The Fossil Murder

by Evelyn James

  “Well, of course! Her husband just turned out to be a murderer!”

  “Inspector,” Clara regarded him with a reproving look, “I am sure you have realised the flaws in that assumption. The case against Harry Beasley is very poor.”

  “We have a bloody mallet,” Park-Coombs pointed out.

  “Has Dr Deáth proved that the hair and blood on the mallet is that of John Morley?”

  “Not as yet,” Park-Coombs admitted. “But Harry has a motive.”

  “As do a number of people in town. John Morley made enemies better than he made friends. Besides, whoever killed him went with him to break into the town hall. He had to have asked that person to accompany him, perhaps offering a split of the money. He would never have asked Harry Beasley for assistance,” Clara said. “Whoever killed John was a friend, or at least someone John thought was a friend. That is not Harry.”

  The inspector looked grim. He had not missed the holes in his case and as Clara repeated them it was plain that the odds of Harry being the killer were slim. The bloody mallet was the only real evidence they had. That and Harry’s dislike for his brother-in-law.

  “The earl is breathing down my neck,” Inspector Park-Coombs dropped his voice and whispered to Clara. “He wants the man responsible found. The exhibition can’t leave town until we have the killer under arrest.”

  “Arresting the wrong man won’t help with that,” Clara replied. “You are better than that, Inspector.”

  Park-Coombs lowered his head, abashed that he had been harangued into making a rash decision.

  “There was a valid reason for arresting Harry Beasley,” Park-Coombs defended himself. “A bloody mallet was found in his locker and his brother-in-law was killed with a mallet.”

  “Fair point, but beyond that?” Clara asked.

  The inspector gave a small groan.

  “If that mallet turns out to have human blood and hair on it, you know what that means?”

  “It means it is probably the murder weapon,” Clara nodded. “Still does not conclusively prove Harry Beasley killed his brother-in-law. Are the lockers at the station kept locked?”

  “No,” Park-Coombs winced. “Only the door to the room they are in, and that is often left unlocked as people have to come and go.”

  “Hmm,” Clara said, deciding not to push the point. Park-Coombs already knew his case against Harry was unreliable without her rubbing it in. “Inspector, I do not mean to cause you bother, I never do. I would like to help you resolve this matter and get the Earl of Rendham off your back.”

  “You want to talk to Harry,” Park-Coombs scratched his chin. “Now you are technically hired by the family, it would be petty of me to deny you the chance.”

  “I want this killer found as much as you do, Inspector,” Clara agreed. “John Morley might not have been a very nice man, but no one deserves to be clobbered over the head with a mallet.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that…” Park-Coombs glanced in the direction of the vanished earl. “You know, I might be sceptical about old Reverend Parker, but it would explain the earl’s heightened interest in this matter if he had more than just the sponsorship of the exhibition at stake. He did seem more alarmed than you would really expect about all this.”

  “I shall be investigating that too,” Clara assured him. “But first things first.”

  “Of course, “Park-Coombs escorted her towards the back of the station. “Harry is in a cell. I’ll bring him to the archive office for you to speak to him.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” Clara said.

  “If you can get that earl off my back, I’ll be thanking you,” Park-Coombs huffed. “Make yourself at home and I shall fetch Harry.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Harry Beasley was relieved to see Clara when he was shown into the archive room by the inspector.

  “Call for a constable when you are done,” the inspector said to Clara and then he vanished.

  Clara was sitting at one of the tables in the room and motion for Harry to take the spare chair. He sat down as if he might fall down at any moment. There was a definite tremble to his hands. All the fight had gone from Harry Beasley in the face of the police’s accusations.

  “Your wife came to see me,” Clara explained to him. “She has asked for my help.”

  “Miss Fitzgerald, please don’t think me rude, but my wife is not thinking straight. We don’t have the money to afford a private detective…”

  Clara interrupted him.

  “I have already told your wife I am happy to investigate your case without charge.”

  “That is good of you, Miss Fitzgerald,” Harry said. “But I could not possibly ask you to do that.”

  “You don’t have to ask me,” Clara grinned at him. “I am already doing it. I want to help.”

  Harry seemed a little startled by her generosity, Clara didn’t give him the chance to think about it too hard.

  “I don’t like to see innocent people accused of crimes they have not committed. I can’t ignore that.”

  “You believe I am innocent, Miss Fitzgerald?” Harry said, looking so astounded by her declaration that it tore at Clara’s heart a little.

  “I do, Harry,” she said, “and please, call me Clara. Miss Fitzgerald is too formal for my liking.”

  Harry looked truly stunned by all this and had to take a moment to regroup.

  “Everything has happened so fast,” he said. “I barely understand it all.”

  “The police found a mallet in your locker at the train station with blood and hair on the head. A mallet was used to kill your brother-in-law.”

  “I already told them, I used the mallet to strike a big rat that was roaming about the station yard. We have a terrible time with rats, and we all try to kill ‘em if we see any,” Harry explained.

  “You didn’t bother to clean the mallet?” Clara observed.

