Chapter 14 #3
He came over to the police post. “Everyone out, lights off, inner doors locked,” he reported laconically. Laying two keys on the counter, he took himself off.
“All yours, mate,” said Jameson, coming out through the flap in the counter.
Drummond locked the main entrance doors behind the last visitors, and returned to the police post. “Right, I’m going up to bar and bolt the Mineral Gallery,” he said, “after the horse has been stolen as you might say. The dinosaurs are all yours, miss. I’ll look in to see how you’re doing when I come down.
Neddle, you stay here. Mason, go and report
everyone out to the chap watching the back door, then come back.”
Sergeant Drummond and Constable Mason tramped off through the Central Hall on their way to the stairs up and down respectively. Daisy and Sergeant Jameson went round to the fossil mammal gallery.
The electric lights, on for the last half hour because of the fog, had been turned off. In the dingy daylight coming through the windows, the mammoths loomed larger than ever. But the fog had not penetrated thus far.
“What a difference!” Daisy exclaimed. “I didn’t realize so much fog had got in back there.”
“Nasty stuff,” said Jameson.
“Beastly. I was wondering if you’d very much mind seeing me home afterwards.”
“Don’t you worry, miss. We’ll get you home right and tight.”
Jameson’s boots echoed hollowly on the mosaic floor as they went through the hall to the fossil reptiles. Empty of people, lit only by the dreary light from the opaque skylights, the gallery seemed a fitting place for murder. Crossing it, they entered the dinosaur gallery.
The far end was lost in gloom. Daisy had taken several steps at the sergeant’s side before she saw that someone was there before them.
“Hey, you!” yelled Jameson.
The figure on the stepladder, just withdrawing his hand from the Iguanodon’s head, turned an aghast face. The Grand Duke!
While Jameson, immobilized by surprise, fumbled for his whistle, Rudolf Maximilian slithered down the rocking ladder and dashed through the arch to the cephalopods. Jameson blew a short sharp blast, then took off after the Grand
Duke, his whistle shrilling between his lips. The sound, designed to call help from streets away, rang on after the sergeant had disappeared.
Daisy was about to follow when she noticed a white blob at the foot of the ladder. It was a handkerchief, embroidered with an elaborate crest, holding several gems embedded in some sort of putty. She was reaching to pick it up when heavy footsteps raced towards her from behind.
“What’s happened?” cried Constable Neddle. “Where’s Sergeant Jameson?”
“They went thataway,” said Daisy, pointing. The picture-shows her brother used to drag her to in Ludlow, before the War, had often included William S. Hart cowboy films.
Neddle galloped off in hot pursuit. Daisy realized that the Grand Duke’s way was blocked by the work room and Geological Library.
From invertebrates, he would have to go out into the reptile gallery.
She hurried back to the dinosaurs’ main entrance arch, and stepped out into reptiles just as Jameson—still whistling—emerged from invertebrates.
However, instead of doubling back, Rudolf Maximilian had turned left. He was a vague shadow at the far end of the reptile gallery. Jameson tore after him. Daisy followed, meeting Neddle at the invertebrate entrance and continuing at his side.
Rudolf led them through the hall at the end, back along the mammal gallery, and into the Central Hall, now a somber cavern.
There he headed for the main staircase, but as he reached the foot, Sergeant Drummond appeared at the top, a hazy figure in the intruding fog.
The Grand Duke raced on under the arches to the North Hall, where he disappeared into the eastern enclosed staircase.
Jameson, Neddle, and Drummond streamed after him.
Constable Mason, scarcely recognizable in the all-pervading
gloom, came out of the stairs on the west side of the hall, roared “What … ?” and joined the hunt.
Daisy did not fancy running up stairs. She knew the North Hall stairs were closed to the public above the first floor, so she went back to stand at the foot of the main staircase, looking up.
A moment later, the Grand Duke arrived at the top of the main stairs, apparently intending to descend. He saw Daisy at the bottom, changed his mind, and sped on along the giraffe gallery, still going strong, intermittently visible between the pillars.
Drummond led the pursuers now, Mason at his heels, Jameson and Neddle beginning to flag.
From below, Daisy watched them chase Rudolf to the upper stairs.
He took the lower flight two at a time, but he was panting now.
Mason leapt up after him, Drummond trotted, the other two policemen stumbled behind.
No matter, Rudolf would be trapped on the second floor.
But he didn’t go on up. Loping across the half landing, he went down the opposite flight, and turned right to return through the British Nesting Birds.
Where he was aiming for, Daisy could not guess. There was no way out of the museum for him. Yet as long as the idiotic police failed to spread out and head him off, they would never catch him—as long as any of them was capable of movement. Everyone’s speed had slowed considerably.
However, the Grand Duke, unlike the policemen, was young, slim, and desperate.
He just might get far enough ahead to lose them temporarily.
In that case he might conceivably double back to pick up the jewels, in the surely vain hope of hiding and somehow eluding searchers.
He had, after all, hidden well enough not to be ejected from the museum when it closed.
The hunt disappeared into the passage leading back past the Refreshment Room to the stairs down to the North Hall—or round and back to the giraffes. Daisy decided to return to the dinosaur gallery.
That she had been astonished to see Rudolf Maximilian retrieving the jewels from the dinosaurs was the understatement of the year.
His credentials as murderer were excellent, but he failed dismally as a burglary candidate.
Could he have been in league with someone?
Randell the junior mineralogy assistant, perhaps?
The theft would have been comparatively easy for Randell, but Daisy could not see why he needed the Grand Duke’s help.
Still less likely was it that either of them should hide the loot among the dinosaurs.
No, the dinosaur man had to be involved.
For some inscrutable reason, Steadman was in league with Rudolf.
So which of them was the murderer?
Passing the Pareiasaurus in its ghostly white shroud, Daisy once again entered the dinosaur gallery. The Diplodocus loomed creepily, its tail scarcely visible in the shadows eighty-five feet away. She wished she knew where the light switch was.
The tick-tock of her footsteps was the only, eerie sound. Then, from close behind her, came a creaking cr-r-rack.
She started to turn.
The blow caught her on the side of the head. In an explosion of pain, she had time for one astonished thought: Attacked by a dinosaur? before she sank into darkness.