claimed she didn’t know much about her son’s blackmail victims.’

  ‘You believe her?’

  ‘I think I do,’ said Feather. ‘I threatened her with taking her furniture away, leaving her destitute and forced into the workhouse. So, finally, she said the only one Raymond had mentioned to her was a trustee of the Natural History Museum, but he never told her their name. From what we know, he was obviously referring to Mason Radley.’

  ‘Maybe there was more than one trustee who was a victim of his,’ suggested Daniel. ‘Yes, he was blackmailing Radley, and the fact that Radley’s disappeared makes him our main suspect. But Lady Fortescue is also a trustee. Say he found out that she had a role in her husband’s death, whether murder or suicide, so he tries putting the screws on her. But she tells her paramour, William Watling, and he kills Simpson.’

  Feather shook his head. ‘You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about Watling, Daniel, but nothing to back it up.’

  ‘It’s likely he killed Hardwicke.’

  ‘But equally as likely he didn’t. That it was an accident, just as he said.’

>   ‘He lied about not being able to swim. He could have jumped in and saved him.’

  ‘Into that muck? That’s not water in the canal, it’s more like a swamp,’ said Feather. ‘I agree with you it’s possible that Simpson may have been referring to some other trustee, but I can’t see it being Lady Fortescue. She strikes me as being the sort of person who’d have eaten Simpson alive if he dared to try to blackmail her.’ He looked out of the window. ‘We’re here. Let’s hope that Mr Stoker is ready for us.’

  Cedric Warmsley, a tall, thin man in his late twenties, was waiting for Abigail by the reception desk at the British Museum. He looked so delighted at seeing her, so eager to please, that he reminded Abigail of a large puppy one of her neighbours in Cambridge had, who used to greet her with a similar happy expression on his face whenever she arrived on a visit.

  ‘Miss Fenton,’ he said and clasped her hand in momentary excitement before releasing it almost apologetically. ‘I cannot tell you what a great privilege this is to be working with you. I have admired your work for so very long. Although palaeontology is my area, I have spent so much of my time here at the British Museum in the classical rooms exploring the Roman and Greek, and especially in the Egyptian rooms, so I know all about your work.’

  Abigail smiled. ‘You flatter me, Mr Warmsley. I was just one worker among many out at the digs, very much an assistant.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve been told when your name has come up in discussion with archaeologists who were also on those sites.’

  ‘I’m sure they were just being kind,’ said Abigail. ‘To be honest, Mr Warmsley, I feel a bit of a fraud to be introducing your talk. I am awed by palaeontology, but it is so far removed from my own area of work – by many, many thousands of years and in some cases millions – that I wonder you agreed to my being invited to introduce you.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Warmsley, enthusiastically, ‘when Miss Scott advised me that Mr Ewing was unavailable, because I knew from the newspapers that you and Mr Wilson were at the Natural History Museum investigating this outrage, it was I who had the presumption to ask her to invite you. My reasons were twofold. First, your name would bring in a much larger number of people because I’m sure that more people have heard of you and your reputation than they have of Mary Anning. And secondly, because I was keen to meet you and hear from your own lips about some of your adventures.’

  ‘If it’s true what you say about her being not as well known as she should be, then I am delighted if my presence can help redress that situation. As to my own adventures, I doubt if my discoveries from a few thousand years ago can compare with those you have uncovered from far further back in time. When I see the skeletons of the dinosaurs …’

  ‘Ah, the dinosaurs,’ said Warmsley, with a rueful tone to his voice. ‘Alas, my own area is much more akin to that of Anning: marine fossils. I, too, have spent time on the coast of Dorset, following in her footsteps and unearthing the remains of marine creatures from 200 million years ago, and each time I unearth a specimen, especially if it is large and well-preserved, I can’t help but feel a tremor of excitement that surges through my whole being. Much the same, I expect, as when you enter into a pyramid for the first time, one that hasn’t been opened for many thousands of years, and you are actually touching the distant past.’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Mr Warmsley,’ said Abigail. She became aware that a small crowd had gathered, drawn by Warmsley’s excitable manner, and were now watching them as if waiting for this interesting performance to continue. Warmsley also became aware of the watching audience because he gave an apologetic smile to Abigail.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if we repaired to my office,’ he said. ‘I share it with another palaeontologist, Jeffrey Withers, but it will afford us more privacy than we have here.’ He gestured towards a nearby flight of stairs. ‘Please, this way.’

  Stoker was silent on their journey to Wandsworth Prison. He’s nervous, decided Daniel, studying him. Apprehensive at what we’ll find, especially with rumours about Wilde’s health in circulation.

  At Wandsworth they were shown into a starkly bare room. Three chairs had been placed in it ready for them. Running across the room was a barrier of iron bars, separating them from the other half, effectively a large prison cell. A lone wooden bench was there, fixed to the flagstones of the floor. A door to one side of this cell opened and two warders appeared, leading a tall, gaunt-looking man in a stained prison uniform. The warders sat the man down on the bench, then stepped back so that they were separate from him but within touching distance.

  At first Daniel didn’t recognise the man on the bench as Oscar Wilde. But then, he’d never seen the man in person. He looked towards Stoker, who stared at Wilde in a state of shock.

