The matron humphed and withdrew.
“Miss Denby, I assume. Forgive me for not getting up. I’m not quite the man I used to be. Please, have a seat.”
Poppy smiled and sat down. “I believe you were a top-class journalist, Mr Jensford. Mr Rolandson speaks very highly of you.” That was not entirely true. The only time Rollo had ever mentioned Jensford was to confirm that he used to work for The Times and that he was a member of the Press Club. Nonetheless, the compliment had the desired effect. Jensford’s turkey neck grew at least an inch.
“Well I was that, back in the day. And I haven’t entirely given up the job either.” He indicated the piles of papers and typewriter on the desk. “Doing a bit of freelance work, even from here. The wonders of the modern age, you know. I’ve been trying to get them to install a telephone in here, but they’re resisting. I have to use the one in the nurses’ station.”
“Ah, so that’s how you called Herr Stein earlier today. He was wondering how you knew he was there.”
Jensford tapped his nose. “I still have my sources, Miss Denby.” Then he picked up The Daily Globe and laid it on his lap. “Great work you fellas at the Globe have done on the Maddox story so far. I assume his murder will be front-page news in the morning.”
“It will be, yes. We only got the news of the autopsy this morning, after the paper had come out. Unlike The Times, we don’t have an evening edition.”
“Then you’ll have to work twice as hard to scoop them. And I think I might be able to help you with that.”
“Oh, really? Do you have some information for us?”
Jensford picked up his pipe from the ashtray and banged out the old tobacco. “I might. That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not I can get a byline. Or a joint byline. That’s why I was hoping Rolandson would come. He could authorize that. No offence, Miss Denby, but you are too junior to be of much help.”
Poppy was not offended. “You’re right, I can’t authorize that. But I’m sure Mr Rolandson will if the information you give us helps us scoop The Times – and the Courier.”
Jensford took a pouch from his dressing gown pocket, opened it, and extracted a pinch of fresh tobacco. “What guarantee do I have?”
“Just my word, I’m afraid. I know that Mr Rolandson is an honourable man.”
“Hmmm,” said Jensford and plugged the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe using his knuckle. “Well, as this is a fast-moving story, I won’t have time to approach anyone else. The Times of course will always print my stories – my name still carries a lot of weight, you know – but I haven’t been able to get hold of my editor there.”
From what Poppy recalled of her conversation with Herr Stein, Jensford was no longer held in high regard at The Times. What was it they said? He’d lost his marbles? Poppy looked at the crumpled man before her. No, he hasn’t lost his marbles. He’s just old and ignored. She smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure they’d be happy to run a story from you. No doubt there’s just been a bit of confusion, but it’s probably too late to fix that tonight. And I am here. I’d be honoured to share a byline with such an experienced journalist if you don’t mind helping a young up-and-comer like me.”
Jensford grinned. “They didn’t hire women in my day.”
They hardly hire women now, thought Poppy. She took out her notebook, aware that her allocated half-hour was quickly ticking away. “So, Mr Jensford, what do you have to tell me?”
Jensford struck a match and lit the tobacco, sucking like a baby on a teat until the strands caught alight. Then exhaled, contentedly.
“All right, Miss Denby. I hope your shorthand is up to it. I’ve got a lot to tell...”
And indeed he did. In 1914 Jensford was a foreign correspondent for The Times in Egypt. Ever since Professor Ludwig Borchardt from the Berlin Museum had found the famous bust of Nefertiti at El-Amarna, British archaeologists had hoped to equal his find. Nefertiti’s body had not been unearthed, and men like Howard Carter and Lord George Herbert Carnarvon were convinced that there was another royal tomb somewhere in the Egyptian desert. Nefertiti’s husband had died at El-Amarna – and his tomb had been found in the cliffs above the old city – but the queen and her grandson, Tutankhamun, lived and died elsewhere. The British Egyptian Exploration Society funded a number of expeditions at the time, and Sir James Maddox, as a financial contributor, was allowed to tag along. He was even a member of the society’s board for a while. But he was never taken seriously by the professional archaeologists and this irked him.