  “It was the last few minutes of my shift,” Harry sighed. “By then I am so exhausted I can barely think to find my way home. You work all night repairing anything that needs repairing. The tracks, mainly, but sometimes the signal boxes or general maintenance. Its heavy work, hammering sleepers back into place, keeping the tracks in good nick. Not so bad this time of year, but in the winter it takes the life out of you. Honestly, I could not be bothered to clean that mallet there and then. I was planning on sorting it when I went back to work the following night. But then Ruby came to ours and I had to look after her. The foreman has been very kind and let me have the time off to sort things out. And then this…”

  Harry waved vaguely at the walls, implying the whole affair of being arrested and incarcerated.

  “I’m scared I’ll lose my job and then what will become of Emma and Ruby?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Clara reassured him. “It is my intention to prevent anything like that from happening.”

  Harry gave a small moan and hung his head.

  “I cannot express how glad I am you have come to assist me,” he said. “I thought I was doomed.”

  “The case against you is poor,” Clara told him. “The tests on the mallet should prove the blood and hair is not human and you will be a free man. In the meantime, why don’t you explain to me what happened that night at the station? Did John Morley come there?”

  “John never came to the train station,” Harry laughed in bleak amusement. “Why would he?”

  “You never saw him that night?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “I didn’t know he was dead until you told me.”

  “John died around midnight, do you recall what you were doing at that time?”

  Harry had to pause to think.

  “There is so much to do, and I don’t often check the time,” he scratched at an eyebrow. “We had a problem with a buckled track. It had been getting worse for weeks and needed replacing. Could have caused an accident,” Harry confided. “Trouble was, we needed a new piece of track and the trains had to be re-routed to ena
ble us to work. It was that night the new track finally arrived, and we fitted it. I’m sure we were still working on it at midnight. It was a long job. Nothing wanted to fit right. My foreman was there supervising, because it was such an important thing.”

  “What is your foreman’s name?”

  “Bill Turnbull,” Harry said. “He does carry a watch. Maybe he checked the time? All I know is that when we were done with that piece of track it was getting light and we all needed a cup of tea. They like us doing jobs like that overnight as there are fewer trains running, less disruption, but it’s hard on us as we have to work by lamplight.”

  Harry shook his head.

  “My word, was I exhausted. I remember I wanted to lie down and kip there and then. But there was no rest, we had some fencing to fix next.”

  “Thank you, Harry, with any luck Mr Turnbull will supply you with an alibi for the time John Morley was killed.”

  “Ali… aliby?” Harry had never heard the word.

  “He’ll be able to confirm to the police you were working on the track when the crime occurred,” Clara explained. “You’ll be out of here before you know it.”

  Harry slumped in his chair at the news, the tension dropping from his shoulders.

  “You don’t know how good it is to hear that.”

