“Oh Eric, that’s so true. I noticed as well, but it only started after he’d gone hurrying out of the room like that, didn’t it? He seemed a different person when he came back—almost as if,” and Mrs. Blaine dropped her voice to a thrilling whisper, “he’d been given new orders about how we ought to be treated.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Eric said, slowly: “If we’re right, only one person likely to have that sort of influence. Getting us brought back in a police car—driver the least likely person for us to suspect—hoping we’d let something out . . .”
Bunny’s eyes were bright. “That woman,” she breathed in terrified delight. “She knows we recognised her, and she’s not sure what we’ve told the police in our statements so she planted a spy to bring us home—keeping tabs on us. If her game’s up, she wants to be the first to know so she can make fresh plans . . .”
“Miss Seeton,” said Miss Nuttel, with satisfaction. Mrs. Blaine nodded.
“Miss Seeton! If the police are involved with anyone in the village, she’s the one. It’s been too easy all along for her to pull the wool over their eyes, pretending she’s on their side and so helpful. They refuse to admit she might be acting a part, and so very successfully, as well, because even when we tried to tell them, they didn’t believe us. But we were witnesses, Eric!”
“Right in the front seat,” agreed Eric grimly. “Bunny—maybe they did believe us. That inspector—he’s known all along. Telephoned her for instructions, or to warn her or something. Probably in her pay, buying his silence. Spied on us when we came home, reported back to her later, having to tell her we were too smart for them.”
“You were too smart, Eric,” said Mrs. Blaine with pride. “I never dreamed—the police, if you can’t trust them, who can you trust? But you were clever enough to suspect the truth—and you stopped me giving anything away!” Almost without a hint of annoyance in her tone did she bring out the final words; but she made a point of rubbing her ankle and wincing, very bravely.
But for once Miss Nuttel was oblivious to her friend: she was too preoccupied, and Bunny quickly realised this. She waited in respectful silence until Eric should speak.
“Bound to guess we’re on to her,” she said at last, with a jerk of her head in the direction of Sweetbriars further along The Street. “If we’d talked in the car—but we never let anything out. Knows we’re on the watch. Hide the evidence, that’s what she’ll do.”
“And without evidence,” lamented Mrs. Blaine, “who will believe us? And anyway,” as the thought struck her, “who is it safe to tell? The local police are in her pay, so . . .”
Miss Nuttel threw back her head, her nostrils flaring. She looked more like a horse than ever, but a horse with a mission. “Duty’s duty, Bunny,” she informed Mrs. Blaine in ringing tones. “Even if it’s against the grain, the truth has to come out. Don’t like the thought of doing it this way, but if they know it’s us they’ll manage to nobble what we tell them so it’s ignored even there.”
“Where, Eric? Who? And how?” breathed Mrs. Blaine,
“Obvious, when you think of it.” And Erica Nuttel directed a pointed look towards the telephone. “Fight one with another. Police called her, we’ll call them. Only—not the local police. Corrupt,” she explained, her features twisted in a shocked grimace.
“Oh, Eric, you don’t mean—you can’t mean . . .”
Eric nodded. “Only thing for it,” she said. “Scotland Yard—and,” she concluded, “best not to say who we are or how we know. Anonymous, that’s how!”
chapter
~6~
THESE WERE BRAVE words—but words are easier than deeds any day. Miss Nuttel found that somehow, even with Bunny at her side to egg her on, she couldn’t quite bring herself to pick up the telephone and dial Whitehall 1212. “Might trace the call,” she pointed out, “and warn that woman we’re on to her. Needs careful thinking about, Bunny.”
To which Bunny, as ever, agreed that Eric was so right, and suggested a fresh brewing of chamomile tea to strengthen both nerves and resolve. “And we could take a peek at the Nine O’Clock News on television,” she added. “I know that the inspector did his best to keep the journalists away from us, but we might just see something about ourselves . . .”
But they did not. Interviews with selected Americans, all enchanted with the unique historical experience they’d undergone in such a romantic setting—some of them seemed almost to believe the tour company had arranged it on purpose—preceded shots of a solemn reporter outside the hospital in which the coach driver, now in intensive care, and the courier sheltered from the media while they recovered: which stern seclusion naturally made them the people to whom everyone wished to speak. Nobody mentioned the Nuts; and the Nuts were disappointed.
