Murder at the Ashmolean, page 15
‘Which was dropped,’ Clare reminded him. ‘The woman withdrew her complaint.’
‘Under pressure, I believe,’ said Pitt. ‘I’d like your permission to bring de Witt in for questioning.’
‘To Kemp Hall?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why not question him at the Quill Club?’
‘Because that’s his territory. He may not be intimidated by a question room in a police station, but it may go some way to unsettling him.’
‘You think it will be worth the effort? Mr de Witt has some powerful acquaintances here in Oxford.’
‘His bar manager was behind the attack on Miss Fenton, I’m sure of that. Everett was a member of his club. As is Piers Stevens, who tried to kill Miss Fenton and Mr Wilson. I think there’s enough there to warrant him being brought in.’
Clare gave it some thought, then nodded. ‘Very well, Inspector. Bring him in. But be careful. We don’t want this department to run afoul of the people who run Oxford, and that includes the Watch Committee. I believe some of them are members of this club, so use tact.’
Vance de Witt sat at his desk, weighing up his options in the light of recent events. The departure of Albert, however temporary, was a big loss, one not easily replaced. Albert was not just a damn good bar manager, he was de Witt’s fixer and general right-hand man.
Then there was this business of Piers Stevens shooting at people in public. News had been brought to him shortly after it happened; he had enough eyes and ears working for him in Oxford to keep him appraised of everything that went on. What on earth had driven Stevens to do such a thing? It was the act of someone insane, but was the insanity permanent or temporary?
There was a knock on his door, which opened, and Joe put his head in.
‘Sorry to trouble you, Mr de Witt,’ he said, ‘but the police are here.’
‘Not again!’ groaned de Witt. ‘What do they want?’
The door opened wider and a uniformed sergeant entered, followed by a constable.
‘Inspector Pitt has sent us to bring you to the station,’ said the sergeant.
‘Well, you can tell Inspector Pitt that I’m far too busy,’ snapped de Witt. ‘If he wants to see me, he can make an appointment.’
The police sergeant gave de Witt a bland look and said, ‘This isn’t a request. It’s an order.’
‘An order?’ repeated de Witt, outraged. ‘Who do you think you are?!’
‘I’m an officer of the law carrying out my duty,’ said the sergeant. ‘Now, you can come with us as you are. Or, if you resist, I’ll handcuff you and we’ll take you in by force.’ And, to reinforce his words, the sergeant produced a pair of handcuffs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was with a feeling of excitement mixed with pride that Esther entered the Oxford Messenger building and climbed the stairs to the first floor. This would be her first story as a proper reporter, instead of just her name on a column about ‘women’s issues’. She reached the editor’s office and rapped with her knuckles on the door.
‘Enter!’ barked Pinker.
Esther strode in, doing her best to look efficient and not let her feelings be betrayed by a happy smile.
‘Here you are, Mr Pinker,’ she said, putting her two handwritten pages on his desk, along with the image of Piers Stevens she’d collected from Kemp Hall. ‘The story about the shooting. And the picture of the suspect.’
‘The shooting?’ queried Pinker.
‘Yes. A couple came here and told the receptionist a man had taken shots at people in the centre of Oxford, so I went to the police station at Kemp Hall to get the story.’
‘Why?’ demanded Pinker, glaring at her coldly.
‘Because it’s a story!’ exclaimed Esther.
‘But it’s not your story,’ snapped Pinker.
‘It is!’ protested Esther. She pushed the pages towards him. ‘Here. And I’ve had it checked by the people who were shot at, Abigail Fenton, the archaeologist, and Daniel Wilson, the Scotland Yard detective, to make sure they’re happy with it. You always say that’s what to do with a story, get the approval of the people being written about.’
‘You’re not a crime reporter, Esther,’ growled Pinker. ‘You’re not a reporter, full stop. You write pieces for the women’s page.’
‘But I thought you’d be pleased! I know Miss Fenton—’
‘I’m not pleased!’ said Pinker. ‘In fact, I’m angry, and if it wasn’t for the fact that your uncle owns the paper, I’d sack you here and now.’
