by Heron Carvic
“When this man”—she indicated the body below her—“did what he called a ‘snatch’—after the fête, that was—” One must be clear. “That is to say, the fête was still going on. But we weren’t. At it, I mean. Or not then—”
“The bomb?” He interrupted her stubbornly, clinging to his straw.
“Oh, that.” Looking around her with gloom-accustomed eyes, occasional details flecked by in torchlight, she could appreciate his misapprehension. Of course. He was right. So simple, really, to explain quite briefly. “It wasn’t a bomb,” she assured him. “You see, I’m afraid it was me.”
• • •
“She what?” ejaculated Delphick, startled. “Pins?”
Suffering from self-recrimination, the chief superintendent had remained at the Yard, tapping every source of information he could think of without result, and now this call from Lewisham. In his relief he glared at the telephone receiver as though he held it responsible for Miss Seeton’s latest escapade.
“Well, if she and Miss Kenharding want to go to this club and Miss Seeton says it’s urgent, it probably is. If I were you I’d get them there at the double.” He listened for a moment. “Surely signed statements and formal charges can wait till later—morning, if necessary. They won’t run away. But if she’s determined to go to this place she’ll get there, somehow, and if you try and stop her she’ll probably stick pins in you too.” He listened again and sighed. “All right, if it helps I’ll go along to this 10/20 and be responsible for her. What’s overtime?” Humor surfaced as strain subsided, and Delphick laughed. “I could bear, myself, to know just what’s been going on and above all find out exactly where it was she stuck the pins.”
chapter
~13~
AT THE 10/20, Tom Haley finished his drink and checked his watch for the seventh time. She wasn’t coming. Well, what did he expect? Lord Kenharding’s daughter—and him? That was a laugh, a right one for the birds. She’d said she wouldn’t, and wasn’t. And yet . . . For the sixth time he told himself he’d give it five more minutes. Not a second more. After that the hell with it—and her. So it was a pity it’d been that punk Derrick—so what? You did your job, best you could, and if people thought you’d pull your punches and risk other people’s lives just because people were people, then people could stuff themselves. Again he looked at his watch. Three minutes and twenty seconds—then finish. Final. And yet . . . He clenched his teeth. Forget it.
From an alcove on the far side of the restaurant Mel Forby was keeping intermittent watch on Haley. She eyed a query as Thrudd Banner returned to the table.
“No dice,” he informed her. “No answer from MissEss’ cottage. At the office the news desk says the local man from Kent phoned in a story about trouble at some fête at Plummergen: a man fell and broke his neck; some other man was shot. He doesn’t know who in either case—the police’ve clammed up. I tried the Yard—you’d think they’d never heard of MissEss, but were very interested in yours truly. My name, my parents’ names, date of birth of great-auntie’s Pekingese—in fact, anything to keep me on the line while they traced the call, so I hung up.”
Mel was worried. “All of which, normally speaking, could spell kidnap.”
“Could,” he agreed, “except that nothing around MissEss is ever normal. One other thing—dunno if it connects. The office told me a flash from Lewisham says a bomb went off in some dress shop; a car involved; one man removed on a stretcher, another in cuffs, and two women, one old, one young, went off in a police car like scalded cats, according to an eyewitness.”
“A bit far-fetched—” began Mel, then stopped. The buzz of conversation and the clink of cutlery had died. There was a scatter of polite applause from diners anticipating a cabaret turn. Mel looked toward the entrance. “One scalded cat?” she murmured.
The hush in the room followed by the sporadic clapping penetrated Tom Haley’s gloom. He turned and raised his eyes, his jaw slackened and, open-mouthed, he stared at the railed dais above the steps that led down to the dining room. She was standing there.
She stood there. The unanchored hat hung precariously; one half of the coat collar was up, the other down; two jacket buttons were missing; the skirt was torn; the petticoat showed; one gray stocking was wrinkled, the other laddered; the sensible shoes were scuffed.
