CHAPTER 19
FENN & FABLE
“Now tell me why a salvage dealer needed a roll of felt inside that room.”
Ellis left the photograph on the worktable between them.
Brass plate-warmer under one arm.
Burgundy wool felt folded over the other.
Gold woven edge visible.
One minute earlier, the Blue Study ventilation had still been open.
Three minutes later, Sebastian expected Fenn.
Five minutes later, Sebastian entered the room.
Romy stared at the image.
“I can tell you why Marcus carried felt generally.”
“Furniture protection.”
“Yes.”
“Packing.”
“Yes.”
“Transport.”
“Yes.”
“None of which explains the Blue Study.”
“No.”
Leo stood at the far end of the table with both hands around his mug.
“What did Marcus say when you asked?”
Ellis looked at him.
“That is police information.”
Leo nodded.
“Right.”
Ellis looked back at Romy.
“He says he intended to leave the plate-warmer for Celeste to consider and took the felt because it was underneath the warmer in the dining room.”
“That part is true.”
“You saw it there.”
“Yes.”
“And he says he left both in the service recess.”
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone else could take the felt.”
“Yes.”
“And someone else could put charcoal into the warmer.”
“Yes.”
“And someone else could move both into the Blue Study.”
“Yes.”
Romy folded her arms.
“You are being annoyingly fair to him.”
“I am being fair to the evidence.”
“Worse.”
Ellis picked up the photograph.
“What bothers me is the provenance.”
“Finally.”
“Do not sound pleased.”
“I have spent six chapters telling you the provenance matters.”
Leo looked confused.
Romy glanced at him.
“Long week.”
Ellis continued.
“We know Fenn Found marketed the panel using a history that does not match the 1997 Halden photograph.”
“Yes.”
“We know Ruth Mallory’s report said the ownership chain was not independently established.”
“Yes.”
“We know Marcus approved the catalogue wording anyway.”
“Yes.”
“What we do not know is whether he believed the history was merely incomplete or knew it was false.”
Romy looked at the image again.
“That distinction decides motive.”
“Exactly.”
If Marcus had simply been careless, Sebastian’s discovery threatened embarrassment.
If Marcus had knowingly disguised the panel’s history, Sebastian threatened exposure of something larger.
Fraud.
Possibly stolen property.
Maybe more.
“Ruth,” Romy said.
Ellis’s expression changed.
“Already called.”
“Of course.”
“She is coming to Asterleigh at one.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“Solicitor?”
“No.”
“That seems optimistic.”
“Or frightened.”
Romy knew which she preferred.
Fear made people talk.
It also made them lie.
By twelve thirty, Pattern House’s office had become too tense for productive work.
Leo reopened the 6:51 photograph twice.
Romy reopened Fenn Found’s catalogue description three times.
Neither found anything new.
At twelve forty-two, Nina arrived carrying sandwiches.
“You have developed surveillance.”
“You skipped lunch yesterday.”
“So?”
“So I am correcting a pattern.”
Leo stood.
“What did you bring?”
“Chicken, mustard, and something green enough to satisfy responsibility.”
Romy accepted one.
Nina looked at Marcus’s photograph on the table.
“He looks less friendly now.”
“That is because you know what happened later,” Romy said.
“True.”
“Photographs are unfair like that.”
“People are unfair like that.”
Leo sat with his sandwich.
Nina took the chair beside him.
“Where is the famous designer?”
“Celeste?”
“Released, apparently.”
Romy looked at Ellis.
He had not told Nina that.
Nina read her face.
“The entire town knows. Someone saw her solicitor leave the station with three coffees and no overnight bag.”
“That means innocence now?”
“In Merewick it means movement.”
Romy bit into the sandwich.
It was excellent.
She resented Nina’s competence.
Nina nodded toward the whiteboard.
“So we’re back to Marcus.”
“We are back to evidence that keeps pointing toward Marcus.”
“Same thing with better posture.”
Ellis had gone downstairs to take a call.
Leo said, “We need proof he knew the panel history was wrong.”
Nina nodded.
“Then ask whoever warned him.”
Romy looked at her.
“What?”
“You have the face again.”
“What face?”
“The one where someone says the simple version and you’re offended you didn’t say it first.”
“I already thought of Ruth.”
“Then why are you glaring at me?”
“I’m eating.”
“That is not how eating works.”
Leo laughed.
The sound loosened the room.
For ten minutes, they argued about the new menu board at The Fig & Thistle because Nina had finally replaced the one with the squeaking frame.
Leo offered to repaint the lettering.
Nina rejected his first font suggestion.
Romy told them serif arguments were not lunch conversation.
They ignored her.
When Ellis returned, he looked at the sandwiches.
“None for me?”
Nina handed him one.
Romy stared.
“You brought four?”
“I know my audience.”
Ellis sat.
“For once, I approve of local intelligence networks.”
“Do not encourage her,” Romy said.
He ate half before speaking again.
“Ruth is here.”
