Rattle His Bones Read online

  She was dying to share the news with someone who would appreciate it, but she always tried to avoid phoning Alec at the Yard, and he was often out of his office anyway. Mrs. Potter, the charwoman who “did” for Daisy and Lucy and took a deep, admiring interest in their work, had already gone home. Daisy rang through to Lucy on the studio extension, but there was no answer.

  Three weeks—she had better get cracking. She telephoned the Natural History Museum and made appointments to see the Keepers of Zoology and Botany in the morning.

  That done, she dropped her hat on the table, her coat on the chair, and leaving luggage strewn about the hall, hurried to the tiny back parlour which was her study. She already had a rough draft of the stately home article, typed on the portable machine on semi-permanent loan from her Town and Country editor (How her mother had moaned at the evidence of her daughter’s occupation!). It wouldn’t take long to finish it up on the massive, ancient Underwood typewriter which sat incongruously on the elegant Regency writing table from Fairacres.

  The Underwood saw a great deal of her that week. Each day she returned from the museum with reams of notes and typed long into the evening. The museum’s business was far more complicated than she had realized.

  In the private offices, studies, and work rooms where she was now introduced, the preparation of specimens for display was a minor aspect of the work in progress. From all over the world, unknown plants and creatures were sent to be classified. Daisy had never previously heard of Linnaeus, but she was soon as familiar with his system as with the map of the London underground. The museum staff produced not only minute descriptions but painstaking drawings and even paintings of each specimen.

  That was in the Zoology and Botany Departments, where specimens normally arrived with all their parts intact. In the Geology Department, imagination played a greater part. As Mummery had explained to her, few fossils were found complete; the missing bits had to be guessed at. At least, it looked like guesswork to Daisy, though Mummery insisted it was educated deduction.

  His position was undermined by the iconoclastic Ruddlestone, Curator of Fossil Invertebrates, a jolly North-countryman who rivalled Alec’s sergeant, Tom Tring, in size and baldness.

  “Guesswork is more like it, though we have advanced a bit since Waterhouse Hawkins,” Ruddlestone admitted to Daisy.

  “Waterhouse Hawkins?”

  “He built life-size concrete dinosaurs for the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, all as bulky and firmly four-footed as elephants or hippos. Believe it or not, he gave a dinner party inside one half-completed model. Then there were the Americans, Cope and Marsh: bitter enemies, brilliant in many ways, but Cope stuck the skull of an Elasmosaurus on the end of its tail! Marsh never let him forget it.” Ruddlestone roared with laughter.

  “Mr. Steadman told me his Diplodocus has the wrong feet.”

  “Poor Steadman, it rankles badly that his prize exhibit is made of plaster of Paris. A load of real bones the Americans sent over during the War was sunk by a German submarine. A great loss, whatever that ass Pettigrew said.” The curator was no longer amused.

  “What did he say?” Daisy asked, though she had a good idea.

  “That the loss of mere fossils was trivial. In his view, a cargo of munitions would have been a great loss. But munitions can be replaced and fossils cannot! I’m afraid affairs like the controversy over Dr. Smith Woodward’s Piltdown skull play into the hands of ignoramuses like Pettigrew.” Ruddlestone cheered up. “But it illustrates what I was telling you: They can’t all be right, so someone’s ‘educated deductions’ have to have gone far astray!”

  Later that afternoon, shortly before the museum closed, Daisy asked Smith Woodward about the Piltdown Man controversy.

  He took her to see it again, but this time he contemplated it in silence for a minute, before sighing, “It really is very troublesome. Fossil fish are really my field, you know. I believe I may say I am accounted something of an authority on fossil fish. Do let me show you my Arthrodire.”

  He had been so kind that Daisy let him off the hook. She could always ask someone else about Piltdown. He limped at her side across the gallery, and they entered the hall leading to the fossil reptiles, with the dinosaur gallery beyond, wherein the fishes occupied their modest place.

  Somewhere in front of them a voice rose in triumph and contempt, the words indistinguishable. The bellow that followed held a note of surprised agony, like that of a wounded bull. Then came a tremendous crash.

  With a gasp, Smith Woodward stopped, rooted to the ground. Daisy ran through the arch ahead.

