Malice in Miniature (2 page)

“The 'All,” said Ada obscurely, in answer to my question.

“Excuse me?”

“Brocklesby 'All. 'Is new job. Didn't 'ee tell you?”

“He doesn't talk much when he's here—except to tell me I'm watering too much, or not enough, and ask what to plant.” The latter was purely a formality, though I didn't tell Ada so. Bob intends to plant my garden with whatever he wants, and quite right, too, but he is always punctilious about consulting me. I gravely agree to his suggestions; he then puts the already purchased seeds or plants in the ground. We both enjoy the ritual.

Ada nodded, poured herself another cup of tea, and settled back to explain in full. It took a while, what with my interruptions for clarification and her elaborate digressions, but what it amounted to in the end was simple, mystifying, and somewhat disquieting.

Brocklesby Hall, it turned out, was a big country house a mile or two outside Sherebury; I vaguely remembered hearing the name. As these things go in England, it wasn't an old house. There had been a very old manor house on the site, some parts of it pre-Conquest—”built before the Frenchies come and took us all over” was Ada's way of putting it—but when that family died out in the early nineteenth century, the land was bought by a nouveau riche merchant named Brocklesby. “Beer” was Ada's brief explanation of his wealth. He had proceeded to tear down the old house, leaving only a few picturesque bits of wall for instant ruins, as was the fashion in those days. In its place he had erected a fantastic testimony to what bad taste, allied to a huge bankroll and a monstrous ego, could perpetrate.

Not that Ada put it that way, of course. She had long admired the place as the grandest house in the neighborhood, bigger and more elaborate even than the manor house where the ancestral squires of Sherebury had lived, and when Bob went to work at the Hall she had basked in reflected glory and acquired guidebooks and a set of postcards, which she now proceeded to take out of her carryall and show me. I got the idea very quickly.

The house was built with fifty bedrooms (pure ostentation, that sounded like; Ada said Brocklesby had been a bachelor who almost never entertained), countless drawing rooms and ballrooms and galleries and halls, and one bathroom. Nobody, except possibly the servants who had to look after them, had counted the fireplaces, or the windows.

Every surface, every angle that could possibly bear carvings or embellishments had been so adorned; those that couldn't had been painted or gilded. Ceilings were fitted out with carved plaster and peopled with hovering nymphs and cupids cavorting among painted clouds. Staircases, inside and out, were guarded by lions—stone ones, and wood, and plaster. Nowhere was the eye allowed to rest and draw breath, so to speak; everywhere it was urged on: Yes, but just look at
this!

“It's—amazing,” I said weakly, when she had finished showing me the pictures, head cocked to one side to invite comment. “I can't imagine how I've missed seeing it.”

“You want to go out in the summer when the gardens is at their best. At least . . .”

She trailed off, her face threatening to crumple again, and I hurried into the breach. “Yes, well, so Bob got a job there. Who does he work for? Who owns the house now?”

“It's a Brocklesby, still, though I don't know as 'ee didn't change 'is name to that when 'ee come into the inheritance. 'Ee's a cousin of a cousin or somefink. The old geezer wot built it never 'ad no children—wot 'ee would own to—so it went to 'is brother's son, and it's been like that, down the years. 'Ardly never passin' straight down, but sideways, like. They don't run to marriage in that family. They all 'as their peculiarities, like, and this one—Sir Mordred, 'ee is—'ee's the most peculiar of the lot.”

Mordred? What a very odd name. Perhaps I'd misunderstood; Ada's accent broadens under the influence of stress. I'd ask Alan later; just now I was more interested in Sir Whatever's eccentricities. “Peculiar how?”

“'Ee plays with toys. A grown man, and 'ee's sixty if 'ee's a day, spending all 'is time with fiddly little bits o' dolls' furniture and that. That's wot 'ee does to keep the 'ouse runnin'. They all 'as to 'ave somethin', don't they, to draw the tourists. They turns it over to the National Trust, or builds a zoo on the grounds, or claims it's 'aunted so the coach tours'll come. And Sir Mordred, 'ee 'as this collection of dolls' 'ouses, so when 'ee comes into this 'uge old 'ouse, 'ee brings 'em all in and sets up a Miniature Museum, and charges five quid a 'ead to see 'em.”

