The Murder Room (39 page)

All eyes turned to Muriel. She said, “I doubt whether I'd have known her if I had seen her arriving. Perhaps she'd have recognized me and said something, but it's unlikely. I can't remember her so why should she remember me? She didn't come in while I was on the desk.”

Dalgliesh said, “Presumably Swathling's have a name and an address for Miss Mellock's mother. Would you telephone the college, please, and ask for it?”

It was obvious that the request was unwelcome. Caroline said, “Won't that seem a little unusual? The girl left last year and after only two terms.”

“And the records are destroyed so quickly? Surely not. There's no need to speak to Lady Swathling. Ask one of the secretaries to look up the file. Aren't you the joint Principal? Why shouldn't you ask for any information you need?”

Still she hesitated. “Can't you discover it another way? It's not as if the girl's death has anything to do with Swathling's.”

“We don't yet know what it has to do with. Celia Mellock was a student at Swathling's, you are the joint Principal, she's been found dead in your museum.”

“If you put it like that.”

“I do put it like that. We need to inform the next of kin. There are other ways of finding their address but this is the quickest.”

Caroline made no further objection. She lifted the telephone receiver.

“Miss Cosgrove? I need the address and telephone number of Celia Mellock's mother. The file is in the left-hand cabinet, the ex-student section.”

The wait lasted a full minute, then Caroline noted down the information and handed it to Dalgliesh. He said, “Thank you,” and handed it to Kate. “See if you can make an appointment as soon as possible.”

Kate needed no instruction to make the call outside the cottage on her mobile. The door closed behind her.

The gloom of the early morning had lifted but there was no sun and the wind was chill. Kate decided to make the phone call from her car. The address was in Brook Street and the call was answered by the unctuous voice of someone who was obviously a member of the staff. Lady Holstead and her husband were at their house in Bermuda. He was not authorized to give the number.

Kate said, “This is Detective Inspector Miskin of New Scotland Yard. If you wish to verify my identity, I can give you a number to ring. I would prefer that we don't waste time. I need urgently to speak to Sir Daniel.”

There was a pause. The voice said, “Will you please hold on a minute, Inspector?”

Kate heard the sound of footsteps. Thirty seconds later the voice spoke again and gave the Bermudian number, repeating it carefully.

Kate rang off and thought for a moment before making the second call. But there was no option; the news would have to be quickly given by telephone. Bermuda was probably about four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. The call might be inconveniently early, but surely not unreasonably so. She dialled and was answered almost immediately.

A man's voice came over, sharp and indignant. “Yes? Who is it?”

“This is Detective Inspector Kate Miskin of New Scotland Yard. I need to speak to Sir Daniel Holstead.”

“Holstead speaking. And it's a particularly inconsiderate hour to ring. What is it? Not another attempted break-in at the London flat?”

“Are you alone, Sir Daniel?”

“I'm alone. I want to know what the hell this is about.”

“It's about your stepdaughter, Sir Daniel.”

Before Kate could go on, he broke in. “And what in God's name has she been up to now? Look, my wife isn't any longer responsible for her and I never was. The girl is nineteen, she leads her own life, she's got her own flat. She must cope with her own problems. She's been nothing but trouble to her mother from the day she could speak. What is it now?”

It was apparent that Sir Daniel was not at his sharpest in the early morning. That fact could have its uses.

Kate said, “I'm afraid it's bad news, Sir Daniel. Celia Mellock has been murdered. Her body was found earlier this morning in the Dupayne Museum, Hampstead Heath.”

The silence was so complete that Kate wondered whether she had been heard. She was about to speak when Holstead said, “Murdered? How murdered?”

“She was throttled, Sir Daniel.”

“You're telling me that Celia has been found throttled in a museum? This isn't some kind of sick joke?”

“I'm afraid not. You can verify the information by telephoning the Yard. We thought it best to speak to you first so that you can break the news to your wife. I'm sorry. This must be a terrible shock.”