‘Sack me?’
‘I’m the editor, Esther, not you. I decide who handles what. Henry Loveday is the crime reporter for the Oxford Messenger. Our readers will not accept a woman as a crime reporter. Or any sort of reporter, come to that, except on women’s issues. Fashion. Make-up. Cooking. The home. Have you got that?’
Vance de Witt sat in the interview room in Kemp Hall and stared tight-lipped across the table at Inspector Pitt. If he was intimidated by being here, his manner didn’t show it. Instead, it showed his barely concealed anger simmering beneath the surface.
‘May I ask why I’ve been brought here?’ de Witt demanded.
‘Because we’ve uncovered an interesting situation, and it seems that the Quill Club is at the centre of it.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. You’ve no doubt heard about one of your members, Piers Stevens, shooting Mr Wilson and then running away.’
De Witt said nothing, just sat waiting, doing his best to appear calm and indifferent.
‘Well, it now appears the situation was this: that Stevens killed your former waitress, Eve Lachelle, and the next morning he got Everett to go to her landlady’s house to collect her things and settle up any rent that was owing. What do you think of that?’
‘Very fanciful,’ said de Witt dismissively.
‘We have a witness statement from the landlady identifying Everett as the man who took her things.’
‘She may have asked him to do that.’
‘Unlikely. Because we have information that after that, Everett began to blackmail Stevens. Do you have any comment so far?’
‘None,’ said de Witt. ‘If things did happen as you say, it’s nothing to do with the Quill Club.’
‘Except that when Miss Fenton started asking questions about what happened to Eve Lachelle, your bar manager hired a thug to try and warn her off. That suggests a connection.’
De Witt sat and studied Pitt silently for about a minute, then announced, ‘I believe I’d like to see my lawyer.’
Abigail and Daniel arrived at the address that Ephraim Wardle had given them for Josiah Goddard. It was a small shop in the middle of a parade of shops, with a second-hand furniture store on one side and a shop selling mystical equipment, including Ouija boards, spell-makers and crystal balls on the other.
Abigail gestured at the display of painted plates in the window of Goddard’s shop.
‘See those plates. They’re the same as the copies in the Ashmolean. In fact, Mr Goddard seems to have quite an industry going. There are various combinations: on some plates the figures look to the right, on others to the left, but they’re all from the same pattern.’
‘Making copies isn’t illegal,’ Daniel pointed out.
‘No, but it does suggest we’ve found the right person.’
They entered the shop, setting a small bell above the door tinkling. At the sound, a short, wiry man in shirtsleeves appeared from a curtained entrance to the back of the shop.
‘Good afternoon.’ He smiled at them in greeting. ‘What can I get for you?’
‘I must congratulate you on the ancient Egyptian plates in your window,’ said Abigail. ‘And the ancient Greek ones.’
‘Copies, only,’ said Goddard. ‘That’s what I specialise in, but you won’t find any others more accurate to the originals.’
‘I notice they’re copied from the plates at the Ashmolean,’ continued Abigail.
‘A connoisseur, I see!’ Goddard beamed. ‘You are absolutely right, madam. I frequent the Ashmolean for inspiration because they have the finest examples of ancient artefacts.’
‘They do,’ agreed Abigail. ‘But how do you choose which of them to make copies of?’
‘I go there and look, and see which ones inspire me.’ Goddard smiled.
‘Not because Gavin Everett has asked you to make a specific copy of something?’ asked Daniel genially.
The smile was wiped off Goddard’s face, and he regarded Daniel and Abigail with suspicion.
‘Who?’ he asked flatly.
‘Gavin Everett,’ said Abigail. ‘An assistant curator at the Ashmolean.’
‘Never heard of him,’ growled Goddard.
‘That’s strange,’ said Daniel. ‘Because we were advised that you did restoration work for the Ashmolean that was commissioned by him.’
‘Then you were advised wrong,’ said Goddard sourly. ‘Yes, I go to the Ashmolean to look at the exhibits, and I choose which ones I want to copy, and I spend time there drawing them so I get it right. It’s important to get it right because people want to take something home with them as a reminder of their time in Oxford, especially the Ashmolean.’