The headwaiter hurried forward to remove the offense. In common with the doorman and the cloakroom attendant before him, who had tried the same tactics, he slowed and stopped, quelled by her regard, feeling like a schoolboy caught out in a gaucherie. Miss Seeton was standing for no further nonsense this evening; she walked straight to Tom Haley’s table and sat down.
“Deirdre’s sorry to be late,” she apologized. “She’s in the cloakroom cleaning up. Herself, I mean.”
Thrudd Banner had paid the bill. He pushed back the table.
“C’mon. Let’s get the story.”
“Hold it.” Mel put her hand on his arm. “I’m not asking the impossible of you—like tact. I’m not suggesting you could understand what’s obviously passed you by—a long way by—like Love’s Young Dream. But can’t even you see, you oaf, that if we butt in now they wouldn’t even know we existed?”
Soon after Deirdre had arrived at the table, Miss Seeton had risen, unnoticed. She spoke to the waiter and to the wine waiter, who stood in expectation; studied the menu, glanced at the wine list, discussed, pointed; they bowed, she nodded and was now making her way toward the exit.
Mel was watching the scene. Deirdre’s hands, agonized, fluttered and explained. Tom leaned across and clasped them. In a moment, the hands, the girl, relaxed and stilled. The two young people remained, hands and spirits intertwined, wondering into each other’s eyes, oblivious to all else. A shadow of wistful longing sped across Mel’s face.
Thrudd was watching Mel. He took her up on her last dictum.
“Young?” he drawled. “All right, let’s skip young. Dream? Dreams are insubstantial things—they fade. But love . . .” His eyebrows twisted quizzically, his mouth derided. “Tell me, purely as a matter of academic interest: what would be your reaction to love?”
Under the intent gaze in the mocking face, Mel for once was speechless. For the first time since being hauled in front of a class at school to recite “Mother o’ Mine,” she blushed.
Thrudd sprang to his feet. “C’mon, you half-baked cub reporter—work.”
As Miss Seeton reached the steps, the reporters fell in on either side of her. They spoke in unison.
“Miss S.”
“MissEss.”
“Give.”
Miss Seeton stopped in momentary astonishment, then, accepting their unheralded appearance, “I thought they would need food,” she explained, “and I was afraid that they might forget. To order, that is. So I told the one man to bring a light wine.” She looked worried. “Was that all right, do you think? And I asked the other one to choose something nourishing—I didn’t really think it mattered what it was.”
“Abstinence is the enemy of love,” misquoted Thrudd in agreement.
At the entrance they came face to face with Delphick. The Oracle eyed Miss Seeton accusingly.
“Since when have you started sticking pins into people?”
Miss Seeton colored. “It wasn’t pins, Chief Superintendent, or not in that sense. It was a hatpin—and only the one. And,” she added with a flash of spirit, “though not, of course, a thing one would choose to do in the ordinary way, I do feel, in this instance, it was justified. Besides, it kept saying so on all the buildings.”
Used as Delphick was to Miss Seeton’s wayward explanations, this last defeated him. “What buildings said what?”
“Why, ‘Take Courage,’ of course,” she told him, “and it said it was the answer. So I did and it was. The answer, that is. I really couldn’t have foreseen,” she pointed out, “that it would explode—the gun, I mean—and that the car would go into a shop.”
Delphick shook his head to clear it, while Thrudd murmured, “Mis
sEss rides again.”
“It’s too late for you to go home,” the chief superintendent decided. “We’ll have to think of somewhere to put you for the night.”
“Miss S. can doss down with me,” said Mel. “I’ve got a spare bed.”
Delphick thought it over. “Right. But I’ll have to put a man on guard at your flat—just in case. And Miss Kenharding.” He looked around. “Where is she?”
Thrudd grinned. “Hand in hand with Haley on a roseate cloud above a table, with waiters trying to reach up and feed ’em.”
“Food!” exclaimed Mel. “Miss S. hasn’t eaten. What about you?”
