Sold to Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 19)

by Hamilton Crane

  Curious to know what was happening, Miss Seeton and Lady Colveden pushed open the doors and entered the large, high-vaulted chamber with its splendid acoustics. Perhaps sixty people were already there, some plainly experienced in sale-room technique, others obviously not sure what they ought to be doing, but it was better than getting soaked to the skin outside, and they hadn’t had to pay.

  Miss Seeton, the shortest person present, had to stand on tiptoe, balancing herself with her umbrella, to peer over the central display of furniture, bundles, boxes, and assorted items for a clear view of the podium man with the confident voice. A mounted stag’s head caught her eye, its glassy orbs malevolent beneath its twelve-point dignity; she saw a large brass gong, an ornate but rusty wrought-iron bedstead, and something that appeared at first sight to be a china foot-bath, but probably wasn’t, balanced on top of a wardrobe with a cracked mirror fixed to one door. The whole idiosyncratic assembly was piled on, around, or occasionally under tables of various sizes laid roughly end to end, or (where they didn’t quite meet) linked by precariously balanced planks into a strange sort of continuous shelving.

  A closer look at this seeming muddle gave a distinct impression of method in its madness. Large white labels, all numbered boldly in black, had been fastened to, descended from, or were tucked beneath their appointed concomitants; a quick glance at the catalogue suggested that these numbers corresponded to the Lot Numbers listed therein. Further Lot labels could be seen around the perimeter of the room, which like the centre aisle was cluttered with shelving of a haphazard nature, set more or less in rows and piled high with a motley selection of ticketed Household Effects, Furniture and Collectables, as the catalogue described them.

  “Miss Seeton!” whispered Lady Colveden, as the confident man knocked down whatever-it-was to the red carnation at a final cost of one hundred and sixty pounds. “I’m sorry, but this might take longer than I thought. There are over five hundred lots listed. Goodness knows how many of them are barometers or easy chairs. If any of them are.” She flipped through a couple of pages more, then firmly closed the catalogue. “Not terribly well typed, is it? I mean printed. Don’t you think it’s going to be much easier just to walk round and look at everything?”

  Gravely Miss Seeton agreed. The reproductive quality of the catalogue was certainly poor: nobody could reasonably expect her ladyship to strain her eyes when she had to drive home afterwards—and when it would indeed be so much easier walking round to look at everything ...

  Their consciences now clear, Miss Seeton and Lady Colveden happily set about enjoying themselves.

  “It’s rather more crowded,” gasped Miss Seeton, as she wriggled her way past a large man in a black fur-collared coat, “than I had expected—excuse me—on such a very wet day. Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she said to a tall, thin, hatched-faced woman in grey, who glared down her Roman nose as the final drip from Miss Seeton’s passing brolly was brushed on her open catalogue, smudging the already-smudged jellied ink. “I am so sorry, but ...”

  Hatchet Face, with a sniff, moved pointedly out of dripping range. Miss Seeton, blushing, subsided into a murmur of continuous apology as she attempted to squeeze in Lady Colveden’s wake between two plump, elderly men—no room in the crowded aisle to pass around them—wearing identical tweed hats, plaid jackets, striped woollen scarves, and leather gaiters. Mirror images of each other, the two clutched gnarled walking sticks in their equally gnarled hands, and gripped battered clay pipes (unlit) between their teeth. Whenever the bidding was with the Tweedle Twins, either Dum or Dee—they seemed to take it in turns—would, without troubling to consult his brother, clench his teeth to jerk the bowl of his pipe upwards. The auctioneer was evidently accustomed to this unusual method of signalling a bid, for he accepted it every time without question.

  Miss Seeton was entranced by the spectacle. Pausing, ostensibly to admire a set of old “Cries of London” prints, she contrived to position herself by a conveniently large wardrobe with a mirrored door—a gentlewoman does not stare—and watched with some interest as the Tweedles tried to stake their claim on what the catalogue advised was a Box of Crockery, Unmatched, and Kitchen Glassware, Ditto, As Seen.

