Death in an Ivory Tower (Dotsy Lamb Travel Mysteries) Page 10

  Back in my room, I let out a scream of frustration. Cremation would wipe out any trace of murder, and I had no way to stop it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  The gardeners had dropped an obstacle course of hoses, sprinklers, and tools in the walkway around the quad. I saw no way to avoid violating the “Don’t walk on the grass” sign.

  “Stop! Stop it I say!”

  I froze in my tracks. Turning slowly, because the command had not come as a shout but as an angry hiss, I wondered what I was in for. I found Daphne Wetmore right behind me, but she wasn’t hissing at me. She ran to one of the gardeners, snatched the hose from his hands, and narrowly avoided spraying herself with water.

  “This is no time to be watering!”

  “But you told us . . .”

  “I told you to pull the weeds. You should have done it last week. This is Sunday, for Christ’s sake.”

  “But you called . . .”

  “I know I called. But Lady Attwood will be coming through here any minute. Pick up your gear and get out of here!”

  “Go home? But we . . .”

  I supposed I was seeing the sharp side of Daphne Wetmore. I’d never have thought she could speak that way to anyone. What was so horrible about gardeners watering flowers? This was a Sunday. Was that it? Was Daphne’s sister, Lady Attwood, super-religious? Would she be scandalized at the sight of men working on the Lord’s Day? That didn’t fit with what Lettie had told me about her assorted scandals involving horses, taxes, and rumors of murder on tropical islands.

  I crossed Middle Quad and followed my fellow conferees to the building where we’d had our general sessions, but now they were all heading for a different door.

  The afternoon event I couldn’t afford to miss was a small breakout session, scheduled to run concurrently with several others and titled, “Treasures from the Bodleian.” The session leader was Robin Morris, and they were going to show us actual documents from the Elizabethan period. Would they bring us something in Shakespeare’s own hand? That would be exciting, but the most important reason I wanted to be here was to fill a gaping hole in my own knowledge of history. I teach ancient and medieval history and, since I went back to teaching some eight years ago, have had to concentrate on the time from about 3000 B.C. to 1500 A.D. The course I teach ends with the War of the Roses. From the Tudors onward, it’s the Modern Age. Shakespeare’s plays, to the amazement of most high school students, are considered modern English.

  When my dissertation topic veered from “Macbeth, King of Scotland” to “What did Shakespeare know about Macbeth and when did he know it,” I found myself trapped in unfamiliar territory. This was all Larry Roberts’s doing. He told me, probably correctly, that my topic was too broad. I tried to narrow it down in several different ways but he pushed me into my present box. Shakespeare was partly influenced by the writings of Holinshed and Boece, but most importantly, by James I, who was also James VI of Scotland and keen to reinforce his own legitimacy on the Scottish throne which, since he was of the house of Stewart, meant painting Macbeth as a usurper.

  I was out of my field when it came to the Tudors and the Stewarts, but I was doing my best.

  I found both Robin Morris and Claudia Moss waiting for us, cotton-gloved to protect their treasures from contact with bare hands, and standing behind an array of documents and items that were not under lock and key, not behind glass, but simply there. They assumed we knew how to behave around priceless artifacts. About ten other people, one of whom was Larry Roberts, also drifted in and took seats.

  Robin explained that most of these items would eventually be on permanent display in a new part of the Bodleian Library, currently under construction, but now kept in a place that was closed to the public. We all murmured our gratitude for this rare privilege.

  Robin said, “Since this conference deals with the Elizabethan era and also with Arthuriana, I’ve brought items that relate to both. It seems that good old Henry VIII, while doing his best to impoverish the kingdom, nevertheless did us academics a bit of a favor. By sending Thomas Cromwell forth to dissolve the monasteries, and to hang, draw, and quarter the inhabitants, he also confiscated the considerable wealth hidden behind the monastery walls. No one knows what happened to most of the booty. It must have been a huge treasure trove, but thankfully, some of it has come down to us.”

  “Just like the Elgin Marbles, right, Claudia?” This rude interruption came from Larry Roberts, who apparently thought his comment was funny.

