1 The Museum Mystery Read online

  The Museum Mystery

  by

  John Waddington-Feather

  Copyright ©John Waddington-Feather 2012

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is co-incidental and not intentional.

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher.

  Feather Books SY3 0BW UK

  Table of Contents

  The Museum Mystery

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter One

  The museum in Keighworth had started life in grand fashion. It had been the mansion of a mill-master when the cold crack in the Pennines that the town had crept into was filling up with dirty mills and rows of mean terrace houses. At the beginning of nineteenth century, the great house stood in its own grounds a mile or two from the centre of the town.

  No expense had been spared. It was still called the Mansion House by the older folk and stood foursquare solid. Large and grand, it had one attribute singularly lacking in Keighworth - refinement. An Italian architect had designed the Mansion House and it was beautifully proportioned. Its drive swept up to a portico and pediment supported by four Ionic pillars. Built to impress, it was still impressive.

  The old parkland round the mansion had long gone under a rash of cheap houses and mills down Garlic Lane, where the Revd Inspector Blake Hartley had been born and reared. What remained was named Albert Park, and the Mansion House had become the Keighworth Borough Museum, a depository for every knick-knack collected by Keighworth’s Victorian upper-crustians on their world tours. Their offspring dumped entire collections in the museum, so that it was stiff with abandoned heirlooms.

  From boyhood the Borough Museum had fascinated Blake Hartley; it had become his second home. A place where his growing imagination was stretched, reaching beyond Keighworth to places across the globe and far back in time. There, realities became dreams.

  Rows of moth-eaten big-game trophies stared down glassy-eyed from the walls: heads of lions, tigers, bison, grizzlies, elephants, rhinos, crocodiles - enough to give conservationists nightmares. Beneath was ranged a display of their human counterparts: a grisly selection of shrunken heads from Borneo. In neighbouring cases were murderous aboriginal weapons: clubs, poisoned arrows, blowpipes. Enough to keep small boys staring wide-eyed for hours.

  There were other displays: military uniforms, birds’ eggs, moths, musical instruments, stuffed birds. All interesting in their own way to the youthful Blake Hartley, but none as magnetic as the shrunken heads. By the time he was twelve, he went round the world and back every time he entered the museum, without leaving dear dour old Keighworth.

  The prize exhibit, the very jewel in that serendipity’s crown, was the mummified body of an Egyptian princess, the daughter of a Pharaoh. She’d been lifted from her tomb years before by Sir Joshua Whitcliff, the eccentric owner of Whitcliff’s Mills at Ingerworth, the other side of town, not far from where Blake Hartley lived. He’d been an enthusiastic archaeologist, and spent years excavating Egyptian sites. After one of his expeditions he turned up with an Egyptian wife, the priestess in a secret sect he’d joined, followers of some ancient Egyptian goddess. The mummy, so they said, was her incarnated form.

  She lay bang in the middle of the museum, between the shrunken heads and the birds’ eggs cases. Housed in a box with a glass top covered by black oil-cloth to protect her from the sunlight, for overhead a glass canopy ran the length of the room, once the ball-room of the old mansion. As a result, the animal heads and displays had faded visibly. The tiger had almost lost his stripes and the lion was the colour of Morecambe Bay sands after a dry spell.

  The mummy was fading, too, yet she still had the power to pull. Generations of Keighworthians had stared at her painted wrappings with their mysterious hieroglyphics. But time had begun to have its effect. The remains were crumbling and already one brown toe bone had broken free and lay like an abandoned hazelnut in a corner of the case. Toe or no toe, the mummy was certainly scary. Straight out of a horror film. There was something beautifully cruel, fascinating, about those painted eyes and mouth. No one lurked there when dusk fell.

  But it was shortly after dawn one Monday morning when Ernie Hodgson, the janitor, discovered another body on the floor next to it; rather younger than the mummy it lay alongside. Younger by some millennia and freshly murdered.

  Ernie had just begun sweeping the aisles, when he was brought up short at the egg display. His brush hit an obstacle, a pair of feet, and Ernie found himself staring into the very dead eyes of a man on the floor. He’d been garrotted and lay as glassy-eyed as the animal heads above him on the wall.

  “What the bloody hell!” exclaimed the janitor as he saw the weal round the dead man’s neck still oozing blood. He dropped his brush and fled. Back to the office to phone the police.

  Chapter Two

  Hartley had been off work a couple of days with a stinking cold. He hated hanging about at home, and his cold had been so rotten he couldn’t even read. He was still in his dressing-gown hunched before the fire, sipping tea from a huge blue ringed mug when the phone rang. It was his sergeant, Ibrahim Khan.

  Mary, Blake’s wife, had been doing her damnedest to keep him in bed till he’d recovered, but he wouldn’t have it. He wanted to get back to work. Her heart sank when she heard him say, “All right, Khan. I’ll be there as quick as I can. And keep Donaldson at bay as long as possible. He’ll foul everything up if he sticks his nose in.” Then he rang off and hurried upstairs to change.

