Dead as a Scone

by Ron Benrey

  “The museum intends to purchase a collection of antiquities that have been in the possession of a respected family for more than one hundred years. However, we recently received information that the founder of the family may have acquired the items in a fraudulent manner. We are concerned about issues of provenance.”

  “Provenance! The bane of every museum keeper. I get it—your issue pertains to the workings of England’s celebrated Limitations Act of 1980. Think back to that omnibus course on business law you took at business school.”

  “As I recall, the Limitations Act takes away one’s right to contest ownership of property after a reasonable number of years.”

  “Six years, in fact. Presuming that the property is acquired in good faith.” Andrew sniggered. “However, if said family acquired said antiquities in bad faith—if they nicked them, for example—the six-year limit does not apply. The true owners could assert their ownership six centuries later.”

  “I see.”

  “Now, let us say that the tea museum purchases said items in good faith. After six years, the act would protect you against any claims. In theory, no one could contest your ownership.” Andrew sniggered again. “Trouble is, laddie, you seem to be acting in bad faith because you have prior information that the goodies fell off the back of a truck. Consequently, the time limit might not apply to you, either.”

  Nigel watched Flick’s eyes widen. He felt sure that his eyes had become even larger.

  He thanked Andrew, promised to visit soon, and rang off.

  “It’s a muddle,” Nigel said. “A blooming big muddle. And we are in the middle of it. Our chief problem is that we have to make assumptions about what Desmond Hawker did or didn’t do more than a hundred years ago.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to make assumptions. As you suggested yesterday, one of us should peruse Desmond’s papers in the archives.”

  “A great idea. In fact, there’s no time like the present.”

  Flick shook her head. “Count me out, Nigel. I’m too annoyed to do research. More to the point, I’m pooped because I got up at five thirty to catch the early train to London.” She spoke to Cha-Cha before Nigel had a chance to argue. “On your feet, dog. You are going to spend a long quiet night with me.”

  After Flick left, Nigel tidied the boardroom and thought about the museum’s archives. He had visited the basement before. The boxes and bins were neatly labeled. He did not need the chief curator holding his hand to poke through Desmond’s personal papers.

  More to my point, I won’t sleep tonight if I don’t at least begin the search.

  The staircase that led down to the basement was next to the elevator on the ground floor. He descended and turned on all the overhead banks of fluorescent lights. The museum’s architect had given the basement two purposes. The eastern half housed the traditional assortment of boilers, heaters, blowers, valves, pipes, electric panels, and other paraphernalia necessary to keep the museum comfortable and operational. The western half accommodated a small office suite for Conan Davies and his security staff and a much larger storage area designed for long-term warehousing of documents, artifacts, and antiquities. The storage area was cool, dry, and (Nigel had decided) remarkably un-basementlike, with a high ceiling, black-and-white asphalt tiles on the floor, brick-faced support columns, and smooth plastered walls painted a creamy off-white.

  The Hawker archives filled three long ranks of metal shelves in the southern end of the storage area. The lion’s share of Desmond’s papers consisted of accounts and correspondence pertaining to his tea businesses. Nigel doubted that routine commercial records would shed any light on the antiquities. In any case, one would need a team of researchers to examine that much paper.

  Nigel moved along the lines of shelves until he reached the last bay in the third rank. Here were twenty-odd file boxes full of the commodore’s personal papers, the first labeled DESMOND HAWKER CORRESPONDENCE: 1860–1863.

  That is too early. Think! What dates are important?

  Nigel remembered that Flick had talked about the Long Depression and Neville Brackenbury’s bankruptcy in 1876. Nigel scanned the boxes until he saw one labeled DESMOND HAWKER CORRESPONDENCE: 1875–1877. He heaved it down to the floor and unsnapped the lid. His heart sank.

  There must be a thousand letters stuffed inside.

  He plucked one free at random from the middle of the box and slowly made sense of the intricate cursive script. It was a copy of a complaint letter dated 18 May 1876, from Desmond to his tailor.

