Chapter 12 #2
“It sounds like a good idea.” Daisy took out her notebook. “I’m writing an article about the scientific work of the museum. What is this dinosaur called, Mr. Steadman?”
“Saltopus. It’s small, just about two feet in length.
It was found in Scotland, but it was a German, von Huene, who studied it and named it, in 1910.
It rather got shuffled aside during the War.
I’ve been working on it recently. The skull is missing, but the rest is similar to Scleromochlus, so I’ve modelled a similar head.
I haven’t quite finished the rest of the missing bones.
However, it’s the nearest to being ready to mount of any I have, so when Mr. O’Brien asked … ”
As they talked, the other men had retrieved two tall stepladders from the floor behind the pedestal and set them up. Two climbed the first few steps. The third handed the metal frame up to them. They set it on the box and balanced it in the centre.
“Like this, Mr. Steadman?” asked one. “This all right, sir?”
Steadman turned back, drawing a sheaf of papers from the deep pocket of his lab coat.
Daisy rather lost interest in the exact placement of the stand. She was wondering whether it would be rude to go and see Witt and return later, when Dr. Smith Woodward came up. He greeted her in his rather absent-minded way and
started to talk to Steadman about Saltopus and Scleromochlus, which latter he himself had named.
After a very few minutes the talk grew too technical for Daisy. “Excuse me,” she said tentatively, reluctant to interrupt but not wanting either to stay or to sneak off without a word, “I think I’d better go and see Mr. Witt. I’ll come back when you start putting the bones together, Mr. Steadman.”
“My dear young lady,” said Smith Woodward, “allow me to unlock the door for you.” Setting off towards the end of the gallery, he felt in his pocket. “Dear me, I seem to have mislaid my keys again. I wonder where I left them this time?” He turned back, looking around vaguely.
“Never you mind, sir,” said Sergeant Atkins kindly, “they’ll turn up right as rain. I’ll let the young lady through.”
“Does he often lose his keys?” Daisy asked in a low voice.
“Lor’ bless you, all the time. They’re gen’rally found on his desk or sticking in a lock somewhere.” He took out his own jangling bunch.
“You all have to carry such a lot around.”
“Not as many as it might be. Lots of the doors are keyed the same, see. This here I’m using now wouldn’t open Dr. Smith Woodward’s office, but it’s good for the liberries, f’rinstance.
And his’ll open any of the other Keepers’ office doors.
We each of us has just the ones we need, too.
Elsewise we’d all be too weighed down to move. There you go, miss.”
Daisy went on into the private studies, which were not much more than a wide passage cluttered with desks, bookcases, cabinets, and chairs.
Along one side, doors at intervals led into the General Library, the various galleries, and the work room which connected with the Geological Library.
Most of the light came from skylights, but opposite each door was a window, looking out on the Spirit Building and the Imperial College of Science.
The Fossil Mammal Curator boasted a window to himself in a private cubicle of sorts, walled with bookshelves. He was seated at his desk, studying a large-scale drawing of a quadrupedal skeleton, with the animal’s outline sketched in, and enlarged views of individual bones.
“I don’t want to interrupt, Mr. Witt,” said Daisy untruthfully.
He looked up and smiled. “That’s all right, Miss Dalrymple. Just yet another early horse.”
“Tell me about it. I expect motor vehicles will entirely supersede horses one day, but meanwhile, people are interested in them.”
Witt was good at tailoring his exposition to his audience. He gave Daisy just the sort of detail she wanted, and she took reams of notes.
“I can let you have a series of drawings, from Eohippus to the modern horse,” he offered. “I’d appreciate it if you would trace them and return them, but it’s not the end of the world if your editor should lose them. Do you ride?”
“I used to. I grew up in Gloucestershire.”
“Fairacres,” said Witt, to her surprise. “I knew your brother slightly. I … ah … Fletcher seems a good sort of chap.”
Resignedly, Daisy realized that if Mummery knew of her engagement, doubtless so did everyone else. “He is,” she said firmly, “and a good detective as well.”
“He came round to my flat last night, looking for the stolen jewels. I imagine he sees some connection between the theft and Pettigrew’s murder?”
“He doesn’t discuss all his reasoning with me,” Daisy hedged.
Witt’s sardonic look told her he recognized prevarication when he heard it. “He didn’t find the loot, of course, though
I’m aware that won’t have convinced him of my innocence. I can’t quite work out how the jewels were stolen, but I know I’m one of just half a dozen people who could have killed Pettigrew. Only why should I?”
