Odds on Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 5)
Page 6
“No one would ever think you were a detective,” observed Deirdre.
“No one,” said Miss Seeton sharply, “would be right. Beyond doing sort of Identi-Kit drawings, when photographs are not possible for some reason, I know nothing of police work. It would be most unsuitable.”
Deirdre Kenharding could hardly be blamed for her mistake. Even some members of the police force, Haley among them, insist upon regarding Miss Seeton as a subtle investigator, possibly because it fills a romantic gap in their lives. Members of the press, whatever their private views, can be excused their panegyrics since the filling of romantic gaps in the lives of others is their stock in trade.
The girl fumbled the clasp of her bag. “I don’t know what the rates are for an investigation, but I won enough last night . . .” She held out a bundle of notes.
Instead of the money, her hostess took offense. “That was quite unwarranted. If I could help in any way, naturally I would.” Miss Seeton relented. “But I do understand your difficulty over going to the police. They work mostly, I believe, on what people tell them and, of course, if they don’t, they don’t. Can’t, I mean. But that you should think that I . . .” She frowned in perplexity. “I cannot imagine . . .”
It may be that herein lies the answer to the anomalies in Miss Seeton’s life: that she is literal-minded is undisputed and the points at which her imagination begins or ends have always been moot. Opinions differ: the headmistress at the little school in Hampstead where Miss Seeton had worked for many years averred that Seeton caused more chaos with one good intention than the children could invent mischiefs in a year; while Sir Hubert Everleigh, on the other hand, views Miss Seeton as a victim of trouble rather than the cause, and it is for this reason, realizing that in any particular case for which she is asked to make a drawing she is likely to be at risk, that he has tried to regularize the position by paying a yearly retainer for an option upon her services. Miss Seeton has no need of specious arguments. In relation to herself she has over the years perfected the faculty, despite all evidence to the contrary, of seeing her life as she would prefer it, placid and uneventful.
This chimerical placidity Deirdre was resolved to interrupt. Intuition sent her on another tack, her hands instinctively outthrust, fingers spread and palms upturned in appeal.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Couldn’t you. . . .?” But couldn’t she what? Miss Seeton, too, was at a loss.
Deirdre pressed her advantage. “You see, I need advice from someone independent. I could be imagining things—I know I’m not, but I could be. Father’s been edgy ever since Thatcher took over The Gold Fish. Except”—she jumped to her feet impatiently and put her coffee cup back on the tray—“of course it wasn’t called a takeover: they called it ‘putting in new money and ideas,’ but I know there was something fishy about it. Thatcher came up to see Father and they had a row in the study after dinner—I couldn’t hear what about. Mummy said I shouldn’t be listening at the door, but”—she gave a slight chuckle—“what was she doing in the hall herself? Anyway, everything settled down till the Derrick business later.”
“Derrick?” Faint, but pursuing, Miss Seeton was valiantly trying to follow the thread.
“Sorry. I keep forgetting you don’t know about the family. Everybody’s been so frightfully kind”—her tone was biting—“ringing up to say how sorry they were, just to make sure we knew they knew and had read all about it in the papers; you end by getting the feeling the whole world knows. Derrick—he’s my brother—was at a party that was raided and was up at Bow Street on a drug charge. I think he was lucky to get off with only a fine.” She moved back to perch on the arm of her chair. “I knew he’d gone down to London a few weeks before to see Thatcher about getting a job in one of the clubs, because he couldn’t resist boasting about it. Anyway, Father exploded and made Derrick hand over his key and said if he wanted to live at home he’d have to be in before eleven, when we lock up, and that he wasn’t going to have the house used as a convenience by a degenerate little—well, anyway, he called him a lot of names.”
“And your brother still lives at home?” Miss Seeton asked.
“More or less, I suppose, when he’s not staying with his so-called friends in London.” She shrugged. “But he still sneaks into the house as late as he likes and turns up at breakfast swearing he’d come in early last night and gone straight to his room so’s not to disturb anyone. I told him once he was a liar and he said that he climbs up and slips in through a window.”
