Odds on Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 5)

by Heron Carvic

  Miss Seeton flushed. “Oh, no. That, I’m afraid, was me.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. I hit him in the eye. With a lead weight,” she added. She had a feeling that perhaps she had not made herself quite clear. “I’m not used to fur stoles,” she explained.

  We’re off again, thought Bob gloomily. Fraud had brought her into this, just for one evening, but that wouldn’t be the end of it—not by a long chalk; not with Aunt Em. Once she started up, there was no stopping her. She’d be right there in the thick of things till the end of the case, with the rest of them running round in circles trying to pick up the pieces.

  In a curious way Delphick felt cheered. He had become so accustomed to Miss Seeton and her umbrella, and to the way it appeared to go into action in her defense of its own volition, that he had come to look upon it as a talisman without which she might be vulnerable. Now it was evident that any inanimate object—fur stoles, handbags, the whole armory of a woman’s paraphernalia—might well become lethal in her hands.

  “What arrangements had they made for you to change and get home?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Mr. Haley was seeing to everything and I—”

  “ ’S right,” interrupted Haley, staggering to his feet. “ ’M in charge. ’Ll take her—take her . . .” His voice trailed away. Take her where? Couldn’t ’member—not at the moment. It’d come back. But not standing up. Standing up gave everything the shakes. Look at ’em all shaking. Lots of cars and lots of people—all shaking. He sat down again with a giggle. “ ’Nd lots o’ lolly,” he confided to no one in particular.

  Delphick hesitated. What was he to do with this young ass? He’d gone to Miss Seeton’s rescue like a trooper, at risk of a broken arm or leg or neck, for that matter. If he took him back to the Yard in this state, the boy’d be for the high jump. And was he genuinely drunk, or had somebody slipped something into his drink?

  “Where do you live?”

  “Wash—what . . .?” Haley bleared up at him. He blinked. “Gosh, Chief Shoop—Sup—” But “Superintendent” was beyond him. “It’s the Oracle,” he mumbled. He tried to rise but his legs betrayed him and he knelt before Delphick in an attitude of prayer.

  Delphick bit his lip, but his shoulders shook. “Bob.” For once he broke his rule never to address his subordinate except by rank in public. “Take this religious novice to the car, stick him in the front seat and let him sleep it off. Perhaps he’ll make some sense when he comes to; I could bear to learn what’s gone on. We’re taking you home now,” he told Miss Seeton. “I’ll see you get your clothes back tomorrow.”

  “But, Chief Superintendent,” she protested, “it’s much too far. I can easily take a train.”

  “Not in that rig, you can’t,” retorted Delphick. “Your last train’s probably gone and how do you imagine you’d get home from the station? Walk?”

  “Oh, no. You see, I left my bicycle at the station this morning and it’s only two miles.”

  A bicycle? This was a new development. The thought of Miss Seeton, in baubles, bangles and beads, breezing along a country lane in the dark was almost too much for him. “No argument. We’re responsible for those gewgaws you’re wearing, to say nothing of all the money you seem to have swiped—which I still want to hear about. You follow Bob over to the car and get in the back. I’ll settle one or two things here and be with you in a few minutes. Did you come by car or taxi?”

  “By taxi. Mr. Haley said it would be less—”

  “Good. Off you go.”

  The crowd was beginning to scatter since the principal actors had left the stage, the ambulance had come and gone, only the police remained and no further amusement appeared to offer.

  Delphick arranged for the registration of the raiders’ car to be checked and the car to be removed and examined, although the fact that the driver had slipped away at some point during the fracas almost certainly meant that it had been stolen. They were unlikely to get any help there and must hope that the men they’d caught would sing. He sent a message to the Yard for Inspector Borden, explaining that he was taking Miss Seeton home to Kent, that Haley was with them, that he himself would be responsible for her borrowed plumes and would bring them back to London.