  I cringed. Larry was referring to the marble reliefs taken from the Acropolis in Athens by Lord Elgin, and now in the British Museum where Claudia worked. Greece wanted them back.

  Claudia’s gloved hands turned into fists for a second before she regained her composure and, with the stiff upper lip of her heritage, said, “Dr. Roberts, you should visit the Acropolis today and see the state of the marbles Lord Elgin didn’t take. We did them a favor.”

  This unpleasant exchange may or may not have continued. I don’t know because my ears still rang with the words “Thomas Cromwell.”

  Stupid! Stupid! It wasn’t Oliver Cromwell, it was Thomas Cromwell! I didn’t have Bram Fitzwaring’s note with me, but I was certain I’d seen, on one line, the words Sharpham and Cromwell. I should have known it wasn’t Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. He was more than a century later than the time we were interested in.

  Now I needed to find out who or what Sharpham was.

  I thought I could use my iPad to discover everything I needed to know, but I soon found the World Wide Web had its limits. I spent the rest of my time until dinner, surfing. I learned that Sharpham was the name of a vineyard on the River Dart, a college, and a town in western England. A map of Devon and Cornwall revealed that the town of Sharpham was only a mile or so from Glastonbury, so I decided Bram’s note probably referred to the town.

  But I could find no link between the town of Sharpham and King Arthur, or Glastonbury Tor, or the Elizabethan period, or anything else that might have explained why Bram had written the word on the note I found in his room.

  Thomas Cromwell yielded more websites than I could possibly read, but I did my best. Cromwell served Cardinal Thomas Woolsey until that worthy fell from Henry’s grace, at which time Cromwell danced a little sidestep and distanced himself from Woolsey. Soon, he took Woolsey’s place, campaigning to discredit the papacy and clear the way for Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. That marriage didn’t work out either, but it did produce Elizabeth, whose long reign spanned the era concerning us at this conference. Cromwell also arranged the marriage of Henry and Anne of Cleves, in whose personal appearance the fat king was so disappointed he sent her packing back to Cleves, marriage still unconsummated.

  Thomas Cromwell dissolved the monasteries all over England with shocking brutality, confiscating, as Robin Morris had told us, their gold, silver, and art for the King’s coffers. After executing practically all the abbots in the realm, Cromwell himself fell out of favor and was beheaded on the same day Henry married Catherine Howard.

  Glastonbury Abbey was one of the wealthiest in England, and in the reign of Henry VIII it was led by the able and highly respected abbot, Richard Whiting. Cromwell had assured Whiting on several occasions that Glastonbury was in no danger of dissolution. But seeing all the other monasteries around him disappear, did Whiting believe that? At any rate, he shouldn’t have because, by early 1539, Glastonbury was the only one left. In September of that year, Glastonbury Abbey was destroyed, it’s wealth confiscated, and in November, Whiting himself was hanged, beheaded, drawn, and quartered.

  I found I had lost my appetite and it was time for dinner.

  I stopped by Mignon’s room on my way down to dinner only to learn she wasn’t going with me after all. The owner/operator of The Green Man had invited her and others to his house for dinner. “It’s a jolly group, the Oxford gang, but we’ll be making plans for the gathering on Glastonbu
ry Tor, so tonight will be a bit more somber than usual.”

  “Let me guess. You normally drink mead and sing madrigals.”

  “Oh, we’ll have our mead. We won’t be that somber.”

  “When will this gathering be?”

  “We don’t have a date yet, but I’ve talked to friends back home in Glastonbury, and they’re checking around to find a time when we can have the Tor to ourselves, without a bunch of tourists gawking at us.”

  “I can see how that might spoil the mood.”

  “You don’t believe in any of this, do you?”

  “Any of what?” I knew what she meant, but I felt more comfortable with the ball in her court.

