The Final Crumpet (16 page)

Nigel downshifted to take a sharp curve.
“Um…
why do you ask?”

“Hannah described our destination as precious and brilliant. I hope Billingshurst isn’t one of those cutesy towns that competes for the annual most-authentic Elizabethan high street in England prize.”

“I haven’t been there in years, but as I recall, it’s both pretty and quaint. You should enjoy it.”

That’s the truth—well, at least part of it.

He caught a sideways glimpse of Flick; she seemed satisfied. With luck, she wouldn’t remember his incomplete answer when the time came to explain in full the specifics of his failed marriage to Sheila. That would happen soon—if he didn’t mess up their relationship first.

Nigel changed the topic back to the matter at hand. “I’m all for letting an octogenarian attorney ramble about the past today, but I’m curious about your grand strategy for information gathering. Frankly, I remain uncertain as to why we’re driving to Billingshurst. I’m loath to admit it, but I still don’t understand why Sir James Boyer wants—how did Olivia Hart put it—‘a comprehensive explanation of how Etienne Makepeace was connected to the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum.’ ’’

“Really? Yesterday, you behaved like you did.”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t about to act like a total dunce in front of the dragon lady.” He added, “Explain it to me; I’m all yours for the next hour.”

“Okay.” There was a lilt in Flick’s voice. She seemed happy to have an opportunity to lecture Nigel. “Pretend you are Sir James Boyer. What’s your number one concern?”

“I want to be certain that the museum will have the funds to repay the thirty-two-million-pound loan over the next ten years.”

“Correct! Now—you are still Sir James—where do you assume the museum will get the money to repay the loan?”

“I don’t have to assume anything. When I examined the museum’s accounts, I observed that there are two chief sources of incoming money. First, revenues generated by visitors. Second, gifts from wealthy contributors and foundations.”

Nigel’s mind unexpectedly fitted the pieces together. He let the BMW slow to a stop as he steered to the left side of the road, so he could have a proper conversation with Flick.

“Good heavens!” he went on. “Sir James fears a scandal that would impact gift-giving to the museum.”

“Exactly. What if some ugly fact emerges in the years ahead and discourages wealthy people from making contributions to the museum?”

“Can you think of a good ‘for example’?”

“Sure. For example, what if the founding director of the museum—your predecessor, Nathanial Swithin—became jealous of Etienne’s success forty years ago, ordered one of the security guards to shoot him, and then buried the corpse in the tea garden?”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Of course I’m not serious. I came up with an absurd hypothetical example. But let’s say it was true. On the one hand, curious visitors would flock to the museum to see the scene of the crime. On the other hand, we might lose the support of wealthy donors and foundations who would rather support an organization without a tainted past.”

“Sir James really wants to know that the museum is not connected in a scandalous way to Makepeace’s death.”

“That’s the bottom line.”

Nigel edged out into the road and accelerated. “Okay. Presuming you’re right, how do we go about proving a negative? How do we show that the museum didn’t play a part in Makepeace’s demise?”

“We start by finding out everything we can about Etienne Makepeace—including stuff that’s not in the newspapers or police files.”

“Police files? How would you know what information the police have gathered?”

Nigel heard Flick suddenly catch her breath.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Uhh
…I forgot to explain that Detective Inspector Pennyman is working with us. He provided an edited version of his Etienne Makepeace dossier. In return, I agreed to share any significant details we surface.”

Nigel tromped on the brakes. The BMW skidded on gravel before it came to a stop on the verge alongside the road. He and Flick pitched forward against their seat belts.

“You forgot to mention that we—in fact,
you
—made a pact with the police?”

“It’s hardly a
pact.
Pennyman described it as a
quid pro quo.
We’re pooling our knowledge.”

“You’re telling me that DI Pennyman—a man who once threatened to toss you in the nick—agreed to your cockeyed scheme.”

“No!” Flick’s voice had become even louder than Nigel’s.

“I’m telling you that this ‘cockeyed scheme’ was his idea. He came to me and proposed it.”

“Blimey!” Nigel shifted to first gear. “The world has gone mad. Break out the coffee and biscuits.”

Seventy minutes later found them tootling along the Billingshurst high street with Flick perusing a map of the town that she had downloaded from Multimap.com.

“I know that Wyatt lives on Daux Court, a small street not far from the station, but so far I’ve found a Daux Road, a Daux Avenue, and a Daux Way.” Flick pronounced each Daux as “Dough.”

“The locals say
Docks,
not
Dough,”
Nigel said, as he maneuvered around a parked Renault van and a slow-moving Vespa motor scooter. “I believe that Daux Court is a right turn off the high street, about a quarter mile ahead.”

“Got it.” Flick poked the map with her index finger.

“I’m impressed—you can remember a town after such a long time.”

“Navigating is like riding a bicycle—one never really forgets.” He chose his next words carefully.
“Um
—I should have mentioned it earlier, but the fact is, I often visited Billingshurst during the late eighties and early nineties.”

Flick all but ignored Nigel’s partial admission.

“Why not? It looks like a pleasant enough place to visit.”

She slipped the map into the door pocket. “Look—I’ve been thinking. Perhaps you should be the one to ask the first round of questions.”

“Me!
Why?” Nigel said.

“We need Wyatt’s help, but we don’t know anything about his prejudices. He could be a roaring, old-school male chauvinist who’ll get insulted if a woman acts like she’s in charge.”

Nigel sighed. “I’ll do my best—but you had better be prepared to jump in quickly when I run out of questions to ask.”

“It’s a deal.” She pointed ahead. “There it is on the right,
Docks
Court.”