  Title to this motley domestic assortment was being vigorously challenged by a pink-cheeked woman in a mackintosh of hideous fluorescent green. She had the most decisive nod Miss Seeton had seen in years. Each jerk of a Tweedle pipe was countered by such a forceful ducking of the mackintoshed head that even Miss Seeton, several yards away, could almost believe she felt the air move. Was Green Plastic Mac, mused Miss Seeton, the Tweedles’ rival in the bed-and-breakfast trade? A landlady anxious to furnish rented property at the minimum cost? She sighed, thinking of her former life in London. Or perhaps—

  “See them?” The unexpected voice, hard in her ear, with the accompanying chuckle and nudge in the ribs, made Miss Seeton squeak with surprise, though the squeak was drowned out by the clatter of her dropped umbrella. Blushing as every head within earshot turned towards her, she ducked to reclaim her own, resuming her apologetic murmurs as the damp folds sprayed misty drops on nearby feet and legs.

  “... after the funeral,” the voice was saying as Miss Seeton, breathless, brought herself upright. “Family solicitor made a regular performance of it, they say, insisted on reading every blessed being of sound mind and devise and bequeath th’old girl wrote, and a great whole crowd of ’em, cousins and collaterals and I-don’t-know-whatevers a-sitting there with their tongues hanging out to see what was in it for them ...”

  Miss Seeton, quietly sighing for the vagaries of human nature, smiled politely as she tried to distance herself from this melancholy narrative. She begged the pardon of a tall man with aristocratic features as she stepped on his foot—backed hurriedly away and bumped into a shorter man in a donkey jacket—blushed, and stuttered—and dropped her umbrella again.

  It rattled horribly on the bare wooden boards of the sale-room floor, making the auctioneer pause in his steady vocal ascent from thirty-five to forty pounds. The Tweedle Twins jerked their pipes in unison as they stared. Hatchet Face sniffed loudly and muttered accusations of drink; Green Plastic Mac tossed her head, and her cheeks turned from pink to red.

  So, too, did Miss Seeton’s, flaming scarlet as, for the second time, she groped downwards for her umbrella, wretchedly aware that in this crowd of perhaps sixty persons, fifty-nine must be looking in her direction. Fifty-eight. Lady Colveden—wherever she might be—was far too kindhearted, and too well bred, to wish to cause her friend any more embarrassment ...

  Fifty-seven. As Miss Seeton, for the second time, rose upright, she realized that her new acquaintance had pursued her in her flight, intent on delivering the punchline no matter how many brollies she might drop.

  And deliver it he promptly did, with a gleam in his eye and relish in his tone.

  “... the whole boiling lot to the Cats’ Home!” he said as the Unmatched Crockery was knocked down to the triumphant Tweedle Twins for forty-five pounds.

  chapter

  ~ 6 ~

  UNDER COVER OF the furious protests from Green Plastic Mac and the general interest aroused by them, Miss Seeton was able to make her escape from the Relentless Raconteur. She moved with breathless relief to the opposite side of the aisle, where her attention was caught by a brace of encyclopaedia-sized volumes, their pages gilt-edged between handsomely marbled boards which Miss Seeton, tucking her damp umbrella out of the way, carefully raised. Knight’s Pictorial Gallery of Arts—she’d thought so. Illustrated with steel engravings and nearly four thousand woodcuts ...

  Miss Seeton turned the pages, admired the illustrations, and wondered how much one would have to pay. Need one buy both books together? Volume One, Useful Arts. Volume Two, Fine Arts. Sighing, she supposed one need. Consulting her catalogue, she realised one must. Moreover, they were Lot Four Hundred and Ninety, which would be a long time to wait. She shook her head sadly—froze, fearing this might be construed as a bid for the
set of golf clubs currently under offer—relaxed, smiled faintly, and moved on.

  The golf clubs made her think of Sir George, and she glanced about her for his wife. Lady Colveden was soon observed in the neighbouring aisle, admiring a large, white, scarlet-combed cockerel, stuffed, on a dark wooden stand. Miss Seeton blinked. She tried to envisage this remarkable fowl on display at Rytham Hall in place of the lost barometer: she failed. Like herself, her ladyship kept hens. She had never voiced the wish to have even the best of her layers, or their mates, preserved for posterity ...

  Lady Colveden patted the bird on the head and passed to the next item, a grandmother clock. Miss Seeton, who had a fondness for the works of P. G. Wodehouse, briefly amused herself with the notion that the diamond necklace of Lady Constance Keeble might have been appropriated and concealed by some Edwardian taxidermist, then chided herself for her folly. Stolen gems—fictional gems, at that: one should keep one’s imagination under better control. Perhaps, if one hadn’t last night watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one would have had more sense.

