The Final Crumpet by Ron Benrey, Janet Benrey

objection proves that you don’t know much about running a museum. It takes many months to plan and launch a new exhibit. I see no reason to involve the board until long after our loan has closed.
    “And your fourth objection completely ignores the fact that Etienne Makepeace was a national hero. Museums don’t get sued for honoring noble people—especially not by a lone, elderly sister suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.”
    Nigel did his best to offer a withering glare. “This particular noble person got himself murdered and secretly buried under a tea bush—by an employee of the museum. What if there’s a less-than-noble side to the man?”
    “The fact that he was buried in our garden gives us a unique responsibility. The Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum must have an exhibit that honors Etienne Makepeace. We’ll tell his whole story—the bad along with the good.”
    “Never,” Nigel said softly.
    “I am getting really tired of you saying never to me.” Flick bounded to her feet in a graceful motion, reached the door in three long strides, and slammed it with enough force to make the framed pictures shake on Nigel’s thickly plastered wall.
    Nigel barely had time to catch a breath before the heavy oak door flew open. Flick stormed back into the office long enough to find Cha-Cha’s lead. “Come on, boy—you’re staying with the sane manager tonight.” The Shiba Inu followed Flick out of the room. She turned and slammed the door harder than before.
    Nigel let himself sigh. He’d had no choice—he had acted for the good of the museum. Flick would surely understand that when she cooled down and thought about the full ramifications of an exhibit.
    “On the other hand…” he murmured, purposely using one of her favorite idioms. He hadn’t seen Flick this mad in several months. The depth of her anger reminded him of the early days when they bickered every day—the days before he fell in love with Felicity Adams.
    Perhaps a peace offering—perhaps even an apology—would be in order?
    His phone rang.
    Perhaps Flick had the same idea?
    Nigel felt genuine disappointment when he heard a thick Scottish brogue on the other line. “It’s me, sir,” Conan said. “As promised, Mr. Garwood has arrived with our new toys. He asks if it would be possible for you to join us in the security office for a chin-wag.
    Crikey! He had forgotten his one-thirty appointment. Flick would have to wait until he finished the museum’s business.
    Nigel dashed—two steps at a time—down the four flights of stairs that led from the administrative wing on the third floor to Conan Davies’s security lair in the museum’s dual-function basement. The eastern half of the subterranean space held the usual machinery—boilers, heaters, electrical equipment—that one expected to find in a cellar. The western half was a “basement” in name only; it had been purpose-built to store documents, artifacts, and other antiquities. And so it was dry, warm, and inviting—-with a high, white ceiling, black-and-white floor tile, and plastered walls the color of vanilla ice cream. Conan and his staff of security guards had a small suite of cozy, glass-walled offices near the bottom of the staircase.
    Conan was sitting behind his tan metal desk. A guest—a comparably large man-bald, suntanned, fortyish, and smiling—sat opposite the chief of security on a tan metal visitor’s chair. The oversized pair made the furniture seem undersized. The smiling man leaped to his feet when Nigel stepped inside Conan’s office.
    “We meet at last, Mr. Owen. I am Niles Garwood. I thought it best to deliver your new security equipment in person.”
    “Deliver it?” Nigel said, with sufficient amazement to bring a wider grin to Garwood’s mouth. “We ordered the video surveillance system only two weeks ago.”
    “Actually, only ten days ago,” the big man said. “Our goal is to have the network up and running by the end of the week Garwood &