Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 15)

by Hamilton Crane

  “Shocking,” he murmured as his waving hand fell to his side, and he began to make his way southwards down The Street. “Comfort. Fresh air—exercise . . .”

  And, when he reached home, instead of telling his sister all about it, the vicar vanished into the garden to work off his renewed agitation upon the clerical flower beds and lawn.

  chapter

  ~ 10 ~

  THE SUSPICION AROUSED in Plummergen by the return of Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine in a police patrol car persisted from the moment the Panda was first observed drawing up outside Lilikot to discharge its passengers (its prisoners, as some insisted, though they comfortably managed to ignore the fact that to all intents and purposes the Nuts were still as much at liberty as they had ever been) until one minute past six o’clock that evening.

  Six o’clock might be Admiral Leighton’s hour for splicing the mainbrace: it was also Plummergen’s regular time for tuning in to the television news. When the headlines announced to a horrified audience exactly what terrible discovery had been made that morning in Ashford Forest, suspicion pricked up its ears; and when, after the other headlines, the story was reported in detail, suspicion, at full throttle, careered off immediately in two separate directions. There were those for whom it veered towards certainty: the Nuts, as all with guilty consciences will do, had returned to the scene of the crime, and were attempting to bluff it out for some unspecified reason which would become clear at their trial, once enough evidence had been collected.

  On the other hand, there were those for whom the very act of discovery, with its subsequent publicity, rendered the Lilikot ladies now totally above suspicion—though the accents in which their innocence was protested reverberated with resentment. Those who had supposed themselves intimate friends of Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine were aggrieved that no advance warning had been vouchsafed, no hint dropped as to the probable main item of the Six O’Clock News. Tongues wagged, telephone wires hummed around the village as speculation ran riot: the jangle of bells, the shriek of surmise sent husbands hotfoot for the pub in search of refuge.

  A great many persons that night dialled the Lilikot number. Not one obtained anything but the engaged tone. Mrs. Blaine, overwrought, had allowed herself to succumb to a headache as severe as that of any pub-bound Plummergen male; Miss Nuttel was consequently conscripted into the brewing of possets, infusions, and herbal teas until she was exhausted. The last thing the Nuts wished to do was talk to anyone until they had recovered from their shocking experience. The newspapers were sure to want to interview them—the star witnesses—tomorrow; photographs would doubtless be taken. Neither Nut intended to present a haggard appearance to the world at large . . . and so the telephone was taken off the hook, the curtains were closed, and Admiral Leighton’s next-door neighbours prepared themselves gleefully for their coming public fame.

  They had reckoned, however, without Bernard Leighton. It was not until everyone had gone, more than merrily, home after his Battle of Britain Day party that the owner of Ararat Cottage switched on his television for the Nine O’Clock News—to learn, with dismay, that the rumours relayed by Major Howett and General Colveden had been based on truth. Naval gallantry swung at once into action. Was not one of the traditional wardroom toasts Sweethearts and Wives? The Buzzard’s imagination boggled at the idea of Miss Nuttel or Mrs. Blaine stirring the tender passions in anybody’s breast, but they were, nevertheless, ladies. God bless ’em! He’d a fair idea of what was likely to happen tomorrow, if someone didn’t do something to stop it. Who better than the chap in the house next door? He’d see to it they weren’t plagued by any of those damned pesky Press types who’d splash slander across the front pages without so much as a by-your-blasted-leave, bandying names and upsetting people. No more than an officer’s plain duty to protect his—well, he couldn’t call them exactly friends, but there they were, two helpless females in for a pretty rough time, if he didn’t do something about it . . .

  The Admiral duly set his alarm clock, rose at six next morning with no trace of a headache, and broke his fast with a plate of porridge (flavoured with home-produced honey) and two rounds of toast (buttered, more honey). He then collected an assortment of gardening tools from his shed, and took up a dauntless pose at the front of the house, a hoe in his hand, a spade and a pair of newly sharpened shears close by, ready to repel boarders as necessary. Very sensible, keeping their curtains drawn. No risk of telescopic lenses, or prying eyes. The Admiral nodded approval of this most ladylike desire for privacy, and directed his own eyes, gimlet-like and gleaming, up and down The Street by turns, on the watch for the start of the anticipated invasion.