  ‘My God, Oscar! What have they done to you?’ he asked, hoarsely, in horror.

  Daniel had seen enough pictures of Wilde in the newspapers to know that this haggard wreck sitting behind the bars was vastly different from the popular image of Oscar Wilde, ostentatious playwright, aesthete and man about town. The Oscar Wilde of the newspapers and magazines was large and fleshy, usually seen wearing velvet clothes, his long hair curling over his collar, and his face and hands beautifully and sensitively cared for. The man sitting looking at them was almost skeletal, the sunken hollows of his cheeks made more pronounced by his hair having been cropped in the prison fashion. His ill-fitting uniform hung from his thin frame in folds of cloth. His wisp of an almost beard only heightened the sickly pallor of his face.

  ‘I have been ill,’ said Wilde.

  ‘Has a doctor seen you?’

  Wilde gave a hollow laugh. As he spoke the once great voice that resonated around theatres, and even in court, was reedy, strained.

  ‘The doctor says there is nothing wrong with me. He says I am suffering from diarrhoea, which is common in here. But then, the food is barely edible.’ He forced a smile at Stoker. ‘How are you, Bram? It’s a while since we met.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stoker, uncomfortably. ‘I had intended to arrange a visit, but—’

  ‘The Lyceum and Sir Henry. I understand. I’m sure I would have been the same if our positions had been reversed.’

  ‘No, Oscar, you would not,’ said Stoker, firmly. ‘I have not been the friend to you I should have been.’

  ‘But you are here now. With others.’ Wilde looked quizzically at Daniel. ‘I am familiar with Inspector Feather, but you, sir, are new to me. Are you another policeman?’

  ‘I was,’ said Daniel. ‘My name is Daniel Wilson. I was formerly with Inspector Abberline’s squad at Scotland Yard, but now I’m a private enquiry agent.’

  ‘Abberline. The Cleveland Street Scandal. And, of course, the Jack the Ripper investigation.’

  Suddenly, Stoker reached out to point to Wilde’s hands and exclaimed in horror.

  ‘Your hands, Oscar!’

  Wilde looked at his hands with an almost distant expression. His fingers and thumbs were disfigured and scarred with blisters, the skin blackened, his nails broken. ‘The price of picking oakum,’ he said, wryly. He looked challengingly at his three visitors. ‘Have any of you gentlemen ever picked oakum?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Daniel, quietly.

  The eyes of the three men turned to Daniel; Stoker’s and Feather’s faces both stunned, Wilde’s curious.

  ‘As a policeman I doubt if you were ever imprisoned. Nor, I believe, did you serve in the navy. You lack the tattoos of most ex-naval men I’ve met. Therefore, it must have been as a child.’ He paused, then asked: ‘The workhouse?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daniel.

  Wilde rose to his feet and made a bow to Daniel, before sitting again.

  ‘Mr Wilson, you have my greatest respect and admiration,’ he said. ‘Mr Stoker and I, we came from privilege. Lives of luxury and high company. Why, Bram here even has electric lighting in his house in Bloomsbury. But you, sir, must have fought every inch for the position you’ve achieved. It wil
l be my pleasure to answer any questions you may ask. I assume that is why you are here.’

  ‘It is,’ said Daniel. ‘The Natural History Museum has engaged myself and my partner, Miss Abigail Fenton, to look into the murder of a young attendant called Raymond Simpson.’

  ‘Raymond Simpson?’ echoed Wilde, and he shot a glance towards Stoker, who nodded and said, ‘The same.’

  ‘So, someone has killed him,’ said Wilde. ‘Everything comes to those who wait. When did this happen?’

  ‘A few days ago, at the museum.’

  ‘Ah, then I have an alibi,’ said Wilde, and he indicated the prison walls and the bars.

  ‘We understand he tried to blackmail you,’ said Feather.

  ‘He tried,’ said Wilde. ‘I told him to do his worst.’ Again, he looked at his grim surroundings. ‘And he did.’

  ‘We feel it’s possible that his killer may have been another of his blackmail victims,’ said Feather. ‘We wondered if you would consider furnishing us with the names of some of those victims. Those that you may know of.’

  ‘Why on earth would I do that?’ demanded Wilde.

  ‘To get an easing in the severity of your imprisonment,’ said Feather. ‘I’ve been authorised to tell you that if you were able to cooperate with us, there could be a reduction in the hardship you are experiencing.’ He hesitated, before enlarging: ‘No more picking oakum. No more time on the treadmill.’

  ‘What a pity,’ said Wilde, with a wry smile. ‘Two of the things that help keep me fit and ease the boredom.’ Then he looked at Feather levelly. ‘You must know that my answer is, of course, no. Many of my former friends appear to have deserted me, but I would not do them the disservice of having them dragged in for interrogation and their reputations ruined. I have had that experience, and for those who were unfortunate enough to have to hide their true feelings to avoid persecution, I will not be the one who forces them into that hell.’ He then demanded: ‘Is your next move to offer to increase the severity of my imprisonment if I do not cooperate? If so, I must disappoint you further. I once said that when we are in the gutter we are looking up at the stars. When a man is in here, he looks up and sees no such wonders, just an ugly ceiling. That will not change regardless of whatever inducements or threats you may throw at me.’