It all sounded most unfortunate, but not, surely, so very unusual. “After all,” ventured Miss Seeton “young men . . .”
Deirdre laughed. “Now, don’t you start. Mummy tried sticking up for him, saying young men always sow wild oats, but Father said boys of seventeen aren’t men—and it isn’t oats, it’s weeds. Oh, I admit it all could be like that—just nasty and silly—if it wasn’t for Thatcher.” She grimaced. “I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could shoot him. He came up on the Sunday after the drug affair and then Father and he had a real set-to. That time,” Deirdre admitted, “I did manage to hear some of it because Father was shouting—that Thatcher was responsible for Derrick’s drugging, and that he was turning The Gold Fish into a cross between a brothel and an opium den. I couldn’t hear what Thatcher said, but”—she frowned, remembering—“Father didn’t say anything about it afterwards—then last week there was the accident and now, as I told you, I’m pretty sure he’s scared. I went to The Gold Fish to see if I could find out anything, but the barman was no help and—well, that’s it,” she concluded. “Except,” she added with satisfaction, “that Thatcher didn’t like my being there.”
One thing was not clear to Miss Seeton. “Is Mr. Thatcher a family friend?”
“Good Lord, no. We’d never heard of him before The Gold Fish business.”
“You don’t think, perhaps,” suggested Miss Seeton, “that now your brother’s had a lesson, he might settle down? So many young people do silly things by way of experiment and then get over it.”
“What a hope. But then you don’t know Derrick.” Deirdre saw her opening. “That’s the whole point. If you could come up and stay next weekend—Derrick’ll be there then for certain—you could have a look at all the family and see what you think. If you decide everything’s all right, and I’m wrong, then all right”—She collected her handbag and stood up—“I’ll see a psychiatrist.”
Spend a weekend in a strange house with complete strangers? It was, of course, quite out of the question. But how to put it tactfully. “I’m afraid,” said Miss Seeton, “that is quite out of the question.”
“Why?” It was Deirdre’s turn for an inquisition.
Why? Because . . . Well, one would have thought it was self-evident. Because . . . She found the perfect excuse. “Because it would be quite impossible to foist me on your family like that. And equally impossible to explain.” She was depressed to note that the excuse sounded less than perfect—in fact, rather lame—when spoken.
“Easy.” Deirdre dismissed the objection. “You taught me drawing at school.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Of course you did.” Deirdre waxed enthusiastic. “Don’t you remember? You came as a temp when old Rattles was away sick; fancy your forgetting that.” Her eyes danced and her brilliant smile shone out like sun on a happy landscape. “That’s settled, then.”
“No . . .”
“Yes. I’ll call for you Saturday afternoon. Oh, by the way,” She became elaborately casual. “If you see Tom Haley, you might apologize for me. Afraid I was pretty rude last night, because I didn’t realize then that he was putting on an act too.”
Tom Haley was summoned when Delphick, back at Scotland Yard, showed Borden Miss Seeton’s sketches.
“That’s the one, sir.” Haley pointed to the cartoon. “That’s him to the life.”
Inspector Borden was dubious. “Don’t see how we can run copies of a damn bird and ask for an
ident. If we ever get it to court we’ll be laughed out of it. How about this other?”
“Ye-es, sir.” Haley was unenthusiastic. “It’s like him, all right—I mean it’s a jolly good likeness, but”—he shook his head—“it’s not like the first. That one is—it actually is him somehow.”
“Why not,” suggested Delphick, ‘’block off the rest and just reproduce the head?”
“Could do, Oracle—in fact, will do.” Borden replaced the second drawing in the envelope. “And we’ll try it for size on the staff at Kenharding Abbey and round the village as well. See if they know Thatcher.” Haley leaned forward eagerly. The inspector noted the movement. “Right,” he told the detective constable. “That can be your pigeon—better than one of the local force, who may not’ve seen him. But don’t,” he warned, “start getting pie-eyed about the place up there. None of your gin and bubbly racket and then trying to sell it to me that it was all in aid of getting the housemaids warmed up or the locals to talk. Take this.” He handed Haley the cartoon. “Get it blocked off and photostated, take a couple o’ copies with you and get off tomorrow.”
