by Evelyn James
She arrived home and hung up her coat, thinking a slice of one of Annie’s sumptuous cakes might be in order, when she noticed the second hat and coat hanging on the stand. She recognised them at once as Mrs Wilton’s. Annie appeared in the hallway.
“She’s in the parlour,” she explained. “Be nice, she looks upset.”
“I am always nice,” Clara hissed under her breath.
Annie gave her a reproving look.
“Sometimes you are sharp,” she said. “You know she annoys you.”
Clara rubbed a hand over her tired eyes. The last thing she needed right then was a flapping Mrs Wilton to contend with. She took a deep breath, pulled herself back together, forced a smile onto her face and walked into the parlour.
Mrs Wilton was sitting by the empty fireplace, it was too warm as yet for the hearth to be lit. Despite the lack of logs and flames, Mrs Wilton was staring into the fireplace glumly.
“Mrs Wilton,” Clara sat in the chair opposite and tried to sound enthusiastic.
Her first thought was that Mrs Wilton did indeed look glum and very deflated.
“Has something happened?” she asked, her own smile fading.
“I tried to persuade Mrs Butterworth to see you, but she point-blank refuses. She says she likes this Miss Butler person,” Mrs Wilton almost spat out the name. “I am sorry Clara, I feel I have failed you.”
“Nonsense,” Clara assured her. “Mrs Butterworth is entitled to her opinion. Don’t take it to heart.”
“But how will you go about investigating her case if she won’t talk to you? We agreed the best way to show up this Miss Butler is for you to solve the Butterworth case first.”
Clara could not recall agreeing to that, but clearly that was the thought occupying Mrs Wilton’s mind. Clara decided to be kind and offer her some consolation.
“Perhaps I don’t need to see Mrs Butterworth?” she suggested. “After all, you, as her friend, must know a great deal about Mr Butterworth and his disappearance.”
Mrs Wilton glanced up, a new brightness in her eyes.
“I do know a lot!” she agreed instantly.
“Then, you can give me the details of the case in place of Mrs Butterworth,” Clara hinted.
Mrs Wilton sat upright in her chair, the slump of despondency that had come over her had completely disappeared.
“Why I can tell you everything!” she declared. “It happened the other Thursday. Mr Butterworth went to work as usual. Mrs Butterworth went to her painting class at two o’clock as she always does. Mr Butterworth must have slipped back then, for when she came home the cat was gone. Mrs Butterworth was very upset, she thought at first the cat had been accidentally allowed to slip outside. It never went outside normally. But then, as she was looking for the cat, a neighbour mentioned that Mr Butterworth had appeared home and then left again.”
“And he never came home that evening?” Clara surmised.
“Precisely,” Mrs Wilton nodded happily. “That was when Mrs Butterworth came to me. She was very angry, you know, not upset at all. Angry about the cat.”
“The cat was more important than Mr Butterworth,” Clara grasped. “The marriage sounds to have been in trouble before then?”
“Maybe,” Mrs Wilton indicated she could not comment, that was one bit of gossip she did not have access to. “Our first thought was to seek Mr Butterworth out at his job, but it turns out he had been let go. The company was struggling financially. Mr Butterworth apparently declared it did not matter as he had found something else and was going to leave anyway. He left no indications of where he was going.”
“He had planned this then,” Clara leaned back in the armchair. “He won’t want to be found easily.”
“No and, as far as I can tell, Miss Butler has yet to come up with anything. Not that I am surprised,” Mrs Wilton turned up her nose. “The woman is clearly an amateur.”
Clara said nothing, though she laughed inwardly at Mrs Wilton’s intense loyalty towards her. It made her feel better.
“Did Mrs Butterworth contact the police?”
“Oh yes, I suggested that at once. I mean, you should always contact the police first when a person goes missing,” Mrs Wilton sounded very dutiful. “They said a grown man deciding to leave home was not really a police matter. The neighbours had seen him take a suitcase out of the house, you see, so it wasn’t like he had vanished unintentionally. Mrs Butterworth was very unimpressed. That was when we discussed a private detective.”
Mrs Wilton took on that haughty look again.
“Of course, if she had hired you in the first place the case would be solved by now.”
“I think you give me too much credit,” Clara smiled, “But I will take a look at things now.”
“Thank goodness, Clara!” Mrs Wilton clapped her hands in delight. “Now we will show this upstart!”
Clara did not want to show up Miss Butler, but she did want to make a statement. The things she had heard today had convinced her that she could not just let affairs take their own course. Miss Butler had plans and they sounded decidedly unfriendly. As she showed Mrs Wilton out, she found herself considering things again. Perhaps it was time to take the fight directly to Miss Butler?
Chapter Nine
The next day Clara caught the train to London. Brighton and London had been connected by a railway line since the late nineteenth century, making a daytrip either way both simple and quick. Working class folk in London who had the odd day off would jump on the train to travel down and see the sea. While those in Brighton could easily travel to the capital to see the sights or even to work. More than one successful businessman had a property in Brighton and an office in London, offsetting the smoke and grime of the city, where money was to be made, with the clean air and good living of a house on the coast.