  “You’re never going in to work in your condition, are you, Blake? You’re nowhere near right!” His wife called after him.

  All she heard was a disgusting series of gargles followed by mouth-wash being hoinked into the wash-basin. When he re-appeared at the top of the stairs, he was already dressed and fastening his tie.

  “They’ve found a body,” he croaked, and his voice sounding like a rusty hinge.

  “And they’ll find another if you insist on going,” she said.

  When he came down she asked him where the body was.

  “In the museum. Khan said it had been strangled - garroted.”

  Mary grimaced. “You look like death warmed up yourself,” she said. “Do you have to go? Surely Superintendent Donaldson could handle everything just this once.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, love,” replied her husband. “Once is always once too often where our Arthur’s concerned. We’ll be picking up bits for ever if Donaldson starts dabbling. Khan says Donaldson’s winding everybody up already.”

  By now he was on his way to the car. As he climbed in she passed him his cough mixture. He thanked her and put it in his coat pocket, alongside the hip flask of whisky he’d slipped in secretly
upstairs. She put her face through the open window and he gave her a kiss on the cheek, promising he’d return as soon as possible. Any other copper would have stayed at home. But not the Revd Insp Blake Hartley. For him fighting crime was nailing sin.

  As he drove towards the museum through the old part of town, memories flooded back. He’d been brought up down Garlic Lane. He’d almost lived in Albert Park after school, playing cricket and football. He’d boxed there during gala week in summer too, and courted Mary there as a young copper. And he’d spent hours in the museum as a boy, fascinated by everything in it - especially that Egyptian mummy.

  When he arrived, his friend Dr Gus Dunwell, the pathologist, greeted him in the aviary which had been built in the entrance to the museum. He echoed Mary. “You look like death warmed up, Blake. If you stay long here, you’ll be taking a ride with the guy in there.” He nodded over his shoulder where the body lay and lowered his voice. “By the way, old man, Donaldson’s in there winding everyone up as usual.” Then the door opened behind them. “Talk of the devil,” muttered Dunwell, and went back to the corpse as Donaldson walked in. He looked relieved to see the inspector.

  The aviary was glass-roofed like the museum inside. A variety of exotic birds fluttered inside a large open cage, but outside perched an ancient curmudgeonly white cockatoo, which eyed all newcomers with a jaundiced eye. “Thought you weren’t coming in today, Hartley,” said Donaldson brusquely.

  “I changed my mind,” replied the inspector, “when I heard you were here, sir. Duty calls and all that.”

  Donaldson looked him quickly. There was no love lost between him and his inspector, and he never knew how to take Hartley. “Oh?” he said, guardedly.

  “Thought you might need some help, sir,” said Hartley blandly, “seeing it was initial locationary analysis - and I happen to know this location very well.”

  “Locationary analysis” was one of Donaldson’s in-terms. He brought them back by the bucketful each time he went on a course and he was always on courses. Hartley had made some cutting remark about it shortly after Donaldson had arrived at the station. The remark had been overheard and threw fuel on an already raging fire.

  As they spoke, Donaldson made the mistake of standing too near the old cockatoo. His inspector was looking dreamily through the bars of the aviary at the other birds. He loved the place.

  “Takes me right back, sir,” he wheezed, watching the occupants of the aviary flit back and forth. Donaldson went to take a closer look. Then reached out to stroke the cockatoo. “I should be careful, sir,” warned Hartley. “He’s a vicious beggar. Got a nip like a pair of pliers.”

  He was too late. As Donaldson extended his hand to stroke the bird’s yellow crest, the cockatoo’s head went back and he had the Super’s finger in his beak. A quick tweak and he’d drawn blood.

  Donaldson jumped back sucking his finger. He was a small man, dapper, well-dressed, and the blood spurted all over his jacket. Hartley smiled to himself as the Super glared at the bird. It had cocked its head to one side and screeched mockingly, raising its crest and eyeing Donaldson with its evil beady eye.

  “I told you he could nip,” said Hartley, still smiling. “It must be forty odd years since he did that to me. But once bitten forever shy, so to speak, sir.”

  Donaldson wrapped his handkerchief round his finger, giving the bird a wide berth as they entered the museum. Hartley breathed the air deeply as they went in. The smell was evocative, old wax and old memories of youth. Above, the weak sunlight trickled through the canopy as it had always done. Full sunlight never penetrated there. All was old, ancient, fading. There was no present or future. A place where the past alone survived, drifting gently to oblivion. It looked even more faded at that time of the year just past the winter solstice.

  Det. Sergeant Khan went to greet his boss. He couldn’t stomach dead bodies, especially when they were still oozing blood. Donaldson was equally squeamish and had bolted to the aviary when he’d heard his inspector had arrived. Anything to get away from the stare of that ghastly face on the floor.

  “I’m glad you made it, sir,” said Khan, and by the glance he threw Donaldson, Hartley guessed why. Hartley wanted to know if they’d identifed the body.

  “These were found on the body.” Khan held up some papers in a plastic bag. “He’s a lecturer in the Department of Ancient History at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, a Dr Ahmed Manasas.”

