Rattle His Bones Page 4

  After lunch, the children decided to go with Daisy to the Mineralogy Gallery. From the cafeteria on the first floor, a glassed-in room with a view to the Central Hall on one side and the North Hall on the other, they walked past the giraffes and okapis.

  Derek had recently seen live giraffes at the zoo, near Belinda’s home in St. John’s Wood. He was more interested in hanging over the arched and pillared balustrade to see the people walking below.

  “Come along,” said Daisy crossly, grabbing the back of his jacket, her temper ruffled by the prospect of her interview with the unpleasant Pettigrew. “What am I to say to your mother if you fall and break all your bones to bits?”

  “There’s lots of people here,” Derek pointed out, “who spend all their time sticking bones back together.”

  “Not always right,” Belinda reminded him. “S’pose they stuck dinosaur feet on you?”

  This struck both of them as the height of wit. Guffawing, Derek started to walk as he imagined a dinosaur might. Daisy shushed them and thrust them still giggling into the Mineralogy Gallery, while she went on to Pettigrew’s office.

  Over his door, the architect’s whim had placed a terra cotta medallion of a strutting buck. Its combative stance reminded Daisy all too clearly of the Keeper.

  However, Dr. Pettigrew greeted her courteously and answered her questions painstakingly, if with a heavy patience which suggested ill-disguised scorn for her ignorance. She finished by asking about the rock samples strewn on the work-bench under one window.

  “Just some bits and pieces I picked up in Cornwall, on my summer holiday. Nothing of great value,” he added, but he rose from his desk chair and went over to the table.

  “Isn’t that gold?” Daisy enquired, following, as a yellow gleam caught her eye.

  “No, I’m afraid not. There is a little gold in Cornwall, but that’s just iron pyrites. Often known as fool’s gold.”

  Daisy laughed. “I see why. And the others? What are those green crystals?”

  “Polished up nicely, hasn’t it? That’s torbernite, a phosphate of copper and uranium. These blue crystals are azurite, a copper ore. Both copper and uranium are mined in Cornwall. It’s an area rich in useful minerals, zinc, lead, arsenic, wolfram, and tin, of course, which the Phoenicians came to trade for. This is its ore, cassiterite. Then there are the building stones, granite, sandstone, and slate; and mica; and the pigments ochre and umber. Useful stuff,” he repeated insistently, “not like those ancient, crumbling bones downstairs which absorb so much money and effort.”

  Fearing a tirade, Daisy hastily finished scribbling shorthand hieroglyphics and said, “I’d better be getting along. I left two children in the gallery. Thank you for all your help.”

  “Children? Maybe they would like a piece of pyrites each. Here—no, I’ll come along.”

  They found Belinda and Derek entranced by the display of opals. Pettigrew actually unlocked the case and allowed each of them to hold one of the iridescent stones while he lectured them on the subject. Though he was rather condescending, it was kind of him, Daisy thought. She decided Ol’ Stony was not so stony-hearted as he was painted, in spite of his rudeness to Smith Woodward—unless the story of his brutality to the one-legged commissionaire was true.

  She looked around. Between the rectangular pillars embossed, oddly enough, with sea creatures, she caught glimpses of a commissionaire’s uniform. The youngish man patrolling the aisles appeared to have a full complement of limbs. Of course, she couldn’t tell whether he was deaf, and even if he was, it would not prove Sergeant Hamm’s tale.

  Pettigrew locked away the opals and gave the children the two small chunks of fool’s gold. He was starting to explain them, when the sound of the commissionaire’s footsteps nearby made him look round.

  He frowned irritably. Then he looked beyond the approaching commissionaire and broke into a furious scowl. Abruptly deserting Daisy and the children, he stormed off towards a figure bending over one of the cases.

  “There’s that damn fellow again. Hi, you!” he shouted. “What have you come back for?”

  All over the gallery heads turned—except the undoubtedly deaf commissionaire’s. The object of Pettigrew’s ire straightened and swung round. Daisy saw that he was a slim young man, whose longish fair hair, parted in the middle and carefully slicked down on top, matched a sweeping cavalry moustache.