They were to a certain extent mollified, however, by the way their telephone tintinnabulated rhythmically into life almost before the broadcast was over. Most of their cronies—indeed, most of the village—had known of their success in the Anyone’s competition, and knew also which day they had intended to claim their prize: and what a day, thrilled their envious callers, to choose! Plummergen had become newsworthy—some might say had achieved notoriety—more than once in the recent past, mostly due to Miss Seeton and her innocent umbrella-wielding; but Miss Seeton, to cronies of the Nuts, was not as yet considered true Plummergen. The adventure today, however, was different. Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine had lived in Lilikot for twelve years, and though it might take a lifetime to be fully accepted, there were some who were more (partially) accepted into the village than others, by some villagers.
It was these who clamoured to know why The Nuts hadn’t been on telly like everyone else. How come they had missed seeing the robbery? Weren’t they there, after all? Would it be in the papers tomorrow, instead? The good name of the village was somehow seen to be at stake . . .
Yet to all this, Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine could only reply in mysterious tones that their lips were sealed, and that maybe tomorrow’s papers would tell a different story. “Don’t want word getting back to her that we’ve rumbled her little game,” Miss Nuttel said to Mrs. Blaine. “Best keep quiet until we’ve got proof—at least till we’ve warned the police about her,” she added. She sketched a vague gesture. “Search warrants . . .” she said darkly, and Mrs. Blaine gave a squeak of horror.
“To think of such goings-on in our peaceful little Plummergen,” she said, and shivered gleefully. “Oh, Eric, d’you suppose they’ll send someone down tomorrow? But they can’t, of course,” she recalled, “until you’ve telephoned. When shall you ring them?”
“Too late now,” said Eric, peering first at her watch, then out the window. Yes, as she’d feared: The Street was still empty of reporters: nobody wanted to know about her—their—shared and shocking experience of highway robbery. Resentment came welling up in what passed for Miss Nuttel’s soul.
It is possible that, had the reporters eventually manifested themselves, next day’s call to Scotland Yard might never have been made. But nobody came at all; which left Eric, who was beginning to have doubts about the whole enterprise, a more or less easy prey to Bunny’s blandishments, though she did not yield without a struggle.
“It’s much more expensive to ring in the morning,” she tried to tell her friend, but Bunny refused to consider this important. Duty, she remarked, was—as Eric herself had said—duty. What did the cost of a telephone call matter? Scotland Yard should be warned that not all the county forces were as uncorrupt and trustworthy as—here she stumbled, but recovered—the Yard itself was known to be. (“Miss Seeton’s very thick with that man Delphick, of course, Eric. Suppose he suppresses your message? You’d better talk to somebody else. Insist on it, won’t you?”)
And, thrusting the hesitant Miss Nuttel to one side, she dialled the number with fingers that shook only a little, then handed the receiver to Eric with a look of admiring encouragement that brooked no denial.
It was while Miss See
ton was out, shopping among other items for Bob Ranger’s favourite gingerbread, that Chief Superintendent Delphick learned of the anonymous telephone call received at Scotland Yard and concerning their—well, his, he supposed, if she was anyone’s—MissEss. He cursed to himself when he realised that it was far too late to stop rumours ever more wild proliferating once his sergeant, even in the unmarked car, arrived in Plummergen—which had to be the source of the anonymous message—to collect Miss Seeton and deliver her safely to London. He should never have rung her yesterday afternoon and asked her to come up to Town; he ought to have listened to the doubts expressed by Sergeant Ranger, who after all knew her far better, since marriage to Anne Knight had made him privy to more of Plummergen’s secrets. Bob had dropped heavy hints that Miss Seeton, if she had to come to London, should come by train: but he, Delphick, The Oracle, had predicted mishaps (unspecified) and confusion (ditto, but inevitable where Miss Seeton was concerned) if she made the journey by British Rail, and had overridden his sergeant’s warning.