The reset ended.
Ruth Mallory entered the temporary site office carrying the same leather document case as before.
Her hair was neat.
Her suit pressed.
Her hands were not steady.
Ellis closed the door.
Romy sat opposite Ruth.
Leo remained outside under explicit instruction.
This time he did not argue.
Progress.
“I understand you have more questions about the panel,” Ruth said.
“About your emails,” Ellis replied.
Ruth’s face changed.
Immediate.
“What emails?”
Ellis waited.
Ruth folded her hands.
“Fenn Found preserved its business server.”
She did not move.
“We recovered archived correspondence between you and Marcus Fenn.”
Silence.
“Do you want to revise anything you told us?”
“No.”
Ellis opened a folder.
“On April ninth, you sent Marcus a message saying the Mercer estate dates did not align.”
Ruth looked down.
Romy’s attention sharpened.
Ellis continued.
“You wrote that the panel could not have been in uninterrupted Mercer family ownership if the Halden dispersal references were correct.”
Ruth looked up sharply.
“You found Halden?”
“We did.”
Her composure broke.
Not much.
Enough.
“You knew,” Romy said.
“I suspected.”
“You told us you had never heard a Halden connection.”
“I had not confirmed one.”
“That is not what you said.”
“I said nobody had mentioned it to me as part of the acquisition brief.”
“Technically true.”
“Yes.”
“And designed to hide the rest.”
Ruth’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Ellis placed another email on the table.
“April eleventh. You wrote that the ownership history between 1998 and 2003 contained impossible dates.”
Ruth stared at the paper.
Romy asked, “What impossible dates?”
“The estate intermediary claimed Lionel Mercer acquired the panel from his aunt in 2001.”
“So?”
“The aunt died in 1999.”
Romy went still.
“That is not an incomplete chain.”
“No.”
“That is a false one.”
“Yes.”
“Did Marcus know?”
Ruth looked toward Ellis.
He said nothing.
“Yes.”
Romy felt the case harden.
“Before Asterleigh?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“Months.”
“Before he supplied the panel?”
“Yes.”
“Before the catalogue description?”
“Yes.”
Marcus had not merely failed to ask enough questions.
He had been warned.
The polished acquisition file had been built around a crack.
Ellis pushed the April eleventh message toward Ruth.
“Read the final paragraph.”
She did not.
He read it instead.
“Do not market, publish, insure upward, or publicly present the panel as securely held in Mercer family ownership until the 1998 to 2003 chain is resolved.”
Romy looked at Ruth.
“You wrote that.”
“Yes.”
“And Marcus ignored you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ruth laughed once.
Quietly.
“Because Marcus thought I was being cautious.”
“You were.”
“Yes.”
“Correctly.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say in response?” Ellis asked.
“He said the estate representation was sufficient for sale purposes.”
“Was it?”
“Not once I identified contradictory dates.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ask you to change your report?”
“No.”
Romy frowned.
“He did not pressure you.”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“No.”
“Offer more money?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
Ruth looked toward the window.
“I weakened my own language.”
Romy stared.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted the work.”
There it was.
Career fear.
Again.
“Marcus sent regular instructions. Good instructions. Valuable clients. He was one of the few dealers who paid promptly.”
“Fenn Found was a major account.”
“Yes.”
“So you kept the warning but softened the summary.”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“Insufficient independent provenance before current estate.”
Romy remembered the report.
Clean.
Professional.
True.
Not urgent.
“You made a known contradiction sound like ordinary missing paperwork.”
Ruth flinched.
“Yes.”
“And then Marcus used the object publicly.”
“Yes.”
“As the centerpiece of his sponsorship.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
The room went quiet.
Asterleigh’s pattern again.
Everyone protecting the version of events that kept money moving.
Ruth had done it for a reliable client.
Enough.
“Why delete the emails after Sebastian died?” Ellis asked.
Ruth’s face lost colour.
Romy had not known that part.
“When?”
“Saturday morning.”
“After his death Friday night.”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“My laptop and email account.”
“Why?”
“I panicked.”
The word again.
It explained too much without excusing anything.
“I heard police were looking at the panel. I knew Marcus’s catalogue history would be examined. If my full warning surfaced beside my final report, everyone would see that I had allowed my summary to become softer than my actual concerns.”
“So you deleted the correspondence.”
“Yes.”
“Did Marcus ask you to?”
“No.”
“Did he know?”
“No.”
“Did you contact him after the murder?”
“No.”
“Did you enter the Blue Study on preview night?”
“No.”
“Were you at Asterleigh?”
“Only until five forty. I left before the preview.”
Ellis already had that confirmed.
Ruth was falling from murder suspicion even as her professional conduct worsened.
Different guilt.
Still guilt.
“Why 1998 to 2003?” Romy asked.
“That is where the story failed.”
“Halden dispersal in 1998.”
“Yes.”
“Mercer aunt supposedly transfers it in 2001.”
“Yes.”
“But she died in 1999.”