Delphick nodded. “We’ve heard something of that, thanks to Mrs. Ranger’s numerous visitors, or rather, her son’s admirers.” Bob looked startled, then smug. “There has been talk of ghosts, among other phenomena.”
Brinton snorted. “Ghosts! Poachers, more likely, or courting couples—the nights aren’t cold yet, though a churchyard’s not a place I’d choose myself.”
“But, sir,” said Bob, “if the Brattles have got this money in Brettenden—and we don’t even know that it exists, or if it does, whether it’s missing—but if they have, why should anyone be looking for it in Plummergen?”
“Last known address,” said Brinton.
“If they aren’t local, that’s where they’d have to start looking,” Delphick agreed. “Yes. I wonder if we should think about looking there ourselves?”
This surprised everyone. He hesitated before enlarging on his theory.
“It’s not the idea of buried treasure,” he said slowly. “I would imagine that any money hidden in those parts has long since been moved elsewhere, by the Brattles—or by someone else. And it’s that someone—or a plurality of same—in whom I am interested. There could be other metal items there.” He glanced at Bob. “Buttons, or shoulder-flashes, or belt buckles there wasn’t time to cut off and chuck in the canal.”
Bob acknowledge this with a faint grin, but Brinton was quick to protest.
“Isn’t that perishing wireless proof enough of treachery?” he demanded.
“It is indeed, but the war isn’t so very long ago, remember. If we knew how many—if any—uniforms were buried there in the middle of the night of D-Day, we might also know how many traitors there were then—and still could be. With Germany divided as it now is, there may well be some whose sympathies have moved to the, ah, still-defiant East rather than staying with the thoroughly conquered, and now accommodating, West.”
Brinton raised the same objection the Oracle himself had raised in London. “Hitler was right-wing, the Reds are left—nobody’s going to switch sides like that, are they?”
“Nobody who’s not a fanatic, and thus already halfway round the political bend. I’d say it’s unlikely, but not impossible.” And something else to consider during the drive back to London, enough having now been said to explain his interest without going into details. “As for these metal-detector rumours...”
Brinton looked at Foxon. “You heard ’em first, laddie. Let’s all hear ’em now.”
“It was nothing definite, to start with,” said Foxon. “Mr. Brinton will remember how there was some trouble with our Choppers a while back, and Hastings had trouble with a motorbike gang too, so I swapped duties with a lad from Hastings for a spot of—of undercover infiltration, sir.”
“Arbuthnott,” supplied Brinton at once. “Nicknamed Sleaze—with good reason. Foxon here deludes himself into thinking he’s a snappy dresser, but this Hastings bod’s as scruffy as they come. Fitted into the Chopper crowd of leather-jacketed thugs and tearaways as to the manner born.”
Even now Foxon found the time to look pained. “I really can’t imagine why Mr. Brinton doesn’t care for my taste in clothes, Mr. Delphick. The Hastings lot, Hastings being generally classier than Ashford, are more sympathetic. DC Arbuthnott and I adapted pretty well to our respective gangs, and after it was over we sort of kept in touch in case a repeat performance was ever wanted.”
“And was it?” Delphick was waiting for the metal-detector connection. “Is it?”
“Just rumours, sir. Sleaze comes over to Ashford from time to time, partly to keep his hand in but mostly because Hastings’ve been having drug trouble and they’re trying to find the distribution route after it’s left the coast—” Brinton grunted confirmation “—and the word is that someone from Plummergen went to buy a metal detector in Brettenden and couldn’t find one there and was sent to Ashford instead.”
“Which is how the Choppers heard about it.” Brinton rolled his eyes. “Lazy baskets, our local yobs. Someone else spends the money buying the gadget and doing all the hard work trudging up and down muddy fields and digging holes, then in they waltz with bicycle chains and coshes, and scoop the lot for themselves.”
“Hence your remark about buried treasure.” Delphick nodded to Foxon. “The connection with Plummergen and the Brattles may be tenuous, yet it’s surely no less a possibility than the little conundrum posed by Miss Seeton’s earlier hints regarding long-lost Nazi sympathisers—whether there are any present-day survivors of the group that seems to have included the family for whom the Brattles worked.”
