Dead as a Scone (35 page)

The one item on his list that he could not find in his or Flick’s office was the museum’s photographic catalog. He decided to borrow one from the gift shop on the ground floor. He skipped down the stairs, waved to the security guard on duty in the Welcome Centre kiosk, and entered the one space in the museum he liked least. The gift shop stocked teapots, tea filters, teacups, tea mugs, teakettles, tea cozies, tea caddies, tea makers, tea infusers, tea bag holders, tea towels, Japanese tea ceremony sets, souvenir teaspoons, games about tea, and two hundred kinds of loose and bagged teas grown on five different continents.

He made his way past a shelf crowded with teddy bears drinking tea and dolls participating in tea parties, then skirted a long metal rack of postcards and photographs of the museum’s most noted antiquities. Along the shop’s back wall, a tall bookcase presented volumes on the history of tea and the serving of tea, cookbooks full of tea-related recipes, and a selection of novels set in tearooms, on tea plantations, or that involved tea-infatuated characters. He spotted several copies of the antiquities catalog on the top shelf—the shelf dedicated to slow-selling “professional” books—tucked next to a tome on tea tasting.

Nigel glanced around the gift shop, uttered a soft whimper of despair, and fled with the copy of the catalog that seemed the most shopworn.

He came face-to-face with Flick in the long ground-floor hallway. She looked a bit knackered from six hours of train travel, but the brisk walk from the station had given her complexion an astonishing rosy glow that took his breath away.

“Where’s my cuppa?” she said.

“In the boardroom,” he managed to say, “and I am equally pleased to see you, too.”

Cha-Cha, who had enjoyed the run of the museum that day, had apparently spent the afternoon in discussions with Earl the Grey. Nigel caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye as the Shiba Inu—who had somehow heard Flick’s voice—clattered around the Welcome Centre kiosk and hurled himself at her legs.

Flick, who invariably smiled at the dog’s antics, did not smile today.

“Beat it, Cha-Cha,” she said gently. “I’m not in the mood.”

An hour later, Nigel fully understood Flick’s unhappy disposition. In fact, he had descended to her level of gloominess.

“I think we should review the bidding,” he said.

“Be my guest.”

“If we believe Philip Oxley—”

Flick interrupted. “And I do.”

“As do I.” Nigel raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Because
we believe Philip Oxley, we must deal with the strong likelihood that Desmond Hawker fraudulently acquired the antiquities that we call the Hawker collection.” He added, “In other words, the historical evidence suggests that he copped the lot from Neville Brackenbury.”

“So does the evidence from a noted art expert.” Flick dove into the papers, booklets, and documents scattered across the large boardroom table and retrieved a hefty textbook. She had used a yellow “sticky” as a bookmark. “This was written about the Hawker collection in 1965.” She began to read aloud.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Hawker family’s collection of tea-related antiquities is the relative mystery that surrounds its acquisition. The late 1800s was a time of enormous activity for wealthy collectors in England and America who scoured Europe and Asia in search of artistic masterpieces. Some collectors were art experts in their own right and made their own purchasing decisions; others hired agents to acquire the finest available artworks on their behalf. There are no indications that Desmond Hawker did either, although his one-time partner, Neville Brackenbury, is known to have commissioned the services of two agents in Europe and one renowned authority on
objets d’art
from India, China, and Japan. Most of the purchases attributed to these surrogate buyers seem to have made their way into the Hawker collection. The most likely explanation is that Mr. Hawker had, for some reason, tasked Mr. Brackenbury with the role of acquiring artworks for him.

Flick snapped the book shut. “Wrong!” she said. “The most likely explanation is that Desmond Hawker was a bloody thief.” She lobbed the book at the pile of paperwork.

Nigel rolled his chair backward as the heavy book skittered down the long conference table and sent smaller items flying in all directions.

“On the other hand,” Nigel said as he pushed detritus away from the edge of the table, “does any of this nineteenth-century intrigue amount to a hill of beans? Any wrongs done to Neville Brackenbury are ancient history. The collection has been in the Hawkers’ possession for more than a hundred years, and we don’t really know whether Desmond acted illegally. Who can possibly argue that the family does not own the antiquities in every legal sense?”

“Dame Elspeth Hawker can,” Flick said sharply.

“And therein lies our dilemma,” Nigel said. “Elspeth seems to have been spot-on in her other concerns. Is there a chance
—
even a wee chance—that the museum will make a serious mistake if we move ahead with our decision to buy the collection from the Hawker heirs?”

Flick raised her index finger. “The very same Hawker heirs who probably know all about the shaky provenance and would love to unload their dodgy collection on an unsuspecting tea museum.”

Nigel grunted. “With the help of Barrington Bleasdale, their slick solicitor.”

“We are caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“Granted. But what do we tell the trustees? They will skin us alive if we simply
un
recommend our decision to go forward with the purchase. We need a substantial reason to veer from our announced course.”

“Actually, we need some good legal advice.”

“I could call Iona Saxby. She is a top-notch solicitor.”

“And she likes you.”

Nigel wrinkled his nose, then looked at his watch. “It’s five thirty. She may still be in her office.”

Nigel dialed Iona’s business number. “No joy,” he said. “Her voicemail picked up.”

“Try her at home.”

He dialed a second number and listened to the phone ring. He hung up when her personal answering machine invited him to leave a message. “Not there, either.”

“Rats!”

Nigel nodded his agreement with Flick’s frustration, although he felt relieved that he had not reached Iona. It made more sense for Flick and him to sort out the “problem” before they involved any of the museum’s trustees.

“Do you know any other handy lawyers?” she asked.