  Crikey! I would need a week to go through this one box.

  Nigel replaced the letter and hoisted the box back on its shelf.

  Perhaps this isn’t such a grand idea after all.

  And then a slightly battered file box sitting within easy reach on the bottom shelf caught his eye: MISCELLANEOUS HAWKER HOUSEHOLD RECORDS.

  The word “miscellaneous” straightaway cheered Nigel. It implied a lack of structure and absence of discipline. Who knew what one might find in a box named miscellaneous?

  He opened the lid and peered inside. As he had suspected, the box held a hodgepodge of loose papers. He fished one out and examined it: a baker’s receipt dated 1904. Someone in the Hawker household had bought seven loaves of bread for a total price of fourteen pence—only tuppence a loaf.

  The good old days.

  Nigel reached in again: a receipt for coal from 1894. And again: an order for bed linens placed in 1901.

  His hand touched a large rectangle of folded paper. He unfolded it and discovered a neatly drawn floor plan for Lion’s Peak—dated 1873 and signed by Decimus Burton.

  “This belongs upstairs,” he murmured. “Under glass.”

  Nigel felt a twinge of guilt. It was great fun to rummage around in Desmond’s past, but he wasn’t achieving anything useful.

  Three more items, then I quit.

  He reached inside the box and brought out a dunning letter from a solicitor to Basil Hawker, dated 1891, demanding immediate payment on a personal debt of seventy-six pounds and nine shillings that was in arrears for more than eight months.

  Basil, you were a bad boy.

  Nigel reached deeper into the box. His fingers touched the bottom, then brushed sideways against something thick and large. He lifted out a reusable interoffice envelope, the sort with a string clasp and many boxes to write the names of successive recipients. The same two names appeared again and again: Mary Evans Hawker and Mirabelle Hubbard. The last recipient—the only name not lined through in pencil or ink—was Mirabelle Hubbard.

  Nigel squeezed the envelope. His fingers and brain recognized the object inside as a slender book. Nigel undid the clasp and turned the envelope on end. An old notebook with hard pasteboard covers slid into his hand. He opened the notebook and began to read.

  Crikey! I hit the mother lode.

  Her phone rang as Flick was preparing to step into a tub of scrumptiously warm water laced with bergamot-scented bath salts.

  “Hello,” she said cautiously.

  A barrage of short sentences came in reply. “It’s Nigel. Are you still dressed? If you aren’t dressed, get dressed. We have to visit Mirabelle Hubbard. I just called her. She knows that we are coming. I stumbled upon what we were looking for. In the archives, all by myself. I am a blooming genius. I will pick you up in the BMW. Be ready in ten minutes.”

  Flick let herself groan. “This better be good, Nigel.” Full of regret, she sniffed the pungent orangey aroma of bergamot that filled her flat. “You have no idea of the sacrifice you are asking me to make.”

  “Good is not the appropriate word. Try spectacular. Or phenomenal. I found answers to most of the questions we have about Desmond Hawker.”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Twelve and a half.” He hung up.

  Flick exited her apartment eleven minutes later and saw Nigel’s BMW waiting near the bottom of the Lower Walk. When she opened the passenger side door, her annoyance faded. Nigel’s silly, boyish grin seemed t
o refresh her. She felt pleased—surprisingly pleased—to see him as she slipped into her seat.

  There’s no need for him to know that.

  She slammed the door harder than necessary and said, “Where does Mirabelle live?”

  “Good evening to you, too.”

  “Whatever!”

  “We are going back to Rusthall. Mirabelle lives in a cottage near the High Street.”

  Flick noted that Nigel drove faster than usual through Tunbridge Wells. He sounded excited, he even looked excited—a decidedly unusual state of affairs for buttoned-down Nigel Owen. During his phone call, he had mumbled something about finding answers to their questions about Desmond Hawker. She tried to recall the rest of his words, but they seemed a blur. All except one short phrase: “I am a blooming genius.” Flick could no longer hold back her curiosity.

  “Okay, give!” she said. “What does Mirabelle Hubbard have to do with any of this?”