He saw Brinton’s expression as he picked up the sketch. “She’s been right before,” he reminded everyone. “The sketch suggests there’s money involved. And if she says there’s money involved, even if she doesn’t exactly tell us how, then in some way money is likely to be involved. These Brattles, if that indeed is who they are, know something. How long ago did their employer die?”
“Not long enough for them to be in the telephone directory or the electoral roll,” Brinton said, anticipating the next question. “If they keep to themselves the way they’ve apparently always done, it could be months before anyone officially takes notice of them.”
“And we still can’t be sure they are in fact worthy of official notice. Miss Seeton hints that they are, or I think she does, but it’s all a matter of interpretation, which, gentlemen, is purely subjective.”
“You could try asking her,” said Brinton glumly. Delphick, about to return to London, might just delegate the asking to him. In which case he’d get Foxon to do it. The lad liked the old girl, and she liked him, and they didn’t make each other feel uncomfortable the way he tended to feel with MissEss, like her or not. Oh, he liked her. Didn’t understand her, that was the trouble. He preferred his life, and his cases, to be straightforward. A whisper, a hint from a snout that a job was planned—you laid an ambush, you grabbed the chummies, you produced the evidence, you saw them jugged. The logical progression. A hint, but with facts to back it up. Not purely subjective interpretations of artistic guesswork produced in a village miles from the action by a respectable spinster who seldom left the place...
After a lengthy pause as Brinton gloomed, and the two younger men didn’t know what to say, Delphick suddenly sat up. “We could try our own spot of metal detecting,” he suggested. His own purely subjective speculation had given a sudden, illuminating lurch. “Or, while we’re in London, you could. Do let us know what you find. If a shop here in Ashford sells metal detectors, no doubt you could borrow or hire one. As the area of particular interest is close to the churchyard you might care to let the vicar know, but if you promise not to dig up any bodies I don’t see that he can object. Sergeant Ranger, we must be off.”
He pushed back his chair, replaced the sketch in its envelope, checked his watch, and looked pleased. “Goodbye, gentlemen—for the present,” he added, and hurried his sergeant through the door before Bob could do more than utter a quick farewell.
He was still catching his breath as Delphick unlocked the car and buckled himself into the driver’s seat. “Hurry up. We’ve no time to waste.”
“I gathered that, sir.” Bob was still breathless, but this did not stop his brain working. “You’ve had an idea,” he said. “About Miss Seeton’s sketch?”
“Sketches, plural,” the Oracle corrected him cheerfully. “Those two she’s drawn that are upside-down in spirit, and more or less identical. She apologised because she thought her imagination had let her down when she was tired. It hadn’t. She drew the first to tell us we were looking at the case the wrong way round—Crassweller didn’t commit suicide as we’d been led to believe, he was murdered. She’s now drawn the second to tell us that we are still looking the wrong way round—that, just as we’ve begun to think, he was indeed no traitor but instead a loyal and honourable servant of Her Majesty.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bob warily.
“A patriot, then—and yet the man was murdered. We thought the motive could have been profess
ional jealousy, one way or another; thwarted ambition, class envy, even coveting the man’s secretary—”
“We were only theorising, sir.”
Delphick ignored him. “At one time we even thought the murderer might be a patriot who disapproved of the risky game being played by the authorities. Taking the law into his own hands when Crassweller remained alive to be turned, or used as some sort of double-bluff conduit feeding false information to the other side...”
“We changed our minds, sir,” said Bob as Delphick paused.
“Gabriel Crassweller was murdered,” announced the chief superintendent, “by someone in a good position to know the man was no traitor, because it was the traitor who murdered him—before Crassweller could reveal his activities and identity to the authorities. And that is what Miss Seeton’s drawings are trying to tell us, Sergeant Ranger.”
Clarissa Putts, widowed mother of the post office’s Emmy, worked three days a week in Brettenden’s biscuit factory rather than on the land, in a shop, or as a domestic in Plummergen, even on the two days when the bus didn’t run and Clarrie had to survive without all the gossip and giggles among her workmates and (in summer) the air conditioning.