He did his best to prevent mischief, of course. As soon as the Scotland Yard switchboard had relayed the gist of the anonymous message and he realised its import, he telephoned Plummergen 35 hoping to catch Miss Seeton and explain there was to be a change of plan. Useless to warn her of gossip, since she could never understand that anyone might find her affairs of consuming interest, and would dismiss Delphick’s apprehensions as surely not applying to her, Superintendent, or rather Chief Superintendent, one did not always remember, one’s age, he must understand, but really an unpardonable discourtesy and she apologised for it . . .
Delphick was so sure of her response that he’d rehearsed it through in his head as he dialled, and marshalled every argument at his disposal in readiness—only to hear nothing but the ringing tone at the other end. Miss Seeton was out: perhaps in the garden? The ringing tone rang on. She was not, then, weeding: he’d left ample time for her to reach the telephone. He deduced from the lack of reply that it couldn’t be one of Martha’s days working at Sweetbriars, or she would have answered in Miss Seeton’s absence. He’d try again later, once she’d had time to come back from the shops, or wherever she’d gone; meanwhile he’d try to reach Bob Ranger on the car radio.
From Bob, too, there was no reply. Delphick consulted his watch: the lad was probably chatting with his in-laws at Dr. Knight’s nursing home, making good his excuse for being in Plummergen in the first place before dropping in on Miss Seeton and, on such a lovely day, suggesting that she might care to go for a drive in the country.
Delphick cursed himself fluently. He really should have thought more about the village tom-toms, which beat louder and faster in Plummergen than in other places; and in view of the startling robbery yesterday, only a dozen miles or so from Miss Seeton’s home, he should have guessed that somehow she’d be implicated by the tom-toms in whatever mayhem was now abroad. Plummergen, judging by that telephone call, was obviously convinced it was all her fault—he must ring Chris Brinton at Ashford to find out exactly what had happened—and no amount of dissembling would now be able to disguise the fact that Miss Seeton had been taken away by the police, a weak foundational fact upon which the gossips would erect a towering edifice of speculation, rumour, and surmise.
But it was no use blaming himself; he’d chosen to bring Miss Seeton into the Sherry Gang case, and it was nothing but bad luck that at the same time the chance for her name to be linked with a totally unconnected crime wave should turn up. Probably she wouldn’t even notice the trouble his actions had caused her: he and his conscience, however, would have to live with whatever consequences there might be. And so would the forked tongues of Plummergen . . .
“Chris? Delphick here. How are you? . . . Yes, longer than I’d realised, and yes again, I do want something—to pick your brains, as usual. I gather you’ve been having a jolly time of it in the sticks, highway robbery and any amount of fun and games—oh? . . . Hastings? Furneux? Not the chap they call the Fiery Furnace, by any chance?”
“That’s him. Young Harry—a good copper, for a Sussex man,” said Superintendent Brinton of the Kent Constabulary. “Never known anything like this on his patch before—well, few of us have. He’s coped pretty well, I gather, though one thing that bothered him a bit this last time was coming up against a couple of friends of your Miss Seeton—Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine. He couldn’t make ’em out at all, and harboured deep suspicions of ’em till I put him straight.”
“The Nuts?” exclaimed Delphick, much as Brinton had done the previous day. “Highway robbery? Never.”
Brinton chose to sound doubtful. “Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far in letting ’em off the hook. They’re pals of your Miss Seeton, after all, and where she’s concerned—what’s up?” For Delphick had uttered a heartfelt groan.
“That’s what the whole damned village is going to say about her, I know, but I didn’t expect it of you, Chris. I thought you liked her.”
“Did I say I didn’t? Which doesn’t mean I haven’t got a healthy respect for the way she always manages to stir up a hornets’ nest wherever she goes, and without even noticing, too. She’s been quiet for a few months now; it’s about time for her to start breaking out again. I’m not saying she’s a Dick Turpin, of course I’m not. She’d think it was quite unacceptable to break the law. But you have to admit that if things are going to go wobbly, when she’s anywhere near ’em they wobble a lot harder, and a lot sooner, than if she wasn’t.”
