Coffin in the Black Museum. Gwendoline Butler

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      They took no notice. Quite possibly they did not believe him.

      He settled himself into thinking about what he could do with what he regarded as his nugget of information.

      The reception in the Black Museum for the foreign visitors was a great success and not surprisingly the star was Stella Pinero.

      She arrived late, when the room was already crowded, but in time to make a splendid entrance, looking suitably elegant in black, smelling of lily of the valley. She was well received (as they say in theatrical circles) by Herr Hamburg, Dr Copenhagen, Professor Uppsala (he was a very honoured criminologist), and Monsieur Bruges, these being the labels Coffin had attached to his distinguished visitors. He had their real names on a list secreted in his hand for introduction, hardly necessary except as a politeness since they all wore labels for those who were long-sighted enough to read them.

      Stella, having fascinated the visitors, turned her attention to Tom Cowley.

      ‘Now, you’re the expert!’

      ‘Wouldn’t say that.’ But he looked pleased.

      ‘It’s your museum.’

      ‘Wish it was.’ He cast a look at his old friend, John Coffin.

      ‘You’ve got some marvellous things here.’

      Marvellous was not quite the word, Coffin thought. Stella was overdoing things a bit, as she so often did in private life, while being subtle and restrained on the stage. Her natural exuberance had to burst out somewhere.

      ‘This old boot, for instance. I mean, it’s so evocative of its period, isn’t it? What did it do?’ The boot was mounted on a small stand enclosed in a glass case. It was unpolished with the laces undone as if just cast aside. A big foot.

      ‘The foot inside it kicked a copper in the head so that he died. His murderer tried to throw the boots away, but was caught with one on and one off.’

      ‘An historic boot,’ said Herr Hamburg, who had taken a fancy to Stella.

      Had it really belonged to the grandfather of Mimsie Marker?

      ‘What date was this murder?’

      ‘1922, John. Louie Fischer was the killer, one of the Swinehouse gang that were operating then. They all wiped themselves out in the end. Fischer killed PC Arnold.’

      It was just possible Louie had been one of Mimsie’s grandfathers, then.

      ‘And this length of rope in the case here?’ Herr Hamburg pointed to a twist of dark rope displayed in a row of objects. Next to it were several guns, and a couple of knives.

      ‘Jim Cotton, the Leathergate strangler. He did in five people with rope like that. That length was found on him while he was attacking his last victim. She got away.’

      A row of guns of various kinds were displayed next to the strangler’s rope, and Tom Cowley ticked off their exploits one by one: armed robbery, a murder then suicide, a multiple murder on a housing estate. The violent deaths spanned six decades and more. There was plenty of blood behind the display in this room. That was the attraction, of course, although not one that people actually put into speech.

      A group of local dignitaries arrived at this point. The new Lord Mayor apologizing for being late. He was a business man, head of a large concern with factories all over the world, but whose headquarters were in Leathergate.

      He was a man who knew how to be jovial to men so much less rich and powerful than he was himself. ‘Had a committee, Tom. But I’ve brought Katherine and Ted with me.’ This was Mr and Mrs Lupus. The Lord Mayor’s wife, Agnes Fraser, was a friend of Katherine Lupus. ‘And this is Frank Llywellyn who works with me.’ Llywellyn was a neat, quiet young man, an actuary by training and temperament. He was never bored by detail and demanded little of life in the way of excitement. He too had an office in Thameswater and had been lured into local government by the persuasions of Bert Fraser, his role model at the moment, although he had had others before and might have others afterwards.

      ‘We’ve come back for a second look,’ said Katherine Lupus. ‘I brought a school party and didn’t really get a chance for a good look round.’

      ‘That was the day two of them were taken ill, wasn’t it?’

      ‘It was,’ said Katherine Lupus with feeling. ‘But it was the day they had had injections on account of a school trip to Turkey.’ She looked about the room with a practised eye, saw that Agnes was doing her duty as Lord Mayor’s wife by talking to the foreign visitors, and not flirting with anyone personable (usually Frank Llywellyn) as was her wont, and decided she could enjoy herself. ‘Oh, Miss Pinero, I am so pleased to meet you. I have watched you act so often and admired you so much.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You’re doing Ibsen, aren’t you? Hedda Gabler?’

      ‘I am directing, not acting,’ said Stella with a serious face. She knew exactly how to present herself to her women admirers. ‘My first attempt, so I am nervous.’

      ‘After Ibsen, you must try Strindberg,’ said Professor Uppsala, promoting his own national deity. ‘He is more full of passion.’

      Agnes Fraser joined them. ‘I hope you will do some modern work. Say Howard Brenton.’ Used to exercising social glitter herself, she recognized Stella as a rival attraction. A tall, slender, girl with red-gold hair, she knew that she was younger than Stella and her jewellery was better, but Stella had what used to be called star quality. ‘Or possibly some of the good new women writers.’ She tried to think of some names and failed.

      ‘I’ll do anything anyone gives me a good part in,’ said Stella gamely. ‘There aren’t so many for women.’

      Agnes Fraser turned to John Coffin. ‘I know your sister, Lætitia Bingham. We’ve worked together on a couple of committees. She chaired one.’

      It did not surprise John that Lætitia was on several committees, nor that she had chaired one of them; she was a lady who managed things. He remembered he had not heard from brother William and wondered why not. It was a little niggle at the back of his mind, suggesting no good of itself.

      ‘She’s not here today?’

      ‘No.’

      Agnes lowered her voice ‘I hear a head has been found, no body, just a head.’

      ‘How did you hear that?’

      ‘The son of some neighbours of ours found it.’ The Frasers had a penthouse overlooking the River Thames, part of an old East Indian trade warehouse. In addition they had a country house (cottage, they called it, but it was said to be considerably more than that) in Berkshire, still not far away from the Thames, for which they seemed to have an affection and in which they certainly had a strong commercial interest. ‘He told his mother that he knew who it was. He thinks she wasn’t listening and didn’t hear, but of course she was. She doesn’t know if he’s lying or not.’

      ‘He’s her child.’ If she couldn’t tell, who could?

      ‘He does have a vivid СКАЧАТЬ