  “Give me time to work on this and I am sure I shall have you home before you know it,” Clara smiled, her optimism was not just wishful thinking, she felt that there was a great deal of evidence to support Harry’s innocence.

  ~~~*~~~

  Mr Turnbull would not be available to speak to Clara for several hours, so she headed to the town hall, hoping to get some insight into the murder of John Morley. The League for Christians Against Evolution was outside as before, handing out pamphlets and trying to buttonhole people so they could speak to them. Clara glanced among the faces to see if there was anyone who might recognise her. She spied Wilhelmina in the group and her heart sank a little. She did not want anyone in the League for Christians Against Evolution to see her there, if she could help it. She might have to speak to the Reverend Parker again and he would be reluctant to talk to her if he was aware of her links to the exhibition.

  Unfortunately, Wilhelmina caught sight of her.

  “Ah, my dear, are you here to join us?” She cried in delight and hurried forward to clasp Clara’s hand.

  “Not at this moment,” Clara apologised hastily. “I was actually trying to get into the town hall yard.”

  Clara tried to extract her hand from Wilhelmina’s grasp, the woman was not so easy to escape.

  “Whatever for?”

  Clara opted to provide her with a modicum the truth.

  “A gentleman died here the other night. I have been asked by his family to find out what happened,” she said as vaguely as she could.

  “Died here?” Wilhelmina hissed. “Well, I knew science was godless, but…”

  “This is about money rather than science or God,” Clara quickly interjected. “I am also very concerned that threats have been made against the exhibition and the staff, and that the police believe the League is behind them.”

  “Reverend Parker has warned us about these accusations,” Wilhelmina nodded keenly. “He has stated that threats of violence are not a way to make people sympathetic to our cause. We may find our work frustrating, we may feel we are ignored and ridiculed, but that does not mean we should lower our standards. Just one convert makes all the work worthwhile.”

  “I agree with Reverend Parker,” Clara said. “And I have told the police I don’t believe he is behind these threats, but they are hard to persuade. I thought by looking around the town hall I might get some answers to both problems.”

  “That is most valiant of you, what an asset you are to the League!”

  Clara wished Wilhelmina would lower her voice a touch, she was trying to avoid associating herself with the League, especially in public.

  “I need to get on,” Clara pulled her hands from Wilhelmina’s. “There is so much to do.”

  “Yes, I must not delay you further. I hope you can find the answers you seek,” Wilhelmina moved back to the group of protestors and Clara slipped away.

  She headed down the side of the town hall and into the yard. She paused for a moment to look up at the window of Maud Hickson, but she could not see the woman sitting in her chair. What a shame she had not caught a better glimpse of the second man in the yard with John Morley, it could have made such a difference.

  Clara wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for in the yard, other than inspiration. She walked about the packing crates and thought about all the tools they contained. There were plenty of mallets and hammers that could have cracked John Morley’s skull. They could then have been washed clean and replaced. She opened a couple of lids and examined the contents. There had to be a dozen potential murder weapons inside the crates.

  Clara dropped the crate lids and looked at some of the smaller boxes near the back door of the town hall. She lifted the hinged lid of one robust wooden case and found it contained a pair of scissors, balls of string and several large sheets of paper. The paper intrigued her, and she plucked a piece out. It was very thick and sturdy and looked remarkably similar to the paper the threatening letters had been written.

  “Can I help?”

  Clara jumped at the voice, she had been so absorbed in her search she had not realised someone else had arrived. She saw Wallace Sunderland standing beside her.

  “Just continuing my investigations,” she told him lightly.

  “I’ve come to fetch a screwdriver. One of the legs has come loose on a display case,” Wallace shrugged his shoulders. “You ask me, it’s all those people crowding around and leaning on it. And think how many times we have unscrewed and screwed back on those legs these last months? I reckon the screw holes have worn.”

  Wallace glanced at her hands.

  “You’ve been in the fossil rodent case,” he said.

  “Is that what it is?” Clara said. “I wondered why it contained paper?”

  “That’s for wrapping up the more delicate fossils before they are packed. That thick paper folds into a sheath for the fossil, just in case any small bones or bits get knocked loose during transport. You shouldn’t lose anything that way.”

  “You must go through a lot of paper,” Clara noted.

  “We have reams of it,” Wallace shrugged again. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  He reached past Clara for a metal toolbox she had not noticed by the wall and rummaged around for a screwdriver. He stood up and adjusted his cap.

  “Have you travelled all the time with this exhibition, Wallace?” Clara asked him.

  “Since it left London,” Wallace replied. “I’ll be travelling a few months as yet, but its good money and the work is not that hard.”

  “Where is home for you?” Clara persisted.

  Wallace grinned.

  “Funnily enough, here in Brighton. Well, I grew up here, my parents lived here until they passed away. My wife lives in Hove.”

  “Then you are getting to spend plenty of time with her?” Clara smiled back.

  “It’s rather nice,” Wallace beamed. “I go home every night, sleep in my own bed instead of a boarding house bunk. Right nice. To be honest with you, I don’t mind the police threatening to keep us here until they figure out who done in that fellow Morley. Means more time at home.”

  “Sounds very pleasant,” Clara agreed with him.

  “Not that I’m complaining about the work, mind,” Wallace added swiftly.

  Then he touched the brim of his cap and disappeared through the back door of the town hall. Clara thought about following, to have another look around, but she was not sure what she would achieve and, with the place packed with people looking at the fossils, it would be difficult to see anything. She also was trying to avoid Dr Browning until she could offer him some answers.

  She rubbed her thumb over the paper in her hand. She was no exper
t, but this thick stock seemed exactly like the type used by the threatening letter writer, which implied they had taken it from this case where, as Wallace had said, there was reams of it. The paper in the crate was much bigger than the letter, but Clara could see how you could cut it into four smaller sheets for the purpose of writing threats. All of which raised one alarming point – if the letter writer was using the packing paper for their messages, then they were somehow connected to the exhibition. They had access to the crate and the paper at all times as they travelled with the fossils across the country.

  But why would they do it? Why work for such an exhibition if you believed it was godless and wrote angry threats to express your distaste? It was hypocritical at best, downright deceitful and nasty at worst. Clara decided she was going to take the piece of paper she had found and compare it to the letters. Maybe that would offer her an explanation.

  She took a final look around the yard and glanced once more at Maud Hickson’s tiny flat high in the eaves of her aunt’s shop. Maud was in her chair now, Clara could just make out her shape. She waved, but didn’t think she was seen. No matter. She would have to solve this case the hard way. Clara left everything as she had found it and headed back out into the road. The League for Christians Against Evolution were in a heated conversation with two police constables and Clara slipped away before Wilhelmina saw her. She didn’t want to become involved. She might not think the League was responsible for the threats against the exhibition, but that did not mean she approved of their behaviour. They were deluded, especially Reverend Parker, but that was not her problem. She had a murder to solve, a threatening letter writer to uncover and an innocent man to save. She didn’t need any moral campaign to add to her burden.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Clara returned to the police station and sought out Inspector Park-Coombs. He happened to be in his office with Dr Deáth.

  “Grand timing Clara,” Park-Coombs said as she appeared, though there was something slightly sarcastic about his tone.