  Should he question the doorman or not? Better perhaps for the look of the thing, though he was pretty sure he’d get nowhere. He was right. Joe Flackman insisted that he hadn’t seen nothing nor heard nothing. The silly old cow’d flipped her bleedin’ fur in ’is kisser and what with his eye watering and his nose running, he couldn’t’ve told you if it was Friday night or Christmas, so he’d gone back in and let ’em get their own bleedin’ taxi and bad cess to ’em and no tip neither, which you’d’ve thought, considering, was the least.

  Delphick did not remedy the deficiency and returned to his car. Joe Flackman would keep: small fry, but he’d pass on the name to Borden, and it supported the inspector’s contention that this syndicate was putting their own men into these places. The Gold Fish’s reputation had been good, top of its class, but . . . Anyway, none of it was his pigeon, though he had an uneasy suspicion that now that Miss Seeton had entered the lists there was a definite possibility it might become so. His instinct in coming here tonight had been right and somehow he doubted it would end there. Meanwhile, to get her home. He grinned to himself at the thought of the village’s reaction to the sight of her in her present finery—that would start the tongues wagging full tilt. He checked his watch; nearly ten. Luckily, Plummergen was only about six miles beyond Brettenden, which made it about seventy miles all told—yes, it would take them all of two hours. Good, the village should be safely bedded down and she could slip into her cottage without anybody being the wiser.

  chapter

  ~3~

  THE HARVEST DANCE at the Plummergen village hall was proving to be its annual success, even better attended than usual, and the jollification had been helped by an extension of the license at the George and Dragon until midnight. The revelers were pouring out onto the village’s only street from both hall and hostelry for protracted good nights and discussion before dispersing to their homes.

  A car coming slowly down the Street attracted attention. ’T’weren’t local. Furriners, likely. But where’d they be goin’ this time o’ night? Someone recognized Bob Ranger at the wheel. Ah, t’one what’d married Dr. Knight’s darter. Well, ’e were goin’ t’wrong way, then. ’E’d likely be callin’ on that Miss Seeton. What—late as this? Any road she weren’t there; gone gallivantin’ off t’morning to Lunnon and weren’t back yet, as anybody with gumption knew cos ’er bike were still out at t’station.

  Instead of carrying on through the village, where the Street narrowed suddenly between the wall that bounded Miss Seeton’s garden and the next house before widening again to become the main road to the coast, the car veered right toward Marsh Road, the only other exit at the south end of Plummergen, swung round in a circle and drew up before Miss Seeton’s cottage. This maneuver placed it in an ideal position for the villagers. The car now faced the George and Dragon, set back on the opposite side of the Street, so that the group in front of the inn and the crowd emerging from the village hall had an uninterrupted view of the proceedings. They all edged forward, apparently engrossed in conversation but waiting agog for this next episode in Miss Seeton’s saga. They were well rewarded. From the car stepped an elderly lady, bedizened, bediamonded, befurred and with coils of improbable mauve-white hair. A tall man with graying hair followed her. ’Twere that Lunnon tec what were ’ere afore, stayin’ at t’ George with ’is sargint. Interest quickened. That Miss Seeton were in trouble agin. Done summit in Lunnon ’nd they’d found ’er out ’nd down here to search ’er house, ’im ’nd sargint. But what for they’d brought t’ beaded old bag with ’em? Bob Ranger joined Delphick and helped him to extract Haley, while Miss Seeton, smiling and nodding to one or two people whom she knew, went ahead of them up the short path to Sweetbriars. The smiles and nod
s took effect.

  “ ’Tis ’er.”

  “ ’Tain’t.”

  “ ’Tis, I say. ’S ’erself, an’ in disguise.”

  At the door, as she searched for her key, a few notes fluttered from Miss Seeton’s bag; quickly she stooped to recover them. The buzz went round.

  “See them notes?”

  “T’ bag’s stuffed with ’em.”

  “Robbed a bank likely ’nd down ’ere to share ’t out quietlike.”

  “Allus said pleece weren’t no better’n t’ next.”

  Moral indignation, since the watchers were not being asked to share the proceeds, began to soar and was given voice by two ladies in the posse from the hall, one short and plump, the other tall and thin, who were watching avidly, since here indeed was material for the gossip upon which they thrived.

