by Carola Dunn
“‘You fossil-eyed fool.’ That’s what he said, wasn’t it, Katy?”
“Maybe.” Katy was still dubious.
“Was it ‘fossilized,’ Katy?” Daisy asked. “‘Fossilized fool’?” That was the sort of cheap insult Pettigrew liked to throw around.
“Maybe. I thought he said eyes. And fools.” Her lips trembled. “I don’t know for sure. Granny, I don’t know.”
“Told you so!” Billy triumphed.
“William Albert, that’s enough of that. Clear the table, and you can help me wash up. I don’t care if it’s not your turn. It doesn’t matter, duckie, there’s nothing to cry about. Come to Gran, then.”
“I’m sorry,” said Daisy. “It’s all right, Katy. Much better to say you don’t know than pretend you do. Will you tell me one more thing, if you know the answer?”
Katy raised her jammy face from Mrs. Ditchley’s yellow-flowered bosom and nodded dolefully.
“You too, Billy, and Mary as well. Give me an honest answer. Did any of you see anyone crossing the dinosaur gallery while your Granny was gone?”
Three heads shook in unison.
“I was looking at the dinosaur’s teeth,” said Billy regretfully. “Was it the murderer, miss? Cor, I wish I’d seen the murderer!”
“You get on with collecting up those plates sharpish, young man,” said his grandmother. “I’ve your mum and dad’s supper to cook yet.”
“I must be going,” said Daisy. “Thank you so much for the tea and the delicious tarts.”
Mrs. Ditchley set Katy on her feet, told Jennifer to wash her sister’s face, and accompanied Daisy to the front door.
“Are you working for the police?” she asked bluntly.
“Not exactly,” Daisy temporized. “I thought it might be easier for the children to talk to me rather than a police officer.”
“Very likely,” Mrs. Ditchley conceded.
“I can tell the police what they said, and maybe they won’t need to ask any more questions. You see, as a matter of fact, it turns out that the detective in charge of the case is my fiancé.”
“Well now,” said Mrs. Ditchley, her amused face lit by daylight as she opened the door, “what a coincidence!”
“Actually,” Daisy confessed, “I believe he was put in charge because I’m mixed up in it.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, dear. You tell him from me, if he wants to talk to the kiddies, he’ll do well to bring you with him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ditchley. It doesn’t sound to me, though, as if they saw or heard anything really useful.”
“Thank heaven for small mercies,” said Mrs. Ditchley.
Daisy was less grateful to heaven. Whatever her rationale, Alec was not going to be pleased by her meddling, but if she had had something significant to report he might have forgiven her more easily.
Sighing, she hoped tonight’s dinner was not going to turn into an acrimonious argument.
Nonetheless, her heart sank when the telephone rang at half past five and Ernie Piper’s voice replied to her recital of her number. “D. C. Piper, miss.”
“Don’t tell me,” she groaned, “the Chief can’t make it.”
“He can, miss,” Ernie anxiously reassured her, “but he says d’you mind going early and somewhere nearby. He’ll pick you up at half six if that’s all right. He hasn’t got time to change. He’s still got to see the an … an-thro-pologist and your Grand Duke this evening.”
“My Grand Duke?”
“That’s what Sarge calls him, miss.” Piper’s grin was audible. “I gotta run. What’ll I tell the Chief?”
“Tell him right-oh, six-thirty.”
Daisy was ready to go when Alec rang the doorbell at twenty-eight minutes past six.
He kissed her and said, “Thank heaven you’re not one of those women who makes a man wait.”
“If I were, I’d never see you. It’s difficult enough already. If you’re in a hurry, let’s walk round to the Good Intent, in King’s Road.”
“I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs, but isn’t that an artists’ haunt?” he asked with caution.
“Used to be. The Bohemians have abandoned it as old-fashioned, but it still serves good, cheap food, and quickly. A starving artist who’s scraped together the price of a meal can’t wait to be fed. How did it go at the museum?”
