Last Respects by Catherine Aird

don’t leave their names,’ said Jensen drily. ‘And we get a lot of casual enquirers, you know.’
    â€˜Short, dark, and young?’ said Sloan.
    Jensen shook his head. ‘Tallish, brown hair and not as young as all that.’
    â€˜This ship,’ said Sloan. ‘You know all about it, then?’
    â€˜Bless you, Inspector, yes.’ Jensen started to pace up and down. ‘It’s perfectly well documented. And it’s all here in the Museum for anyone to look up. She was lured to her doom by wreckers in the winter of 1755 …’
    â€˜The evil that men do lives after then,’ murmured Sloan profoundly.
    Jensen’s response was immediate. ‘Yes, indeed, Inspector. We see a lot of that in the Museum world.’
    Sloan hadn’t thought of that.
    Jensen waved a hand. ‘I dare say that I can tell you what the Clarembald was carrying too.’
    Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir …
    â€˜We have a copy of the ship’s manifest here,’ said Jensen, jerking to a standstill. ‘I dare say the East India Office will also have something about it.’ He pointed to the barbary head and went on enthusiastically, ‘And if she wasn’t carrying a load of copper ingots I’ll eat my hat. Mind you, Inspector, that won’t have been all her cargo by a long chalk. She’ll have had a great many other good things on board.’
    Sloan motioned to Crosby to take a note.
    â€˜A great many other things,’ said the Museum Curator, ‘that certain people would like to have today.’
    â€˜Gold?’ suggested Sloan simply.
    Topazes and cinnamon, and gold moidores, it had been in the poem.
    Mr Jensen gave a quick frown. ‘Gold, certainly. Don’t forget it was used as currency then. But it won’t be so much the gold as the guns that they’ll be going for today.’
    â€˜Guns?’ said Sloan. ‘Guns before gold?’ He was faintly disappointed. Pieces of eight had a swashbuckling ring to them.
    â€˜They’re easier to find under water,’ said Jensen. ‘And if I remember rightly she had a pair of demi-culverin on board and some twelve-pounders.’
    Sloan was struck by a different thought. ‘Armed merchantmen were nothing new, then?’
    â€˜If you worked in a Museum, Inspector, you’d realize that there is nothing new under the sun.’
    â€˜Quite so,’ said Sloan.
    Mr Jensen came back very quickly to the matter in hand. ‘There are treasure-seekers, Inspector, who would blow her out of the water for her guns and not care that they were destroying priceless marine archaeology. Do you realize that everything that comes out of an underwater find should be kept under water?’
    â€˜She doesn’t,’ observed Sloan moderately, ‘appear to have been blown out of the water yet.’
    â€˜Matter of time,’ said Jensen, resuming his restless pacing. ‘Only a matter of time. Depends entirely on who knows she’s been found and how quickly they act.’
    â€˜I can see that, sir.’ There were villains everywhere. You learned that early in the police force. ‘There must be something that can be done about stopping her being damaged.’
    â€˜Done? Oh yes,’ said Jensen. ‘For those in peril in the sea, Inspector, we can get a Department of Trade protection order making it an offence to interfere with the wreck or carry out unlicensed diving or salvage.’ He turned on his heel suddenly and faced Sloan. ‘But we’d need to know where she was. How did you say you’d come by this barbary head?’
    â€˜I didn’t,’ said Sloan quietly, ‘and I’m not going to.’
    Elizabeth Busby felt strangely relaxed and comforted after her cry at the graveside. She was sure that her aunt would have understood her need to leave the house and seek out a quiet spot in the out of doors. Celia Mundill would have