Lady rample and the myst.., p.1
Lady Rample and the Mystery at the Museum, page 1
Lady Rample
and the
Mystery at the Museum
Lady Rample Mysteries – Book Eleven
Shéa MacLeod
Lady Rample and the Mystery at the Museum
Lady Rample Mysteries – Book Eleven
COPYRIGHT © 2022 by Shéa MacLeod
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey of Razzle Dazzle Designs
Editing by Alin Silverwood
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Shéa MacLeod
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
A Note from Shéa MacLeod
About Shéa MacLeod
Other Books by Shéa MacLeod
Sign up for Shéa MacLeod's Mailing List
Also By Shéa MacLeod
Dedication
For my cousin Josie whose imaginary wardrobe is a constant inspiration and who always has a recommendation for a good murder. Mystery, that is.
Chapter 1
Aunt Butty was known far and wide for her cocktail parties. Mostly because they generally involved someone swinging—quite literally—from the chandeliers. This particular party was no exception.
This time she’d hired a proper jazz band led by none other than my paramour, Hale Davis. Hale was devilishly handsome, deliciously American, and could tickle a pair of ivories like nobody’s business. Half the women, and a few of the men, were casting lascivious looks his way. He was oblivious. After all, why eat mutton when you’ve got steak at home? Or something like that.
My name is Ophelia, Lady Rample, and in case you missed it, I’m the steak.
Mr. Singh, Aunt Butty’s Sikh butler, was doing the rounds with a tray of French 75s. Not an Aviation, but I had a fondness for them. Ada Price clearly agreed with me as she was the one currently swinging from the aforementioned chandelier, her pale pink bias cut tangled up her thighs and her diamanté hair comb in danger of falling off and dropping into someone’s drink.
Ada was closer to forty than thirty, but that didn’t stop her shrieking with laughter as her feet dangled just out of the reach of her equally inebriated husband. She kicked out a foot, nearly clobbering him in the process. Good thing her gold and black t-straps were buckled on tight, or it might have ended up flying through a window.
“Darling, do come down from there before you get hurt. Here. I’ll catch you.” Mr. Price swayed, nowhere near catching her.
Fortunately, my best friend Charles “Chaz” Raynott was on hand to gently move Mr. Price aside and untangle Ada from the chandelier.
“Aren’t you a doll,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek and leaving a smudge of carmine lipstick. “Do bring me some more bubbly, won’t you?” And she promptly passed out in Chaz’s arms. He shot me a rueful smile, before dragging her over to the gold velvet settee and dropping her on it.
Meanwhile, a contortionist Aunt Butty had met heavens-knew-where had climbed up on the piano and was giving everyone a show. She was really very good, despite flashing her knickers willy-nilly. I couldn’t wait to write my friend, Phil, about this. She’d never believe it.
Well, maybe she would. She’d met Aunt Butty after all. In fact, Phil would be here at this party if it weren’t for the fact that she was visiting our somewhat mutual cousin, Bucktooth Binky, up North.
You see, when my dear Lord Rample died, his title and rather crumbling estate in Yorkshire went to a distant cousin named Alphonse—Bucktooth Binky to you and me—and I got everything else, which is quite a lot. And that meant Binky and I were often at odds with one another. Philoma Dearling was Binky’s cousin on his mother’s side—my late husband being from his father’s. Phil was a darling, unlike Binky, and she and I had become excellent friends. It was too bad she’d missed the party, but I planned to write and tell her every detail. Especially about the contortionist.
“Oh, there you are, Ophelia.” Aunt Butty’s best friend, Louise Pennyfather, came puffing up, breathing a bit heavily. Poor Louise was a lovely woman but had the unfortunate resemblance to a horse. Her equally unfortunate habit of talking through her nose didn’t help matters. “It’s a matter of life and death!”
I eyed her over my champagne coupe glass, Aunt Butty’s preferred drinkware for such parties as they were less likely to spill than flutes. Louise, like my aunt, had the tendency to get rather... worked up over things. Drama was their middle name, both of them. “Life and death, you say?” I had my doubts.