“I didn’t learn much of significance,” Alec said gloomily. “As Tom says, the place is a regular rabbit warren, connecting doors and back-stairs everywhere. Even with the plans, it took me an hour to sort it out. All the suspects could quite well have been where they claimed to be, but they also could have got to the reptile gallery and back without being seen.”
“Does that mean you think Pettigrew had an appointment to meet someone there?”
“It’s possible, but the murderer may have met him by chance.”
“I can’t see why Pettigrew should have been there by chance,” Daisy objected. “He despised fossils.”
“Witt suggested he might have been on his way to the General Library, perhaps to look up something about prehistoric flint implements. I gather he had recently developed an interest in the subject.”
“Yes, that was what he was on about when he dragged Mr. Witt bodily from my side.”
“Witt admitted to that incident. He claimed not to have taken offence. Pettigrew being such a mannerless boor, it would be a fruitless waste of energy.”
“Fruitless to protest, I dare say,” Daisy observed, “but he didn’t exactly look as if he took being manhandled at all kindly.”
Alec was equally sceptical. He neither trusted nor liked Calvin Witt, who appeared suspiciously eager to be of assistance. The Fossil Mammal Curator was too smooth, his manner suave, his hair sleekly pomaded. His face was too young for the years his curatorship suggested, especially as he was of an age to have fought in the War, which should have taken several years from his work experience. Or perhaps he had gained the position at an early age through family influence, which would not make Alec like him any the better.
It was not jealousy, Alec told himself. He must not succumb to the niggling worm which still now and then reminded him that he was ten years older than Daisy and not of her class. She had been joking when she described Witt as handsome and charming.
Alec looked down at her as they turned into King’s Road. As if she felt his gaze, she glanced up, smiling happily, and slipped her hand through his arm. They might have been discussing sitting-room wallpaper, not a brutal murder.
He ought to be discussing wallpaper with her, not murder—but it was damnably difficult to avoid a topic in which they had a mutual interest.
He was about to change the subject when she said, “I suppose Ol’ Stony could have been on his way to consult Witt about the flints. Or rather, to demand information. That was more his style.”
“Yes, Witt actually proposed that possibility, too, though he seemed to think Pettigrew would be more likely to send for him. The route is the same as to the library. There are private stairs next to Pettigrew’s office which go all the way down to the basement, but on the ground floor they debouche only into Smith Woodward’s office. So Pettigrew would go either down the main stairs and through the mammal gallery …”
“In which case I would certainly have seen him.”
“ … Or down the private stairs at the east end of the mineral gallery.”
“And then through to the reptile gallery where he died,” Daisy said. “Mummery’s domain. How did your interview with him go?”
“You warned me he was explosive.”
Alec made a funny story of Mummery’s temper. The fossil reptile curator started out furious at having his work interrupted by police with nothing better to do than pursue the benefactor of humanity who rid the earth of Pettigrew. Especially as Pettigrew had ruined his Pareiasaurus, which, if repairable, would take months of hard work to restore.
Diverted to the question of what he was doing in the General rather than the Geolo
gical Library, he was provoked to another outburst: He was consulting an obscure German text comparing modern with ancient Crocodilia; it obviously ought to be in Geology but Zoology also claimed it, so it was relegated to General.
Asked to suggest why the mineralogist’s corpse was found in his gallery, Mummery had snapped that he certainly did not belong there. He then embarked on an irate and very technical lecture on why—unlike Pettigrew—the dinosaurs did belong among the reptiles.
“So I gave up on him,” Alec confessed ruefully, “for the present. Here we are.”
He pushed open the door of the Good Intent. A pug puppy danced forward to welcome them to the small, quiet restaurant, its chequer-clothed tables mostly empty. While Daisy greeted the little dog, Alec glanced around at the once avant-garde paintings on the walls. One was a portrait of a smug pug with a violet ribbon round its neck, perhaps the present tutelary canine’s predecessor.
Seated, Daisy gave her attention to the menu, which offered a solid rather than exciting choice. Selecting Scotch broth and shepherd’s pie did not occupy her for long. Alec plumped for celery soup and Lancashire hot pot. By the time he had given the waitress their order, Daisy’s thoughts had returned to the museum murder.
