Malice in Miniature (7 page)

“Are the two girls your only help in the house, Mrs. Lathrop? Aside from Mrs. Hawes, I mean? This seems a very large house to run with so few . . .” I ran down. Mrs. Lathrop's gray gimlet eyes were regarding me bleakly.

“The young persons to whom you refer are indeed the sole indoor
staff
whom I
supervise
, madam,” she replied. “I do not, of course, know what sort of household you are accustomed to in America,”—she made it sound like a third-world country—“but in the household of a gentleman like Sir Mordred a housekeeper does not do the dusting herself. I'm sure you will excuse me.” She picked up several scones, dropped them into her pocket, and stalked off, once more banging the kitchen door against the wall. It swung creakily for several seconds after she left, back and forth, back and forth.

“Goodness,” I finally said when I was sure she wasn't coming back. “It's a wonder the door has survived. What set her off, Meg? Was it calling the maids ‘girls'? I didn't mean anything demeaning, it's just that they're so young. Or is a small staff somehow a reflection on her status—”

“No, no,” Meg said, her shoulders beginning to shake. “No, it was your calling them ‘help.' It implied that she, Mrs. Lathrop, actually did some of the work herself, whereas—”

She succumbed to a fit of silent laughter, finally blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. She looked furtively at the other table and almost collapsed again.

“Look how scandalized Mrs. Hawes is! She'll tell Mrs. Lathrop I laughed at her, and then the Lathrop may really get me sacked. At the very least, she'll make sure life won't be worth living around here for quite a while.”

“And when was it ever?” growled the gardener. He pushed back his chair with a loud scrape and followed Mrs. Lathrop out the door.

W
ell, what did you think of all that?” I demanded as Alan and I made our way back up the long Brocklesby Hall drive.

He was silent for a moment, frowning as he eased the car up the muddy, rutted lane. “I've not changed my opinion of the house,” he said at last. “Quite definitely nightmare material. And—there are undercurrents, wouldn't you say?”

“Tidal waves, I'd call them. Not being given to English understatement.” I told him about Claude, and Meg's fear of him. “It would be a help to know why,” I said, glancing meaningfully at his profile. “She implied he'd been in trouble—I assume with the police. I wouldn't mind knowing where he was yesterday, either.”

Alan nodded. “I could find out, probably, at least about his record. What else struck you?”

“Well, the household is an odd sort of setup, don't you think? Sir Mordred must be a real tightwad to run the place on such a mingy little staff.”

“I suspect he spends every penny on that collection of his.”

“Oh, yes, Meg said as much, come to think of it. You know, Alan, I'd forgotten how passionate collectors can be, and how single-minded. It's almost frightening. I'm sure he loves his miniatures more than anything else—or anyone.”

“Mrs. Lathrop thinks so, too,” said Alan, nosing the car out past the huge clumps of dripping rhododendrons and craning his head both ways before turning onto the main road.

“Mrs. Lathrop! What d'you mean?”

“Didn't you notice? If there does not beat beneath that ample bosom the throbbing pulse of unrequited love, my years of training in observation have been in vain.”

“Goodness! What
have
you been reading, Barbara Cartland? You could just be right, though, even if your prose has turned somewhat purple. I thought that little outburst of hers was just a demonstration of authority, but it makes more sense your way. And it could be one reason why she's so hateful to Meg—who represents, to Mrs. Lathrop, the collection, the rival for Sir Mordred's affections.”

Alan smiled indulgently at my piece of two-bit psychology and slowed down for an especially large and threatening puddle that stretched across the narrow road.

“But really, Alan, what an unlikely romance! I'm not at all sure he's interested in women, for one thing, and when I saw the two of them together, he acted scared half to death of her.” I started to giggle. “Oh, Alan, if you'd
seen
him! He's about half her size. The picture of them in a tender embrace—his arms wouldn't go around her, and his nose would end up somewhere near her—” I collapsed in helpless giggles.

“At any rate,” I said when I could speak again, “if
la belle
Lathrop cherishes a secret infatuation for the lord of the manor, she's wasting her time being jealous of Meg, who's in love with the gardener.”