  Behind those carefully closed curtains, the Nuts were making their own preparations. “Better leave it off the hook,” remarked Miss Nuttel, stifling the warning scream of the uncradled telephone with a third cushion. “Ringing all day, otherwise.”

  “People from the village,” Mrs. Blaine dismissed her intimate friends scornfully, “blocking the line with ridiculous questions, instead of reporters who have a legitimate interest in, well, in what happened. Too impertinent, I think.” She sniffed as she teased the final curler from her hair, which she had risen early to wash twice in rosemary shampoo. “Far better to make—I mean let—them come to the house. Then they’ll be sure of seeing—of talking to us, without any misunderstanding. They’ll insist on taking photographs, I suppose.” She suppressed a smirk. “Now, you may say I’m wrong, Eric, but I see it as absolutely our duty to give the full facts, no matter how personally repugnant we find the subsequent publicity.” Miss Nuttel did not say that she was wrong. Mrs. Blaine’s smirk grew more noticeable. “Television, I imagine—certainly the wireless—the press, too, of course. And if it’s only the local newspapers, I shall be very disappointed. That a matter of national importance,” she added hastily, “has been neglected in this shocking way. Because the Public,” pronounced Mrs. Blaine with capitals, “has A Right to Know . . .”

  Miss Nuttel agreed, adding that there was, of course, a great difference between legitimate interest and morbid curiosity. On no account should they open their curtains, in case they rendered themselves liable to a . . . a sneak attack. “Candid camera,” warned Miss Nuttel darkly, and Mrs. Blaine uttered cries of horror at the thought that anyone might try to snap her before she’d posed to best advantage—before, she said aloud, she’d had time to strengthen herself and to collect her thoughts about that too, too dreadful discovery they had made yesterday in Ashford Forest.

  Behind their tightly drawn drapes, the Nuts knew nothing of what was happening outside—or, rather, what was not. Rear Admiral Leighton could have slept until seven o’clock; Mrs. Blaine’s hair curlers could have stayed in their battered shoe box. No reporters thronged The Street, no cameras waited to click vigilant shutters when the tip of a Nutty nose should appear on Lilikot’s doorstep. The Admiral was not alone in his desire to keep Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine, literally, out of the picture . . .

  “I’ll make Traffic put up roadblocks,” had insisted an anguished Superintendent Brinton the previous evening, once the Panda driver had confirmed that the shaken Nuts were recovering at home from their ordeal. “I’ll bribe the Milk Marketing Board to overturn a tanker—I’ll let that arsonist out of gaol to burn all the signposts.” He clutched at his hair, and groaned. “Reporters! I can’t bear ’em! And I’m not having a single one of the blighters within five miles of . . . of . . .”

  “Plummergen, sir?” supplied Foxon brightly, as his chief spluttered helplessly to a close. “Or within five miles of a certain retired art teacher of our particular acquain—”

  “Shuttup, Foxon!” Brinton slapped a wrathful hand on the topmost file of the tall heap in front of him. “I give Fleet Street ten seconds flat to make the connection—that Forby woman, for one—and then we’ll get all those blasted headlines again. Pandemonium in Plummergen,” he quoted grimly. “Battling Brolly Finds Blonde in Bag—and there’s no need,” as Foxon tried to protest, �
��to tell me she didn’t, laddie. I know she didn’t, and you know—and they’ll know, in due course—but catch any of ’em passing up the chance to turn it into a better story when even I can see it’s crying out for it!”

  “Mel Forby’s all right, sir,” Foxon managed to slip in, as the superintendent paused to mop his brow. “She and her pal Banner—the World Wide Press bloke—they’re not the irresponsible type, sir. I mean, the Oracle trusts them, doesn’t he? So—”

  “Detective Chief Superintendent Delphick,” said Brinton repressively, “is a high-ranking officer from Scotland Yard. In the course of his work he no doubt rubs shoulders with all sorts of people he’d run a mile to avoid in real life, given the option. Every one of them is tarred with the same brush, Detective Constable Foxon.”