  Sprawled on his back, immobile amidst a litter of smashed Pareiasaurus bones, lay Pettigrew. Across Ol’ Stony’s white shirtfront and pale grey waistcoat seeped a crimson stain.

  4

  “Help!” squawked Daisy. She did not want to go near that bloody body, but unlikely as it seemed from this distance, Pettigrew might still be alive. Someone must check his pulse.

  Someone must also go for the police, though surely it could not be murder, not in a museum of all places! The Keeper of Geology must have had some sort of fit, fallen against the Pareiasaurus, and been stabbed by a shard of bone.

  Through the chest, when he was lying on his back?

  “What was that?” A plump, grey-haired woman appeared under the arch to the dinosaurs. “Good gracious! Stay there, children, don’t come any further.” She spread her arms in a barricade, behind which bobbed five youthful, inquisitive faces.

  “What’s happened, Granny?”

  “Never you mind, Arthur Stubbs. Take the others to look at the dinosaurs, do.” She moved a few steps towards Daisy and asked in a lowered voice, “Is he dead?”

  “I think so. I don’t know. I haven’t …”

  “You leave it to me, dear. I used to be a nurse. If there’s a pulse, I’ll find it.” Bustling forward, she stooped to clear the bone fragments from a patch of floor and knelt at Pettigrew’s side.

  “Don’t touch anything you don’t absolutely have to,” Daisy warned.

  “What … what … ?” came a weak voice from behind her.

  “Dr. Smith Woodward, will you please go and tell the police there has been a … an accident?”

  “Police? Surely a doctor …”

  “Too late for that. He’s gone,” pronounced the grey-haired woman. She looked down with grim compassion at the crimson bloom on Pettigrew’s chest. “And the young lady’s right, it looks like it could be a police matter.”

  “Police, yes, at once.” Smith Woodward fled.

  “Give us a hand up, dear. I must get back to the grandkiddies, though what I’m to tell them I’m sure I don’t know. What is the world coming to?”

  “You won’t leave, will you? I mean, the police …”

  “There’s no way out I know save through here, and I’m not about to let the children see this.” She started back to the dinosaur gallery. A boy of twelve or thirteen was peering round the corner. “Shoo, shoo! Back you go this instant. You’ll be all right, dear, will you?” she asked, turning her head.

  “Y-yes,” Daisy said doubtfully.

  As long as she didn’t actually look at the dead Keeper of Mineralogy, she wasn’t going to faint, or be sick, or anything like that. She had to stay on the spot, though, until the police came, to stop anyone touching what might turn out to be clues.

  Was it really murder? Alec would be furious that she had “fallen over” another body, got herself mixed up in another case—as if she wanted to, or could help it. It was awful of her to be worrying about that when poor Pettigrew lay dead. He had been helpful to her and pleasant to Derek and Belinda, whatever his faults. All the same, how was she going to explain to Alec that once again someone she knew had been killed practically in her presence?

  Perhaps she could keep it from him. Perhaps the museum police would sort it out quickly and not need to call in Scotland Yard. Where were they?

  Daisy glanced at her wristwatch, a recent present from Alec.
She was startled to see how few minutes ago she had decided there was time enough before the museum closed to ask Smith Woodward about the Piltdown fuss. It felt like an age since he had scurried off. Maybe he was having trouble persuading the police of the need for speed.

  “Hoy!” The dinosaur commissionaire lumbered out of his gallery. “What the bloody—’scuse me, miss—flippin’ blankety blank’s going on here?”

  “Dr. Pettigrew’s dead,” Daisy said tersely.

  “That’s what the lady said, miss. Blimey, will you look at what Ol’ Stony’s done to that pariosaurus! Mr. Mummery’s going to have forty fits.”

  “Never mind about the blasted Pareiasaurus! Dr. Pettigrew’s been killed.”

  “Who by?” asked the commissionaire.

  “I don’t know. And goodness knows where he’s got to by now. Are there any other ways out besides through the mammal gallery?”

  “Two lots o’ private stairs to the basement, miss, and one lot going up. Reckon they oughta be watched?” Looking around, he demanded, “Where’s Harry? Gawd, you don’t think he done it? Nah, not Harry!”