  Donaldson raised his eyebrows and began to bleat. “An academic. I thought so. The moment I saw him I knew he was no ordinary chap. His hands, his dress, his general demeanour. You could tell he was a cut above the average - even if he was a foreigner. Initial locationary analysis can often tell you enough to solve any crime. Remember that, Khan.”

  Hartley cut him short.

  “All cadavers have the same demeanour. A grave one, sir,” he said dourly.

  The Super pursed his lips.

  “Don’t be facetious, man,” he growled. “It’s neither the time nor place for that.”

  The inspector and his sergeant exchanged glances again and followed Donaldson down the aisle to the mummy’s case. The body was lying directly beside it, and Dr Dunwell was kneeling over it, turning the dead man’s head slightly to get a better view of the weal round his neck. The face stared stonily at them as the trio approached. Donaldson and Khan held back, letting Inspector Hartley go first. They kept their distance as Hartley joined the museum curator, Maurice Bottomley, and his janitor standing some yards away.

  The janitor was still burbling about how he’d found the body.

  “An’ I’d just got ’ere, sir,” he explained to Hartley, “when me brush caught his feet. Nearly fell all over him. An’ when I’d got over me shock, I says, ‘Ernie,’ I says, ‘summat’s happened to that chap.’ Then I looked at t’mummy’s case an’ saw summat had happened to t’mummy as well. T’cover had been pulled back from t’case. She were starin’ straight at me just like t’dead man on t’floor. It frightened me silly. I tell you, I’ve never seen owt like that before! An’ I don’t want to again.”

  “You say the cover had been pulled back?” asked Hartley.

  “Aye,” said Hodgson. “Full length. I reckon he’d been lookin’ at t’mummy when he’d been done in. Hit from behind.”

  The inspector nodded, then turned and joined the pathologist.

  “Any clue who might have done it, Gus?” he asked.

  “That’s your business, not mine,” the pathologist replied. “I can say how he was killed.” He held up one of the dead man’s wrists, indicating a weal across the top of it. Then he raised the other wrist and pointed to a similar one there. “He was trussed up tight before he was killed.” He pulled down the corpse’s socks to show similar marks around the ankles. “He wasn’t killed here. Trussed like a lamb for the slaughter…”

  “Like a lamb for the slaughter,” echoed the inspector thoughtfully.

  “They untied him after he was brought here,” said Dunwell. “And he was dead before he was dumped in the museum.”

  Blake Hartley stood up and looked at the mummy in the case. The silent figure stared back from its wrappings. Its arms were crossed and held a flail and crosier. On the forehead of the mask was the painting of a hooded cobra. The wide eyes were heavily lined, brooding and dark, hooded like a hawk’s. Later he was to learn whose remains were inside.

  Dunwell finished his examination and covered the body, much to Superintendent Donaldson’s relief. He bustled over, barking “Well, what’s the verdict, Dunwell?”.

  “Not suicide,” said the pathologist dryly. He took off his thick-lensed glasses and breathed heavily on them before wiping them clean with his handkerchief. He was about the same height as Donaldson, but heavier and almost bald. When he’d replaced his specs he looked the superintendent squarely in the eye. “If you initialised your locationary analysis you might learn more,” was all he said.

  Donaldson ignored him. “Any idea how he got here?” he asked next
.

  “He certainly didn’t walk,” said the pathologist. “He was dead when he arrived. And by the size of him, I’d say it’d need more than one pair of hands to lug him in.” Donaldson put it all down in a brand-new notebook and continued asking questions.

  Hartley left them and re-joined Bottomley and his man. He asked if there’d been any signs of a break-in. No. How they’d got the body in was a complete mystery. The doors and windows were locked just as Hodgson had checked them the night before. But Maurice Bottomley did shed some glimmer of light. He knew Dr Manasas. Not very well, but he’d been in contact with him several times to give a lecture on the mummy to the local history group.

  Inspector Hartley asked who held the keys to the museum.

  “Only Hodgson and myself,” said the curator. “There’s no need for anyone else to have them.”

  “Any spares?” asked Hartley.

  “As a matter of fact there is. One. It’s hung up in my office,” said the other.

  “I’d like to see it,” said the inspector. The curator led the way to his office. When they got there, he switched on the light and turned to his keyboard. The hook which held the spare key was empty!

  Chapter Three

  The curator stared blankly at the empty hook. It was there yesterday. Hodgson had asked for it because he’d left his own key at home, he said. Inspector Hartley asked him who else had access to his office.

  “Cleaning staff, researchers…”

  “Researchers?” asked Hartley. “D’you get many of those?”

  “Quite a few. We’ve some rare exhibits here. Researchers come from all over the place to look at our collections. They work through there,” said Bottomley, nodding to a room beyond his office.

  “Bit risky these days with the prices antiques are fetching,” suggested Hartley.

  The curator smiled. “They book in and Hodgson keeps an eye on them all the time they’re here. Nothing gets past him!”

  “Except dead bodies,” said Hartley. “Can I have a look at your register, please, Mr Bottomley?”