“That's one
I
didn't notice.”

“Aha! You didn't have the advantage I did, though—you didn't see them quarreling together. But that involvement aside, Meg made it discreetly obvious that she has very little use for Sir Mordred. She's conscientious about her job, and he's absentminded, always forgetting to tell her about new acquisitions. He also offends her ideas about proper curatorial practice by actually fixing houses that need fixing, and replacing furniture that's disappeared.

“By the way, apropos of nothing, why didn't you want them to know who you are?”

“Obeying your implicit commands, my dear. As you said, people dry up in front of a policeman.”

“Oh, yes, I'd forgotten. Well, but they didn't exactly stream with information for me, either. I got a sort of basic picture of the peculiar inhabitants of Brocklesby Hall, but I didn't learn a thing about ‘The Case of the Missing Miniatures.'”

I settled comfortably into telling Alan all about it. One of the very nicest things about a good marriage is having someone to tell all about it, whatever “it” is.

“Sir M. took me around the museum himself, and I admit I did find it intriguing. The only dollhouses I've ever seen have been rather crude, just toys for children. I'd never realized they could be so detailed, with such fine workmanship. Some of the room settings are so perfect you forget you're seeing something small. They need a thimble or something in a corner to remind you of the scale.

“Anyway, I've got half a notion to buy a dollhouse and start furnishing it. It might be fun. Do you suppose one of your granddaughters would like such a thing as a Christmas present?”

I thought I was being subtle, but Alan grinned at me. “Michelle is the youngest, as you know perfectly well. She's thirteen, and interested only in horses and dogs, according to Beth's latest bulletin. Boys will be entering the field any day now, but dolls' houses—no. You're looking for an excuse to go back to the Hall.”

“Well—they must have a shop, all museums do, and poking around
would
give me a chance to ask a few more questions. I honestly think I'd enjoy the project, though. I can probably buy a house there, but I'll have to try to make most of the furniture and stuff myself, because he—Sir M.—said it's terribly expensive. Almost a thousand pounds for the best pieces. A
thousand pounds
, Alan—and for modem work!”

Alan whistled.

“And listen to this. The tea set Bob was accused of stealing is historical—owned by Marie Antoinette, no less— and it's apparently worth a
lot,
although Sir M. wouldn't tell me how much.”

“Did he mention the tea set, or did you?”

“He did, more or less in passing. We were talking about the value of the collection, and he brought it up just as I was trying to think of a way to work it into the conversation. Difficult, since I wasn't supposed to know about it. Anyway, I tried to get him to talk about the supposed theft, but all he would say was that it was a misunderstanding. No details.”

“What about the other pieces he claims have been stolen?”

“He did just allude to them, but in general, nothing specific.” I frowned, trying to remember. “I was about to pursue it, as I recall, when the gorgon appeared on the scene, and then nasty Claude, and I forgot about it. But I honestly don't see how it could be done, stealing, I mean, and incidentally, neither does Meg. All the houses and room settings and so on are—sort of fenced in, with glass or plastic, and there are alarms. I expect the alarms could be defeated somehow—they always can, if a thief knows enough about technology—but surely nobody would bother to do all that and then take one tea set, or whatever, no matter how valuable the piece might be. They'd clean out the whole shebang, or just steal house and all.”

“Hmmm. Then it either had to be done from the workrooms, or—you didn't see them, did you?”

“No, Sir Mordred offered, but that was something else that got sidetracked. Come to think of it, that offer was an odd thing, from a security standpoint. I'm a total stranger.”

“But an American, don't forget. A certain kind of Englishman often dismisses Americans as negligible.” He smiled blandly, his eyes fixed firmly on the road, and ignored my punch at his arm. “Actually, it doesn't altogether surprise me that he made the offer. It fits in very nicely with my second thought.”

I waited until he had negotiated a particularly hairy double roundabout. “Okay, I'll bite. What second thought?”

“That puts me one ahead again, Sherlock! I think—in fact, I'm reasonably sure, now I've seen the setup—Sir Mordred is stealing the miniatures himself.”