“Who else did you see? The commissionaires, I expect, and Dr. Smith Woodward, though he’s out of it, and Dr. Bentworth, though he couldn’t possibly have done it. What about Ruddlestone? He’s far too cheerful to commit murder, isn’t he?”
“Being under suspicion certainly didn’t cow him,” Alec said dryly. “Far from it. He presented us with his theory that detective work and palæontology have a great deal in common, in the painstaking following up of often insignificant-appearing clues. The notion amused him.”
Daisy smiled. “He’s easily amused, and quite amusing. You didn’t winkle out any particular reason for him to hate Pettigrew?”
“No, nothing beyond the general dislike.”
“And Steadman?”
“Again, nothing specific. He struck me as a nervy type, and the sort of chap to hold a grudge, but you were right, his animosity is directed at the museum trustees and at Americans who send plaster models instead of real fossils.”
Their soup arrived. Daisy took a few spoonfuls in meditative silence, then said, “Perhaps Pettigrew jeered at Steadman about his biggest dinosaur being plaster, until it was beyond bearing. He was obnoxious enough about the uselessness of real fossils. I can’t imagine what he might have had to say about a fake.”
“I asked,” said Alec. “According to Steadman, Pettigrew never said a word about the model because he didn’t have a leg to stand on. The biggest diamond in the mineralogy collection is a fake.”
Daisy laughed. “Oh yes, I’d forgotten. The Cullinan is paste. I have an appointment with one of Pettigrew’s assistants tomorrow, Alec. Grange, his name is. You’re not going to make a fuss, are you, darling? I really must get on with my research.”
“That’s all right, Grange and Randell are in the clear. They left on time and went together to the Crooked Elm in Old Brompton Road. They claim always to need a drink after a day with Pettigrew.”
“Oh dear, no one mourns him, do they? At least, did he have any family?”
“He was a widower, with two grown sons. One’s in the army, stationed in Ireland at present. The other’s a solicitor in Truro.”
“So you didn’t have to break the news to them.”
“No, thank heaven.” Alec found informing bereaved relatives of a murder far more distressing than dealing with a corpse no longer capable of feeling pain. “The Truro police and the soldier’s C.O. had to cope with that. Both sons are on their way, and I’ll have to see them, but parricide isn’t on the cards.”
“Two fewer suspects to worry about,” Daisy said blithely. “How was your soup?”
“Soup?” Alec looked down at his empty bowl, and confessed sheepishly, “I didn’t even notice eating it. Or drinking it, if you prefer.”
“Well, it can’t have been too dreadful, at least. Eat or drink rather depends on whether it’s thick soup or thin, I suppose. Supping is really the best word: to sup one’s soup. A pity it’s dropped out of use.”
Over the second course they talked about language. Alec entertained Daisy with examples of eighteenth-century slang, picked up while studying the Georgian period at Manchester University. She blushed adorably when he reminded her that the little mole by her mouth was placed just where Georgian ladies used to stick the face-patch known as the “Kissing.”
Had the A.C. meant it when he ordered Alec to marry Daisy with all possible speed? Would he really expedite leave, the difficulty of obtaining which being the main obstacle in setting a date?
Pondering, Alec fell silent over his Double Gloucester and biscuits. Daisy, engaged in demolishing a dish of Queen of Puddings, was too stickily occupied to talk.
He had got away without telling her much about the case, he congratulated himself. Then it dawned on him that she had not actually asked much, not even the claimed whereabouts of the suspects at the time of the murder. His uneasy suspicion of collusion between Daisy and Tom Tring reawoke. He nearly taxed her with it, but decided on the whole it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.
She remained quiet as he paid the bill and helped her on with her coat. Leaving the Good Intent, they turned down King’s Road, past illuminated shop windows—many displaying artists’ supplies, one or two showing artists’ works—and an extraordinary number of pubs. They were passing a milliner’s, filled with amazingly diverse variations on the basic cloche all women seemed to wear nowadays, when Daisy spoke.