  Across Miss Seeton’s inward eye flashed a sudden vision of precious stones and gold, ingots and nuggets and finely wrought chains, heaped high in an open chest bound with iron bands, half buried in sand beneath a tall palm tree. Fierce masculine figures in thigh-length sea boots, with cutlasses in their hands and muscles rippling under their striped jerseys, surrounded the treasure chest and studied it with eyes that glittered, diamond-bright, with greed. Greed ...

  Miss Seeton remembered the Relentless Raconteur and the Cats’ Home—and the indignant relatives. She shivered. Dear Cousin Flora. How very, very lucky she had been ...

  Cousin Flora. Moving on, she had reached a little display that reminded her very much of her late godmother. A carved wooden glove-box; a dainty set of opera glasses in mother-of-pearl; a pair of ladies’ shoe-trees, hinged, with handles. Elegant wire glove-rests: for those gloves, she assumed, that didn’t fit in the box, always supposing these items all came from—she smothered a sigh—the same Deceased Effects, as she’d heard the auctioneer describing his wares. And—good gracious—an album.

  An album of the sort that had been so popular in her own young days, when schoolgirls collected souvenirs of their friends for later life. Miss Seeton opened the blue leather cover and plunged into reminiscence. Mary Helen Becker, Her Memories was written in elegant copperplate on the title page of smooth, heavy paper: Miss Seeton turned it and realised that each writing page was interleaved with a sheet of drawing paper. Mary Helen’s friends had painted landscapes in watercolour, sketched flowers in crayon; had composed witty, or sentimental, or philosophical verses; had written jokes which, after so many years, meant—once more, Miss Seeton sighed—nothing to the one who read them now.

  A vivid pen-and-wash study of an elegant couple dancing in evening dress under a chandelier made Miss Seeton catch her breath: Margaret Rose Tilbury, whoever she was, had the artist’s eye. If only—

  At her shoulder, a cough. “Excuse me.” A hand appeared and took the album from her: she was so surprised that her grasp on her umbrella slackened in sympathy, though for once she managed to keep her hold. “It’s the next lot,” explained the voice behind the hand, which proved to belong to the holder-upper Miss Seeton had noticed—without really noticing him—earlier.

  “Oh! I do beg your—” But the holder-upper had gone, leaving Miss Seeton feeling bereft. Mary Helen Becker, her Memories. She was not, thought Miss Seeton, alone ...

  “And the next lot,” announced the auctioneer, having knocked down an archery set of longbow, arrows, and target to a young woman in a tartan cape. “Autograph album bound in blue leather—thank you,” he said as the holder-upper held it up. “Now, who’ll start me at ten pounds?”

  Miss Seeton’s hands clutched the crook of her umbrella. She glanced about her: who else was there who might appreciate the art of Margaret Rose Tilbury?

  Nobody moved. “Then we’ll say five,” said the auctioneer. “Five pounds—anyone bidding five pounds? Thank you, Robin Hood,” as the tartan cape twitched a languid eyebrow.

  Everyone except Miss Seeton chuckled. Miss Seeton could only blink and remind herself that she had no real need of an album, autograph or—or otherwise. But that pen-and-ink sketch had been—

  “Any advance on five pounds? Five pounds I’m bid,” said the auctioneer. Robin Hood stroked the folds of her cape and looked smug.

  “Five pounds—ten, thank you,” as Miss Seeton’s clutch became an involuntary spasm that raised the umbrella high in the air.

  “Fifteen? Fifteen, thank you,” said the auctioneer.

  Miss Seeton’s heart went thump. She ignored it. As the auctioneer turned with his inevitable question towards her, she waved the umbrella again. Twenty pounds—if a belated Christmas present was good enough for her ladyship, it ought surely to be good enough for Emily Dorothea Seeton—

  “The bidding’s with Miss Hood there, at twenty pounds.” Robin, with a sideways glance at Miss Seeton’s face, pale and alert, slowly shook her head.

  “At twenty pounds,” said the auctioneer. “Anyone give me twenty-five? No? At twenty pounds, then, this autograph album in blue leather. Going—going—gone, for twenty pounds, to the lady with the matching umbrella!”