  “This gallery’s commissionaire?”

  “That’s him when he’s at home.” Skirting the corpse and the scattered bones by a respectful margin, he stuck his head into the invertebrate gallery and yelled, “Hoy, Bert! C’mere, and get a move on!” He moved on to stand under the arch between the two halves of the reptile gallery and roared in parade-ground tones, “Harry!”

  Receiving no apparent response, the commissionaire hurried back between Daisy and the remains, saying, “Tell you what, miss, I’ll go to the General Liberry stairs. You tell Bert to hop it over to guard the ones by the Geological Liberry, and send Harry to the up-stairs at t’other end. Prolly too late, but mi’s well. Right?”

  Again without waiting for an answer, he disappeared through the door in the arch at the end of the gallery.

  Daisy had just started to wonder whether he or Bert might be the villain, when Bert arrived from one direction and a police sergeant from the other. They both stopped dead, and while they stood for a moment gaping at Pettigrew, Harry came through the dividing arch.

  His concern was all for the Pareiasaurus. “Cor, that’s put the cat among the pigeons, and how! Mr. Mummery won’t half hit the ceiling!”

  Bert nodded solemn agreement.

  The police sergeant rounded on Harry. “Where were you, Boston, when this here incident took place?”

  “Just popped through to have a word with Reg Underwood, di’n’t I?” Harry Boston said in an injured voice. “See he was orright, like, and did he need a hand wiv anyfing.”

  “It’s a foot he needs more like,” said Bert. He snickered, then cast a sidelong, half-guilty glance at Pettigrew.

  “And where were you?” demanded the sergeant, a stocky, blue-chinned man of perhaps forty.

  Bert stiffened to attention. “In my place,” he said loudly, “back there with the fossile inverbitrates like I was s’posed. Wilf Atkins’ll tell you.”

  “Atkins was with you?” asked the sergeant. “Where is he now?”

  “If Atkins is the dinosaur gallery commissionaire,” said Daisy, “he went to guard the stairs to the basement from the General Library. He suggested these two should watch the other stairs from this part of the building.”

  “Prob’ly too late, miss,” the sergeant said despondently, “but they might as well. I’ve got a man on the main entrance,” he continued, as Bert and Harry hurried off, looking relieved, “and one on the entrance to the fossil mammals. The other two I sent down to the basement, but there’s three back doors. They can’t cover ’em all, nor the stairs to the Spirit Building, besides.”

  “The Spirit Building?” Daisy exclaimed, intrigued by a sudden vision of the Natural History Museum’s collection of ghosts. Then she realized he must be referring to the place where one of the zoologists had taken her to see specimens preserved in spirits. He had not mentioned the annexe by name.

  “Out the back, ‘cause of the fire hazard,” the policeman confirmed her guess. “I haven’t got enough men for summat like this, miss, and that’s the truth, though luckily the next shift’ll be arriving any moment. I rang up the station. They’ll send some fellows round double quick, too, but meantime our murderer’s prob’ly done a bunk.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Daisy agreed, not quite liking the “our.”

  “I s’pose you won’t be able to identify him, miss? You saw what happened?”

  “No, only heard. Dr. Smith Woodward and I were out there, in the through hall, coming this way. By the time I got here there was no one in sight except … except Dr. Pettigrew. At least,” she corrected herself conscientiously, “for a bit all I looked at was the … the mess. I should have looked around. I’m sorry.”

  “Can’t be helped, miss.” The policeman patted her arm. “Musta been a horrible shock. By the way, miss, Sergeant Jameson’s the name, and right sorry I can’t let you go, but the detective officers’ll want a statement when they get here.”

  “Of course. They will be local detectives?”

  “It’s up to the Chelsea Division super, miss, whether to call in the Yard.” He took out his notebook. “’Spect I’d better get your name and address down. It’s Miss Dalrymple, isn’t it, that’s writing about the museum? How d’you spell it?”

  Daisy gave him the information, and told him about the woman who had declared Pettigrew dead. “I’ll go and keep her grandchildren out of the way,” she offered, “and send her to give you her name, if you like. You’ll want to stay here and see that no one interferes with the scene of the crime, won’t you?”