  “In the unity of the spiritual and physical worlds. We stand at a spiritual threshold, you know, and Glastonbury is its physical center. The only spot in the universe where Mary and Joseph of Arimathea walked, where Arthur came to be healed of his battle wounds, where Excalibur was forged, where Arthur and Guinevere were buried, and where to this day, the power of the ancient stones concentrate their energy like no place else on earth.”

  Mignon delivered this whole speech in a dreamlike voice while staring out her room’s only window and clasping to her ample breast a small sachet tied with black ribbon. The silence that followed demanded some sort of response from me. “I’ve never been to Glastonbury, but it sounds like an interesting place.” I’m afraid I made my answer sound insultingly mundane on purpose; to squelch any idea she may have had about recruiting me.

  “Interesting.” She cut her eyes toward me, then back to the scene outside her window.

  “I’ve been wondering. What was Bram’s speech yesterday going to be about? The program said, ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries,’ but it hardly seemed to me like a subject he would have chosen.”

  “I don’t know,” she answered in a monotone. She placed the little sachet carefully on her desk.

  “I find that hard to believe. I had to listen to Larry Roberts’s speech a hundred times. I practically had it memorized. Didn’t Bram discuss it with you at all?”

  She picked up the notepad she’d left on her bed and slapped it against the edge of her nightstand. “You may find it hard to believe, but it’s the truth!” Her head tipped back, she looked down her nose at me. Then, more softly, “Bram probably didn’t know, himself, what he was going to say.”

  That was a lie, but I knew further probing would do no good.

  Harold Wetmore shambled across the quad at five to seven, in the same old linen jacket, but tonight he wore a green bow tie. His mustard-colored trousers were too short, exposing the fact that his socks didn’t match. We walked to the dining hall together. The hostas along the wall stood wet, weedless, and proud. They reminded me of Daphne’s near-meltdown with the gardeners earlier in the afternoon.

  “You had visitors today,” I said. “I saw the limo out front.”

  “That was Daphne’s sister, Anthea.” Harold took my arm and steered me around a hand rake lying in my path. “Anthea Attwood. Her husband is Lord Attwood.”

  “And she normally travels by limousine?”

  “Or something equally impressive.” He turned to me and smiled. “I’m afraid my poor Daphne has always lived in the shadow of her glorious sister. I wish you had met Lady Attwood.”

  “Your poor Daphne? Why do you call her your poor Daphne?”

  “That wasn’t a good choice of words. But Daphne is, um, not brilliant, not particularly talented at anything, nor is she beautiful. Not in the usual sense.” He touched my shoulder and quickly added, “Oh, she’s beautiful to me, of course. Anthea is tall, brilliant—the sort of woman whom everyone who’s ever met her remembers. Daphne grew up, I’m afraid, feeling like the ugly duckling. Anthea’s only a year older so they were almost like twins in terms of their ages.

  “Their parents didn’t help. They’ve always treated Anthea like a princess and Daphne like . . . well. Anthea got married quite young to a wealthy, titled, ass and since then they’ve been cannon fodder for the tabloids.”

  “And Daphne is envious? Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Harold had paused several times as we approached the dining hall to nod at or shake hands with people headed in the same direction as we. “For fifteen years, though, Daphne lived at home with spinsterhood looming ahead, while Anthea and her jet-set friends made news. It affected her outlook.”

  “And then you . . .”

  “Came along on my white charger and whisked her off to this old crumbling castle where she gets to serve tea to the boring wives of crusty old academics such as myself.”

  “My, my. You do have a way with words.”

  I sat with Larry Roberts at dinner. I felt I could hardly let his atrocious comments to Claudia Moss this afternoon go unremarked, and I was struggling inside my head to find the right words. True, as my major professor, he could make or break me in my bid for a doctorate. On the other hand I felt he was on the brink of making a laughingstock of himself, and I liked him too much to stand idly by and let him.

  Daphne Wetmore sat beside her husband at the High Table, looking none the worse for her stressful afternoon. I wondered if she might be hiring new gardeners next week. Tonight’s speaker, a man who looked at least ninety, sat on Harold’s other side, but he had already nodded off and the first course was yet to be served.

