There's a Murder Afoot Page 3

  Jayne was right, and I picked up my pace. As we passed the aisle where Randy (Uncle Randolph?) had his goods displayed, I was distracted by the sound of raised voices. Heads turned and people stopped walking.

  “You owe me big time, and I want it now!”

  I also stopped walking. A small woman stood in Randy’s space. She was a good foot shorter than him, but she almost pressed herself up against him, so he had to look down at her. She wore an ankle-length multicolored dress, her hair was tied back in a mass of dreadlocks, a row of piercings ran up both ears, and a thick silver band was wrapped around every finger. At the moment, her index finger was extended, and she jabbed it into Randy’s chest.

  “No,” she said. “I will not stop making a scene. I want to make a scene. I want everyone here to know you stole my idea.” She whirled around to face the onlookers, her skirt forming a circle of swirling color. Some people ducked their heads and returned to their own business, not wanting to be caught staring. Many kept staring.

  I did.

  The woman threw out her ringed hands. “All this, all this, was my idea! I had the concept. I made the original sketches. I thought we were friends. And instead”—she turned again and pointed theatrically at Randy, who shrugged—“he went behind my back and stole them.”

  Two security guards, a man and a woman, approached at a rapid trot. “Come with us, please, madam,” the man said.

  The short woman glared at Randy. “You haven’t heard the last of this.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I haven’t,” he said.

  She walked away, head high and steps firm. The security guards scurried after her, relieved the scene had ended so easily. Randy lifted his arm and his sleeve fell back. He spun the index finger of his right hand in the air beside his ear. A few people laughed.

  “That was interesting,” I said to Jayne. “Second time in two days I’ve heard my long-lost uncle be accused of theft.”

  Chapter Three

  Jayne and I were lucky enough to snag the last two seats in the packed room for Mark Gatiss, off to one side, near the front. We enjoyed his talk very much. He was funny and charming, and answered audience questions with genuine warmth and interest.

  Although I caught the occasional slip of his smile and the half roll of his eyes at one in an endless stream of questions about what Benedict Cumberbatch was really like.

  We filed out of the room amongst a pack of eagerly chatting fans.

  “What’s next on the schedule?” I asked Jayne.

  “Lunch,” she said. “Do we want lunch?”

  “Not after that big breakfast.”

  “Which is why Anna, Duchess of Bedford, invented afternoon tea. One of the things I most want to do in London is have afternoon tea. Where do you think’s the best place for the whole experience?”

  “They do a marvelous tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. You could tell everyone at home you had tea in Kensington Palace without adding that you had to pay an exorbitant amount for it and no one from the royal family joined you.”

  “That would sound impressive, all right.”

  “The National Portrait Gallery does a nice tea as well, and you get a great view over the rooftops to Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall. I used to go there when I had American publishers and publicists visiting the shop and I wanted to treat them. By treat them, I mean let them pay.”

  Jayne clapped her hands. “There’s so much to see and do. I wish we were staying longer. Hey, there’s your dad.” She waved, and my father broke into a huge smile.

  He gave me a light kiss on the cheek and said hello to Jayne. “Nervous?” he asked me.

  “About what?” I said.

  “About giving your talk?”

  “Oh, that. Why would I be nervous?”

  “Gemma doesn’t do nervous,” Jayne said. “Instead, I get nervous for her.”

  The short woman who’d accosted Randy earlier walked swiftly past us, skirt swinging, dreadlocks bouncing, jewelry clanking, paying no attention to anything going on around her. “Do you know who that is?” I asked my father.

  He watched her go and then shook his head. “Should I?”

  “She’s no friend to Randolph Denhaugh.”

  “Not many people are. He doesn’t keep friends for long. No longer than it takes to fleece them, anyway.”

  “You going to tell me the story there?”

  “Someday, perhaps. Can I take you ladies to lunch?”

  “No lunch for us, thanks,” I said. “But if you’re going someplace, we’ll join you and have a cup of tea.”