Like everyone else involved in the mural and quilt projects she seized every moment for stitchery, and had forged ahead with her portrayal of her dark-haired daughter’s coronation as a blonde-wigged Miss Plummergen at the summer fete. The wig had been Clarrie’s idea, and she was proud of it. Emmy didn’t have much gumption. She wasn’t as dozy as her friend Maureen—who could be?—but she often needed a prod. Clarrie had more than once tried to persuade her to get a job at the factory, wearing a crisp blue overall and a neat muslin cap, but Emmy preferred the extra half-hour in bed and the short walk to work, as well as the money for five days’ employment rather than three.
Clarrie had plied her needle late into the previous night, and needed more wool for her cross-stitch. She was waiting outside Welsted’s on the dot of nine.
“Morning, Mrs. Welsted.” The draper’s wife unlocked the door to the ping of an overhead bell. “I’d like another hank of this shade, if you haven’t sold out.”
Mrs. Welsted checked the serial number on the wrapper, hurried to the drawer and hunted through its contents. “You’re in luck, Mrs. Putts, the very last one. We’ve more on order, though. It’ll be here next week, if you need it.”
“Don’t think so, ta,” said Mrs. Putts, opening her purse. “Though you might keep one back for me, just in case. But today with luck did ought to see the finish of it.”
Her luck was out. As she handed over the money a second, more energetic ping had announced the arrival of Mrs. Blaine, with Miss Nuttel in tow. It was obvious that Mrs. Blaine was there on a similar errand to Mrs. Putts. It was likewise obvious, from the darting look in the Hot Cross Bun’s black eyes, that the tail end of Clarrie’s remark had been overheard, and correctly interpreted.
“So you’ve almost finished your panel, Mrs. Putts?” said Mrs. Blaine. “Of course, it takes time to produce really careful work, don’t you think? Good morning, Margery,” she said, as the daughter of the house bustled in from the back room. “I need something a little darker than this, please, and another hank of this green.”
It amused the Welsted ladies that, after an initial burst of enthusiasm for the tapestry project, when people were happy to discuss their plans and ask for advice, secrecy was now paramount. Nobody would tell anyone else what they were doing, or how far along they’d got. The vicar had hoped for a spirit of co-operation, but it seemed to Margery and Mrs. Welsted that it was more a competition than anything else.
Clarrie Putts changed the subject. “Anything more about them lights in the middle of the night?” she enquired. Mrs. Blaine bridled at the snub; Miss Nuttel frowned.
“Nothing’s been said,” said Mrs. Welsted, “and anyway I’m sure it wasn’t ghosts or devil-worshippers, whoever it was.” Mrs. Welsted played the organ in church, and knew the vicar wouldn’t like to think of any of his flock listening to such nonsense, whether or not there was anything in it. Mrs. Welsted always tried to keep an open mind. “Poachers, most likely, or kiddies larking about when they should by rights have been in bed. But of course ever since that picture turned up in Summerset Cottage, there’s been talk.”
Mrs. Putts was pleased with the success of her diversion. Whatever her daughter might lack, Clarrie Putts had plenty of gumption. “Grave robbers, more like,” she said, with a mischievous eye on the Nuts. She nodded as their eager curiosity turned to shock. “Oh, yes. The word’s been going round Brettenden that someone from here went there trying to buy a metal detector...”
The sensation was all she could have wished. “A metal detector?” Mrs Blaine cried. “But—who? And why?”
“Tombstones,” said Miss Nuttel, when Mrs. Putts could think of no plausible answer. “Not always there to mark the spot. Hinges and handles, Bunny.”
“Six feet under?” scoffed Margery Welsted. “Need to be an expensive machine, surely. How many people could afford one?”
“And what could they be looking for?” Mrs. Blaine wanted to know.
“Just saying what I heard at work,” said Mrs. Putts.
“Smugglers,” suggested Miss Nuttel. “That Henty chap. You told me, Bunny, about a book where they buried kegs of brandy—” She broke off as Margery stifled a giggle. Miss Nuttel flushed. “Of course. Wooden barrels in those days, not metal.”
Mrs. Putts, intrigued by the hare she had started, felt she must add a little support to the chase before going home to finish the sewing project only begun because of the wedding of…Nigel Colveden.