  I thought about what Harold told me about Daphne. His insulting comments about her lack of redeeming virtues had distressed me. Did Daphne know he talked about her like that behind her back? I studied her face. She wasn’t bad looking. I suspected Harold, like most of the academics I know, preferred a woman who kept his life in order to a woman who presented a challenge in the romance department. Harold was no sexpot either.

  “May I sit with you?”

  I hope I didn’t look as startled as I was. The question came from Claudia Moss. She was pulling out the chair next to me and across the table from Larry. She looked lovely in a burgundy wrap dress and silver earrings. Her nails were done in a flesh-tone polish. So much nicer than overdoing the red, I thought.

  “Dr. Roberts?” she said, sliding both her hands under the table. “I brought something for you to look at.” She handed a half-dozen four by six glossies across to Larry. “I took these on my last trip to Athens. Do you see what I was talking about? The air pollution in the city has eaten away at the marble until some of the sculptures are unrecognizable.”

  “What about the ones Lord Elgin dropped overboard bringing them here? How are they doing?” Larry set the photos beside his salad plate, but barely looked at them. “And what about London’s air pollution? Huh?”

  This was intolerable. I felt like doing a Rodney King: Can’t we all get along? But it would have sounded too cliché, I thought. Instead, I interrupted them with, “The autopsy report on Bram Fitzwaring is out. He died of hypoglycemia.”

  “Who?” Claudia asked.

  “The nutcase from Glastonbury,” Larry said. “He was supposed to have delivered a paper at the general session right after you.” He tapped the photos into a neat stack and handed them back to Claudia.

  “Really, Larry! You didn’t even know him,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You can’t call him a nutcase if you didn’t even know him.”

  “I can, if he says that King Arthur and his knights of the round table are indisputable fact. You can’t talk sense to people who live in a fantasy world.”

  “You never tried to talk sense to him,” I said.

  “I looked him up online.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “You should have done it yourself. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t have invited him here.”

  “I didn’t invite him!” That came out too loud. Heads turned.

  Now it was Claudia’s turn to cool things down. “What about his companion? Mignon? Isn’t that her name? Is she still here? I haven’t seen her.”

  “Mignon went to a friend’s house for dinner,” I said.

  “You getting
pretty buddy-buddy with her?” Larry looked up as the waiter placed the entrée in front of him, and asked for a bottle of Merlot.

  “We stay on the same staircase, Larry. I go past her room every time I go up or down the stairs.”

  “What does Mignon say about Fitzwaring’s death?” Claudia asked. “Was she surprised? Had anything like this happened to him before?”

  “Apparently not. She told me he was very particular about his medications, and he checked his blood sugar more often than he really needed to.” I paused, then added, “I heard loud noises coming from his room in the wee hours. They woke me up. Oddly, though, I had seen him after dinner and he was acting spacey.”

  “That sounds like hypoglycemia,” Larry said.

  “Yes. But not that early. If he was already spacey at nine o’clock, he wouldn’t have been banging around at two. He’d have been long dead.”

  Larry took a big gulp of his wine. His gaze darted from me to Claudia and back again. “What? Don’t look at me! I was at the Randolph Hotel all night and I can prove it.”

  Softly, Claudia said, “No one is suggesting you weren’t, Dr Roberts.”

  Dinner over, I caught a glimpse of Robin Morris leaving the hall, made my apologies to Larry and Claudia, and hurried out to catch up with him. “Excuse me,” I said, coming up behind him. I realized I didn’t know what to call him. Was it Dr. Morris or Mr. Morris?

  “Dotsy Lamb,” I said.

  “Of course. From America, aren’t you?”

  “Right. I really enjoyed your presentation this afternoon.”

  “Thank you.”

  I saw he was carrying a bottle of wine. In the dim light of the archway where we stood, I couldn’t tell if it was an open bottle or not. “I want to talk to you about getting admission to the Bodleian. I desperately need to do some research.”

  “I see.” He looked toward the broad expanse of the Middle Quad. “Are you going to the Senior Common Room?”

  “Is that where you’re heading? May I walk with you?”