Daisy was about to follow when she noticed a white blob at the foot of the ladder. It was a handkerchief, embroidered with an elaborate crest, holding several gems embedded in some sort of putty. She was reaching to pick it up when heavy footsteps raced towards her from behind.
“What’s happened?” cried Constable Neddle. “Where’s Sergeant Jameson?”
“They went thataway,” said Daisy, pointing. The picture-shows her brother used to drag her to in Ludlow, before the War, had often included William S. Hart cowboy films.
Neddle galloped off in hot pursuit. Daisy realized that the Grand Duke’s way was blocked by the work room and Geological Library. From invertebrates, he would have to go out into the reptile gallery. She hurried back to the dinosaurs’ main entrance arch, and stepped out into reptiles just as Jameson—still whistling—emerged from invertebrates.
However, instead of doubling back, Rudolf Maximilian had turned left. He was a vague shadow at the far end of the reptile gallery. Jameson tore after him. Daisy followed, meeting Neddle at the invertebrate entrance and continuing at his side.
Rudolf led them through the hall at the end, back along the mammal gallery, and into the Central Hall, now a somber cavern. There he headed for the main staircase, but as he reached the foot, Sergeant Drummond appeared at the top, a hazy figure in the intruding fog. The Grand Duke raced on under the arches to the North Hall, where he disappeared into the eastern enclosed staircase. Jameson, Neddle, and Drummond streamed after him.
Constable Mason, scarcely recognizable in the all-pervadinggloom, came out of the stairs on the west side of the hall, roared “What … ?” and joined the hunt.
Daisy did not fancy running up stairs. She knew the North Hall stairs were closed to the public above the first floor, so she went back to stand at the foot of the main staircase, looking up.
A moment later, the Grand Duke arrived at the top of the main stairs, apparently intending to descend. He saw Daisy at the bottom, changed his mind, and sped on along the giraffe gallery, still going strong, intermittently visible between the pillars.
Drummond led the pursuers now, Mason at his heels, Jameson and Neddle beginning to flag. From below, Daisy watched them chase Rudolf to the upper stairs. He took the lower flight two at a time, but he was panting now. Mason leapt up after him, Drummond trotted, the other two policemen stumbled behind. No matter, Rudolf would be trapped on the second floor.
But he didn’t go on up. Loping across the half landing, he went down the opposite flight, and turned right to return through the British Nesting Birds.
Where he was aiming for, Daisy could not guess. There was no way out of the museum for him. Yet as long as the idiotic police failed to spread out and head him off, they would never catch him—as long as any of them was capable of movement. Everyone’s speed had slowed considerably.
However, the Grand Duke, unlike the policemen, was young, slim, and desperate. He just might get far enough ahead to lose them temporarily. In that case he might conceivably double back to pick up the jewels, in the surely vain hope of hiding and somehow eluding searchers. He had, after all, hidden well enough not to be ejected from the museum when it closed.
The hunt disappeared into the passage leading back past the Refreshment Room to the stairs down to the North Hall—or round and back to the giraffes. Daisy decided to return to the dinosaur gallery.
That she had been astonished to see Rudolf Maximilian retrieving the jewels from the dinosaurs was the understatement of the year. His credentials as murderer were excellent, but he failed dismally as a burglary candidate. Could he have been in league with someone? Randell the junior mineralogy assistant, perhaps?
The theft would have been comparatively easy for Randell, but Daisy could not see why he needed the Grand Duke’s help. Still less likely was it that either of them should hide the loot among the dinosaurs. No, the dinosaur man had to be involved. For some inscrutable reason, Steadman was in league with Rudolf.
So which of them was the murderer?
Passing the Pareiasaurus in its ghostly white shroud, Daisy once again entered the dinosaur gallery. The Diplodocus loomed creepily, its tail scarcely visible in the shadows eighty-five feet away. She wished she knew where the light switch was.
The tick-tock of her footsteps was the only, eerie sound. Then, from close behind her, came a creakingcr-r-rack.
She started to turn.
The blow caught her on the side of the head. In an explosion of pain, she had time for one astonished thought:Attacked by a dinosaur?before she sank into darkness.
15
Beneath a wide mackerel sky, Dartmoor was pink with heather, spotted here and there with the gold of late-blooming gorse, the emerald of bog grass. On either side of the narrow, hedgeless road, hillsides rolled up to the tors. It was not difficult to imagine long-gone giants heaping up those great piles of granite for purposes unknown and unknowable.
Tring was driving. He had to slow to a near stop now and then while sheep made up their tiny minds whether to vacate the roadway in favour of the noisy intruder. The wild ponies had no doubts. They scattered at the Austin’s approach.
Declining in the west, the sun painted the striated clouds in tones of rose and primrose. It could do nothing to brighten the grimness of His Majesty’s Prison at Princetown, a stark contrast to the smiling face of nature.
“Poor devils,” Alec observed.
“We put some of ’em there, Chief,” Tom protested, “and not without good reason. Better than the long jump.”
“I’m not so certain of that. Death can be a merciful release. Hanging is more of an offence against society than against the wretches we hang.”
Tom, who didn’t consider hanging an offence against anything or anyone, maintained a stubborn silence.
“We teach by example that violence is an acceptable solution. It fails as a deterrent, because most murders are committed in a moment of unthinking passion or panic. Take the present case. Pettigrew, who was a large and intimidating man, made what was taken as a verbal threat, and very likely waved the flint weapon in a threatening manner. The murderer seized it from him. He probably lunged forward to grab it back.”