The chief superintendent realized that, with travel and worry, he’d had no food either; he was hungry. After arranging to station men at both Deirdre’s and Mel’s flats, he was easily persuaded to repair to the dining room with Miss Seeton and the two reporters, where payment for an excellent meal would, he knew, be exacted. He would be expected to supply details of the afternoon’s—and the night’s—events, but in fairness to Mel and Thrudd, he could not grudge them a scoop on information that would soon be public property. His main concern was Thatcher. Whether or not the syndicate made another attempt on Miss Kenharding, Miss Seeton, in her own inimitable way, had made fools of them. This Thatcher could not afford to allow and he would be bound, by the rules of his game, to eliminate her.
Thatcher’s present bent was cold ferocity. The abduction of Deirdre Kenharding, with its inherent bargaining power, would have succeeded had it not been for the intervention of Miss Seeton. In all, this woman, this apparent simpleton, had now run rings round him and made him a laughingstock on four separate occasions.
To rule through fear presupposes that people are afraid and the fear must remain constant. All opposition must be overwhelmed; any failure in obedience must be punished. No dictator, in his own field, can afford to have his authority questioned, since the beginning of doubt is the seed of revolution, which flourishes in the compost of envy and hatred. More dangerous still is mockery; derision can crack the foundation of an empire.
Miss Seeton had offended on all counts and these humiliations required that Thatcher’s version of justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.
He had his own sources of information and although he had not yet discovered the identity of the culprit, he knew that the police had been warned in advance of the attack at the Plummergen fête. This first sign of rebellion in the ranks a month ago would have been unthinkable: also, other members of the hierarchy in the syndicate would be glad to topple him from his position should it prove to their advantage. All in all, he recognized the situation demanded a gesture, an audacious gesture. He would prove that he did not depend on hired assassins. He could deal with such a situation, when need arose, far more effectively. It was essential that both the over- and the underworld should be aware who had killed the woman—and why. It was equally necessary that guilt should be impossible to prove. Such an action would atone for recent reversals, would reinstate him in his own and others’ eyes and would put back fear where fear belonged.
Thatcher planned. . . . On her home ground—in her own cottage—with maximum publicity—his own presence in the vicinity known but accounted for, and connection with the event not susceptible to proof. Choose a moment when she was out, then when she returned . . . Thatcher planned—and Thatcher was pleased with his plan.
It was extraordinary, reflected Miss Seeton, how high up one appeared to be. When watching other people on bicycles, it didn’t look like that at all, but once one was in the saddle oneself the ground did seem so unexpectedly far away. How very kind of Lady Colveden, who had a meeting and would not be back until later, to borrow Sir George’s estate wagon and give her and her machine a lift into Brettenden, dropping her off at the bank for the interview which the bank manager had requested. To cycle to the town, although less than six miles, meant walking up this long hill, but to return, as she was now doing, was an entirely different matter. For this part of the journey one didn’t have to use the pedals at all—just free-wheel. In Miss Seeton’s hands the wheel was rather freer than is customary and she weaved down the hill at an ever-increasing speed.
Such a relief, at the bank, to find it wasn’t, as she had feared, that she hadn’t enough, but that she had, in the manager’s opinion, rather too much and ought to invest. What a difference doing drawings for the police had made to her life. And how grateful she felt. Invest? Now, in regard to this she wasn’t sure. From what one read, investments always went down. And if there was income the government took most of that; if indeed, also from what one read, they didn’t take over the shares as well. Surely she would do better to invest in labor-saving devices for the cottage, as Martha was always suggesting she should do. Then at least one could be sure of some return for one’s outlay in less work and added comfort.
Behind Miss Seeton a car sounded its horn. She turned and waved a hand in apology, mounted the grass shoulder, swerved back onto the road, squeezed a handle which she assumed operated the brakes, but the bicycle, freed from the restriction of its gear lever, sped faster than before while the car, its driver deciding that discretion was the better part of road safety, crawled in her wake, continuing to play tortoise to Miss Seeton’s hare.
Across the marsh Miss Seeton pedaled in a daydream of electric blankets, washing machines and automatic mixers, up into the village, to wobble down the Street in perfect time—how right she had been, for instance, to invest in a bicycle now that they only ran one bus a week to Brettenden—in perfect time for lunch.