Nigel had feared that parking in Billingshurst would be a challenge, but Clive Wyatt’s house was set on a large plot of land and had a long concrete driveway. Nigel supposed that an estate agent would describe the house as an “early twentieth-century character cottage.” His parents had owned a similar home: two stories, contrasting facing brickwork, small square-paned windows, a steeply pitched tiled roof, enclosed by a neatly trimmed privet hedge. There would almost certainly be a good-sized garden to the rear. Nigel parked the BMW in a wide spot near the top of the driveway.

When he turned off the ignition, Flick exhibited an unexpected burst of enthusiasm. He couldn’t help smiling as she jumped out of the car, plowed through several puddles to reach Wyatt’s front door, and earnestly worked the brass doorknocker. So much for her recently expressed theories on the chauvinistic dispositions of retired British solicitors.

Nigel leaned into the rear of the car and spoke to Cha-Cha. “It’s just gone eleven, old chap. You’re on your own for an hour or so. Treat my genuine-leather backseat as if your life depends on it. I hope you get my meaning.” He noted that the Shiba refused to dignify the threat by raising his head.

When Nigel reached the house, the front door was open and Flick was inside, shaking hands with an elderly man of medium height. Clive Wyatt was thin and seemed remarkably fit. He had alert blue eyes, a darkish complexion, and a sparse fringe of gray hair encircling his mostly bald head. He wore gray slacks, a blue dress shirt without a tie, and a green cardigan. Nigel slipped inside, behind Flick, and shut the door.

“It’s good of you to see us,” Flick was saying, “especially on such short notice.”

“Not at all, Dr. Adams. It’s quite a treat to meet you in the flesh. I read about you in the newspaper when you took up your new post at the museum—last summer, wasn’t it?”

“Early in July.” She put her hand on Nigel’s arm. “Mr. Wyatt, this is Nigel Owen, our new director.”

“My pleasure, sir.” Clive seemed to become puzzled. “I’ve quite forgotten how a museum operates. Does the director report to the chief curator, or is it the other way around?”

“Nigel is wholly in charge,” Flick said.

“Ah yes,” Clive said, “that makes perfect sense.” He gave a slight nod to signal his approval. “Shall we go inside and sit down?”

Nigel followed Flick, who followed Clive down a long entrance hall with a tiled floor. They passed a telephone on a high stand and an open cloak rack built beneath the staircase. Clive led them into a smallish sitting room that was bursting with old upholstered furniture. The room had a bay window, a caved ceiling, and an electric fire glowing cheerfully on the hearth of a Victorian-styled fireplace. All in all, a very
good
room, Nigel decided.

“Knowing you were coming,” Clive said, “I brewed a pot of tea. It’s a rather pleasant Ceylon that I highly recommend. Would you like a cuppa?”

“Tea would be perfect,” Flick said.

“Yes, perfect,” Nigel echoed. It seemed patently useless to ask Wyatt for coffee.

“Sit where you like,” Clive said. “I’ll bring the tea.”

Nigel doubted that any of the chairs or sofas would qualify as an antique. He chose a comfortable-looking winged club chair near the fireplace. Flick sat on an adjacent small sofa.

Clive returned promptly with a tray and poured three mugs of steaming tea from a gleaming round teapot that Nigel guessed was a foot in diameter.

“Where did you get that extraordinary teapot?” Flick asked. “It’s one of the largest I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not surprised you find it unusual,” Clive said. He sat on a straight-backed chair that didn’t look especially comfortable to Nigel. “It was specially made for Bradford and Smythe. This is the teapot we used during the dark ages when the firm sponsored an official tea break every afternoon. It served the entire firm—including our charwoman. A new senior partner abandoned that civilized custom in the mid-1980s. I gave refuge to the crockery that was declared redundant.” He chuckled at his pleasantry and then said to Flick, “Were you able to view the purported corpse of Etienne Makepeace?”

“Well, I saw parts of a skeleton and various personal effects,” she said. “So did Nigel.”

Nigel took a sip of tea: quite hearty, not at all bad. He noted that Clive—obviously a crafty old attorney—had taken control of the conversation. He leaned back, the better to enjoy the show. When, he wondered, would Flick make her move?

Clive grunted. “I presume there’s no doubt that the bones in question belonged to Etienne Makepeace?”

“No. We’ve been told that the police used Makepeace’s old dental records to identify the remains and that they plan to follow up with a DNA test. They seem quite confident.”

“Pity.” Clive shook his head glumly. “I’ve strolled through your tea garden on several occasions. It is altogether too charming a setting for the likes of Mr. Etienne Makepeace.”

“What?” Flick lurched forward. “I mean, what makes you say that?”

“The world considers Makepeace some sort of folk hero because he was an entertaining expert on tea. But those who had the misfortune to meet the man beneath the cheerful facade found an ungrateful lout and a shameless womanizer.”

“My goodness!” Flick said. “My goodness…”

Nigel willed himself not to laugh, not to gloat, and especially not to say,
I told you so.
He’d been right: There had been a less-noble side to England’s Tea Sage.

“Let me explain—and qualify—my remarks,” Clive said.

“Although I never met Etienne Makepeace, I conducted a thorough investigation prior to filing the papers to have him declared legally dead. I interviewed his sisters individually—they all told identical stories, although I challenged them with the fervor of an opposing counsel.

“The three spoke with such venom about Etienne that I pondered if their assertions were a product of sibling jealousy. However, I quickly received corroborating evidence from several other people. Frankly, it was all too easy to find witnesses who would cheerfully testify that Etienne Makepeace was a scoundrel.” He shook his head again. “What I heard from them quite astounded me, let me tell you. His sisters believed for many years that he was done in by a jealous husband.”

No one spoke for several seconds. Nigel decided to break the silence. “I think I know the answer, but did his sisters have a reason for having him declared dead?”

“Surprisingly, their stated reasons varied,” Clive said.