“Alec, how was he killed? I’ve been putting off asking, because part of me doesn’t really want to know.”
“Then I shan’t tell you.”
“Do. Please do, darling. It can’t be worse than the frightful things one imagines.”
“No, maybe not. In effect, it was no different from any stabbing, but it’s quite extraordinary, nonetheless. The pathologist found a sharpened flint in Pettigrew’s chest.”
8
A flint! Daisy’s first thought was that she should have guessed. The second was, “But how did it get there? I mean, if he was stabbed with it, surely the whole thing couldn’t have disappeared inside him—ugh! But you know what I mean. Enough should have stuck out to hold onto. Could it have been bunged with a sling or something?”
“Unlikely,” Alec said. “Even if it hit hard enough to penetrate, according to our ballistics man, the odds against its striking the right spot point first are astronomical. Well, palæontological, anyway.”
“Biblical, rather. Doubtless David could have done it,” Daisy commented. “So you don’t have to worry about delivery from a distance. Then how … ?”
“There’s a dab of glue at the rounded end of the flint. We think it was stuck onto some sort of shaft to make a spear, or perhaps a dagger. The museum uses every glue known to mankind, but none makes a strong bond between wood and stone, apparently. When the shaft hit the skin—there’s a suggestive bruise—the bond broke. The shaft came away, while the head stuck in the wound and impeded leakage of blood.”
“Ugh!” Daisy said again.
“Sorry, love, but you did ask.”
“Yes, I know. Does it mean Witt and ffinch-Brown are at the top of your list?”
“Not necessarily. Witt was messing about with flints in the work room behind the General Library. Anyone could have picked one up. But Pettigrew himself was experimenting with them, too. He might have brought it with him, perhaps to show Witt.”
“Gosh,” said Daisy, “I wonder if that’s what he was talking about?”
“Talking about?” Alec said sharply. The lamp-post at the corner of Mulberry Place illuminated lowered brows over glinting ice-grey eyes. “When?”
Daisy sighed. The moment of truth was upon her. Confession could no longer be postponed. Besides, Alec would probably go to see Mrs. Ditchley tomorrow, and she was bound to mention Daisy’s visit.
&n
bsp; “To start at the beginning, I called on Mrs. Ditchley this afternoon,” she admitted, and crossed her fingers in her coat pocket before fibbing, “just to make sure she and the children had recovered from the shock.”
“I trust they had?” His politeness had a dangerous edge.
“Oh yes,” she said airily. “The children came home from school while I was there, and of course they wanted to talk about it.”
“Of course. Without a single question from you.”
“Do you want to know what they told me or not?”
“If you please.” But leaning back against his Austin Chummy, Alec regarded her with unmistakable grimness. “Go on.”
“It came out that Katy, the littlest, had wandered off from the others toward the arch to the reptiles. She didn’t see anything, but she heard a man say, ‘You fossilized fool, you think you’re so clever, but I know how it was done!’ He might have been referring to a flint he’d chipped himself, don’t you think?”
“Possibly,” Alec conceded. “It hardly seems so inflammatory a claim as to lead to murder, even prefaced by an insult. Are you sure of his words? Is the child?”
“Not exactly,” Daisy conceded in her turn. She explained Jennifer’s part in the reconstruction, and the uncertainty over the precise terms of the insult. “And of course there’s no way to know for absolute certain whether it was in fact Pettigrew Katy heard. But, Alec, ffinch-Brown told me Pettigrew meant to challenge him to distinguish between genuine ancient flints and one he’d chipped himself.”
“He did? Great Scott, Daisy, what else haven’t you revealed yet?”
“‘I tell thee everything I can. I’ve little to relate,’” Daisy misquoted the White Knight’s song.
“I hope you’re not going to produce another ‘aged aged man,’” Alec said somewhat sourly. “Bentworth’s as much as I can cope with. He fell asleep in the middle of our interview.”
“I don’t know of any more. But honestly, darling, you did rather rush me along, with Piper popping up with a new name every thirty seconds. At a more leisurely pace, bits and pieces have a chance to come to mind.”