CHAPTER 11
THE OTHER STORY
“Who knew enough about that room to turn a harmless prop into a murder weapon?”
Romy had three answers before Ellis finished the question.
Celeste knew the ventilation mattered.
Adrian knew how the room worked.
Marcus knew what the plate-warmer could do.
None was enough.
Knowledge was not motive. Opportunity was not identity. And if Sebastian had been killed because of the Blue Study panel rather than the plagiarism story everyone had been staring at, Romy still did not know what the killer was protecting.
She looked toward the sealed corridor.
“The panel.”
Ellis waited.
“What about it?”
“That’s the gap.”
“In the ventilation?”
“In the case. We know how the room was altered, roughly when, and who had access. We still don’t know why Sebastian entered that room after checking his phone and notebook.”
“We know he was interested in the panel.”
“Interested enough to forget the story he had spent months building against Celeste.”
Ellis glanced toward Anika, who was packing samples and refusing the motive discussion with admirable discipline.
“Sophie said Sebastian called the Celeste piece the noisy story.”
“I have Sophie’s statement.”
“And the panel was valuable.”
“She says he used that word.”
“So we need the other story.”
Ellis folded his arms.
“We.”
Romy ignored the warning.
“What does Vivian have?”
“Legal files.”
“Sebastian’s research.”
“Some of it.”
“Then we look again.”
“You looked at the ARDEN folder yesterday.”
“And found photographs Sophie did not give him. What about material that has nothing to do with Celeste?”
Ellis’s eyes narrowed.
Romy knew that look.
She had found the right question.
“What material?”
“You tell me.”
“That is not how this works.”
“It could be.”
“No.”
Anika closed her case.
“I recommend coffee before this develops.”
“That sounds like retreat.”
“It is professional judgment.”
Leo appeared from the stair hall carrying his laptop.
“Did someone say coffee?”
Ellis closed his eyes briefly.
“Apparently,” Romy said.
They relocated to the service pantry. Romy was beginning to suspect every serious investigation eventually became a series of difficult conversations beside a kettle.
Leo made coffee. Anika examined the jar and chose tea.
“Good choice,” Romy said.
Ellis remained standing.
“You are not all staying.”
Nobody moved.
He looked at Leo.
“You have archive work.”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
“I was.”
Anika accepted tea.
“The dynamic remains unhealthy.”
Ellis ignored her and looked at Romy.
“What did Vivian hold back?” Romy asked.
“She did not hold anything back from police.”
“Then what haven’t I seen?”
“A great deal. Because you are not police.”
“Useful material?”
“Potentially.”
“Panel material?”
Silence.
Romy looked at Leo. Leo looked back.
Ellis noticed both.
“Fine.”
The word sounded painful.
“Vivian has agreed to let us review the remaining Asterleigh-related research with her present. You are there to identify objects, materials, installations, and references that may relate to the Show House.”
“Excellent.”
“It is not excellent. You do not question Vivian about unrelated files, call anyone based on what you see, or photograph documents without permission.”
“I know.”
“And Leo stays here.”
Leo opened his mouth.
“No.”
Romy looked at him.
“Archive timeline.”
He nodded, disappointed but composed.
“I’ll check the media archive against Sebastian’s movements again.”
“Good.”
Ellis looked almost surprised by the lack of argument.
“He’s learning,” Romy said.
“I noticed.”
Leo stared at them.
“Please stop discussing me while I’m standing here.”
Anika handed him the biscuit tin.
“Compensation.”
Vivian had moved Sebastian’s remaining research into a temporary legal review room at the Merewick Arms. Two police officers were present when Romy and Ellis arrived.
Vivian looked at Romy and sighed.
“Again.”
“Good morning.”
“It stopped being good when I learned you were coming.”
“That seems harsh.”
“It is experience.”
Six numbered document boxes sat on the table beside a laptop dock and scanner.
Vivian took the chair opposite Romy.
“Sebastian’s research was not organized for anyone except Sebastian.”
“That explains the notebook.”
“It explains most of his life.”
Ellis said, “We’re focusing on Asterleigh, Celeste Arden, Fenn Found, and anything relating to the Blue Study panel.”
Vivian’s expression changed at Marcus’s company name.
Romy caught it.
“Something?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I heard you.”
“That was a reaction.”
Ellis looked at Romy.
She stopped.
The first hour produced little. Press cuttings. Design brochures. Printed emails. Old reviews. Notes from former Arden employees. Sophie’s name appeared twice, once in a typed list and once beside the words credit dispute.
The next folder held photographs.
Several showed Celeste’s hotel interiors and working images similar to those in the ARDEN file.
Then the subject changed.
An old room with dark green walls and a carved stone fireplace.
Framed textile panels.
Romy slowed.
“What is that?”
Vivian looked.
“No idea.”
The next image showed another room, different angle, with a silk panel mounted high on a wall. Not the Blue Study piece, but similar in age and decorative tradition.
Then came a textile fragment laid flat on archival tissue.