“Five pounds! That's a lot, just to see a few dollhouses.”

“Well, and there's the 'All itself, isn't there? And it ain't only a few bits. 'Ee 'as 'undreds of 'em, I reckon, all with furniture, and rugs and curtains and crockery and that, and some with dolls, too, queer stiff little 'uns. I seen some of 'em. Bob showed me. They was out in one o' the barns, where the old—where Sir Mordred was workin' on 'em, repairin' 'em and that. But we never touched nuffink, and Bob, 'ee don't know 'ow that tea set come to be in 'is pocket!”

We had come to the crux of it, finally. “Ah,' a tea set. That's what Bob is accused of stealing, then? It seems like they're making a lot of fuss over a toy.”

“It's old,” said Ada. “Couple of 'undred years. Severs.”

I blinked. “What severs what?”

“Severs china. You know. French.”

It took me a moment, but I got it. “Oh, Sèvres! My word, you mean a miniature Sèvres tea set? I didn't know they ever made miniatures. How small?”

“I only seen it out in the barn, that once. It were in a 'ouse wot was being worked on. I'd reckon the tray is so big.” Ada held her fingers about three inches apart. “And there's a china pot and sugar bowl and milk jug and all, and cups and saucers and even little silver spoons.”

“Hmmm. Well, it sounds interesting, anyway. And it was found in Bob's pocket? What made anyone look?”

“I dunno. 'Ee didn't tell me when 'ee rung me up. 'Ee just said they found it, and said as 'ee were pinchin' it, and called the p'lice. But 'ee never!”

“Well, that's all right then,” I said briskly. “You don't need to worry. We know Bob didn't really take it, so he'll be fine.”

“But 'ow did it get in 'is pocket?” Ada wailed. “'Ee says 'ee never put it there, and 'ee's never lied in 'is life. 'Ee 'as 'is faults, as I won't deny, but a liar 'ee ain't.”

“That's the question, isn't it? And, Ada, I hate to say it, but the only answer I can think of is, somebody wanted to get Bob into trouble. So the question really is, who? And why?”

T
hat doesn't necessarily have to be the case, you know,” said Alan. We were sitting at the kitchen table that evening, finishing pie and coffee and rehashing Bob's dilemma.

I had finally managed to reassure Ada, promised I would look into Bob's difficulties as soon as I could, and sent her home somewhat comforted. I had offered to drive her, but she had refused.

“You 'ates to drive; I'll be all right on me own.”

“Maybe Alan—” I began, but she shook her head.

“Ta, but I don't want me neighbors to see me comin' 'ome with a p'liceman. It's one thing for Bob to be in jail. 'Ee's been there before now, sleepin' it off. But I never had no truck with no p'lice, and when all's said and done Mr. Alan's a p'liceman, even if 'ee is ever so high up.”

Alan, although as high in rank as one could get in police administration, and very near retirement, is indeed a policeman. I smiled now, thinking of Ada's equating him with a constable on the beat, likely to disgrace her by association—Alan, who was on a first-name basis with the Dean and the Lord Mayor, among other Sherebury luminaries.

“What's funny?” he asked.

I told him, and he smiled, too. “She's right, though. A policeman I am and a policeman I remain, no matter how many years I've spent away from a beat. And I say again, you may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It's far more likely that someone else was stealing the tea set, had it in his hand, lost his nerve for some reason, and shoved it into Bob's pocket.”

I frowned. “Alan, I really don't think so. Did I forget to tell you the thing was out in one of the barns? Apparently Brocklesby has set up a sort of workshop out there for repairing the houses and furnishings. They'd need work constantly, I should think, as tiny and fragile as they must be. But the thing is, what would anyone who didn't belong there be doing in the barn? The security must be pretty good, if the collection has any genuine value. The insurance people would require it, or they would in America, anyway.”

“Oh, British underwriters are quite as security-minded as American ones, I assure you. Especially in recent years, since so many of Lloyd's underwriters lost their well-stuffed shirts in various disasters. So you're right; it makes a big difference that the theft was from a nonpublic area. But what could anyone have against a harmless soul like Bob Finch? He's surely never hurt anyone in his life.”

“No, even in his cups he never picks fights, according to Ada. Just gets a bit lively and sings, she says. Maybe he kept someone staying in a pub awake too many nights.” I smiled a little, trying to rid myself of a nagging sense of unease.

