“Here’s a pretty how-d’ ye-do!” he said. “Mr. Jameson, the Chief Inspector’d take it kindly if you’d get him a list of all the coppers seconded to the museum, and he’d like a word with you when he’s finished with them two in there.”
“Right you are, Mr. Tring. Only thing is, with one of my men posted at the entrance here …”
“Don’t worry about that. Detective Constable Ross is on his way and he’ll take over there. Oh, and Mr. Fletcher wants the keys to the doors to this gallery. It’ll have to be locked up till further notice, I’m afraid.”
“No skin off my nose. Er, Mr. Tring, the Chief Inspector doesn’t blameus,does he?”
“You do the best you can with what you’ve got, don’t you?” Tom Tring said, a trifle evasively to Daisy’s ears. “He might have a suggestion or two about safety measures after he’s talked to you and seen what’s what.”
Looking as unhappy as Grange, Jameson trailed off.
“Doesthe Chief blame the museum police?” Daisy asked. “For not preventing the robbery, that is. I don’t see how he can for the murder.”
“Not to say blame. Time enough for recriminations when we know how it was done. Now, Miss Dalrymple, the Chief says he hopes you’re done here for today and he won’t keep you, but seeing when the discovery was made you were on the spot …”
“As usual,” put in Daisy with a sigh. “I bet he said ‘as usual.’”
Tring twinkled at her. “That’d be telling. He wants to talk to you about just what was said between the Grand Duke and Mr. Grange before we arrived. He’ll ring up when he’s done here—no knowing when that’ll be, I’m afraid—and he’ll come round to your house.”
“Tell him ‘right-oh,’ please, Mr. Tring. I’ll be there.”
“Cheer up. He could have told me to take a statement from you.”
“Thus depriving himself of a chance to tick me off,” said Daisy gloomily.
Walking homeward, she started to wonder again about a possible connection between the theft and the murder. It seemed altogether too much of a coincidence that the burglary in the Mineralogy Gallery should be uncovered within a couple of days of its Keeper being bumped off. The obvious answer was that Pettigrew died because he had noticed the substitution of false for real gems.
Yet if so, why had he not reported the theft to the police? He could have rung up on the telephone in his office. Or supposing he wanted to go in person to the museum police post, the direct way was through the fossil mammal gallery, not the reptile gallery.
Had he somehow worked out who the thief was? Had he arranged to meet him among the reptiles (an unlikely spot, Daisy thought, unless Mummery was the villain), or had he been on his way to confront the culprit and happened to encounter him?
Either would point to someone in the Geology Department being the cause of his sudden death.
What exactly had his last words …
“Watch out, miss!” A helpful hand jerked Daisy back from sudden death beneath the wheels of an omnibus.
She decided to postpone further pondering until she reached the quiet streets nearer home, but Pettigrew’s words, as reported by Katy and Jennifer, popped into her head: “You think you’re so clever, but I know how it was done.” They had assumed he was referring to the flint-chipping business, but he might equally well have meant the theft of a fortune in jewels.
Or the thief, labouring under a guilty conscience, might have thought so.
Daisy wished she knew whether the flint which killed Pettigrew had been shaped by his own hand or that of some Neolithic hunter. Had the weapon which killed him been wrested from him in a panic or brought to the meeting with malice aforethought? Or had the murderer happened to have it on him when he met the mineralogist, which would point inexorably to Witt or ffinch-Brown?
Not ffinch-Brown. His involvement with fossils was peripheral, and Pettigrew had addressed his assailant as a fossilized fool—or something similar. The murderer was surely someone in the Geology Department.
And the thief?
With this question as unanswered as the rest, Daisy somehow reached home unsquashed. She found Lucy down in the kitchen, heating up tinned oxtail soup for lunch.
“Mmm, that smells good. I’ll make some toast.”
“Not for me, darling. Mrs. Potter brought me a biscuit with my elevenses tea and I actually ate it. I shan’t be able to get into any of my clothes.”
“That’s the trouble with being fashionable.” Daisy took out a loaf and cut a couple of slices, saying defensively, “Ishan’t butter them. Darling, what do you know about Queen Vic and rubies?”
Lucy, though she had defied her family to take up a career in photography, remained much more interested than Daisy in the customs and quirks of the upper echelons of society. “Queen Victoria and rubies?” she said. “What on earth … ? Oh, is it something to do with your dashing Grand Duke? Daisy, he isn’t mixed up in the museum murder, is he? Too, too frightful!”
“Sort of.” The newspapers would undoubtedly report the jewel theft tomorrow, if not this afternoon, but she didn’t want Alec to be able to blame her for breaking the news. “I’d just like to know a bit more about the subject.”
