Chapter 15 #2
Tom delved in, by feel, as they drove out of the farmyard. “Aha, a great slab of cake,” he said with satisfaction. D’you mind a bit broken off, Chief?”
“Not at all. Hold on while I get my gloves off. Oh, right or left?” queried Alec, coming to a fork in the lane.
“Hold on, I’ll have to find that bit of paper and my electric torch. Should’ve brought young Ernie with us. He’d know.”
“There would be less cake for you.”
“True! Just as well we left him behind. It’s almost worth coming all this way for, even if we hadn’t got the answer out of Westcott. Left here, Chief, and … uh … right at the next crossroads.”
“But we have no proof, you know, Tom, not even that Steadman’s the thief, let alone that he’s the murderer. Remember Mummery and the crocodiles. Steadman might have been studying parallels between dinosaurs and mammals. He could claim to have been comparing their necks with giraffe necks, say.”
“The giraffes are on the other side,” Tom pointed out.
“That was just an example.” Alec racked his brains. “If you’re going to be fussy, something to do with rhinos, perhaps, or hippos. They’re all built like tanks. And Steadman is noted for working late.”
“Now we know where to look,” said Tom, confidently though muffled by a mouthful of cake, “we’ll find evidence, sure enough, or confront him and get a confession. Steadman won’t hold out.”
With Westcott’s signed statement, they left for London early on Sunday morning. Today, ominous clouds hung low over
the moor, so Alec took the main road via Okehampton. They kept ahead of the rain all the way however, and even came out into sunshine as they crossed Bagshot Heath.
But from Hounslow Heath, they could see ahead a sepia mass of fog crouched over the city like a hungry octopus, sending out tentacles to draw the suburbs within its grasp. Alec groaned.
“Maybe Mrs. Trevinnick wasn’t as far out as all that,” said Tom, a sad admission from a born Londoner.
The premature dusk closed down on them. Soot-spattered windscreen open, they crept through the empty streets to Westminster. At New Scotland Yard, a message awaited them.
“Just come in a couple of minutes ago, Gov’nor,” said the duty officer. “D. I. Wotherspoon went home. I was going to ring him up.”
Alec scanned it. “Great Scott! Telephone Chelsea and tell them I want a dozen constables sent to the Natural History Museum at once. Come along, Tom.”
Without protest, if wearily, Tom came. Not until the Austin was crawling up Birdcage Walk through the thickening murk did he venture to ask, “What’s up, Chief?”
“Steadman entered the museum at five to six. On a Sunday evening, Tom! I knew the jewels were still there, hidden lord knows where. Damn this fog. Can you stick your head out of the window that side and tell me if I’m going to hit the kerb?”
Driving as fast as he dared, Alec reached the rear of the museum at last. Two plainclothesmen were on duty there at all times, well concealed among the pillars of the arcade. A third, who had been following Steadman, lurked nearby. They converged on Alec.
“I thought I’d better telephone, Gov’nor, him coming this time on a Sunday, and in all this muck … .”
“Well done—Culver, is it? I’ll remember you.
Now, who has the key? Right, open up. One of you inside and one stationed just outside—Steadman is not to be allowed to leave on any pretext whatsoever.
You can arrest him if he refuses to stay with you.
There will be more men arriving any minute in case we have to chase him all over this damn pile. Tring, Culver, come with me.”
They could have done with Piper to lead them to the nearest staircase, but with the aid of Tom’s torch, they found it. Only when he saw the door at the top did Alec remember that it was kept locked to bar the public from the basement.
In the lead, Tom, his weariness forgotten now that an arrest was in sight, turned the handle. The door opened. Maybe Steadman had left it unlocked to facilitate his escape.
“Stay here, Culver,” Alec ordered in a low voice.
He and Tom emerged into the North Hall and paused to listen. Not a sound. The massive building felt like a mausoleum—as indeed it was, for the corpses and bare bones of countless creatures.
“I bet Steadman wears rubber-soled shoes, Chief.” No morbid fancies for Tom Tring, the ever-practical. “He’d never have got away with it else.”
“Yes. Keep your eyes peeled. The dinosaur gallery’s the obvious place to try first. I’m suspicious of that new skeleton he’s been setting up.”
“Salty puss,” said Tom with a muted chuckle.
“You take this side.”
The elephantine sentinel loomed through the fog-hazed twilight of the Central Hall. “The vasty hall of death”: The phrase sprang unbidden into Alec’s mind. Matthew Arnold, Requiescat, he supplied automatically. Someone’s spirit “doth inherit the vasty hall …” Whose?
Strew on her daisies, daisies, and never a spray of yew. A girl, then. A nameless girl.