Clara did not often travel up to London, but on the occasions when it was necessary for a case, the convenience of the train was certainly appreciated.
London was cloudy that day. The September sun had disappeared behind thick white banks of cloud making it seem as if the world had suddenly acquired a blanketing ceiling. There seemed no end to the white and people were gloomy that this was perhaps a forewarning of the winter to come. It was a working day and people were bustling about with briefcases or bags of tools. Clara passed several building sites where workmen buzzed about like busy bees. London, she reflected, always seemed to be expanding or at least rebuilding itself.
When she reached the steps of the British Museum, she found that even here the builders were at work. One corner was encased in scaffolding and men clambered up and down. Clara glanced briefly up at them as she wandered through the museum’s large front doors.
The museum was lively inside, a school party of girls in smart uniforms and straw boater hats was being herded through to one of the galleries, and there were several casual visitors loitering about. Clara went straight to the front desk where two women were on duty to direct visitors and take money for any purchases they made. Certainly there were plenty of books, exhibit catalogues and souvenirs dotted in displays about the front desk to tempt a person to part with their money. Clara gave the bric-a-brac a passing glance as she approached the nearest women at the front desk. She was an older lady, thin and wearing spectacles perched almost at the tip of her nose on a beaded chain. She observed Clara over the top of them which did not give her a pleasing countenance.
“May I help?”
“I would most like, if I could, to speak with Dr Vanderstom who recently organised the exhibition of Japanese artefacts?”
The woman peered over her glasses harder.
“Dr Vanderstom is the head of our Oriental department and does not usually speak with people without an appointment,” she informed Clara haughtily.
“Oh dear,” Clara said with a disappointed smile. “And I came all the way from Brighton. My employers will be most perturbed as they hoped Dr Vanderstom could answer some very urgent questions concerning the theft of an
item that was recently in the exhibition.”
The woman was not impressed by Clara’s gentle bending of the truth.
“I doubt that has anything to do with us. If you wish to consult Dr Vanderstom about a particular item then you must make an appointment. I believe he has a day free for such things next month.”
“Far too long away,” Clara shook her head, still with that gentle smile on her lips, like she was just debating on the price of soap. “You see, my employers are most concerned that the item in question was stolen because of the exhibition at the British Museum. They are debating the possibility of claiming some compensation from the museum for their oversight in security concerning the identification of items they were loaned for display.”
“Employers?” the woman had looked a little uncertain when Clara had mentioned the words compensation and security.
“I work for an insurance firm in Brighton,” Clara lied smoothly. “They insured the object that was stolen and have reason to believe that the thieves became aware of both the object, its value and its location through the exhibition here. If that is the case, it would be an awful lapse in common sense on the behalf of the museum. The object is extremely valuable and my employers would like to recoup some of the money they must pay out for it from someone.”
Clara left the sentence hanging in the air. A man had drawn up beside her at the front desk, brandishing a book on Ancient Egypt he wanted to pay for. He had overheard the conversation and glanced at Clara, she met his eyes with a polite smile. The woman behind the front desk was now becoming agitated. The thought of the British Museum being sued for carelessness worried her greatly. The museum had a reputation, one she felt the need to defend. She had been working on the front desk for the last twenty years. She considered herself part and parcel of the museum, if someone was to criticise it, then they were criticising her. Like so many minor dictators who become intrinsically attached to the place they work in, she was always ready to defend the museum and would not hear a word said against it.
She was still bridling at the idea that someone might consider the museum negligent in its duty as she came to a decision.
“We can’t have people spreading malicious stories about the museum,” she said firmly. “Perhaps you ought to speak with Dr Vanderstom and iron out this matter. I am sure it was not anything the staff here did that resulted in the unfortunate theft. You might find Dr Vanderstom in the Japanese gallery, I believe he was attending to a display there today,” the woman pushed her glasses further up her nose and gave Clara a hard stare. “I do not care for these insurance people.”
Clara, resisting the urge to grin at her, thanked her for her time and then headed in the direction she had pointed. She found the Japanese Gallery after following a signboard nailed to the wall.
The gallery was, unsurprisingly, filled with objects that symbolised the culture and history of Japan. There were suits of ancient armour, intricate paintings, fans, statues, shoes and kimonos. Clara almost became side-tracked looking at the vast array of objects that were so very different from similar English items. She found the figures on the paintings peculiar to look at, often the men seemed to be grimacing, while the women turned away their heads sharply in efforts to look coy. Clara did not, however, immediately see any netsuke on display.
She moved about the glass cases, looking for someone who was not a visitor and might be Dr Vanderstom. She came around a large display containing an enormous suit of armour that seemed rather demonic to Clara’s eyes and suddenly spied a man kneeling before a wall cabinet. He had opened the glass front of the cabinet and was very carefully removing a large vase to place in a wooden box lined with wood shavings. Clara wandered over.