“Now that you mention it, I do have an old friend in London.” He reached for the phone once more.

A basso male voice answered, “Andrew here.”

“Greetings, it’s Nigel Owen.”

“Nigel! Good man! Have you returned to civilization? Or are you still disgruntled in Tunbridge Wells?”

Nigel moved his finger to his lips, then pressed the speaker button so Flick could hear both sides of the conversation.

“My tenure at the tea museum has another five months to run.”

“Poor blighter!”

Flick clapped her hand to her mouth and turned away. Nigel fought not to laugh along with her. He swallowed hard and said, “Andrew, I need a soupçon of free legal advice. After five years as a bureaucrat in London, do you still remember the law?”

“An adequate touché. Not bad for a provincial living so far from town. What do you want to know?”

“The museum intends to purchase a collection of antiquities that have been in the possession of a respected family for more than one hundred years. However, we recently received information that the founder of the family may have acquired the items in a fraudulent manner. We are concerned about issues of provenance.”

“Provenance! The bane of every museum keeper. I get it—your issue pertains to the workings of England’s celebrated Limitations Act of 1980. Think back to that omnibus course on business law you took at business school.”

“As I recall, the Limitations Act takes away one’s right to contest ownership of property after a reasonable number of years.”

“Six years, in fact. Presuming that the property is acquired in good faith.” Andrew sniggered. “However, if said family acquired said antiquities in bad faith—if they nicked them, for example—the six-year limit does not apply. The true owners could assert their ownership six
centuries
later.”

“I see.”

“Now, let us say that the tea museum purchases said items in good faith. After six years, the act would protect you against any claims. In theory, no one could contest your ownership.” Andrew sniggered again. “Trouble is, laddie, you seem to be acting in bad faith because you have prior information that the goodies fell off the back of a truck. Consequently, the time limit might not apply to you, either.”

Nigel watched Flick’s eyes widen. He felt sure that his eyes had become even larger.

He thanked Andrew, promised to visit soon, and rang off.

“It’s a muddle,” Nigel said. “A blooming big muddle. And we are in the middle of it. Our chief problem is that we have to make assumptions about what Desmond Hawker did or didn’t do more than a hundred years ago.”

“Maybe we don’t have to make assumptions. As you suggested yesterday, one of us should peruse Desmond’s papers in the archives.”

“A great idea. In fact, there’s no time like the present.”

Flick shook her head. “Count me out, Nigel. I’m too annoyed to do research. More to the point, I’m pooped because I got up at five thirty to catch the early train to London.” She spoke to Cha-Cha before Nigel had a chance to argue. “On your feet, dog. You are going to spend a long quiet night with me.”

After Flick left, Nigel tidied the boardroom and thought about the museum’s archives. He had visited the basement before. The boxes and bins were neatly labeled. He did not need the chief curator holding his hand to poke through Desmond’s personal papers.

More to my point, I won’t sleep tonight if I don’t at least begin the search.

The staircase that led down to the basement was next to the elevator on the ground floor. He descended and turned on all the overhead banks of fluorescent lights. The museum’s architect had given the basement two purposes. The eastern half housed the traditional assortment of boilers, heaters, blowers, valves, pipes, electric panels, and other paraphernalia necessary to keep the museum comfortable and operational. The western half accommodated a small office suite for Conan Davies and his security staff and a much larger storage area designed for long-term warehousing of documents, artifacts, and antiquities. The storage area was cool, dry, and (Nigel had decided) remarkably un-basementlike, with a high ceiling, black-and-white asphalt tiles on the floor, brick-faced support columns, and smooth plastered walls painted a creamy off-white.

The Hawker archives filled three long ranks of metal shelves in the southern end of the storage area. The lion’s share of Desmond’s papers consisted of accounts and correspondence pertaining to his tea businesses. Nigel doubted that routine commercial records would shed any light on the antiquities. In any case, one would need a team of researchers to examine that much paper.

Nigel moved along the lines of shelves until he reached the last bay in the third rank. Here were twenty-odd file boxes full of the commodore’s personal papers, the first labeled DESMOND HAWKER CORRESPONDENCE: 1860–1863.

That is too early. Think! What dates are important?

Nigel remembered that Flick had talked about the Long Depression and Neville Brackenbury’s bankruptcy in 1876. Nigel scanned the boxes until he saw one labeled DESMOND HAWKER CORRESPONDENCE: 1875–1877. He heaved it down to the floor and unsnapped the lid. His heart sank.

There must be a thousand letters stuffed inside.

He plucked one free at random from the middle of the box and slowly made sense of the intricate cursive script. It was a copy of a complaint letter dated 18 May 1876, from Desmond to his tailor.

Crikey! I would need a week to go through this one box.

Nigel replaced the letter and hoisted the box back on its shelf.

Perhaps this isn’t such a grand idea after all.

And then a slightly battered file box sitting within easy reach on the bottom shelf caught his eye: MISCELLANEOUS HAWKER HOUSEHOLD RECORDS.

The word “miscellaneous” straightaway cheered Nigel. It implied a lack of structure and absence of discipline. Who knew what one might find in a box named
miscellaneous?

He opened the lid and peered inside. As he had suspected, the box held a hodgepodge of loose papers. He fished one out and examined it: a baker’s receipt dated 1904. Someone in the Hawker household had bought seven loaves of bread for a total price of fourteen pence—only tuppence a loaf.

The good old days.

Nigel reached in again: a receipt for coal from 1894. And again: an order for bed linens placed in 1901.

His hand touched a large rectangle of folded paper. He unfolded it and discovered a neatly drawn floor plan for Lion’s Peak—dated 1873 and signed by Decimus Burton.