  “Mirabelle was Nathanial Swithin’s secretary for many years.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “On occasion, she served as Mary Hawker Evans’s secretary, in the same way that Polly provided part-time support for Elspeth.”

  “And?”

  “All will be clear when we get to Mirabelle’s cottage. I enjoy constructing surprises just as much as you do.”

  “Whatever—squared!”

  When they reached the top of Major York’s Road, Nigel swung left onto Langton Road, then right onto Rusthall Road. They parked in front of Mirabelle’s small house on Rustwick Street.

  The door opened before Nigel had a chance to ring the bell. Mirabelle must have been watching the street from inside the house. She beckoned them inside. The telly was on in the living room, but she quickly turned it off.

  Flick glanced at Nigel and noticed that he was carrying an internal-mail envelope with something inside. Mirabelle also saw the envelope.

  “Where did you find it?” she asked.

  “In a box of miscellaneous household records,” he replied.

  She stared into space for a moment, then a smile exploded on her face. “Yes…that’s right. I remember now. I hid it in that box twenty-five years ago, perhaps thirty years. In the very bottom, under a stack of litter.”

  “Why did you choose that particular box?”

  Mirabelle colored. “Because it was the jumble box, full of odds and ends that weren’t worth filing. I didn’t think that Mrs. Evans would ever look inside.” She gave a slight shrug. “It was also an easy box to reach, tucked in on the lowest shelf.”

  “The box is still sitting on the same shelf.”

  Flick’s curiosity raged back at full intensity. What was “it”? Why did Mirabelle hide “it”? She had a dozen questions to ask but found herself restrained by the amiable smile on Nigel’s face as he spoke to Mirabelle.

  Don’t interrupt. Let Nigel do his thing.

  Mirabelle gestured for them to sit down. There was an overstuffed sofa and two matching reclining chairs, all positioned to face the telly. Nigel chose the sofa; Flick sat next to him.

  “Do you think that I did the wrong thing?” Mirabelle asked.

  “Not at all.” Nigel punctuated his words with a firm shake of his head. “Mary Hawker Evans asked you to destroy the notebook, didn’t she?”

  Mirabelle nodded.

  “But you decided to hide it back in the archives instead?”

  Mirabelle nodded again.

  “Why?”

  “Because it didn’t belong to Mrs. Evans anymore. She had donated all the commodore’s papers to the museum. The notebook wasn’t hers to destroy.” She looked up with a pained expression. “Besides, I was the one who found it. Mrs. Evans didn’t know that the commodore had written a personal journal before I showed it to her.”

  The words “personal journal” made Flick recoil against the back of the soft sofa. She looked at Nigel, who was grinning like a loon as he proudly presented the envelope to her.

  “We finally have the story from the horse’s mouth,” he said. “Read the first few pages.”

  Flick resisted the urge to rip open the envelope. She fumbled clumsily with the string and finally managed to open the flap. Mirabelle had called the artifact a notebook, but it was actually a Victorian schoolchild’s copybook—an inexpensive repository of all he or she learned at school. The coarse pages had turned brownish pink with age, but the twenty blue lines on each page were still visible. Flick found Desmond’s tight and angular handwriting easy to read.

  Lion’s Peak

  Maundy Thursday, 1904

  I write these words, as my life draws to its close, to record a grievous wrong I have done, in the fervent hope that those who follow me will make proper amends for the damage I have caused to a man who trusted and believed in me.

  Mr. Neville Brackenbury, of London, was for many years my faithful business partner. He was an honest and honourable gentleman with whom I could freely share any confidence. To his peril, Mr. Brackenbury foolishly believed that he could place an equal trust in me and that I would always act in his best interests.

  I chose to betray Mr. Brackenbury when I could have helped him. I acted with malice, God forgive me, because destroying him seemed the best way to advance myself. I allowed Mr. Brackenbury to sink into the mire of bankruptcy.