“Or piled up too big a tab for the publican's liking,” Alan suggested gravely. “Or offended a brewery owner by drinking too much of the competitor's product. Although it is a trifle difficult to imagine what benefit any of those affronted parties would derive from Bob's arrest and incarceration. Dorothy, nothing makes sense, to be brutally honest, except to suppose that Bob lost his head and actually took the wretched thing!”

“And that makes no sense either,” I argued, “even if one were prepared to suppose Bob would have done such a thing, which I am not. What would Bob do with a miniature tea set? He has no children. His mother is far too practical to want any such thing. And as for profiting from it—assuming it has some substantial value, which seems unlikely—how could Bob sell it? Let's suppose, for the sake of the argument, that it's rare enough to be worth a lot. In that case it'd be known to any dealer. Nobody reputable would touch it, and if you're going to suggest that Bob is involved with a network of professional fences, I simply refuse to listen!”

I finished a little more heatedly than I had intended. Alan grinned and put his hand over mine. “Always the defender of the underdog, aren't you, my dear? Very well, Bob is as pure as the driven snow, and as his mother says, 'ee never done it. That gets us back to where we began. Who did, and why?”

“At the moment, I don't have the foggiest idea. I only know I don't like the smell of it I really think I'll have to go out there and get the lay of the land, and then maybe I can come up with some ideas. It sounds like an incredible place.”

“It must be seen to be believed.” Alan pushed his chair back from the table and stretched. “And even then, the mind boggles. I've not been since I was a boy, when the old sinner asked my family to tea for some reason, but I distinctly recall having nightmares for weeks afterward. I do hope, my love, that you don't expect me to accompany you.”

I squeezed his hand and stood up to clear the dishes. “Not on your life; you'd cramp my style. Once a p'liceman, always a p'liceman, remember? People see you coming and instantly try to remember how many parking tickets they've ignored, or wonder if someone saw them driving that night when they were a little sloshed. Nobody would say a word to me if you were around. No, but I would appreciate your driving me out, if there are more than two roundabouts between here and there.” Driving in England is
my
nightmare; I've lived here well over a year now, but it doesn't seem to get easier.

“Driving lessons, first thing in the new year,” said Alan firmly. “Until then, of course I'll drive you, and come to fetch you as well. I doubt anyone at the Hall would recognize me, but I'm delighted to have an excuse not to go.” There was a pause. “I suppose you'd like me to see what's being done about Bob, meanwhile?”

I ignored the hesitation. “Ada and I would be very grateful,” I said demurely, trying for an impish smile. It was evidently close enough; Alan grinned, stood, and gathered me up in a bear hug, and what we did for the rest of the evening has no bearing on this story. The dishes did not get washed.

In the morning Alan went off to his office as usual, but phoned a little later to say that Bob had not been charged, after all, partly because the police were inclined to believe his story, and partly because Brocklesby, with a change of heart, had decided he preferred not to pursue the matter. “He was upset at the time, he said, but the little trinket came to no harm, and perhaps some mistake was made, after all. And Bob had always been a good worker, and he was prepared to overlook the incident.”

“Alan, that's very odd!” I said. “Why did he make such a fuss about it to begin with, then? And Ada mentioned something about his suspecting Bob of other thefts as well. You'd think he'd follow up. It's good news, I suppose, at least for Bob and Ada. But I'm still going to go out there. Something's going on, and I want to find out what.”

“I must say,” Alan remarked, “it's something of a relief to find you looking into something as frivolous as the theft of a toy instead of your usual murder and mayhem. I just hope—well, never mind. I asked my secretary to check the hours of the museum; it's open every day but Monday from ten to six, and they serve tea. Shall I run you out after lunch, and meet you for whatever miserable fare they offer, at about—say, four or so?”

“Museum food—ugh! We can take a look, anyway, but if it's too awful we'll go to Alderney's.” The tea shop in the Cathedral Close is one of our favorite places, a constant threat to my efforts to keep my plumpness from turning to plain old fat. On the days that I volunteer at the Cathedral Bookshop I'm all too apt to stop in at Alderney's for a bite before and/or after work. One of these days all those cream cakes are going to do me in. It might be wiser to have thin sandwiches and stale scones at Brocklesby Hall, after all.