“The Nuts,” protested Delphick, “aren’t exactly near her—I don’t believe they even like her. They certainly don’t trust her—”
“They don’t. Potter tells me they’re forever hoping to catch her out on some illicit ploy or other, and they egg on the rest of the village to think the same. Half the schoolkids believe she’s a witch, and their parents think she’s a crook.” Delphick spluttered, but Brinton carried on: “Never mind about it, Oracle, because you can be sure Miss Seeton doesn’t. Even if she knew, which of course she doesn’t. It really is water off a duck’s back, with her.”
“You seem to know a great deal more about Plummergen and its goings-on than I’d have expected, Chris. Could this be because you’ve been keeping an eye on Miss Seeton for me?”
Brinton blustered for a few moments before admitting, in an embarrassed tone, that with MissEss practically on his doorstep he felt a lot safer knowing what the old biddy was up to from the weekly personal reports PC Potter made to him in Ashford. “Not that she’s under surveillance, Oracle—perish the thought—but I’d like to know when and where she’s likely to erupt next. And if she has—if this latest little carry-on with shotguns and masks was anything to do with her, then it happened over the county border so it’s not my pigeon, thank goodness. Not that I believe for one moment,” he added, “that there’s any possible connection with Miss Seeton at all. I was just winding you up. Privilege of an old friend who’s light-headed at knowing somebody else, for once, has drawn the short straw.”
“You may not believe it, Chris, but there are those who apparently do . . .” And Delphick told him about the anonymous call, and why he feared for Miss Seeton’s reputation, and the reason he’d wanted to call her into the Sherry investigation. Brinton was thoughtful.
“So you want her to leave Plummergen under her own steam after all, and meet up with your young giant in Brettenden? Leave it to me, Oracle. I’ll ring Potter and get him to pop down with a message for her to ring you for new instructions. Better still, I’ll ask him to send his wife. Potter can be calling the nursing home to see if the doctor’s son-in-law’s still on the premises. Then he can ring you, too . . .”
“Thanks, Chris. I know I could do all this myself, but you’ve got the numbers to hand—and it won’t seem quite so formal, this way. If the gossips should get hold of it, maybe they won’t make such a meal of it . . .”
“Maybe,” replied Brinton, sounding unconvinced. “That’s the logical, sensible expectation, I grant you—but never fo
rget it’s Miss Seeton we’re dealing with, Oracle. And for her, you need a whole new vocabulary . . .”
chapter
~7~
THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK news broadcast was over: and there had yet again been no mention of the Nuts in connection with the daring robbery on the Rye road. Cronies of Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine now felt that they had done their duty in staying by their wirelesses for most of the morning, and that they should consider themselves free to utilise the services of an even more efficient propaganda machine, the Plummergen shopping circuit.
For more exotic, indeed even for some essential, items the Plummergen shopper will visit Brettenden, six miles to the northwest, but for most basic needs the village is well served. There are three shops in Plummergen, apart from the bakery (which recently became part of the Winesart empire, and no longer produces home-made bread) and the butcher, who still holds out against takeover by anyone: the only chains he is prepared to admit to his premises are those made of sausages.
The three main shops all sell, despite their official designations, groceries as well as their basic stock. From the grocer, the draper, and the post office may be bought produce that has been bottled, canned, jarred, or deep-frozen, as well as the fresh variety, with tobacco, confectionery, and off-licence sales also possible. The post office boasts a cold meats counter, a selection of books, and ironmongery and general hardware lines as well as stamps. It also has the largest floor-space of the three.
It was therefore in the post office, by some mysterious mass telepathy, that the gossips of Plummergen congregated shortly after eleven o’clock, just too late to observe Miss Seeton, Bob Ranger’s gingerbread safely basketed beside her own favourite chocolate biscuits, say goodbye to Mr. Stillman and hurry back to Sweetbriars. Leaving, by her absence, the floor free for speculation even wilder than usual.
As the excitement grows when a royal personage is about to appear, so the tension began to mount in the post office before the Nuts arrived, as nearly everyone was confident that they would. Not mentioned on the radio all morning—never a word on the telly last night—there’d be something to say about that, mark the speaker’s words, because having been in the thick of things as they had the Nuts wouldn’t take kindly to being outsmarted by a load of furriners with their pictures in the papers.
Miss Seeton Cracks the Case (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 9) Page 5