  “I’m heading back to the hotel,” Jayne said, “to check into the times for some of the things I want to do in the city tomorrow and Sunday. I’ll be back in time for your talk, Gemma.” She wiggled her fingers at us and slipped into the crowd.

  “Your friend’s nice,” Dad said.

  “She is definitely that.” Jayne had her phone with her and the hotel provided free Wi-Fi for conference attendees. She didn’t need to go to our room. She wanted to let my father and me have some time alone together. I slipped my arm through his and we went to the hotel restaurant.

  I ordered tea and Dad asked for steak and kidney pie, his favorite.

  “Don’t tell your mother,” he said after he’d handed the waiter his menu.

  “Tell her what?”

  “That I’m having a pie and mash. Now I’m retired she thinks I’m a prime candidate for a heart attack, and she’s put me on a diet.”

  This was the first I’d heard of any heart problems. I looked at my father in alarm. His color was good, his eyes clear, and he hadn’t put on more than a pound or two since I’d last seen him.

  He read my face and gave me a big smile. “Don’t worry, Gemma. I’m as healthy as I ever was. One of the solicitors in her chambers dropped dead of a heart attack a week after his retirement party. Your mother’s convinced retirement killed him, not the fact that he was a two-pack-a-day smoker and he weighed close to twenty stone.”

  “That’ll do it,” I said. Twenty stone was almost three hundred pounds. I leaned back to allow the waiter to put my tea things in front of me. I happily breathed in the scent of a perfectly prepared cup of tea. “Now that you’ve retired, is Mum thinking about doing the same?”

  “She’s thinking about it, yes. But thinking and doing are very different things. I’m well aware a lot of old cops can’t cope very well with retirement, but I’ve always had my woodworking to keep me focused. I’m selling some pieces now.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said. Before I’d been born, Dad had set up a woodworking shed in the back garden. When things on the job were particularly tough, he retreated in there and dealt with all the stress and anger by making beautiful sculptures and playful toys.

  My mother was a barrister, a trial lawyer. She and her chambers—her law firm—was one of the most highly regarded in the city. My dad had been a cop. Police officer and defense lawyer didn’t make for an easy marriage sometimes. But my parents loved each other deeply and they made it work. They were different in many ways. Dad was from a working-class family. His father had been a construction worker and his mother a store clerk, whereas Mum’s family was genuine aristocracy—although her extended family had the title and it was a minor one at that. Her family had been penniless since the late nineteenth century, when a drinking, gambling, dissolute son invested everything in a scheme to find gold in the jungles of Borneo.

  Gold had not been found in Borneo, and said son had spent the remainder of his days, and the last of the family money, in a mental asylum.

  These days the family seat—meaning the house and the land that couldn’t be sold off—was crumbling into ruin, and I hadn’t seen the current earl, my third cousin twice removed (or was it second cousin three times removed?) since my christening.

  “Speaking of families …” I said.

  “Were we?” Dad asked.

  “We are now. Tell me about Randolph. He’s here, at this conference, selling ske
tches in the exhibit room. They’re very good.”

  The waiter brought Dad’s lunch: a large round pie with a glistening golden crust, thick brown gravy, a mountain of mashed potatoes drenched in butter, and a side of mushy peas. Dad picked up his knife and fork and cut into the pie. Steam, fragrant with the smell of beef and onions, rose into the air, and the filling spread through the potatoes.

  “Want some?” Dad said.

  “Oh, yeah.” I pushed my side plate over and he served me a healthy portion.

  I savored a few bites and then repeated my question. “Randolph?”

  “First, what’s your take on him, Gemma?”

  I thought. “He’s been in prison, but probably not for too long. He has at least one poorly applied tattoo, what the Americans call a prison tat, visible above his right wrist.” I’d noticed that when he lifted his hands to joke to the onlookers that the woman who’d confronted him was crazy. “His color is fine, for an Englishman in January anyway, so it’s been some time since he was in jail. He has a similar accent as Mum, which you’d expect, but slightly different, which means they were educated apart. Mum’s dad went to Eton, so his son likely did also, but Randolph didn’t attend Cambridge or Oxford.”