“But—oh. For the insurance, you mean?”

“Probably. I don't think the economy he practices in the running of his house is entirely a matter of eccentricity. The place looks to me as though it needs a large infusion of cash; Sir Mordred may have decided he had a clever way to find some. He planted the tea set in poor Bob Finch's pocket to plant
him
in the minds of us overworked and none-too-bright policemen, so that when a major theft was discovered, we'd have a ready-made culprit. He was even ready to show his workrooms to you, an innocent American, so that you could testify, later, to how easily something could be taken away from them. Quick conviction, no complications, large cash deposit to the credit of his precious museum.”

“Ye-es,” I said slowly, thinking hard. “His mind might work that way. Stupid people often assume others are no brighter than they are. And of course he, of all people, would know exactly where to sell the stuff. He couldn't sell it openly, but I'll bet there are unscrupulous collectors in the miniature world just as there are in the world of full-scale art, people who'll buy what they want and no questions asked. And Sir Mordred would know who they are.”

“Exactly.”

I lapsed into a brooding silence. We had reached home before either of us spoke again.

“I suppose you're going to have to look into it.”

“I'll notify the Fraud Squad, certainly. They can investigate quietly into Sir Mordred's recent insurance claims and report back.”

“It seems almost a pity,” I said, pausing before getting out of the car. “He's rather an interesting little man, in his peculiar way, and he hasn't hurt anybody. Except Bob, and that only briefly.”

“And his insurers, don't forget them. So many people think of insurance fraud as a victimless crime, but it actually damages everyone whose rates go up. Or who can no longer find insurance, because no one will take the risk.”

“You're right,” I said with a sigh. “And it's a sleazy sort of crime, anyway. Nasty, underhanded, slinking— especially when an innocent like Bob Finch is set up to take the fall. I guess I don't like Sir M. so well after all. But—you will check out Claude Lathrop, too, won't you?”

“I'll try, though I doubt he's involved in this particular caper. He sounds a nasty bit of work, though, and I'd just as soon have his measure if he's to be lurking on my patch.”

I got out of the car and dashed through the rain into the house while Alan maneuvered the car into the tiny garage. When he had come in and dried off, he poured us both a chill-chaser dose of Jack Daniel's and we settled in front of the fire in our favorite squashy armchairs.

“There's a flaw in your reasoning,” I said suddenly.

“Yes?”

“We've talked about what a wild-eyed fanatic Sir Mordred is about miniatures. Could he bear to part with anything in the collection, even for lots of money?”

“Good point. Perhaps his cash-flow problem is temporary and he planned to buy them back later when things were better. Or perhaps he didn't plan to spend the money on Brocklesby Hall, but on another whatnot of some sort, still more marvelous than the ones he had to dispose of.”

“Maybe. But here's another thing. If he needs money and is willing to get it by getting rid of stuff, why doesn't he just sell it openly? It belongs to him, after all. Why the sneaking around?”

“Ah, that's an easy one; you're not thinking, my dear. The insurance company would pay him full insured value—
and
he'd have whatever he managed to get for the things from his—er—customer. He'd probably realize only a fraction of that if he sold the items at auction.”

“Umm.” I took a sip of my drink. “Alan, this isn't as much fun as I thought it would be.”

“Crime isn't often fun, love.”

“No, but this one ought to be. I feel cheated. I mean, a weird old house filled with dollhouses, Santa's helper, the theft of a tiny tea set—it sounds like a cross between Nancy Drew and the Brothers Grimm.”

“Ah, yes, but you're forgetting that the Brothers Grimm—”

“—were pretty grim,” I finished with a groan. “That one wasn't funny the first time somebody said it, which was a
long
time ago.”

Alan heaved himself out of his chair, topped up our drinks, and kissed me, which is a very effective way to deal with a pout.

It took nearly a week for all the information Alan had requested to be assembled. English police are very thorough and methodical. I also gathered from Alan's cryptic remarks that the Fraud detail were more interested in investigating actual cases than possible ones, and that if it hadn't been the chief constable asking they might have taken a good deal longer.