  “Miss Seeton, how exciting.” Lady Colveden had materialised beside her. “I never knew you collected autographs,” and Miss Seeton, flushed with discreet triumph, explained.

  “Then you’ve had better luck than me. There isn’t a single barometer in the place, and I don’t like any of the chairs—but I must show you the loveliest miniature violin. It would make a wonderful birthday present for Julia. We wouldn’t have to wait more than half an hour, I imagine—if you didn’t mind.”

  Miss Seeton said at once that she didn’t in the least. She was entirely at the disposal of the kind friend who had brought her into town: as for dear Julia’s birthday, she herself might, with her mother to advise, find a little something among the preceding lots which would suit. There were several charming pieces of china, for instance—

  “Oh.” Miss Seeton rocked back at the sight of four huge black frames, ill made and with peeling varnish, around a garishly tinted set of biblical scenes. “Oh, dear.” She shook her head at Adam and Eve Dispossessed, Noah and His Sons Building the Ark, Elijah Calling Fire upon the Priests of Baal, and The Infant Samuel, Roused in the Night. “Dear me. It seems almost irreverent to criticise. And yet ...”

  Lady Colveden giggled. “I couldn’t resist showing them to you,” she said apologetically. “But the violin’s just here.” She led the way along.

  Miss Seeton agreed that the delicate silver ornament, its strings so fine one could hardly see them, would make a most acceptable birthday present for Nigel’s sister. For her own offering, she remembered seeing somewhere a dainty china dish and matching plate, rosebud-patterned. Would Lady Colveden think it an indulgence—an impertinence—on her part to make a bid for these and, if successful, to give Julia the plate and dear Janie—a sweet and reliable child—the little dish at the appropriate time?

  “I should think they’d both be thrilled, Miss Seeton. Thank you.” Her ladyship’s lovely eyes glowed at the compliment to her granddaughter’s sense of responsibility in the matter of fragile and costly gifts. “Only you mustn’t spend too much. Perhaps it’s as well for George’s bank balance there aren’t any barometers in this week’s sale—it’s so easy to get carried away at auctions, isn’t it?”

  Miss Seeton promised to take the greatest care. It had not escaped her notice, as she perambulated the room, that the Tweedle Twins and Green Plastic Mac were far from the only ones determined to outdo each other in bidding for what did not, to her admittedly inexpert eye, seem to warrant the sums eventually paid in many cases. Robin Hood, balked of her blue leather album, had plunged into reckless pursuit of a set of ivory-backed hairbrushes with engraved monograms, in defiance of the Red Carnation. The Roman-nosed Hatchet Face had been determi
ned to prevent the man in the black fur-collared coat from winning the pair of glass scent bottles and powder box (mahogany) on which he had set his sights. Miss Seeton shook her head for these excesses of the competitive spirit, and resolved to show rather more discretion when the time came to bid for the rosebud dish and plate.

  If she could only remember where she’d seen them ...

  As Lady Colveden watched the price of a marble splashback with oak-framed mirror soar to stratospheric heights, Miss Seeton ignored the drama being played out between the Fur-Collared Coat and the Roman Nose. Surrounded by persons all taller than herself, she stood on tiptoe, balanced by her umbrella, and peered about her to refresh her memory.

  “Good gracious.” She beamed. “Such a surprise, when his office is in Ashford—and what a coincidence, to be using it for the first time today. I hope he’ll be pleased to see how much I appreciate his kindness ...”

  Watching Superintendent Brinton bulldoze his way through the crowd, she tried to catch his eye: but Brinton, whose domestic life was still decidedly out of tune, had decided to restore marital harmony by presenting his helpmeet with some token of his esteem, and was currently preoccupied with thoughts of his savings account, and his mortgage.

  Miss Seeton tried for several moments, but failed to attract his attention: she was, as so often, at a disadvantage in a crowd. Balanced comfortably on the balls of her feet—the benefits of yoga, yet again—she finally raised her umbrella from the floor, and brandished it in the direction of Superintendent Brinton.

  And the voice of the auctioneer rang around the room: “One hundred and fifty pounds I’m bid, from the lady with the smart blue brolly!”

  chapter

  ~ 7 ~