“Can’t tomorrow, sir. I’m in court in the morning and the next day.”
“Damn.” The inspector checked the desk calendar. “Then make it Friday—no, better still, Saturday. More natural. Young man on his tod spending a weekend in the country. And,” he warned as Haley reached the door, “mind that’s all you do spend.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And”—as a parting shot—“you stick to beer.”
Altogether, Delphick congratulated himself, a most satisfactory day. He’d wormed the cartoon out of Miss Seeton, Borden had seen the light as to which sketch to use, had already known that Lord Kenharding was on the board of The Gold Fish and was pursuing that angle. Also, the A.C., whom Delphick had rung before he left Kent, had authorized the burglar alarm and had agreed to recommend some reasonable arrangement or division of Miss Seeton’s winnings, less expenses and the installation of the alarm. Accordingly, on his way back to town, Delphick had visited Divisional Headquarters at Ashford, where his old friend Superintendent Brinton, after remarking sourly that if Miss Seeton was going to be wired for sound, at the rate of trouble she produced they might as well rebuild her cottage as a police HQ, had introduced himself to the sergeant in charge of security and Delphick, having described Sweetbriars and its amenities, had extracted a promise that one of the firms they recommended would be contacted and a rush job put through for a burglar alarm system. A most satisfactory day.
chapter
~4~
MISS SHETON TURNED a key with a series of dents down each side. Now, had she got it right? She read the instructions again. Lock the main box on the stairs, after making sure that everything is in place by pressing “Tet” when the green light should show. Well, it had. So that part was all right and it meant that the rooms upstairs and downstairs were too. Then, standing on the mat by the front door, one had to turn this peculiar dented key in the keyhole set in the doorjamb. She’d done that, so now she must close the front door, locking it behind her. She proceeded to do so.
Deirdre smiled at her. “All set? I’ll take your case.”
“I think so.” She looked at the paper again. At the bottom it said that the kitchen was free for use at all times, but not to enter the house beyond the inside kitchen door until the alarm system had been switched off in the doorjamb, which worked in dual control with the one at the front door. That had been arranged so that, should she be in the garden, the alarm could be on and she would still be free to use the kitchen should she want to, or take shelter if it rained, without having to switch it off. The alarm, that was. She sighed. She knew that it was all very well intentioned, but it had been so much simpler when one had only to bolt the kitchen door and then lock the front.
The kitchen door . . . Now, had she bolted it? Yes, of course she had. Hadn’t she? She’d better make sure—Martha would be so cross. . . . She unlocked the front door and hurried down the passage. A cacophony of bells and a siren burst upon the village. Oh, drat the thing. Quickly she thrust in the key and turned it in the jamb. The bells still rang; the siren howled. But she’d . . . Why should it . . .? Of course—only the main switch on the stairs would stop it. She ran up the stairs. The indoor bell was placed above the box and clamored in her ear. Bemused by sound, she could not fit the key. No, no, that was the other one—this one, the flat one with ribs. That was right. She pushed it in, gave it the half turn to “Off” and a blessed silence descended.
Shaken and out of breath, Miss Seeton leaned against the wall. How stupid—oh, how silly to have forgotten to remember the one at the front door first. Now she’d start again. To begin with, bolt the back door. She went downstairs and along the passage to the kitchen. The back door was already bolted. Bother. She needn’t have, after all . . . And in any case, now she came to think of it, she could perfectly well have gone round outside the house to see to it. She read again, turned keys again and once more closed and locked the front door behind her. She found P.C. Potter, who happened to be patrolling through the village in the car which had replaced his motor scooter, backed by Mrs. Wyght from the bakery and three of her customers, the vicar’s sister, Miss Treeves, the blacksmith and one or two other interested spectators, clustered round the gate, while beyond them, helpless with laughter, Deirdre leaned against her car.
“It’s certainly very effective,” said Miss Treeves.
“Gave me quite a turn,” declared Mrs. Wyght.
“At least you can’t complain it doesn’t work,” gasped Deirdre. “What a row.”