Collection numbers.
Auction tags.
An institutional loan slip.
Romy looked at Vivian.
“These have nothing to do with Celeste’s plagiarism.”
“No.”
“Why were they with her research?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know something.”
Vivian’s mouth tightened.
“Sebastian stopped treating the Arden article as a design-industry piece two days before his death.”
Romy sat straighter.
“You knew that.”
“I knew his legal questions changed.”
“How?”
“He asked different ones.”
“What different ones?”
Vivian looked at Ellis.
He nodded.
“Title.”
“Ownership title?”
“Yes.”
“Of an object?”
“Yes.”
“The panel.”
“I assume so.”
“What else?”
“Conversion. Misrepresentation. Limitation periods. Whether a later purchaser acquires good title where an intermediary lacked it.”
The case tilted.
Not stylistic theft.
Actual property.
“What did you tell him?”
“That those questions depend heavily on facts.”
“Did he give you facts?”
“Not enough.”
“Names? Marcus? Fenn Found? A collection?”
“No.”
Romy looked down at the material photographs.
“Then he was building the ownership chain.”
“That was my impression.”
Ellis asked, “When did he first ask?”
“Wednesday evening.”
Two days before the preview.
Sebastian had been ahead of everyone.
Romy continued through the file.
Architectural interiors.
Collection catalogues.
Auction listings.
Dealer advertisements.
Handwritten dates.
Then one question underlined twice.
WHERE AFTER 1998?
Romy stopped.
“Ellis.”
He moved beside her.
Sebastian had repeated the question on three pages.
Where after 1998?
Who held it?
Private sale?
Back changed when?
No export trace.
Vivian said, “That is why I wouldn’t let anyone treat the Arden file as simply a plagiarism dossier.”
“You could have told me.”
“You are not entitled to Sebastian’s confidential work because you happened to find his body.”
“I did not find him.”
“You know what I mean.”
Romy almost argued.
Stopped.
Vivian was right.
Ellis picked up a photograph.
“What are we looking for?”
“The border.”
“What?”
“Sophie said Sebastian asked whether the border had always been there.”
Romy opened one of her Blue Study images and enlarged the panel.
Birds among curling leaves. Muted blue, ochre, faded red.
The border repeated a flower motif.
One flower near the upper right was wrong.
The red sat slightly off register against the outline. Romy had noticed it during condition review and dismissed it as a normal old-print defect.
Not rare.
But specific.
She compared Sebastian’s photographs.
One panel.
No match.
Another.
No match.
Then she stopped.
“Wait.”
The image showed a 1990s interior. A silk panel hung above a long cabinet in a room with striped walls and tall sash windows.
Romy enlarged it.
Too soft.
The printed copy had lost detail.
But the composition looked close.
Birds.
Leaves.
Red flowers.
“Same pattern?” Ellis asked.
“Possibly.”
“Same object?”
“Not enough to say.”
Vivian turned the photograph over.
Sebastian had written:
Architectural Interiors, March 1997. Halden Collection, West Drawing Room.
Below it:
FULL IMAGE?
Romy took out her phone.
Ellis looked at her.
“I’m not calling a witness.”
“Who?”
“Iqra.”
He waited.
“She can find the original faster than both of us.”
Vivian said, “That sounds intolerable.”
“She is.”
Iqra Shah answered with loud music behind her.
“Romy?”
“Are you working?”
“It is eleven in the morning.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“What do you need?”
“Architectural Interiors. March 1997. Halden Collection, West Drawing Room.”
The music stopped.
“Article title?”
“Don’t have it.”
“Photographer?”
“Don’t have it.”
“Page?”
“Don’t have it.”
“Wonderful.”
“I have a low-quality research print.”
“What am I looking for?”
“A decorative textile panel mounted high in a room. Birds, leaves, red flowers. Printed silk or similar. Possibly eighteenth or early nineteenth century.”
“Send me the image.”
Ellis said, “No.”
Romy covered the phone.
“Why?”
“Evidence.”
“I can send the citation, not the photograph.”
Iqra heard him.
“Is that Ellis?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him he continues to make research harder.”
“He heard you.”
“Good.”
Romy gave Iqra the publication citation and description.
“How long?”
“Depends whether their index was made by a competent human or a sadist.”
“Call me.”
“I will.”
Vivian raised an eyebrow after the call ended.
“Archivist?”
“Research consultant.”
“That explains the temperament.”
Romy returned to Sebastian’s files.
The material changed again.
Dealer records.
One page bore Fenn Found letterhead.
Not an invoice.
An object description.
HAND-PAINTED SILK DECORATIVE PANEL, CIRCA 1790-1820.
Private collection, northern England.
Acquired from family ownership, 2025.
No prior published history known.
Romy felt a slow tightening.
“Here.”
Ellis read it.
Vivian leaned closer.
“The Show House catalogue uses the same language.”
“You know it?”
“I reviewed sponsor descriptions for legal risk.”