  The most notable aspect of his appearance, however, was his dress. His uniform would not have disgraced a foreign grandee in a Gilbert and Sullivan production, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, perhaps, or Prince Hilarion. The pale blue tunic with crimson facings was lavishly frogged and laced with gold, and bore the ribbons, stars, and sunbursts of at least a dozen orders. A crimson sash topped cream breeches, which descended into knee-boots with gold tassels.

  The plumed helmet and ceremonial sword required by such a costume were absent. Daisy wondered whether he had left them in the cloakroom or had balked at wearing them in public.

  On the other hand, he could hardly appear in public with a bowler, a soft felt, a topper, or a cloth cap to crown that get-up!

  “What’s that uniform, Aunt Daisy?” asked Derek, who had a vast collection of lead soldiers at home.

  Daisy’s confession of ignorance was drowned.

  “I told you there’s nothing doing!” Pettigrew’s angry voice rang from end to end of the eighty-yard-long gallery.

  The stranger’s was not as loud but reached Daisy and the children. “Dieser Rubin—dis ruby—belong mine family,” he said in a determined tone, his solid, obstinate jaw jutting.

  “Oh, a foreigner,” said Derek dismissively.

  “Used to belong, used to belong,” corrected Pettigrew. “It’s mine now—the museum’s.”

  “I ask for it to return.”

  “You haven’t a hope in hell!”

  “I ask de king, mine cousin.”

  “Your sixteenth cousin fifteen times removed,” Pettigrew snorted. “In any case, the old queen gave it to the British Museum. You’re out of luck. Get out of my gallery.”

  “Here is public place, nicht wahr?” the young man demanded sullenly. “I may at mine ruby look.”

  The Keeper glared but gave in. “I’ve got my eye on you,” he threatened, then retreated to bellow at the commissionaire to keep an eye on the interloper. There, too, he was defeated. Daisy saw him writing down instructions.

  “May we go and look at his ruby?” Belinda asked. “It must be extra special.”

  Half the people in the gallery had the same notion, but she and Derek got there first. The gaudy stranger looked somewhat disconcerted when they bobbed up on either side of him.

  Daisy apologized. “We could not help overhearing,” she said, enunciating clearly in deference to his foreignness. Close to, he seemed very young, not much more than twenty, she guessed. He had a long nose, and brown eyes set a trifle too close together, spoiling an otherwise handsome face. “The children are eager to see your … the ruby.”

  He pointed dramatically. “Dere it is, de largest here and de last hope of mine contry.”

  Between the children’s heads as they pressed forward, Daisy glimpsed several rubies of varying sizes and shades of red.

  “It’s not as big as the opals,” said Belinda, disappointed, “and not as pretty either.”

  “Your country?” Daisy enquired quickly.

  “Excuse, please!” Recollecting his manners, the young man took a pace backwards, clicked his heels, and bowed. With a glance around at the people with pricked ears politely but unconvincingly studying the contents of nearby cases, he lowered his voice. “I am Rudolf Maximilian, Grand Duke of Transcarpathia, at your service, gnädige Frau.”

  “Fräulein,” Daisy corrected, that being about the only word of German she knew. It was not at all proper to introduce herself to a strange gentleman met in a public place—her mother would have fainted at the thought—but Daisy was now dying of curiosity. In order to hold her own with a Grand Duke, she used the
courtesy title she usually omitted. His stiff expression relaxed a little as she said, “I am the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple. How do you do? I’m afraid I’m not very sure where Transcarpathia is.”

  “Mine contry is betveen Moldavia and Transylvania and Bukovina,” he informed her, leaving her little the wiser. “Now is mine contry not existing. De Russians have take it. Instead of Grand Duke is Red Commissar. Mine family is exile, penniless, and mine pee-ople suffer under de Russian boot. Wizzout dis ruby can I for them nodink.”

  The splendid uniform was threadbare, Daisy noticed, the cuffs frayed, the gold braid unravelling. Given his youth, either the Grand Duke Rudolf possessed no other clothes, or he had inherited the outfit from his father.

  “How exactly does the ruby come to be in the Natural History Museum?” she asked.

  “Mine Grossvater has de ruby to Qveen Victoria presented. You understand, in dose days vas de family rich. Dey visit to England and make gift to cousin of magnificent precious gem. But now ve have need, cousin vould give back, nicht wahr?”