“Indeed,” she confirmed. She glanced around. “Perhaps we should speak somewhere more privately.”
“If you can find anywhere private,” I agreed.
Aunt Butty’s flat, while generous, wasn’t set up for private tete-a-tetes, and my aunt was fond of packing in as many people as possible during her little soirees. Every room was crammed with extremely tipsy partygoers, but unlike my own home, there was no garden to escape to.
Finally, Louise dragged me into the bathroom—which had recently been redone with pink fittings and green wall tiles—and locked the door. “At last, we can be alone.”
I almost laughed, but I managed to keep a straight face. “What’s going on, Louise?”
“As you know, my husband and I are on the board of trustees for the Museum of Britain.”
The Museum of Britain was the largest public museum in the country. Located in the heart of London, it was dedicated to human history, art, and culture. There was an entire room dedicated to ancient China, complete with lacquered cabinets, porcelain flasks, and jade carvings. Not to mention rich silk robes and ornate swords. Another room held samples of every mineral known on Earth, including a set of emeralds that seemed to glow with an inner fire that took one’s breath away.
I’d had no idea Louise was on the board, though it came as no surprise. Most people of our status were involved in such things. I, myself, was on the boards for a couple of charities, though I didn’t do much except write letters to important people and donate a lot of funds and attend the occasional board meeting. Dull affairs if you ask me.
“Go on,” I urged.
“Well, there has been a bit of trouble recently.”
I took a sip of my cocktail. Delightfully fizzy and just a tad on the sweet side, the way I liked it. “What sort of trouble?” How much trouble could a museum get up to?
She took my arm and pulled me further away from the door. I don’t know how much farther she thought we could get. We were practically standing in the bathtub.
“A Very Important artifact has gone missing,” she whispered. She definitely used capital letters.
“Isn’t that a job for the police?” I whispered back.
She looked horrified. “Indeed not. The police aren’t suited to this sort of investigation.”
Actually, that was exactly what they were suited for. I was about to tell her so, only she continued.
“We are at a crucial juncture in negotiations to borrow a special collection of ancient Mesopotamian art from a private collector. Any whiff of scandal could put us in a precarious position. The police cannot be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”
She had a point there. If the police knew about the theft, it would be in every paper before morning. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Dear girl, I want you to solve the mystery of the missing artifact!”
“SHE’S DAFT, M’LADY. Completely ‘round the bend.” Maddie neatly placed my shoes in my wardrobe with a shake of her head. “No, best you stay well shot of this.”
Maddie was my maid, and a decent one at that, but she had Opinions, and she wasn’t afraid to share them. Loudly. And with emphasis. Also, her warnings were usually incredibly dire. She had no idea how to look at the bright side.
“Be that as it may, I promised Mrs. Pennyfather that I would visit the museum to look into the theft first thing tomorrow, so please have my navy suit ready. I want to look... businesslike.”
Maddie unzipped my gown and draped it gently over the back of the armchair. She handed me a pair of peach silk pajamas edged with lace trim. My favorite pair. I slid them on, feeling exhaustion overtake me. As fun as the party had been, I was more than ready for bed.
“Nothing good will come of this, mark my words,” she warned dourly, tucking back a lock of dark hair that had escaped the severe bun she’d shoved it into.
“Noted.”
She sighed heavily. “I suppose Mr. Hale will be home late.”
“Likely.”
“I’ll put out a sandwich and coffee for him, shall I?”
I tried not to wince, but I’m not sure I was successful. Maddie was an excellent maid, but a terrible cook. She could make an excellent pot of tea and a decent coffee, but her sandwiches were often terribly dry and uninspired. Fortunately, Hale had no problem doctoring up his sandwich to make it more palatable. “That sounds lovely. Thank you, Maddie.”
She nodded and pulled my navy Elsa Schiaparelli suit out of the wardrobe. “I’ll have this pressed for you tomorrow morning. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She shook her head and tutted as she exited the room, taking her little black raincloud of doom and gloom with her.
Bless her, but the woman saw demons lurking in every shadow. There was nothing to worry about. It was just a museum. It wasn’t like there were dead bodies lying around.