“My God it is! We'll fly back today by the company jet. Not that there's anything useful we can tell you. Neither of us has seen Celia for the past six months. And she never phones. No reason why she should, I suppose. She's got her own life. She's always made it plain what she thought of any interference from her mother and me. I'll go now and break the news to Lady Holstead. I'll let you know when we arrive. You've no idea yet who did it, I suppose?”

“Not at present, Sir Daniel.”

“No suspect? No obvious boyfriend? Nothing?”

“Not at present.”

“Who's in charge? Do I know him?”

“Commander Adam Dalgliesh. He'll come to see you and your wife when you get back. We may have a little more information then.”

“Dalgliesh? The name's familiar. I'll ring the Commissioner when I've spoken to my wife. You could have broken the news with more consideration. Goodbye, Inspector.”

Before Kate could speak, the receiver had been banged down. He had a point, she thought. Had she broken the news of the murder immediately, she wouldn't have heard that small outburst of rancour. She knew rather more about Sir Daniel Holstead than he would have wished. The thought gave her a small glow of satisfaction; she wondered why it also made her a little ashamed.

4

Kate returned to the cottage and took her seat, nodding a confirmation to Dalgliesh that the message had been given. They could discuss the details later. She saw that Marcus Dupayne still sat at the head of the table, his hands clasped before him, his face a mask. Now he said to Dalgliesh, “We are, of course, perfectly free to leave if that's what any of us want or need to do?”

“Perfectly free. I've asked you to come here because questioning you now is the quickest way to get the information I need. If any of you find that inconvenient, I can arrange to see you later.”

Marcus said, “Thank you. I thought it as well to establish the legal position. My sister and I naturally wish to co-operate in any way we can. This death is a terrible shock. It's also a tragedy—for the girl, for her family and for the museum.”

Dalgliesh did not reply. He privately doubted whether the museum would suffer. Once reopened, the Murder Room would double in attraction. He had a vivid picture of Mrs. Strickland sitting in the library, those careful arthritic hands writing a new label, the Dupaynes standing each side of her.
The original trunk in which the bodies of Violette Kaye and Celia Mellock were concealed is at present in the possession of the police. This trunk here is similar in age and type.
The fantasy was disagreeable.

He said, “Can you, between you, go through last Friday. We know, of course, what you were doing after the museum closed. Now we need a detailed account of what happened during the day.”

Caroline Dupayne looked at Muriel Godby. It was she who began, but gradually all those present except Calder-Hale added to or confirmed what was said. A detailed picture of the day emerged, hour by hour, from the moment Tally Clutton arrived at eight o'clock for her regular cleaning until Muriel Godby finally locked the door and drove Mrs. Strickland to Hampstead underground station.

At the end Piers said, “So there are two occasions on which Celia Mellock and her killer could have got in unseen, at ten o'clock in the morning and at one-thirty when Miss Godby left the desk and went over to the cottage to fetch Mrs. Clutton.”

Muriel Godby said, “The desk couldn't have been unattended for more than five minutes. If we had a proper telephone system, or if Mrs. Clutton would agree to have a mobile, I wouldn't need to go over to the cottage. It's ridiculous trying to manage with an old-fashioned system without even an answerphone.”

Piers asked, “Supposing Miss Mellock and her killer did get in undetected, are there any rooms in which they could have been concealed overnight? What are the arrangements for internal locking of the doors?”

It was Muriel Godby who replied. “After the front door has been locked to visitors at five, I go round with Tally to check that no one is in the museum. Then I lock the only two doors to which there are keys, the picture gallery and the library. Those contain the most valuable exhibits. No other room is locked except Mr. Calder-Hale's office, and that isn't my responsibility. He usually keeps it locked when he's not there. I didn't try his door.”

Calder-Hale spoke for the first time. “If you had, you would have found it locked.”

Piers asked, “What about the basement?”