Jensford had interviewed him at the time – he gave a clipping of the original article to Poppy – and Maddox’s bitterness at the way he was treated by people he considered his peers was glaringly obvious. Maddox told Jensford that he was on the brink of a major discovery that would finally give him the respect that he deserved.
“What was this discovery?” asked Poppy.
“I wasn’t sure. But Maddox told me to meet him in El-Amarna and that I would be given a scoop. He claimed that it would rival that of the Nefertiti bust – which was the gold standard at the time.”
“Did you go?”
“Yes. I knew that Maddox wasn’t much of an archaeologist, but he did have the knack of being in the right place at the right time. And whatever scientific talent he lacked, he made up for it with theatricality.”
Poppy remembered Sir James’ swan song – the mime of Nefertiti and Akhenaten – at Winterton Hall. “Yes, he certainly knew how to put on a show.”
“The bottom line was: he was likely to produce something newsworthy, even it was only his own humiliation. So yes, I went. It was 10 April 1914 – Good Friday. I got there early evening but when I got to his lodgings, I was told he was out. So I waited. He eventually came home – after midnight. I wasn’t too pleased – it was a 300-mile journey from Cairo. But the man was clearly disturbed about something so I held my peace.”
“What was he distressed about?”
“He said there’d been a murder. A watchman and his dog had been killed. Beaten to death. Horrible business.”
“Did he say who had done it?”
“He said he didn’t know. He said that he’d dropped by the dig to see Freddie Waltaub. Waltaub was German, an assistant to the big man, Borchardt. Borchardt was away in Cairo for the Easter weekend. I think it was a matter of ‘while the cat’s away the mice would pillage the dig’.”
“How do you know that?”
Jensford sucked on his pipe then exhaled. “Maddox was carrying a sack. He didn’t show me what was in it, but I could see enough to tell they were artefacts.”
Poppy’s heart beat faster. “Did you see the death mask of Nefertiti?”
Jensford shook his head. “No. As I say, he didn’t show me what was in it. Although in retrospect I assume that was what he was going to show me. That was why he’d asked me to come.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
Jensford shrugged. “I think the death of the watchman really shook him. Either that, or he didn’t have the mask.”
Poppy stopped and flicked back in her notebook. “Yes, that’s what he originally claimed, wasn’t it? That he had seen the mask but that it disappeared. And that it wasn’t in the manifest. Do you think he might have been telling the truth? Herr Stein doesn’t think he was.”
Jensford smiled. “I see you’ve been doing some digging of your own, Miss Denby. The honest truth is that I don’t know. I wish now I’d demanded to see the contents of the sack, but I didn’t. At that stage I didn’t know about the mask, so I wouldn’t have known to ask about it specifically.” He picked up the newspaper and pointed to her article from this morning. “But when I read your article about it in the Globe I realized that sometime between 10 April 1914 and now, James Maddox had in fact got his hands on the mask.”
“He claims he got it last year in Cairo – that he bought it from a dealer. But when the Egyptian Antiquities Department went to investigate, apparently the dealer�
��s shop was closed and the man had done a runner.”
“Or he never existed,” observed Jensford.
Jensford’s elbow knocked the ashtray. Poppy quickly reached out a hand to steady it. “Are you suggesting, Mr Jensford, that Sir James had kept the mask hidden all this time? If that’s the case, why did he wait?”
Jensford tapped his pipe to loosen the tobacco. “Well, if he had revealed that he had it back then, it might have linked him to the death of the watchman. The police were all over the scene. Without the murder they might have got away with it quietly.”
“True,” said Poppy, remembering what Miss El Farouk had told her about the incident. “However, one of my sources tells me it was Maddox himself who called the policeman to the crime scene. Why would he do that if he wanted to slip away quietly?”
Jensford pulled the pipe from his mouth and jabbed it in Poppy’s direction. “A very astute observation, Miss Denby, which is pretty much the conclusion that I came to. So then, that leaves only one person who could have taken the mask...”
“And who could have killed the watchman.”
“You don’t believe the local boy did it, Miss Denby?”
“My sources don’t seem to. Do you?”
“No. I think the lad was just a convenient patsy. For me there is only one person who could have taken the mask, and perhaps killed the watchman who was about to raise the alarm. And that person was...”