Chapter 2
“And this is the mummy of Pharaoh Senusintehf. We dug him up in Egypt last year. Marvelous, isn’t he?” My tour guide beamed at the glass case which housed a dead man wrapped up in bandages and looking a bit worse for wear what with being ripped from his place of rest and shipped to England to be displayed for all to see. Poor thing.
“Oh, yes, marvelous,” I echoed. I owed Maddie an apology, at least in my mind. There actually were dead bodies lying about.
The Museum of Britain sat neatly back from Great Russell Street like a Grecian palace of knowledge. It was glorious to behold, but the true treasure lay within. I was particularly fond of the Egyptian Room, and I wasn’t alone in that. Although I could have done without the crusty pharaoh.
“Now over here you see an excellent example of—”
“Listen, Mr. Evans,” I interrupted. “I’m meant to be meeting with the head of the museum, Sir John Forsdyke. It’s of the utmost importance.”
Evans took off his glasses and polished them fastidiously with his handkerchief before pushing them back on the bridge of his beaky nose which sat prominently in a too-narrow face. He was probably somewhere near fifty with a drastically receding hairline, pasty skin that had never seen the light of day, and eyes set just a little too close together. His suit was pressed within an inch of its life. He brushed nervously at his lapel as if trying to remove an invisible bit of lint or dust. “Yes, rather. Well, you see... he’s unfortunately unavailable at the moment.”
I raised a brow. “Unavailable? I took time out of my day to assist him in an urgent matter.”
“Yes, of course, my lady, but... well...” He took my elbow and gently guided me to a quiet part of the exhibit, away from visitors. “He’s out of town, you see.”
I blinked. “Out of town? After an artifact has gone missing? I understand it’s a truly important piece. Why wouldn’t he be here?”
Mr. Evans leaned in closer and whispered, “He doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know?” I repeated. “Obviously you do, and so does Mrs. Pennyfather. How is it the head of this museum doesn’t?”
He sighed heavily. “I’d originally approached Mr. Pennyfather about the situation after I discovered the theft. He promised to look into it straight away, but when I didn’t hear from him, I contacted Mrs. Pennyfather and, well, here you are. I’d really rather keep this under wraps, if you don’t mind. The only people who know about this are the trustees, and they’re not interested in the public knowing about this anymore than I am.”
“Very well. Let’s get to it, shall we? No more of this faffing about. There’s important work to be done if we are to find this—”
“Please, my lady.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “We mustn’t refer to the, ah, issue. We don’t want to upset anyone.” He glanced left and right as if people were hiding behind statues and stelae to listen in on our plans.
“Right. Of course not. Heaven forbid.” My tone may have been a touch sarcastic, but I lowered my voice obligingly. “In any case, perhaps we could get on with it? I’d like to begin my investigation.”
He shifted uneasily, tugging on the lapels of his inexpensive gray suit. “We’re waiting for another party.”
“Another what?”
“Here he is.” Mr. Evans beamed as a gentleman approached us.
He was tall and fit with thick, blond hair and pale blue eyes and a nose that was slightly on the long side. He was perhaps ten years older than me, and handsome in a proper British way, if you liked that sort of thing. Frankly, he’d nothing on Hale, but then I may be a bit biased.
“My lady, please meet Mr. James Woodward. Mr. Woodward, Ophelia, Lady Rample.” Mr. Evans beamed broadly.
I glanced in confusion from Mr. Evans to James Woodward and back again. “And what has Mr. Woodward to do with this investigation?”
“I’m the investigator,” he said, handing me his card.
I glanced at it.
James Woodward, Solicitor
Woodward & Woodward Solicitors
London, England
He was a solicitor? What had that to do with investigating the theft at a museum?
“I assure you, you are not. I was hired directly by the trustees,” I said.
“Ah, my lady,” Mr. Evans interrupted. “I’m afraid that’s not quite correct.”
“Excuse me?” I turned to shoot him a glare.
“You were hired by Mrs. Pennyfather.” Evans’ cheeks pinkened. “The rest of the trustees agreed to hire Mr. Woodward. He has some experience in these matters.”