  Daisy rather doubted that most cousins would be so generous. The museum’s trustees were even less likely to oblige. However, she said soothingly, “I am sure King George will sympathize and do what he can for you.”

  With a despairing gesture towards Pettigrew’s back as the Keeper stalked out of the gallery, the Grand Duke groaned, “Dieser viehische, schreiende Kerl vill everysink spoil.”

  “Please, sir, what’s … what you just said?” Derek queried. He and Belinda had long since stopped admiring the ruby—which, however large and precious, just sat there—in favour of listening to Rudolf Maximilian’s story.

  “And what will you do if you get it back?” asked Belinda.

  To fend off a translation, which she suspected was better not delved into, Daisy seconded Bel’s question. “Yes, what would you do?”

  “I use to raise an army of loyalists, naturally. Mit mine pee-ople behind me, ve zrow out de Red Army and make peaceful again.”

  Though not much of a newspaper reader, Daisy knew the Red Army had proved virtually impossible to throw out once having steamrollered in. The Transcarpathian loyalists were more likely to be slaughtered wholesale than to succeed. That an entire army of loyalists could be raised on the proceeds of even the most valuable jewel was another dubious proposition. Transcarpathia must be somewhere in eastern Europe. The common people of that part of the world were Slav peasants little better than serfs, with no reason to feel loyalty towards their German-speaking rulers. Unless the Grand Dukes’ reign had been singularly benevolent, Rudolf Maximilian was probably headed for bitter disappointment even if he recovered the ruby.

  Which was unlikely—but disillusioning the ardent young man was none of Daisy’s business, and she still had business to be done.

  “Enough chatter, children,” she said. “Come along, time is passing and I want to take a photograph of the Melbourne meteorite with you two on each side to show how enormous it is. I wish you the best of luck, sir.”

  Instead of shaking the hand she held out to him, Grand Duke Rudolf bowed over it, heels clicking, and raised it to his lips. “I sank for your much sympazy, gnädiges Fräulein,” he said. “You lift to me de courage. I fight on!”

  Bel and Derek were much more excited by the Grand Duke’s story than by the three-and-a-half-ton meteorite. They wove a wonderful tale about a wicked sorcerer called the Red Commissar and a magic ruby with the power to raise an army overnight. Pettigrew’s place in the narrative was a source of much argument. Derek had him as an ogre who had stolen the jewel, while Belinda insisted he was not an ogre, because he had been nice to them, letting them hold the opals and giving them fool’s gold.

  “Not real gold,” Derek pointed out. “It’ll prob’ly turn into dead leaves overnight. I bet he’s in league with the Red Commissar, and he’s just trying to buy us off.”

  They were still elaborating their make-believe when Daisy put them onto a bus back to St. John’s Wood—inside. Though the rain had stopped, the skies had darkened ominously. As she walked home through South Kensington and Chelsea, the photographic equipment and her notebook seemed to grow heavier and heavier. It wasn’t far to Mulberry Place, but she had been tramping around the museum for hours. Hard floors and city pavements were much more tiring than fields and woods.

  When she reached the “bijou residence” she shared with Lucy Fotheringay, she went straight through the house and down to Lucy’s mews studio. Lucy, tall, dark, smart, and fashionably flat fore and aft, was just seeing a client out of the alley door. Turning, she asked, “How did it go, darling?”

  “Not too bad,” said Daisy, plopping down on the nearest chair, “except for my poor feet. The children were good and everyone was frightfully helpful.”

  “I mean the photos,” Lucy said impatiently.

  “I can’t tell, darling, till you develop them for me. Be an angel and do them right away.”

  “Tomorrow,” Lucy promised. “Binkie’s taking me to see The Prisoner of Zenda tonight.”

  Daisy burst into gales of laughter. “I’ve just met him!” she gasped.

  “Who? Ramon Novarro? Where? Not at your stuffy old museum!”

  “Not Ramon, a Ruritanian prince.” She told Lucy about the Grand Duke Rudolf Maximilian.