‘I’m surprised you never fell into conversation with Mr Everett while you were making your drawings at the museum,’ said Abigail.
‘Why should I?’ demanded Goddard. ‘I’m not doing anything illegal. People are always there, drawing the stuff they’ve got on display. Some do it for their own pleasure, some, like me, for business.’ He scowled at them. ‘Anyway, what’s it to do with you, me being there doing my drawings?’
‘My name’s Daniel Wilson and this is my colleague, Abigail Fenton,’ Daniel said. ‘We’re private enquiry agents and we’ve been hired by the Ashmolean to look into the circumstances surrounding Mr Everett’s recent tragic and untimely death.’
Goddard remained silent while he studied them, his face showing no emotion, then he said, ‘He’s dead, this bloke you’re talking about?’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m surprised you weren’t aware of it. It was widely reported in the newspapers.’
Goddard shook his head. ‘I don’t read the newspapers. I don’t have time. I’m busy with my work.’
‘So, you’ve never done any restoration work for the Ashmolean?’ asked Abigail.
‘No,’ said Goddard. ‘Like I said, I go there to select things I like and make sketches, then I come back here and turn them into copies of the originals. That’s it. I’ve never met, nor heard of, this Everett bloke.’
As they left the shop, Daniel murmured, ‘He’s lying.’
‘The trouble is, we can’t prove it,’ said Abigail.
‘I think we may be able to,’ said Daniel. ‘Providing the Ashmolean keeps accurate financial records, which I’m sure it does.’
Vance de Witt’s lawyer was a smooth, middle-aged man called Monicker Willikins. Pitt had heard the name before, though he’d never actually met the man. Willikins was a corpulent man, but his dandified taste in made-to-measure suiting made him appear comfortable, rather than constricted by his clothes. The image of the dandy was added to by the ornate diamond pin holding his cravat in place, and his diamond and gold cufflinks. He was a man with a reputation as a legal fixer. ‘One of the sharpest minds ever to grace Oxford,’ a solicitor had once commented about Willikins to Pitt. ‘His clients always get off.’
Trust de Witt to employ someone like Willikins, thought Pitt ruefully. He’d allowed the lawyer and his client to have a private conference in the interview room, before returning to take his previous position in the chair opposite de Witt. Willikins had settled onto a chair next to his client and smiled at the inspector in a happy, almost dream-like way.
‘You’ve had your conference?’ asked Pitt.
‘We have.’ Willikins beamed. ‘The story that Mr de Witt was told by Mr Everett was that Miss Lachelle and Mr Stevens had had a row. As a result, Miss Lachelle told him she was leaving Oxford and refused to tell him where she was going. She then left. Everett told Mr de Witt that Stevens had begged Everett to keep the situation secret because he did not want his mother to find out that he’d had a relationship with Miss Lachelle. Mr de Witt did not know that Mr Everett had collected Miss Lachelle’s possessions from her lodgings the morning after she left.
‘Mr de Witt did not see Miss Lachelle again and assumed she’d made good on her threat to leave Oxford. As it was a private matter, he felt he had no right to look further into the matter.’
‘Miss Lachelle was one of his employees. Didn’t he feel he had the right to an explanation from her as to why she was leaving his employment?’ asked Pitt.
‘It often happens that a waitress decides to suddenly leave with no explanation, even in the best establishments,’ said Willikins. ‘It wasn’t unusual.’
‘Did Mr de Witt ask Albert Preston to stop Miss Fenton asking questions about Eve Lachelle?’ asked Pitt.
‘No. If Mr Preston did such a thing, it could only be because Mr Stevens had asked him privately to stop people asking questions about why Miss Lachelle had left so abruptly. But, until we talk to Mr Preston, we won’t know for sure if that’s what happened, or if – as Mr de Witt suspects – this person who assaulted Miss Fenton is simply making this up in order to protect himself.’
It was nearly half past five when Daniel and Abigail arrived back at the Ashmolean, and they were relieved to find Gladstone Marriott still there.