“I opened the door and saw that the light was still on. I went to the top of the iron platform and looked down into the basement. No one was there so I turned off the light. There isn't a lock on that door. With Mrs. Clutton I also checked that all the windows were locked. I left at five-fifteen with Mrs. Strickland and dropped her at Hampstead tube station. Then I drove home. But you know all that, Inspector. We've been questioned before about last Friday.”

Piers ignored the protest. He said, “So it would be possible for someone to be concealed down there in the archives between the sliding steel shelves? You didn't go down the steps to check?”

It was then that Caroline Dupayne broke in. She said, “Inspector, we're running a museum, not a police station. We've had no break-in and no detectable theft for the last twenty years. Why on earth should Miss Godby search the archives room? Even if someone had been concealed when the museum was locked, how could he get out? The ground-floor windows are locked at night. Miss Godby, with Mrs. Clutton, carried out their usual routine.”

Her brother had remained silent. Now he said, “We are all suffering from shock. I don't need to say that we are as anxious as you to have this mystery solved and we intend to co-operate fully in the investigation. But there is no reason to suppose that any person who worked at the museum had anything to do with the girl's death. Miss Mellock and her killer may have come to the museum merely as visitors or for some purpose known only to themselves. We know how they could have got in and how they could have been concealed. There is no problem about an intruder leaving undetected. After my brother's death my sister and I waited for you in the library here. We left the front door ajar knowing that you were due to arrive. We waited for you for over an hour, plenty of time for the killer to make his escape unseen.”

Mrs. Strickland said, “He'd be taking a terrible risk, of course. You or Caroline might have come out of the library or Commander Dalgliesh might have come through the front door at any moment.”

Marcus Dupayne dealt with the comment with the controlled impatience with which he might have greeted a subordinate's intervention at a departmental meeting. “He took a risk, of course. He had no option but to take a risk if he were to avoid being trapped in the museum all night. He had only to look briefly out of the basement door to see that the hall was empty and the front door was ajar. I'm not suggesting that the murder took place in the basement. The Murder Room seems the more likely. But the archives room offered the best—indeed the only—safe hiding place until he could get away. I'm not arguing that it must have happened this way, only that it could have.”

Dalgliesh said, “But the door to the gallery was also ajar. Surely you or your sister would have heard someone passing through the hall?”

Marcus said, “Since it's obvious that someone must have passed through the hall and we heard nothing, the answer is incontrovertible. We were, I remember, sitting with our drinks in front of the fireplace. We were nowhere near the door and we had no view of the hall.”

His sister looked straight at Dalgliesh. She said, “I don't want to seem to be doing your job for you, Commander, but isn't there a possible reason why Celia came to the museum? She may have had a lover with her. Perhaps he was the kind who needs an element of risk to give sex that extra edge. Celia may have suggested the Dupayne as a possible venue. Knowing that I was a trustee here might have added a spice of danger to the sexual thrill. Then things got out of hand and she ended up dead.”

Kate had not spoken for some time. Now she asked Caroline, “From your knowledge of Miss Mellock, is that the kind of behaviour you'd think likely?”

There was a pause. The question was unwelcome. “As I said, I didn't teach her and I know nothing of her private life. But she was an unhappy, confused and difficult student. She was also easily led. Nothing she did would ever surprise me.”

Piers thought,
We should recruit this lot to the squad. Give them another half hour and they'll have both murders solved.
But that pompous ass Marcus Dupayne had a point. The scenario might be unlikely but it was possible. It would be a gift to a defending counsel. But if it had happened that way, with luck Nobby Clark and his boys would find some evidence, perhaps in the basement archives room. But it hadn't happened that way. It was beyond credibility that two separate murderers were at the museum on the same night at roughly the same time killing such very different victims. Celia Mellock had died in the Murder Room, not in the basement, and he was beginning to think he knew why. He glanced across at his Chief. Dalgliesh's look was serious and a little withdrawn, almost contemplative. Piers knew that look. He wondered whether their thoughts were running along the same lines.