  “This—it’s too much,” fluted the well-rounded Mrs. Blaine. “It’s too dreadful. How dare she come here dressed like that. It’s too—”

  “Disgusting,” supplied the angular Miss Nuttel.

  “And look.” Mrs. Blaine clutched her companion’s arm. “Just look at that. It’s too—it’s too—”

  For the first time in many years words failed them both as Delphick and Bob assisted the hapless Haley, half asleep and virtually legless, into the cottage.

  “Poor lad, he’s ill,” exclaimed a motherly soul.

  “Bain’t,” contradicted an elderly farm laborer, whose complexion lent the color of authority to his statement. “ ’E’s pissed.”

  “Wounded mebbe.”

  “Pissed,” repeated veteran authority.

  “Knifed, I reckon.”

  “Drugged, I’d say.”

  “Nar,” said authority. “Like what I told yer—pissed.”

  And upon relished argument and speculation the door to Sweetbriars closed.

  The bar in the George and Dragon was crowded at lunchtime the next day and Miss Seeton in absentia held the floor. Her detractors and supporters argued hotly, although the latter were in the invidious position of having no firm foundation for debate. Unsuitably attired she had undoubtedly been; drunk, or possibly wounded, one of her companions had been; under police escort she had been and too much money she had had. These were facts and even her most fervent admirers could produce no convincing explanation, whereas the opposition, unbounded by probability, interpreted at their pleasure.

  The news of the disturbance outside The Gold Fish had made a short paragraph and heading in the morning papers, but beyond Miss Seeton’s name—the police were uncertain how this had been leaked—and an admission that two men had been detained, one of them in hospital, there was little to go on. The local press were present, listening and questioning, since their attempts to interview the heroine herself had been thwarted by Miss Seeton’s daily help.

  In the crowd were two people who spoke little but absorbed the atmosphere and the discussion.

  Mel Forby from the Daily Negative had been to Plummergen before and had worked her way onto the inside track of one of Miss Seeton’s earlier escapades. Originally a fashion reporter, noted for a tough manner, an acid tongue and a spurious mid-Atlantic accent, she now had a weekly page and also wrote the stories and “balloons” for a comic strip about village life based broadly on Miss Seeton herself and Plummergen. Influenced by the ex-art teacher’s admiration for the interesting bone structure of her face and her beautiful eyes, Mel had abandoned the excessive eye makeup and dropped her aggressive manner, and the accent, too, had fallen by the way.

  Thrudd Banner was a free-lance foreign correspondent. He had met Miss Seeton in Switzerland, followed her, and the story, to Paris, but had missed the final episode at customs on her return to England. He had never been able to make up his mind whether Miss Seeton was the innocent victim of circumstances or the greatest liar he had ever met. Believing in her, trying to help and to protect her until events or her own actions appeared to prove him wrong, he had frequently ended by kicking himself for a gullible fool. In Switzerland such an event had led him, for the first time in his life, to fire a pistol—and miss—in her defense. Miss Seeton’s gun, going off by accident, had also missed, but since her opponent had stumbled and fallen to his death, to Thrudd she had appeared the perfect markswoman. Now home on holiday, he had scented copy in the report of the previous night’s affair and was once more on her trail. He noticed the woman at the bar, straightened, squared his shoulders, looked again, his eyes widening.

  “Mel Forby, by God.”

  Mel turned slowly. “My mother made no such claim.” She smiled disarmingly. “Why, Thrudd. Home? What has England done to deserve such dishonor? Has the Continent become too hot to hold you?”

  Thrudd was momentarily thrown off balance by the change in looks, manner and accent; then he rallied. “No, Mel. I came simply to give you the benefit of my experience and to guide your faltering footsteps along the path of true communication with your public—both of them—and I’ll even, on request, correct your spelling.”

  Mel’s eyebrows lifted, she picked up her drink and continued her conversation with a Kent reporter. Thrudd addressed her back:

  “I’m the first to admit that women have their place in journalism and the last to deny they don’t know it.” Getting no reply, he taunted: “The simplest answer to the unanswered is no answer, and to retire from battle is to live to fight a lesser opponent on another day.” He raised his voice. “My dear Lady Disdain, are you yet listening?” Still he failed to get a rise. “A waste of ammunition,” he mused aloud. “But then you could hardly expect the Bard to be appreciated on the women’s page.”