“Freddie Waltaub.”
“Exactly!” said Jensford and popped the pipe back in his mouth. “Although he claimed in court he had an alibi – that he wasn’t there. Looks like the judge believed him, but I never did.”
“Did you know that Freddie Waltaub died in Cairo last year? Around the same time James Maddox said he found the mask in the shop in Cairo?”
Jensford’s eyes twinkled. “I did, yes. Pass me that file, Miss Denby. The blue one, next to the typewriter. That’s the one, thank you.” He opened the file and pulled out a telegram. “This is from one of my sources on The Cairo Post. He sent it to me last year, telling me Waltaub had committed suicide. Thought I might be interested. Then later he sent me his article which fleshed out the story a bit.” Jensford flicked through the file and pulled out a news clipping, then handed it to Poppy. She skimmed it. It confirmed the story Herr Stein had told her about Waltaub’s apparent suicide after he had received news of his wife leaving him. However, there was something Stein had not told her: Freddie Waltaub had died in his hotel room only an hour after having dinner with a group of archaeologists in the downstairs restaurant. Those archaeologists named were: Jonathan Davies and Jennifer Philpott from New York, Heinrich Stein and Rudolf Weiner from Berlin, and Howard Carter and Giles Mortimer from London. Also present at the dinner were representatives for the Egyptian Antiquities Department, Faizal Osman and Kamela El Farouk.
“Good heavens! That’s the exact crowd that was at Sir James Maddox’s house the night he died.”
Jensford leaned back in his armchair and grinned. “So, Miss Denby, do you think that’s worth a byline?”
Poppy wanted to jump up and give the old man a cuddle. But she managed to control herself – just. “Oh yes, Mr Jensford, it most definitely does.”
By the time Poppy left Walter Jensford and then convinced the matron to let her use the telephone to call Ike Garfield at the Globe, it was nearly half-past seven. They could just about manage to get to the British Museum in time for eight o’clock – assuming no other near-kidnappings or other mishaps occurred along the way.
Ike told her that Rollo had called from Scotland Yard. He said he would meet her at the museum.
“Did he say anything about Daniel?”
“Only that he was still working on getting him out. One thing he did say though was that Lady Ursula and Grimes the butler had been brought in for questioning when he was there. She apparently was spitting nails, saying she had no intention of missing the auction.”
“Have they arrested her?”
“Rollo didn’t think so. Not yet, anyway. But they were questioning her and the butler in relation to the murder of her husband.”
“Golly! They think Ursula and Grimes did it?”
“I think they’re very near the top of the list. Motive: money. Rollo said Yasmin told him there was a life insurance policy in Sir James’ name. Kill him off, pay off the Winterton mortgage, live happily ever after. Means and opportunity: well, plenty – access to pills and so forth.”
Despite what Poppy had just heard about the same archaeologists being present at both murders, she had to admit that Ursula still seemed to be the prime suspect. Perhaps Ursula was working with one – or a number – of the archaeologists. What was it she’d said to Rollo earlier – that the Germans and Egyptians both had good motives for stopping the auction? However, she had no other evidence on any of them… yet. But with Ursula it was beginning to stack up…
“And Lady Ursula had been reading up on poisoning,” Poppy went on to tell Ike, briefly relaying what Fox had told her about Lady Ursula reading about poisoning methods in Sherlock Holmes stories – and what she’d done to Lady Jean Conan Doyle. Time was running short, so she said she’d fill him in on the rest of it later. However, there was one thing that absolutely must get into the paper by tonight’s deadline for tomorrow’s edition. Could Ike type it up? She gave him a summary of her conversation with Jensford, the headline being: the same archaeologists who were present at the death of James Maddox were also present when Freddie Waltaub died. “Obviously phrase it a bit better than that, but that’s the gist of it. Oh, and I promised him a shared byline. I’m sure Rollo won’t mind. If it goes to press tonight we will scoop all the papers in London. And we won’t be accused of withholding evidence from the police, as I shall tell DCI Martin as soon as I see him at the museum. I’m assuming he will be at the museum. But if not, I’ll stop by Scotland Yard afterwards.”