The policeman came up the path. “Been having a practice, miss?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Potter,” apologized Miss Seeton. “It’s just that I’m not very mechanically minded and I’m afraid I got in a muddle which was first, and then which was which. Which key, I mean. I am so sorry.”
“Always happens, miss, at first—it’s the only way you learn it,” he consoled her. “Going away?”
“Yes, just for the weekend. But Martha’s got the spare keys, so if anything happens she will see to it.”
“And she’ll have your address, then, miss?”
“Why, no. It’s only till Monday, so it wouldn’t be any good sending things on.”
Knowing Miss Seeton, Potter felt it might be wise for the police to have a record of her whereabouts. “Perhaps you’d better give it to me, then, miss, just in case.”
Miss Seeton looked at Deirdre, who stopped laughing and straightened. “Kenharding Abbey, Little Sweepings, Suffolk,” she disclosed unwillingly. She stowed Miss Seeton’s case in the boot and its owner in the passenger seat, ran round the car, gave Potter and the others a vague smile, thrust the gears into first and sent the car flying down the Street.
The villagers watched it with interest; the constable thoughtfully. That weren’t like Miss Seeton, to go traipsing off for the weekend. Quiet enough as a rule, unless she were on a job, and then like enough there were hell to pay. Were she on a job now? Like enough she were, after what he’d read of her doings last night. Still an’ all, he’d put in a report that her alarm had kicked up and that it’d been a mistake like, and that she were off to this abbey place in Suffolk. Then ’twere up to them.
Above the village of Little Sweepings, trim, freshly painted, neatly gardened, Kenharding Abbey squatted like a disapproving dowager gone to seed; an imposing impoverishment with neither the historical association nor the capital to foist it upon the public as a Stately Home.
The elderly manservant who took Miss Seeton’s fiber suitcase appeared too frail to carry it and after he had ascended the wide sweep of the staircase in slow motion she was relieved when they turned to the right on the gallery that ran around three sides of the hall below, and entered a vast dark-paneled bedroom, where he was able to lay his burden reverently on a stool at the foot of a four-poster bed.
“Dinner is served at eight. At what time will madam take her bath?”
“Very good, Miss Deirdre. I will send Helen to assist madam.” He bowed and trembled away.
“I hope,” said Deirdre, “you don’t mind the odd ghost. There’s one who comes out of the paneling by the fireplace when it’s got nothing better to do. Never seen it myself, but lots of people swear they have. Anyway, it doesn’t do any harm—doesn’t throw things, doesn’t say boo or clank chains.”
Miss Seeton had no bias upon the subject of ghosts and indeed a wandering wraith fitted the somewhat discouraging aspect of the room, where leaded windows dulled the light but failed to hide the lack of polish and the cracks in the heavy oaken furniture, the threadbare condition of the bed hangings and the neat darns in the embroidered silk coverlet.
Deirdre Kenharding read her guest’s thoughts. “I warned you on the way the place was a bit tatty.” Impulsively she caught Miss Seeton’s hands and squeezed them. “I’m awfully grateful to you for coming. And don’t forget you are a temp at Highfold School in Merriden, Sussex.”
Miss Seeton did so wish that this visit need not have involved deceiving Lord and Lady Kenharding; did so wish, for that matter, that she herself was not involved in this visit. But the girl had been so persuasive. And then again, if the family had some serious trouble in which the police could be of help, if only they could be brought to talk to them, they could. Be of help.
A tap upon the door and, in answer to Deirdre’s call, there entered a small rotund woman with white hair drawn back into a tight bun, sharp black eyes and cheeks like withered pippins. The girl left to dress and Helen—or Hélène, as she proved to be—insisted, to Miss Seeton’s embarrassment, on unpacking the suitcase and rhapsodized over Miss Seeton’s best dress, which had been included “just in case.” It was a semi-evening or cocktail confection and as Hélène smoothed the gray folds and examined the purple, pearl and black embroidery, she exclaimed with yearning that without doubt, without any doubt, it spoke to one of Paris. It had in fact been bought there as a parting present from someone who had reason to be grateful to the artist.