  And yet, while I bear a large share of the blame for his financial ruin, he also played an important role. His own greed led him to make foolish investments that sowed the seeds of his destruction. In this matter I feel remorse; I fear the wrath of God, but I do not see any way to offer recompense. There is no return from ruination.

  My second betrayal of Mr. Brackenbury presents quite different circumstances. Here, I behaved like the thief portrayed in Holy Scripture, in the twenty-second chapter of Exodus. Here, I must make proper recompense.

  Mr. Brackenbury purchased many objects that he valued far beyond their monetary value. I speak of his prized collection of paintings, decorative articles, goods made of Tunbridge Ware, maps, chinaware, and the like.

  When it seemed clear that Mr. Brackenbury could not avoid financial disaster, he sold his collection to me for a miniscule sum of money, believing in my promise that I would safeguard his treasures and return them at a time when his financial conditions sufficiently improved.

  When that time came, I refused to return the objects. I advised Mr. Brackenbury that I had purchased them legally and intended to keep them. Through that evil act, I who had been like the “neighbor” portrayed in Scripture also became the thief. My actions caused additional, dreadful harm to Neville Brackenbury, to his wife, Lucinda, and to his sons Geoffrey and Graham, who were only babes at the time. For that I am truly sorry.

  To make proper restitution, the thief must pay back double to Neville Brackenbury’s lawful heirs. I have tried to find them, to no avail. The pages that follow present all that I have learned about the fate and whereabouts of Neville Brackenbury’s kin.

  Thus I request and beseech my beloved son, Basil, to vigorously search out the survivors of Neville Brackenbury and return the collected objects to them, along with a sum of money equal to their value. I pray that my son will have success where I have failed.

  I chose not to make this request a provision of my Last Will and Testament because I do not want to bring public dishonour on the next generation of the Hawker family. The wicked sins I committed are entirely my own. They do not belong to Basil or to his children.

  (signed) Desmond Hawker

  Very slowly, Flick looked up from the copybook. Her heart was thumping. She felt almost too giddy to consider the implications of what she held in her hands. A holographic document: a detailed explanation of Desmond’s actions and motives, in his own handwriting, in his own words. Nigel had made an undreamed-of discovery, a window on the past that might somehow work to illuminate Elspeth Hawker’s death.

  “You are a genius,” she said to him, her voice husky. “Although I’m still confused. Did Desmond s
teal the antiquities or not?”

  “Morally yes, but legally no,” he replied. “Professor Oxley got it wrong. Desmond Hawker did not defraud Neville Brackenbury. Neville made a valid transfer of his collection to Desmond in the belief that Desmond would return it after Neville’s financial situation improved. Desmond didn’t follow through.” He gave a wry smile. “The bankruptcy judge certainly would have been upset had he found out that Brackenbury had conspired to hide valuable assets from the court, but that doesn’t change what happened. Desmond Hawker bought the collection. He owned it in 1876, and the family still does today.”

  “Okay. Second question: Why didn’t Basil Hawker return the antiquities to the surviving Brackenburys after Desmond died in 1904?”

  “I can answer that,” Mirabelle said softly. “It was Mrs. Evans and I who sorted the commodore’s papers and put them in the file boxes. You see, for many years, the papers simply sat higgledy-piggledy piled in wooden crates. When she donated them to the museum, the two of us tried to arrange them in an order that might be useful to scholars. I remember the day I came across the journal among a stack of paid bills. I gave it to Mrs. Evans; she stopped working to read it.

  “She became very upset and said that her grandfather had made a request that her father did not respect. She told me that Sir Basil was not the sort of man to give away valuable property and large sums of money—even to honor a deathbed wish expressed by his own father. She knew for a fact that he had made no attempt to find the Brackenbury heirs.”

  “She also said that it was far too late to make amends. That is when she told me to burn the journal.” Mirabelle sighed. “I could not bring myself to destroy it—not a book of writing that came from the commodore’s heart. So I hid the journal in a box full of jumble. I even pushed the box all the way to the back of the shelf and put other boxes in front of it. I didn’t want Mrs. Evans to find the journal again.”