  Dad nodded. “Close enough. He was kicked out of Cambridge first term.”

  “If he did the drawings I saw this morning—and judging by his attitude to them, he did—then he’s highly talented, but he doesn’t take his art seriously. I don’t think he takes much seriously.”

  “Except the pursuit of money,” Dad said.

  “Considering he’s staffing his own booth at a fan conference, his career as an artist isn’t proving all that lucrative. Meaning, he has to find money another way.”

  He’d stolen a valuable painting from my grandparents more than thirty years ago. He’d been in prison at least once. He was, judging by his drawings, a highly skilled and highly detailed artist. That, plus the accusations the dreadlocked woman had thrown at him, led me to the logical conclusion. “His past, and maybe his present, is in art forgery?”

  Dad grinned at me. “You got it. I’ve unofficially followed Randy’s career for a long time. After he was expelled from Cambridge for forging a letter of recommendation, he went to Camberwell College of Arts. He didn’t last there either. Something about paying another student to write a paper for him. He tried to make it in the London art world, but nothing came of it. He has talent to spare, but not a breath of originality.”

  “Exactly the skill set required for a forger.”

  “Now he’s on police radar as a forger, he can’t get much work. Which is why, I assume, he’s trying to get by selling his own art.” Dad scraped his plate almost down to the pattern.

  I poured myself another cup of tea. “You’re right he’s short of money, and no doubt not at all happy about it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “His clothes, both last night and today, were middling expensive, and reasonably new or at least well maintained, but his shoes showed signs of excessive wear. He’s keeping up appearances as best he can, but he has to cut corners where he hopes it won’t be noticed. He was wearing the same shoes last night, with black dress trousers, as today with khakis.” Dad nodded, telling me to go on. “As people have come for this weekend from all around the world, and some pack lighter than others, on most people at the conference I wouldn’t consider the lack of shoes matching clothes to indicate a problem, but Randy lives in London.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He has an Oyster card, a Tube pass. I saw it last night when he opened his wallet to take out his business card. Although, I will admit, tourists buy Oyster cards for temporary visits.”

  “Randy might seem like a charming old rogue,” Dad said. “But he’s nothing of the sort.”

  “I didn’t think so,” I said.

  “I can’t help thinking it’s not a coincidence he’s here, this weekend. Your name is listed on the conference website as a guest speaker, Gemma. Be warned. He broke your grandparents’ hearts when he took the Constable and disappeared. They didn’t have much money, but they used what they did have to give your mother and her brother a good education. The Constable was an inheritance, one of the only things saved when the family lost everything, and they needed it to help them in their old age.”

  “What happened to the painting?”

  Dad shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I’ve never worked in art fraud, but I made a few inquiries over the years. It seems to have simply disappeared. Probably locked in some Middle Eastern art collector’s private vault these days. Everyone knew Randy took it, but your grandparents wouldn’t help the police investigate, so he was never charged. They hoped he’d have a change of heart and bring it back. That never happened. Keep away from him, Gemma, that’s all I ask.” Dad rubbed his face, and he suddenly looked twenty years older. “I only hope your mother doesn’t catch sight of him. She adored her little brother. It was an enormous blow to her when he did what he did, and to this day she hasn’t forgiven him. Ready to go?”

  “Is Mum coming to hear me speak?”

  “She’d like to, if she can get away in time.”

  Dad paid the bill and we left the restaurant. I wanted to check in with Ashleigh at the Emporium, so Dad and I separated in the lobby and I found a seat in a reasonably quiet corner.

  “You’re calling all the way from England!” Ashleigh bellowed.

  I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear. “I can hear you perfectly well. No need to shout.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Her voice dropped fractionally.

  “How’s everything there?”