‘I’m glad we caught you before you left for the day, Mr Marriott,’ said Daniel.
‘You have news?’ asked Marriott.
‘Possibly,’ replied Daniel. ‘We think we’ve traced the man who made the copies of the ancient Egyptian plates. His name’s Josiah Goddard and he has a shop in north Oxford.’
‘He has a shop window full of such copies,’ added Abigail.
‘Unfortunately, he claimed not to have known Gavin Everett, or done any restoration or copying business for the Ashmolean.’
‘But you don’t believe him?’
‘No, we don’t,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m assuming that you keep records of money paid out to people like restorers?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Marriott. ‘Although I must admit, the name of Josiah Goddard is unfamiliar to me.’
‘We are assuming that Mr Everett took charge of commissioning the restoration once he began work here.’
‘Only after the first six months. As I mentioned to you, Miss Fenton, I’d always found Ephraim Wardle to be excellent, and I’d assumed that Everett had continued to employ him.’
‘Hopefully, that’s what we’ll find out from looking at the payment ledgers,’ said Daniel.
‘They’re kept in Everett’s office,’ said Marriott. He got up from his chair. ‘I’ll show you where you can find them.’
A short while later the three of them were studying the open pages of the ledgers in Everett’s office.
‘There,’ said Daniel, pointing at one of the entries. ‘Eighteen months ago: Ephraim Wardle, restorer. The sum of two pounds fifteen shillings. And here’s another for one pound eighteen shillings. And suddenly, a year ago, we have entries for Josiah Goddard, restorer, and the name of Ephraim Wardle disappears completely.’
‘So now we have the proof that Goddard lied.’ Abigail smiled. ‘He was definitely tied up with Everett.’
‘But copying itself is not a criminal offence,’ Marriott pointed out.
‘No, but if we can prove Goddard knew why Everett wanted certain pieces copied, we’ll be closer to getting to the bottom of it.’
‘How will you do that?’ asked Marriott.
‘By talking to him,’ said Daniel. ‘Putting some pressure on.’ He looked at the clock. ‘It’s too late to return to his shop today; he’ll be closed up. So, we’ll go and see him tomorrow. It will be interesting to hear what he says when we present him with this evidence and indicate we’ll be passing this information on to the Oxford police.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Daniel lay in the bed and watched as Abigail went to the door of the room, opened it and picked up the early edition of the newspaper she’d ordered the night before.
God, she is beautiful, he thought. Beautiful, dynamic, intelligent. How on earth did I get this lucky to be with someone like her?
Abigail walked back towards the bed, flicking through the pages until she found the story she was looking for. At first, she smiled, and then her smile was replaced by a look of fury.
Oh dear, thought Daniel. Someone is going to be in serious trouble.
‘This story about the shooting yesterday! It’s outrageous! Appalling!’ stormed Abigail, throwing the offending newspaper down on the table.
‘Have they spelt our names wrong?’ Daniel smiled.
‘It’s not our names that are the problem, it’s Esther’s. Remember she gave her copy for us to read, and check that we approved it, and I told her it was an excellent piece of reporting. And here it is in today’s Oxford Messenger, exactly as she wrote it …’
‘And the problem with that is?’ queried Daniel.
‘That the name attached to the article is not Esther Maris, but a certain Henry Loveday.’
‘Perhaps the editor suggested she use a man’s name,’ suggested Daniel. ‘There is a certain prejudice against women writers in some areas of society. Mary Anne Evans had to use the male pseudonym of George Eliot, as I recall.’
Abigail shook her head. ‘Esther would never agree to that. She wants to make her name known in the world of journalism. Her name. As soon as we’ve had breakfast I shall go to the newspaper offices and ask her what has happened here. Will you come with me?’
‘I’m sure you don’t need me for that,’ said Daniel. ‘I think it more important I go and confront Goddard.’
‘You don’t think that Piers Stevens is our killer?’
‘Possibly of Eve Lachelle, but not of Everett, not in view of the cold and accurate way that Everett was shot. And it’s Everett’s death we’ve been hired to investigate.’