Martha Bloomer met her at the door. “A man came.”
“A man?” Miss Seeton could think of no stranger who was likely to call upon her.
“Well,” admitted Martha grudgingly, “if he hadn’t been foreign I’d’ve said he was a gentleman. Tall and wears glasses with one of those little beards and mustaches and he said he’d met you on the continent and that he owed you something and how sorry he was you weren’t in but he left you this little parcel.”
Miss Seeton eyed the brown-wrapped package dubiously. Met on the Continent? Mr. Stemkos, whom she’d met in Switzerland? But no, Mr. Stemkos was clean-shaven. How very odd. “Who,” she wondered, “could it be?”
“Well,” said Martha, “he were over at the George and Dragon, his car was outside, and it were still there when I went over home five minutes ago, so I s’pect he’s having dinner there.”
A foreigner. And to leave a present for her . . . How very, very kind. But who, Miss Seeton still pondered, could it be?
Thatcher was pleased. Everything had worked out better than he might have hoped. The local pub—always the best source of information—had revealed that a Lady Something had given Miss Seeton a lift that morning to the nearest town and would not be back until mid afternoon. Ideal. His own people would know—and the police might suspect—who the “foreign gentleman” had been, but they could prove nothing. Five men were prepared to swear him an alibi in London. Meanwhile he could afford to relax, have a leisurely lunch, which would allay suspicion, take a long route back to town; and before he arrived there, the balloon would have gone up. No possible connection with himself, and his aim—plus his object lesson to others—accomplished. No question, Thatcher felt, that he had reason to be pleased.
Delphick telephoned his sergeant at Plummergen, sent an urgent message to Brinton at Ashford, ordered a car and told his driver to burn tire rubber down to Kent. The informer had come through again: a bomb was being planted in Miss Seeton’s cottage.
Bob Ranger forced an unwilling Miss Seeton to leave the weeding of a rose bed, put her in the charge of his wife, Anne, while he joined the local man, Potter, and the Ashford contingent in the search of Sweetbriars. All the adjacent houses, including an indignant Martha’s—what about the family’s tea?—had been evacuated and the excited villagers thronged behind the police cordon, as close as they could get to where the expected explosion should take place.
Sir
ens sounded continuously as more police arrived. The army bomb-disposal unit was already in attendance and in the midst of the commotion Delphick’s car swept down the Street. He jumped out and hurried to confer with Brinton and Bob Ranger.
Miss Seeton caught his arm. “Chief Superintendent, please, what is all this? What’s happened?”
“A bomb,” the Oracle replied. “They’ve planted a time bomb in your cottage. We’ve got to—”
“A bomb?” She was incredulous. “A bomb? In my cottage? But that’s ridiculous. Why should they? And who are ‘they’?”
It dawned on Delphick that nobody had thought to question her. “Tell me—what’s happened to you since this morning?”
“Why, nothing.” Miss Seeton realized it was an official question and she must be accurate. “That is to say, I went to the bank—so very kind of Lady Colveden to give me a lift—and bicycled back. That is to say, I did. She couldn’t, of course, because she had a meeting. And, naturally, no bicycle.”
“And there was the man—the foreigner,” chimed in Martha.
“Man? What foreigner?” demanded Delphick.
“Well, actually, he wasn’t,” explained Miss Seeton. “A foreigner, I mean. It was only Mr. Thatcher in a beard.”
Delphick started to feel the familiar dreamlike quality which questioning her invariably entailed. He tried to take it slow. “Thatcher? Here? Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “He’d grown a beard and mustache, but, naturally, that doesn’t alter the bones, the ears and eye sockets.”
“Naturally not.” He fought to be patient. “What was he doing?”
“Paying for his lunch, I imagine.”
“You see”—Martha was determined to add her quota—“he’d left this parcel for Miss Emily—”
“Parcel?” Delphick rapped. “What parcel? Where is it?”
“On the little table in the passage—” began Martha.