“Would you be Dr Vanderstom?” she asked quietly; the museum inspired a hush rather like a library.
“I am,” Dr Vanderstom said without looking up. “Would you excuse me a moment?”
He was wearing white cloth gloves as he lifted the vase and gingerly rested it down upon its new bed of wood shavings. Then he closed the cabinet and locked it once more. He rose from his knees and lifted the box with the vase up from the floor.
“It needs a little attention,” he said to Clara. “We noticed a crack running down its length and fear it might break in two. Old porcelain can suddenly crack and disintegrate if you are not alert to the signs.”
“That must be a worry,” Clara replied, thinking about the number of porcelain objects the museum must contain.
“Oh, it doesn’t happen often,” Dr Vanderstom reassured her. “An object is usually already cracked to begin with and then something makes the crack worsen. I have a theory it is due to temperature changes and possibly moisture, or a lack of it, in the air. Last thing we need is to come in one morning and find the vase in two pieces on the display cabinet floor, so we are going to examine it now and hopefully prevent that happening. It’s three hundred years old, you know.”
“Gosh,” Clara looked at the humble vase with its delicate decoration of flowers and birds. It did not look three hundred years old. “Would you have a moment to speak with me?”
“Who are you?” Dr Vanderstom asked.
“Clara Fitzgerald,” Clara declared. “I am working for Mr Jacobs who you may recall loaned a netsuke to the museum for a recent exhibition?”
“Ah, yes, I remember,” Dr Vanderstom nodded. “He loaned us a green jade dragon netsuke. A most exquisite item and quite rare to see in England. We placed it in a case all on its own. It seemed fitting, as it showcased the exquisite craftsmanship the Japanese could attain in the past.”
“Sadly the dragon has been stolen,” Clara continued. “I am trying to pursue its trail in the hope of restoring it to Mr Jacobs. I suspect there is a connection between the dragon being on display in the museum and its subsequent theft.”
Dr Vanderstom became very serious, he recognised the implication.
“You think someone saw it here and then decided to steal it?”
“The burglary during which the item was stolen was very well organised and professional. The thieves knew exactly what they wanted. It seems rather coincidental that it was taken not long after it was put on public display for the very first time,” Clara pulled the catalogue for the exhibition that Mr Jacobs had lent her out of her bag. “The description of the dragon in your guide not only included the name of the owner of the dragon, but also the town in which he resided. It would not have taken much detective work to locate Mr Jacobs’ actual address.”
Dr Vanderstom was silent a moment. He was clearly mulling over all these implications. To think that the museum had accidentally contributed to the theft of an object was most troubling.
“Why don’t we talk in my office?” he suggested at last, and then he led Clara out of the gallery, through a warren of back passages and to a small room that served as his office.
There were more Asian objects in the office, not just Japanese items, but Chinese as well. Clara took one look at a set of disturbing masks glaring at her from a wall and decided she would stick with British art. Dr Vanderstom offered her a seat, while he put down the box with the vase.
“You must convey my sympathies to Mr Jacobs,” he said once he was too sat down. “I am most distressed to hear about the burglary. He was very accommodating about the loan of the jade dragon.”
“How did it come about the dragon was displayed here?” Clara asked.
“We plan exhibitions many months in advance, even up to two years or more. We have to arrange so much, you see. Putting the items into the cases is purely the last stage. From time to time we place notices in suitable publications asking people for specific objects we might loan for exhibitions. For instance, we are soon to hold an exhibition of works by Dutch artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some of the finest examples of their work are held in private collections. So we apply to the owners and arrange to loan them, if we can,” Dr Vanderstom frowned. “It would be most detrimental to future exhibitions if it was
thought that thieves had somehow used the museum to window shop for items to steal.”
“You might have to rethink your policy on crediting items in your catalogues,” Clara agreed. “But how did you specifically get in touch with Mr Jacobs.”
“When we were planning the Japanese exhibition, we placed notices in magazines and sent out notices to other museums, stating that we were looking for unusual items to display. Mr Jacobs saw one of these notices in a publication for antiques dealers and contacted us. He explained about his netsuke collection and suggested the green jade dragon might be of interest. Naturally it was,” Dr Vanderstom met Clara’s eyes. “We had nothing like that in the museum. Objects made of green jade are not easy to get hold of. Both the Japanese and Chinese nations highly value these items. The Chinese, in particular, once believed that jade could make a man immortal.”
“Then the dragon is very valuable?”
“In more ways than one,” Dr Vanderstom nodded. “I don’t believe it has ever been valued, but since such an item is rare on the British antiques market I think it would be safe to say it would sell for hundreds of pounds, if not thousands. Something so rare would attract a lot of wealthy men. But, also, there are wealthy Japanese collectors who would like to acquire such an item.”
Dr Vanderstom hesitated a moment. He glanced sideways at the ghastly masks on his wall.
“I will admit I had my concerns about the object. It was so unusual and Mr Jacobs could only give the most hazy account of how it made its way to England.”