  “Good. Busy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. We’ve been exceptionally busy. A lot of new customers too, which is surprising as the tourists aren’t here. Quite a few elderly ladies have been coming in.”

  “So Uncle Arthur’s been helping out.”

  “He’s such fun, Gemma. I haven’t laughed so much in years. Did you know he used to be the captain of a battleship?”

  “I did know that, yes. About the store …”

  “He knows everything there is to know about Sherlock Holmes. I’m learning so much!”

  “That’s good. Have you heard from—”

  “He thinks the franchise idea’s a good one.”

  I didn’t. Ashleigh was a good employee. She cared about the business and wanted to see the shop doing well. She had more ambition for it than I did. I was happy with the Emporium the way it was. I didn’t want to open more branches or set up franchise agreements, both of which Ashleigh thought would be great ideas.

  “You might have a whole market we hadn’t thought of,” she said. “Some ladies from the retirement home came in yesterday. They want Arthur to speak to them about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  I grinned to myself. In the over-eighty set, Great-Uncle Arthur, an unmarried, healthy, and active man, was a valuable commodity.

  “You’re giving a lecture at that conference you’re at,” Ashleigh said. “Maybe we can open a speakers’ bureau. You can make good money on the lecture circuit. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “I don’t have time for anything like that.”

  “Sure you do. Now that I’m running the store on my own …”

  I briefly considered hurrying back to the Bentley, throwing all my things into my suitcase, hailing a cab for Heathrow, and catching the first flight back to America.

  My mother came into the lobby. She hesitated at the doors, looking around. Dad didn’t want her to run into her long-lost brother. If she was here for my talk and didn’t plan on seeing anything else of the conference, such as the exhibits in the dealers’ hall, that might be possible.

  I stood up and waved my arms over my head to catch her attention. “Gotta run. I’ll call again later. Love to Uncle Arthur.”

  “Oh, one thing. I’m sorry, but Moriarty got into your office. I’m sure I shut the door after me when I went home last night, but m
aybe I didn’t. Sorry. We’re trying to dry out your laptop now. The guy at the computer shop says he thinks he can save the hard drive. Maybe.”

  My mother caught sight of me and headed my way. I said goodbye to Ashleigh and put my phone away. I’d worry about my shop cat and his act of sabotage later.

  Moriarty never had liked me.

  Mum and I brushed cheeks, and the familiar scent of Chanel No. 5 took me instantly back to my childhood. “Good news,” she said. “I was assisting one of my juniors in court this morning. The Crown’s star witness admitted on the stand that he might not have been at the bar at the time in question, but if he wasn’t, he wanted to be. The case was dismissed, so I will not have to go over her strategy with her, and thus I have the remainder of the weekend free. How about we have a nice afternoon at Harrods tomorrow with lunch first?”

  “I’d like that,” I said. Shopping, to me, wasn’t a recreational activity, but it was for my mother.

  “Bring your friend Jayne—she’s so sweet—and I’ll check with Pippa.”

  “Are you coming to hear my talk?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” she said.

  “I have to go someplace quiet and read over my notes,” I said. “I’ll see you there. Room one ten. Dad’s around somewhere.”

  I didn’t actually have any notes to read over. I hadn’t made any. I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to say to fill an hour in front of a room full of people who’d come from all parts of the world to hear my insights into marketing the modern phenomenon known as Sherlock Holmes. I had about fifteen minutes to write and memorize a speech.

  I needed a few moments of quiet to get my thoughts into some sort of order, but the lobby was busy and I feared random people might want to talk to me.

  I glanced around, searching for someplace to escape to for a short while. A discreet darkened hallway led off a far corner of the lobby. It ran alongside the restaurant, so probably went to the kitchens. No guests would go there, so it should suit my purposes perfectly.

  A few steps in and the cacophony behind me died away. I faced the wall to try to block out all distractions. I wanted to start my talk with an amusing anecdote about an Englishwoman out of her comfort zone in America. Unfortunately, I could think of no amusing anecdotes on the spur of the moment.