“The Colvedens,” she offered, “being the richest folk in these parts could afford one all right. Maybe they were practising in the churchyard before...before they went looking for another Roman treasure along at the Hall.”
Mrs. Blaine’s eyes gleamed. “Perhaps they’ve already found it. That would explain why they wouldn’t put the presents on display there, wouldn’t it? They probably have a whole row of silver cups and plates and jugs they didn’t want anyone to see.”
“Gold, even,” said Miss Nuttel.
“That’ll be why nobody’s seen the lights again,” said Mrs. Putts, and vanished before the flaw in their collective logic should be spotted. She hadn’t the time to argue days of the week and phases of the moon: she wanted her sewing finished.
Plummergen has never allowed a flaw in its logic to spoil a good story. Mrs. Blaine’s wool having been paid for, the Nuts hurried up The Street to the post office. Within minutes everyone knew that the Colvedens—the Colvedens!—had been breaking England’s strict laws on Treasure Trove and, rather than reporting a hoard of gold on their land, had kept it all for themselves.
“Melt it down, probably,” said someone with visions of ingots before her envious eyes. “Then they can sell it and no questions asked because of having no hallmark to say where it came from.”
“Pawn it,” said someone else, more realistic. “You wouldn’t get as much, but anything’d be better than nothing.”
“A crucible in the kitchen range...”
“Dan Eggleden’s forge, only they’d have to go fifty-fifty...”
“With Sir George a magistrate, you’d expect him to know better.”
“It’ll be all her ladyship’s doing, mark my words, with him too busy on the farm to know what she’s up to.”
“That man from Scotland Yard took her away in his car the other day, didn’t he?”
This was too much for Mrs. Stillman. “All he did was give her a lift to the village hall to meet Miss Treeves and Miss Armitage.”
“And they locked themselves away smartish,” someone pointed out in triumph.
“Because of the Tapestry Project,” retorted Mrs. Stillman. “Keeping it all secret as they were asked to do by—Now, Emmeline Putts, just you stop your goggling! Your mother’s as close as anyone else about what she’s sewing, isn’t she? Are you going to stand there and t
ry to tell me Clarissa Putts is in league with the vicar’s sister and Miss Armitage?”
Emmy blinked, and said she supposed she wasn’t, only it did all seem a bit queer.
Nobody disagreed, but nobody could say they knew why it was queer, it just was. And it showed that you couldn’t trust anyone, could you? The Colvedens, for all they’d lived years in the village, were incomers. Thick as thieves with Miss Seeton, what was more, that other incomer whose presence had never been properly explained, cousin or no cousin, and the police always dragging her off here, there and everywhere, which never happened before she turned up, did it?
And the Scotland Yard man, they could be sure, wouldn’t have missed the chance to interrogate Lady Colveden when he gave her that lift in his car...
Speculation ran merrily riot. A protesting Mrs. Stillman could only roll her eyes, and sigh for the folly of her customers, and glare at Emmy Putts whenever she appeared on the verge of offering an opinion.
But it was not until the next morning that, having seethed and speculated to its heart’s content and happy exhaustion, Plummergen was given the ultimate proof that it required.
Chapter Sixteen
DELPHICK WAS UNUSUALLY silent during the journey back to London. Bob had seldom known him in such a mood. They hardly spoke at all until they were back at Scotland Yard. Bob began making for the lift.
“I’m tired of paperwork,” said the chief superintendent. “I prefer face-to-face.”
“Yes, sir.” As did any honest detective—able to watch a suspect’s expression, hearing the voice, reading the body language...Files were for filing clerks, not coppers.
“Come on.” Delphick turned and led the way out again. They strode in silence, until he hailed a taxi. “The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, please.”
Hmm. He could tell from the Oracle’s voice, it was no good asking questions. But Bob wondered...
“We wish to speak with Mr. Oblon,” Delphick told the clerk at the FCO’s front desk. “Tell him Chief Superintendent Delphick and Detective Sergeant Ranger are waiting in the hall—and will wait until they see him,” he added as the clerk, checking down a list he tried to keep discreet, seemed about to deny the very name of Duncan Oblon.
Miss Seeton Quilts the Village Page 19