So, with Ike on the job at the office and Rollo on the job at Scotland Yard, all that was left for Poppy to do was to get to the British Museum in time for the auction. Thank heavens for Fox Flinton. I would never have made it without him.
As it turned out, Fox Flinton’s motorcar was a crank-starter: an ageing, once-fashionable model, much like himself. It was an apple-red 1914 Star Torpedo Tourer with a retractable canvas roof. But it was still in good working order and handled the snowy streets between Shepherd’s Bush and Bloomsbury far better than the Globe’s old Model T.
They travelled the most direct route, which took them through Kensington, along Bayswater Road, and past Kensington Palace and Hyde Park. Then they passed through Marble Arch and into Oxford Street, finally turning left into Bloomsbury Place and right into Great Russell Street. After seven o’clock on a snowy Monday evening the streets were fairly quiet.
She used the half-hour journey to question Fox further about his cousin. She decided not to tell him Ursula had been taken into Scotland Yard; no doubt he’d find that out for himself. He had told Poppy that he would turn himself into the police after the auction, as long as she accompanied him. She said that she would. He told her that he didn’t think he had actually committed a crime and once he and Poppy had explained everything, no charges would be laid. Poppy doubted that. For his role in encouraging the boy to load the shotgun with more dangerous ammunition, she suspected a charge of criminal negligence might be in order. And as for the “stalking”, perhaps some kind of criminal harassment. But that would only be if she laid a formal complaint. She probably wouldn’t do so. As for the forgery of the Renoir, he had said that that had not been his intention, and he wouldn’t have gone along with it in the end. But it had been his girlfriend’s and his cousin’s – and that made him an accessory, didn’t it? The same with the poisoning of Lady Jean. Yes, he said he thought Ursula was only going to use prune juice, but he did find out that arsenic had been used and he hadn’t reported it. Poppy cast a sideways glance at her chauffeur. Sorry Fox, but I think there very well might be some charges. But she didn
’t say it out loud. She needed to get to the museum and she didn’t want to spook him.
It was five past eight when Fox parked the Torpedo Tourer on Great Russell Street. There was a line of vehicles, but from what Poppy could tell, none of them were police cars – yet. The lights in the museum were on, but the main front gate was shut. However, a security guard emerged from his little hut and directed them to a side gate.
As a fresh fall of snow billowed down they crossed the courtyard, hurried up the stairs into the portico, and were ushered through the main doors by a museum employee. In the foyer to the grand hall they stomped off the snow and deposited their coats and hats – Fox had swapped the fedora for his trademark boater – at the cloakroom. They were then directed to the Egyptian Gallery.
As they entered they were greeted by music from a live band and the hubbub of conversation. Marjorie Reynolds was the first to spot them. “Poppy! Fox! How – er – lovely to see you together.” She raised an eyebrow at Poppy. Poppy gave a wry smile.
CHAPTER 30
“Golly, Ursula’s done a good job pulling this all together in such a short space of time,” said Fox as he whipped two glasses of champagne off a passing tray and gave one to Poppy.
“She rang me earlier,” said Marjorie, “and asked if I could twist Oscar’s arm to do some last-minute catering. And look what he’s managed to throw together!” She beamed.
Poppy spotted Oscar Reynolds behind a makeshift bar sandwiched between the statues of two pharaohs. She waved to him; the jazz club owner waved back.
“I think I’ll head over to see him,” said Poppy, and zipped away before Fox had a chance to follow her. She needed to shake him off. She had a lot of work to do tonight and she did not need the cousin of one of the main suspects tagging along with her. Speaking of which, where was Ursula? She scanned the gallery.
Delilah was chatting to Kamela El Farouk to the left of the four-piece band. As it was only two days after the death of Sir James, the tuxedoed musicians were playing a suitably subdued repertoire. However, Delilah had still managed to dress to the nines and Kamela was wearing an evening gown too. Poppy felt very dowdy in her grey skirt and white blouse, which she’d worn all day as she trudged around London. Hmmm, Kamela. She was one of the archaeologists present at both murders… Poppy needed to give that some more thought. She would try to speak to the Egyptian woman about it as soon as she had a chance, but not in front of Delilah. Poppy was still a little cross with her friend for gossiping about her to Fox Flinton.
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