  “You mean high-ranking Yarders, sir?” chirped Foxon, uncrushed by Brinton’s pointed riding of his highest horse; then ducked as the superintendent snatched an ashtray from the corner of his desk, and hurled it across the room.

  Brinton let out one forceful oath, then paused, sighed, and shook his head. “You’ll be the death of me yet, laddie. And there’ve been too many deaths around here recently—two too many.” He gestured once more towards the thick pile of reports. “I need to be left in peace to think about this little lot, Foxon, and nobody can think peacefully when they know Miss Seeton’s on the loose.”

  “But, sir—”

  “Or when,” Brinton overrode Foxon’s cry, “she might be let loose by a load of sensation-seeking nitwits egging her on. I won’t have it, laddie. This investigation is going to be carried out in a . . . an orderly fashion, which is about the last thing anyone would ever say when Miss Seeton’s anywhere around. I want to be left in peace to catch this maniac before he does it again—twice is twice too often. The girl’s family’s in a bad way, according to Buckland.” PC Buckland had broken the news of their daughter’s death to the Felsteds, thoughtfully taking with him WPc Maggie Laver. Mr. and Mrs. Felsted were now being treated for shock. “And no wonder! She wasn’t a pretty sight, poor kid. Having to identify her . . .”

  Foxon grimaced as Brinton opened his file and stared at the scene-of-crime photographs. The younger man had no wish to refresh his memory—just as the older had no real need. His was an automatic action, a mental kick-start for the peaceful thinking session he was about to undertake, using Foxon, his habitual irreverence duly suppressed, as a sounding board. “So let those damned reporters,” said Brinton, “try to interview her parents at the hospital—skirmishing with the nursing staff should keep ’em out of our hair for a while. Let ’em talk to the neighbours in Murreystone, or to the boyfriend—or her landlady—or the people she used to work with. But we’ll keep ’em away from Plummergen if it’s humanly possible, laddie . . .”

  And possible, it seemed the next day to a disappointed Plummergen, it proved. The post office remained crowded for most of the morning; the Admiral stayed on duty; the Nuts continued to lurk expectantly indoors: but nobody came. For which Superintendent Brinton, advised regularly as to the state of play by Plummergen’s PC Potter, repeatedly thanked his lucky stars, and the skill of his colleagues’ ability to lay false trails, as he brooded in peace on his reports.

  Such peace, however, was only relative. Late yesterday evening, there had come a sudden series of jaunty rappings on his office door, followed—before he could either invite the rapper in or shout that he was busy—by the turning of the handle; and in walked one whose name he had bandied about not an hour earlier.

  “Miss . . . Miss Forby! What the devil are you doing here?”

  As Foxon looked up from his paperwork to greet her with a grin, Fleet Street’s finest shut the door firmly behind her and headed for the superintendent’s desk. “Finding out what’s really going on,” said Amelita Forby, dropping comfortably into Brinton’s visitors’ chair with a broad smile. “Demon reporter of the Daily Negative that I am, I knew there was one hell of a lot more behind tonight’s television news than they were letting on—I’ve made a speciality of Miss S. and her cases over the years, remember.”

  Brinton choked, turning purple. “I knew it! What did I tell you, Foxon? Give the blighters half a chance, and that woman’ll make headlines worldwide!”

  Mel shook her head and smiled again, wilfully misunderstanding. “Banner’s nowhere near here, Superintendent,” she assured him, referring to her close personal friend and professional rival, Thrudd Banner of World Wide Press. “In fact, there’s nobody here except me—and I don’t plan to be under your feet for long. Promise,” she added, suddenly serious. “You’ve a nasty mess on your plate this time, Mr. Brinton. I don’t envy you having to sort it out. I’ll take my hat off to you in a big way when you do, though—starring part in my final report, that’s what you’ll get, and not a hint from me about Miss S. unless—until—she comes up with the goods as well. Which she’s bound to, sooner or later, I’d say . . .”

  “Trespass,” said Brinton, with a glare. “Obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty,” with a quick hand closing the file in case Mel, whom he knew of old, was trying to read upside down. Mel directed her beautiful eyes to his face, and contrived to look sorrowful at being so misjudged. “Blackmail,” added Brinton, “and incitement to mutiny,” as Foxon snorted with glee in his corner. Sorrow gave way to restrained mirth, followed by firmness.