  “Darling, how too, too romantic!” Lucy, who prided herself on her hard-headed practicality, was at heart far more of a sentimentalist than Daisy, as witness her choice of films. Her amber eyes glowed. “And how sad. Is he good-looking?”

  “Not as handsome as Ramon Novarro, and much too young for you, darling. A good five years younger than us, at a guess.”

  “And no money,” said Lucy mournfully.

  “Even less than Binkie, I should think, and no job.”

  “Darling, grand dukes simply don’t take jobs, like mere mortals. Especially reigning grand dukes.”

  “He hasn’t got anything to reign over,” Daisy pointed out.

  Lucy sighed.

  As good as her word, she developed the plates next morning. They were all absolutely hopeless.

  “Never mind, darling,” she consoled Daisy. “I’m going down to Haverhill this weekend for Grandfather’s birthday—can’t miss it, it’s his eightieth, the old sweetie—but next week I’ll go to the museum with you and get some good shots.”

  While Lucy was toasting the start of the Earl of Haverhill’s ninth decade, Daisy joined the Fletchers for Sunday dinner, her nephew having by then gone home to Kent. Mrs. Fletcher actually unbent enough to commend Derek as a nice-mannered child.

  “Spoilt, though,” she added hastily, as if horrified to find herself praising anything associated with Daisy, “but what can you expect, his father being a lord.”

  Daisy, Alec, and Belinda escaped for the afternoon by taking Bel’s new puppy, Nana, for a walk on Primrose Hill.

  During Lucy’s absence, Daisy also typed up her notes and started to get her article into its final shape. The quantity of excess information reminded her of her idea for a more scientific article. She popped into the nearest W H. Smith’s and found several suitable magazines, surreptitiously scribbling down their addresses and editors’ names without buying anything but the Daily Chronicle. Letters of enquiry went out by the second post on Monday.

  Soon after Daisy’s article and Lucy’s splendid photographs set sail across the Atlantic, two magazines replied, expressing their total lack of interest. A third wanted the complete text before deciding, and a fourth requested resubmission at a later date, as the next fifteen issues were already filled. Slightly disappointed, Daisy went off to Shropshire to do the research for the next article in her series on minor stately homes for Town and Country.

  Much as she might wish to, she could hardly visit that part of the world without staying a night or two with her mother, at the Fairacres Dower House. She found the Dowager Lady Dalrymple as disapproving as ever of Alec’s middle-class background and distasteful profession, yet making plans for an elaborate—a
nd expensive—wedding in St. George’s, Hanover Square.

  “Who is to pay for this, Mother?” Daisy asked, exasperated.

  “I dare say your cousin Edgar can be brought to understand his obligation, since he so cruelly exiled us from hearth and home.”

  “Mother, you know Edgar had no choice but to succeed to the title,” Daisy could not help saying for the thousandth time, “and he offered us a home.”

  “As though I should accept that man’s charity! A schoolmaster, so underbred, and the way Geraldine puts on airs is quite shocking.” Lady Dalrymple counterattacked: “When are you and Mr. Fletcher going to set the date? I disapprove of long engagements, and the church must be booked months in advance.”

  Daisy at once started to think about registry offices. She also wondered, rather dolefully, whether Alec could get a guaranteed leave of absence from the Metropolitan Police to be married, or if a sudden complex case might tear him from the altar—or the registry office equivalent. Frightful thought!

  Her mother always had a depressing effect on her spirits but she revived as soon as she left Fairacres. Her recovery was completed when she reached Mulberry Place. On the table in the tiny hall, an extravagantly vast bouquet of chrysanthemums awaited her, and Alec’s card with a note saying simply, “Missing you.”

  Beside the vase was a heap of letters, accumulated during her absence. Daisy flipped through them, recognizing the handwriting of her sister, two friends, a cousin. Then a business-size, typewritten envelope. Another rejection, no doubt.

  But it wasn’t. Dilettanti magazine wanted her article, as long as she could let them have it by the end of September. If so, would she please telephone as soon as possible to confirm.

  “Lucy?” she called up the stairs. No response.

  Only three weeks! Still, it was not like starting from scratch. She already had a good start on the research, and she had made the acquaintance of all the people she would need to interview. Reaching for the telephone she and Lucy had had installed just a month ago, Daisy confirmed.