Heathen/Nemesis

Seventy-Three

The office was small, less than fifteen feet square, dominated by a large antique desk piled high with correspondence. A glass paperweight in the shape of a tortoise held the letters down. Framed photos on the walls showed the front of the waxworks. Set out in chronological order, the first picture had been taken in 1934, then, every ten years until the most recent one. The building itself had changed little, apart from a lick of paint here and there; it still reminded Donna of a huge terraced house.

There were cabinets set against one wall, each filled with photos and biographical details from figures in history and the media, politics and sport - everyone from Clement Attlee to the Greek god Zeus.

‘My grandfather started the museum,’ said Paxton. ‘He saw a number of them in America when he visited during the Thirties. When he died it was passed on to my father and then to me. It doesn’t make much money now, just enough to keep it running, but we break even every year. I wouldn’t want to close it down.’ Paxton smiled affectionately and touched the picture of the Wax Museum taken in 1934.

He was a tall, attractive man in his mid-forties, the grey hair at his temples giving him a distinguished look. More so than the bald patch at the back of his head. He wore an open-neck shirt and trousers that needed pressing, but he’d apologized for his ‘unkempt’ condition when he’d first greeted them, explaining that he’d been decorating at home and had pulled on the first things to hand in his haste to get to the waxworks.

‘We used to make all the figures here ourselves,’ he said. ‘There was a workshop in the basement. My father employed three people to create them. I don’t need them any more. I simply write to Madame Tussaud’s and put in a list of requests for figures.’ He smiled. ‘They send me the ones I need. They sometimes suggest figures I should have here. You know, the ‘Famous for fifteen minutes’ type. The pop stars, the TV celebrities or sportsmen. I put them in my Warhol Gallery. That’s what I call it.’ He smiled again. ‘Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,’ he mused. ‘I usually replace them after a month or so.’

‘Mr Paxton, how well did you know my husband?’ Donna asked.

‘How well do any of us know someone else, Mrs Ward?’ he said philosophically. ‘I got on well with Chris while he was here doing his research. He spent about a week with me, learning about the running of the place, things like that.’

‘How much did you know about the book he hid here?’

‘Nothing at all. He rang me one day and asked if he could bring something down. He wouldn’t even tell me what it was over the phone.’

‘How long ago was that?’

Paxton shrugged.

‘Six or seven weeks,’ he said. ‘All he told me was that the book was important to him and to some other people.’

‘He didn’t say which people?’ Donna interjected.

‘No. He just asked if he could hide it in the museum. I agreed. He said he’d pick it up in a month or so. Then, of course . . .’ He allowed the sentence to trail off.

‘Did you see the book? Do you know where he hid it?’

‘I haven’t got a clue. It could be anywhere in the museum.’ He paused for a moment, looking almost apologetically at Donna. ‘Would it be rude of me to ask who he was hiding it from?’

‘I’m not completely sure,’ Donna told him, ‘but I need to find it.’

She felt it unneccessary to mention some of the incidents that had taken place over the last few days, least of all the confrontation at the cottage the previous night. She merely told him that the book bore a crest, an embossed crest of a hawk. It was very old, too, she said.

‘I know that’s vague,’ she said, ‘but it’s all I know.’

‘I’d like to help you look if I can,’ Paxton volunteered.

Donna smiled.

‘That’s very kind of you. Thank you.’

Paxton slid open a drawer in his desk and took out what looked like a floor-by-floor plan of the three-storey building. He laid the diagram out on the desk-top, weighting each corner down with a pile of papers.

‘The museum is divided into galleries,’ he said, jabbing the plan. ‘It makes it sound grand, doesn’t it? Museum.’ He chuckled. ‘My grandfather thought that wax museums should be places of learning, too. Three-dimensional temples of knowledge, he used to call them.’

Donna and Julie were more interested in the layout of the building than in Paxton’s nostalgic musings.

‘Is this the ground floor?’ Donna asked, prodding one part of the map.

‘No, that’s the basement. It’s where we keep our Chamber of Horrors. No waxworks is complete without one. It’s always the most popular area, too. It brings out the morbid streak in all of us, I’m afraid.’

‘And you’ve no idea where Chris could have hidden the book?’ Donna repeated.

‘None at all.’

‘We’ll have more chance of finding it if we search separately,’ Donna suggested. ‘Julie and I will start on the top floor, then work our way down.’

‘I’ll meet you on the second floor. If we miss each other we’ll meet back in this office in three hours.’

‘Miss each other? Is that likely?’ Julie wanted to know.

‘There are two sets of stairs into and out of every gallery,’ Paxton explained, ‘So that if we get too many visitors it doesn’t get too congested as people move around. It’s quite possible we could pass each other and not even realize it. It’s dark in the galleries, too, apart from the lights on the figures.’

Julie felt her heart beating faster.

‘If one of us finds the Grimoire, we call out to let the others know, then bring it back here to this office,’ Donna suggested.

Paxton nodded.

He left the office first, waiting for the two women to follow him out before closing the door again.

There was a flight of stairs directly to their right.

‘Follow the stairs straight up to the third floor,’ he said. ‘I’ll go that way.’ He nodded in the direction of an archway. Through it, Donna could see the first of many wax tableaux showing famous film stars. The atmosphere was thick and gloomy. She hugged her handbag tightly to her sides, comforted by the thought of the Pathfinder inside.

Two or three feet away, standing by the entrance to the waxworks, were the figures of Laurel and Hardy. In the darkness they seemed not the amusing and loveable clowns they were meant to be but somehow menacing. Their glass eyes regarded the group blindly. Julie again felt a shiver run up her spine. She glanced up the stairs; the top of the flight almost disappeared into the dimness.

‘Back here in three hours,’ said Donna, her voice sounding loud in the unyielding silence. ‘Unless one of us finds the book.’

Paxton nodded.

They set off.

The hunt began.