  “That’s right, miss. You know a bit about police procedure, I see. Read detective stories, I dare say,” he added—to Daisy’s relief, as she was kicking herself for revealing her familiarity. Gratefully, he went on, “Yes, miss, it’d be a help if you could send the lady to me.”

  Daisy retired into the dinosaur gallery. Mrs. Ditchley, as the ex-nurse introduced herself, went to see Sergeant Jameson, happy to leave her daughter’s children in Daisy’s charge. “I’ll be that glad when they go back to school next week,” she confessed.

  Aged from six or so to the thirteen-year-old Arthur, they gathered excitedly around Daisy.

  “What happened, miss?” Arthur asked. “Gran won’t tell.”

  “Someone was hurt,” Daisy temporized, “one of the museum staff. He fell against the Pareiasaurus skeleton and smashed it all to pieces.”

  “Cor, really? Which one’s that?”

  “It’s the fat one,” a girl of perhaps ten told him knowledgeably. “Isn’t it, miss? Not as big as the dinosaurs, but its bones look awf’ly solid.”

  “That’s right,” Daisy told her. “But fossil bones are often pretty fragile, even the big ones.”

  “Told you so, Arthur, nyah, nyah, nyah. That’s why you’re not allowed to touch. I’m going to dig up fossils when I’m grown up, miss.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Girls don’t do stuff like that,” Arthur objected.

  Daisy told them about Mary Anning and Mrs. Mantell. The girl, Jennifer, was thrilled.

  “Who cares about stupid old fossils?” was Arthur’s reaction.

  “My nephew thought the dinosaurs were pretty exciting, just because of their size,” Daisy said. “Have you looked at them properly?”

  “Not much.”

  “Did too! You were looking at the Megalosaurus.”

  “The one with the big teeth? Well … I say, miss, what happened to the man who got hurt? Someone hit him over the head with a fossil?”

  “Sort of. Did you see anyone cross the gallery?”

  Daisy was sure she would have seen anyone going through the main entrance to the dinosaurs, straight across from the hall where she was when she heard the crash. But halfway down the gallery, a door on the left led to the General Library, and an arch on the right to the fossil cephalopods (what were cephalopods? She still had not found out). If Wilfred
Atkins had been with Bert in the invertebrates beyond, the murderer could have fled unseen through the mysterious cephalopods and crossed the dinosaurs to the library.

  The children glanced at each other and shook their heads.

  “No,” Arthur admitted, disappointed.

  “But we might not’ve,” Jennifer insisted. “You were too looking at the Megalosaurus, like anything. He was, miss, honestly. And talking about its teeth. We might not’ve seen anyone, nor heard footsteps neither.”

  “Here comes Gran.” The littlest child ran to meet Mrs. Ditchley. “Gran, I want to go home. I don’t like it here.”

  “Well, no more do I, Katy. Such goings on, and in a museum, too. And all these bones, it’s not natural. I don’t hold with it. But the policeman says there’s nothing he can do till he gets reinforcements … .”

  “I don’t like policemen.”

  “They’re just doing their job, duckie, so we’ll have to make the best of it, won’t we? Let’s sing a nice, cheerful song.”

  So Daisy found herself standing among the skeletons joining a rousing chorus of “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside,” followed by “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag.” They were Smile, smile, smiling for all they were worth when the door to the General Library opened and Mr. Mummery burst forth.

  “What the deuce is this horrible racket?” he howled. His round face was red with fury, his wild hair and eyebrows bristling like an upset hedgehog. Marching up to the silenced singers, he gabbled, “Madam, it is after six o’clock. Peace and quiet should by now have descended upon this august institution. Kindly remove yourself and these bra—children immediately. If, as is no doubt the case, you find yourselves locked in, the solution is not to caterwaul among the dinosaurs but to find one of our admirable police guards and request egress. Do I make myself clear?”

  Katy buried her face in her grandmother’s skirt and burst into tears.

  “Mr. Mummery, please!” said Daisy. “Let me explain—”

  “Oh, it’s you, Miss Dalrymple. I had not observed you. Are these people in some way assisting you in your research? The effect of loud noises on a dinosaur’s otic ossicles, perhaps? I must say, I had thought better of you. I cannot—”