  “Listen,” said Mel, as the superintendent found himself torn between the desire to throw something at Foxon or have Foxon throw Mel out. “If you don’t know me by now—if you can’t trust me, Mr. Brinton, it’s a waste of a good few years on the Plummergen Patrol, that’s all I can say.” She ignored his inevitable groan at her mention of Miss Seeton’s home. “I’m not a fool. I know there was no mention of Miss S. on television or the radio, not even by inference. She’s a loner, and the reports were clear about two women from a village in Kent—which is kind of on the vague side for a story as big as this. Deliberately vague. Official obfuscation, at a guess—aha!” in triumph, as despite himself Brinton groaned again. Foxon’s snort was louder this time. Mel beamed.

  “Pat on the back for inspired guesswork, Forby,” she remarked, suiting the action, as far as physically possible, to the words. “A few more guesses, okay?” as Brinton found himself rendered speechless by her sheer audacity. Mel was hard-pressed not to giggle. “Two women,” she said again, her eyes never leaving his face. “Could be friends of Miss S. out bird-watching, perhaps—or,” as a flicker had shown briefly at her words, “perhaps not so much friends as, well, the opposite. The Nuts? The Nuts!” as the flicker returned in the form of a fiery gleam. “And I can’t say I like that pair any more than you do, Superintendent.”

  “I never—” began Brinton; then he broke off, and turned purple again. Foxon chortled out loud, then changed it hastily to a cough. Mel nodded.

  “We understand each other, I think. Look, I’m not out to set the hellhound hacks baying for the Brolly’s blood any more than you: quite apart from the fact it would mean sharing my scoop with the blighters, I’m too fond of Miss Seeton to do it—and you’re too . . . shall we say wary?” Foxon in his corner collapsed in a shuddering heap across the desk as Brinton spluttered helplessly. “I can’t say I altogether blame you, though. Things tend to . . . liven up when Miss S. might be involved, don’t they? After so many years, my reporter’s nose starts twitching just as soon as I hear the words Kent or crime or mystery—and I can put two and two together as well as anybody—or,” slowly, “one and one. To make two.” She nodded, then gazed at the calendar on the wall as she continued:

  “I kind of pride myself on being an expert on this part of the world now, Mr. Brinton—and,” before he could reply, “on knowing you rather better than the rest of Fleet Street does. Everyone else went scampering off all eager innocence after those lovely clues your people dropped ever-so-carefully, but not yours truly. If I couldn’t find the back way into this place after so long, I’d be an idiot. Now, Mel Forby’s been calle
d a good few things in her time, but never that. Two . . . and two, like I said.” Mel leaned forward, eyes sparkling, her glance falling now upon the closed files on Brinton’s desk, lingering there a little too long for his liking. “We’ll strike a bargain, Superintendent. Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine found the blonde, okay, but nobody except us knows that—and far as I’m concerned, that’s how it’s going to stay. Those two witches give me a pain in the posterior, the things they say about Miss S.”—Brinton had the grace to blush, but Mel was too busy talking to take any notice—”and I’m not giving them the chance to say them all over the newspapers, which you can bet your bottom dollar they would, if they could. Only trust me, and I’ll get busy and spread a falser trail than you could even dream of, to keep my colleagues off the scent. But, in return, I want the full dope on what happens—not the confidential stuff, but the rest—and I want an exclusive, so that when this case is solved, with or without Miss S.’s help, it’s my byline that heads the story and the front page of the Negative that prints it. Have we got a deal?” And once more her eyes drifted to the calendar on the wall, and she frowned, as if in silent calculation.

  “Blackmail,” muttered Brinton, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew when he was beaten: hadn’t he had dealings with Amelita Forby on previous occasions? And Foxon (though it pained him to admit it) had a point. The Oracle did seem to think very highly of the young woman; said she always played fair. Could be that the right sort of publicity (and, heaven knew, they’d be getting plenty of the wrong sort once other reporters put two and two together the way Mel had done—he supposed they should think themselves lucky she’d been the first) might just help break the deadlock in this case if orthodox methods failed: What were you doing a year ago? stories could jog a witness’s memory when routine investigation didn’t . . .