“Yes,” I said, “and that would never have been established had Maria not been there when that deal was made with Maroney.”
“I’m intrigued with this Dr. Glenville Beers,” Sutherland said. “Miss Ainsworth and he had this intimate relationship all these years, and no one ever knew about it?”
“Wilfred, Marjorie’s chauffeur knew,” I said. “She trusted him implicitly, and for good reason.”
Sutherland stood. “Ready for your tour?” he asked, putting on his jacket.
“Sure am,” Morton said. He’d had the Savoy do a fast cleaning and pressing of his Cabot Cove uniform in anticipation of spending the morning with one of Scotland Yard’s chief inspectors. His respect for Sutherland was manifest in the fact he’d removed his Stetson upon entering the office. Morton generally left it on no matter what the event or who the person.
Sutherland talked as he led us to what’s commonly known as Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum.” “We moved into this glass and concrete edifice in 1967,” he said. “The previous headquarters on Whitehall was built on the scene of an unsolved crime.”
“How’d that happen?” Lucas asked.
“They were digging the foundation and discovered a woman’s body. Her head and arms had been severed. They tried their best to find the murderer but never did. Somewhat unpleasant having police headquarters constructed there.”
“Sounds like headquarters back in Cabot Cove,” Morton said.
“It does?” Seth and I said in unison.
“Don’t you remember when the new jail and sheriff’s office was put up five years ago? The construction workers found those tires Tommy Detienne had reported stolen from his Buick a year earlier.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” Seth said.
“Never solved that crime, either.”
“Shall we continue?” said Sutherland, tossing me an amused smile.
The “Black Museum” was the name given the Yard’s archives by a reporter who considered it to be dark and evil. It’s not open to the general public, and a visit takes a special invitation from a high-ranking member of the Yard. We couldn’t go much higher than George Sutherland.
After we’d all entered the museum, he carefully locked the door behind us and conducted a tour that lasted almost two hours. It represented a remarkable monument to crime, to the criminal mind, and to detection. Death masks taken from prisoners hanged at Newgate Prison in the 1800s were displayed. There were sections on forgery, rigged gaming devices, burglary, drugs, kidnapping, and, most startling, sexual perversion. It was man, and woman, at their worst.
Many of the displays were chilling, but one in particular has stayed with me to this day. Sutherland said as we stood before it, “A young Southampton girl celebrated a birthday in 1945. One of her gifts arrived by post and contained a card telling her that the gift would bring things closer to her. It was a pair of binoculars. There they are.” He pointed to them in the glass case.
“Before the girl had a chance to look through the binocs, her father put them to his eyes, and adjusted the focusing screw. Sharp spikes sprang out from each eyepiece, blinding him for life. Whoever had intended to injure the young girl was not only a madman, but a remarkably skilled craftsman. He’d carved the binoculars from wood, fitted the spikes inside them on a rachet of sorts, used a coiled spring to activate them, and done a beautiful paint job with black rexine and enamel. To this day no one knows who is responsible for this grotesque crime.”
“A nut, like Jason Harris,” Morton said.
“Yes, or, as we Scots say, deleerit.”
“That was quite a tour, Inspector,” Mort Metzger said after we’d left the museum and were standing in the Yard’s main lobby.
“Yes, we’re quite proud of it,” Sutherland said. “We use it in our training of senior detectives. Do you have a crime museum back in Cabot Cove, Sheriff?”
“No, not enough happens there for a museum, ’less we display tires that got stole off Detienne’s truck, or the picture window that got broke in Miss Boonton’s house.”
Sutherland said, “I’d say your sheriff is a modest man, Jessica. I’ve heard about murder cases you’ve had a hand in solving back home.”
“Just a few, George, just a few.”
“Well, shall we go to lunch?” Sutherland asked. He’d insisted upon taking us to a farewell lunch at Joe Allen, on Exeter Street, which has been serving up American food since 1977 with great success. It was sweet of him to suggest that particular restaurant as a gesture to our American heritage. I would have preferred something more traditionally British, as I’m sure Lucas would, but Morton and Seth seemed delighted with the opportunity to be able to order what London insiders say is the best hamburger in town, and to garnish it with french fries and salads.
One of Sutherland’s uniformed staff drove us in an unmarked black police vehicle. As we were getting out in front of Joe Allen, and the uniformed officer held open the door for me, we all became aware of a commotion at the comer. “Grab him, somebody grab him. He stole my purse,” a lady’s voice cried.
We watched as a young man burst through a sizable crowd and ran in our direction.
“Oh my God, it’s him,” I said.
“Who?” Seth asked.
“Him, the one who mugged me.”
The young man with pink hair, black jacket, and silver earrings headed straight for us.
“I’ll get ’im,” Mort Metzger said. As the young man was about to race by us, Mort threw a body block, sending the thief sprawling to the concrete. Within seconds, Mort was on top of him, twisting his arms behind his back.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” the young punk rocker screamed.
“Sheriff Metzger, Cabot Cove, Maine, United States of America. You’re under arrest for the mugging of one Jessica Fletcher. You have the right to remain silent…”
“I never even bin in the bloody States.”
By now we’d all formed a circle around Mort and his prey.
“Are you sure this is the one who mugged you?” Sutherland asked me.
“Yes, positive. How could I miss anyone who looks like that?”
“What’s the old bag yappin’ about?” the mugger asked as Mort, now aided by the bobby who’d driven us, jerked him to his feet and flattened him against the wall.
“You mind your manners and mouth, son,” Mort said. The bobby put the cuffs on him.
Sutherland looked at me and grinned. “If you press charges, Jessica, you’ll have to return to testify at his trial.”
“I will?”
“Afraid so.”
“It would be a great inconvenience, George, and I know my schedule won’t allow it, but there is my civic duty to consider, isn’t there?”
“Yes, most definitely,” he said.
I looked at the young man, looked up into George Sutherland’s green eyes, and said, “Well then, book the bloody bloke!”
Read on for an exciting excerpt
from Murder, She Wrote:
Trick or Treachery
available from Signet.
Dr. Seth Hazlitt and I sat having breakfast, in Mara’s Luncheonette on Cabot Cove’s town dock, and discussing an article that had caught our attention in that morning’s Bangor Times. An organization called the Society for Paranormal Investigation, or S.P.I., had opened an office in a dilapidated building on the old quarry road and was offering to help people contact their dearly departed. Among those its founder, Lucas Tremaine, claimed to have reached was “The Legend of Cabot Cove.” The Legend was an early settler, Hepzibah Cabot, whose dramatic suicidal plunge into the sea after learning of her husband’s infidelity naturally made her the star in local ghost stories, particularly when Halloween rolled around each year.