But of course it was roses, not daisies. Not Daisy. A prickle of unease shivered down his spine. She couldn’t be here, not on a foggy Sunday night, her research finished, as she herself had told him.
Wise Tom, to eschew fancies. Yet that was why he’d never advanced beyond the rank of sergeant. In Murder Squad parlance, he hadn’t the “nose.” Alec had. Something was wrong.
Ahead, the electric light in the police post made a circle of cheer, though it would have been more cheering if any of the officers had been there. They must be on patrol somewhere about the place. Alec was not sure whether to hope they came upon Steadman or not.
As Tom joined him, he glanced at the panel which controlled all the lights in the museum—one could not have visiting children messing about with switches.
It must cost a fortune to light the place.
At night, he knew, only a few dim lights were used, because of the expense.
Given the evening’s early darkness, why had they not been switched on?
“I wouldn’t mess with that, Chief.” Tom might not have the nose, but he sometimes read Alec’s thoughts.
“No, it’s far too complicated,” he agreed reluctantly, “and sudden light might warn Steadman. Let’s go.”
Though neither was an Ernie Piper, after studying the plans and reconnoitring the territory, they could have found their way in complete darkness.
As they reached the arch to the reptile gallery, Alec whispered, “You go round through the cephalopod gallery, Tom. Remember Steadman has keys. He can get away by the door to the General Library and those stairs to the basement. We may have secured the back door, but I’d rather not have to hunt for him down there. ”
Alec waited a couple of minutes to let Tom reach the connecting archway.
Then he crossed the reptile gallery and peered into the dinosaur gallery.
The far end was lost in shadows. Scanning the nearer part, he saw a dark heap on the floor some twenty yards away, with two whitish objects lying beside it.
As he moved to investigate, a scraping sound came from the other end. Tom’s bulk flitted across the centre to a point between the source of the noise and the library door, then receded into the shadows.
Hurrying to join him, Alec stopped dead as the dark heap sat up and said with shaky indignation, in Daisy’s voice, “The Grand Duke hit me!”
“Daisy, it’s not …” Alec babbled, dropping to his knees beside her, “it can’t … What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
From the far corner of the gallery came a crash—bang—thump—groan, followed by Tom Tring’s boom: “James Steadman, in the name of the law, I arrest you for larceny. Other charges may be preferred against you. I must warn you that you have the right not to speak, but anything you choose to say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.” Handcuffs clicked.
“It’s not what it looks like,” squeaked Steadman.
“The Grand Duke hit you?” queried Alec, his arms around Daisy.
“Everything under control here, Chief,” Tom reported. “What’s going on? Did I hear Miss Dalrymple?”
“She says the Grand Duke hit her.”
“That’s right,” Steadman confirmed in a shaky voice. “It was the Grand Duke. I saw everything. I was just collecting the stolen jewels to hand over to the police.”
“Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“Yes. Sort of. My head aches frightfully.”
“Mine’s beginning to. What happened?”
“We caught Rudolf Maximilian extracting the jewels from the dinosaurs’ skulls.” Daisy leaned back against Alec’s comfortingly broad chest. “The others chased him, but I came back to make sure the jewels were safe. He must have eluded them and followed me, and hit me on the head.”
“With this.” Alec reached out for one of the white objects, long, heavy, curved, tapering, “a broken rib, if I’m not mistaken.”
Daisy started to laugh. She couldn’t help it, though it made her head hurt worse.
“My poor darling,” Alec said tenderly, kissing her ear. “But this is no time to get hysterical.”
“Shall I let Mr. Steadman go?” Tom called.
“No, not yet, though I can’t see him breaking a precious dinosaur bone.”
“I wouldn’t,” Steadman affirmed.
“But it’s not!” said Daisy.
“She’s concussed,” Alec said worriedly.
At that moment the lights went on.
Over by Saltopus, a ladder lay on the floor. Steadman sprawled beside it, on his back, his hands cuffed before him. Tom stood over him, splinters of shattered Saltopus skull scattered about his feet. Amidst the shards, gems winked red, purple, and green.
“It’s plaster of Paris,” said Daisy, “like the Diplodocus rib. I think I understand, now.”
“I don’t!” Alec and Tom chorused.
The unmistakable sound of police boots approached beyond the entrance arch. Sergeant Jameson appeared, followed by Constables Mason and Neddle, with a sullen, disconsolate, handcuffed Grand Duke between them.
“Miss Dalrymple!” cried Jameson, running forward. “What the … ? Oh lor’, Chief Inspector Fletcher!” He skidded to a halt, saluting, then saw Tom Tring and Steadman. “Oh lor’, what’s happened?”