“The police don’t have to prove motive, though it’s helpful in court.”
“They don’t?” Witt shrugged. “Well, the man was a pain in the neck, but I didn’t have to see much of him.”
“Even over the flints?”
“Ah, is that where Fletcher’s looking? Pettigrew was making a pest of himself about the flints, admittedly. However, I claim no expertise on the subject. I always referred Pettigrew to ffinch-Brown. He bore the brunt. And he was around when Pettigrew died.”
“Do you think he was worried about Pettigrew’s challenge? That business of detecting a newly chipped flint?”
Witt grinned. “Much as I’d like to divert suspicion by throwing it on ffinch-Brown, who is also a pain in the neck, I have to say I believe him perfectly competent to distinguish anything Pettigrew could produce.”
Which was as prevaricating as anything Daisy had said. Witt was quite clever enough to realize his encomium did not rule out ffinch-Brown’s worrying, however competent he was. So was he actually attempting in an oblique way to throw suspicion on the anthropologist?
Spotting an invitation to circular reasoning before she was entangled, Daisy decided Witt’s statement was really pretty useless.
“The stuff you’ve been doing for Mr. ffinch-Brown must have given you a lot of extra work,” she said, poising her pencil above her notebook as if returning to business. “Do you and your colleagues often work late?”
“Only when we’re planning a murder,” Witt quipped.
Daisy frowned at him. “Sorry! It depends—which is not a useful answer but true. One doesn’t get into palaeontology unless one is keen.
One doesn’t get on in the museum hierarchy unless one is keen enough to put in extra hours.
Many are not, so there are Assistants and Attendants who will never rise above those Civil Service grades. ”
“Thus Curators are by definition extra keen and ready to stay late?”
“More or less. Sometimes one finds oneself at the end of the day deeply involved in something particularly fascinating which one does not care to leave. Occasionally there is work which simply must be completed on time. Human time, that is, as opposed to geological time.”
Daisy laughed. “I’m glad we don’t have to live by geological time. Imagine saying, ‘I think I’ll just wait for the ice age to finish before I take the dog for his walk.’ So the dedicated scientists of the Geology Department frequently stay after hours.” She wrote it down in her notebook.
“I shan’t quarrel if you put that in your article,” Witt said with a smile.
“Dr. Smith Woodward expects a great deal of his people. Individual circumstances vary, of course. For instance, I quite often have evening engagements. Steadman has a rotten home life, so he frequently works late—there’s always something interesting to do here, but also he accepts quite a few invitations to give outside talks.
The public like dinosaurs. On the other hand, Ruddlestone has a family clamouring for his presence, so he rarely does overtime. ”
“Mr. Ruddlestone has a large family?”
“Lord, yes. I couldn’t tell you how many children. He hardly ever stays. It was rotten luck he happened to be here on the very evening that Pettigrew … Unless … No, it couldn’t have been Ruddlestone! Forget I said that. It wasn’t so late when it happened, anyway, was it?”
“No,” Daisy agreed.
“Just late enough for most people to have left, so as to make Fletcher’s task easier,” Witt said wryly. “Oh dear, we don’t seem to be able to stay away from the subject, do we? What else can I tell you about my work?”
Glancing through her notes, Daisy said, “The information about the horses will do, I think, thanks.”
“Right-ho. Let me just get you those drawings. Here we are.”
“Spiffing. Thanks!”
“I’ll be happy to answer any further questions, Miss Dalrymple, and if you have none, no doubt your fiancé will have plenty!”
He unlocked the nearest door for her, and she stepped into the cephalopod gallery. Passing through, she made one or two notes, rather half-heartedly. She still could not work up any enthusiasm for primitive squids and octopi.
Half way down was the arch to the dinosaur gallery. If Mummery was the murderer, he must have gone that way to the General Library.
Daisy went through. The Megalosaurus skull was to her left.
She pictured the children gathered around it, with little Katy heading for the far entrance and Mrs. Ditchley suddenly noticing her departure.
The children would surely have glanced towards their sister, momentarily distracted from the monster.
But that moment had coincided with the murder, so the murderer could not have taken advantage of it, unless he was a sprinter, and Mummery hadn’t got the figure of a sprinter.
At best it would have been risky to cross the gallery with a family there, at worst downright foolhardy. Or would it? Mummery might well have reached the side arch when Mrs. Ditchley was joining Daisy and the children were clustered