  Mel looked round in gentle feigned surprise. “I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Bannerdick, nobody marks you.”

  Thrudd laughed. “For that I’ll buy you a drink and as we’re obviously here for the same purpose I might—just might—introduce you to MissEss.”

  “I’ll have a whisky and for that I might not—just might not—warn Miss S. against you.”

  “You know her?”

  “Mm.”

  “Then let us repair to a corner table, down weapons and plan campaign.”

  Martha Bloomer slammed the front door of Sweetbriars and went into the sitting room. Martha saw herself, with some justification, in the privileged position of a family retainer, having “done for” the previous incumbent of Sweetbriars, old Mrs. Bannet, until she died, and was now “doing for” her goddaughter and devisee, Miss Seeton.

  “There,” she announced. “Let’s hope that’s the last of ’em—nosey lot of Parkers. Not but what you don’t ask for it the way you carry on whisking off to London and gambling and coming back dressed like that you can’t expect but what people’ll notice and want to know—”

  “I told you, Martha—” Miss Seeton had told her several times, but Martha was not to be diverted.

  “Yes I know and I’ve nothing against the police not in the ordinary way though the way they went on about Stan’s bike lamp when all that was wrong was the battery was run down and if it makes things easier for you being able to afford washing-up machines and bikes and the like then I’ve got nothing to say but I must say they ought to be more careful and you too or one day we’ll have you getting yourself killed and then where’ll you be I’d like to know.”

  Miss Seeton had no wish to speculate upon her future state and was tired of the argument. “It was just very unfortunate that it was the night of the Harvest Dance, otherwise no one would have known about it. In any case, they’ll soon forget. It’s over and finished. The police only wanted a drawing of a gentleman’s face. The chief superintendent wouldn’t let me do it last night. He said we were all tired and we needed coffee—black, of course, for Mr. Haley. So I must start on it soon because someone’s coming down to fetch it.” She glanced at the clock. “Oughtn’t you to be at home, Martha? What about Stan’s lunch?”

  “I left Stan a cold dinner and told him I’d not be back till tea and he’s fetching your bike from the
station on his way home and he’ll bring it after his tea when he comes over to cut the grass. I’m not leaving you on your own with people popping in all the time and no one at the door to tell them no.” Having out-talked opposition, Martha became indulgent. “I’ve made you a nice mince and veg so your dinner’s ready and you can have it in here with Welsh rabbit for afters.”

  Her lunch disposed of, Miss Seeton settled to work. The hawk-like face, so clear in her memory, refused to appear as a conventional portrait on paper. She tore up several attempts and sat, thoughtful. Her hand began to stray: lines, free-running and vital, became a bird on a cliff edge with one leg raised. From its claw fell flaming buildings disintegrating in the air and out of the buildings tumbled people. Under the bird’s other talons were four figures, crushed to the rock, two male, two female; three of them lay flat, spread-eagled, but one woman, caught only by the heel, was struggling to get free. The raised face, in miniature, bore a resemblance to Deirdre Kenharding. Behind the bird a nest showed eggs, from one of which a beak was beginning to emerge.

  Sadly Miss Seeton contemplated the cartoon. So very fanciful. And, of course, no use. The bird was, she was prepared to admit, a good likeness of Mr. Thatcher. But hardly what was wanted. She could not bring herself to destroy the sketch, so she put it to one side and tried again. Finally she produced a painstaking portrait of Thatcher: it was worthy, it was detailed, it was lifeless. There. That, she felt, would do. It was the sort of thing they needed. With relief she put away her drawing materials, slipped the cartoon into a portfolio and stowed it in a drawer of her writing desk. The portrait she enclosed in a large envelope to await the arrival of whoever was sent to fetch it.

  A knock at the front door heralded another visitor. She half rose from her seat, then remembered that Martha was staying on today and dealing with intruders.