The superintendent did not like. Through gritted teeth, he thanked his sergeant, pointed out that sleeping overnight at the station would require his sharing a room with Foxon, who snored, and repeated that he would see the man tomorrow morning, and not before.
“I suppose,” remarked Foxon to nobody in particular as Brinton banged down the receiver, “I don’t mind being slandered, so long as it’s all in the course of—ahem—duty.” He sighed. “But honestly, sir, couldn’t you find a better excuse than saying I snored?”
“Not at this hour of the night.” Brinton stretched and shook himself, blinking. “Doesn’t he realise most folk need to sleep if they’ve got to think?” He pondered the imminent round of face-to-face interviews with assorted Candells, Inchpins, and friends and relations of Myra. He’d need to be right there on the ball and more, with the Mimms cross-referencing he’d have to do at the same time ... “You can’t help wondering sometimes if Mutford’s really human.”
“Slander again,” murmured Foxon with a grin.
“Not,” said Brinton, returning the grin with a ferocious grimace of his own, “if it’s true. I wonder, even if you don’t, so shut up. Potter, we’ll detour past your pillbox on the way home: and we’ll be back tomorrow morning at a civilised hour for a chat with Miss Seeton, heaven help us. I won’t ask you to keep an eye on her for what’s left of the night, because if the Bloomers can’t look after her, nobody can.” Potter took this in the spirit it was intended and nodded cheerfully. Like the superintendent, he enjoyed his eight hours when he could get them. “And don’t,” continued Brinton, “let her wander off after breakfast by herself, if Stan and Martha decide they have to go work.”
“Shouldn’t think they will, sir. Not both of ’em leave her at once, I mean.”
“Nor should I, but,” he said in the voice of experience, “where Miss Seeton’s concerned, you can’t be too careful. No popping off to the middle of nowhere watching birds, or picking wildflowers—well, not in January, but you know what I mean. She’s to stay over there with or without the Bloomers until we’ve had a proper talk, and taken her statement ...”
Her statement which would in turn be taken, through the good offices of Foxon and of British Railways, to London: to Scotland Yard: to Chief Superintendent Delphick.
chapter
~ 24 ~
CONSCIOUS THAT BRINTON was relying on her, Miss Seeton had done her best to remember what she could of the events leading up to—and her impressions of—her first, and only, meeting with Myra Stanebury, as she now knew the dead woman to be. Except, of course, that when she had met her at the auction house, she wasn’t. And now she was. In her sitting room. Miss Seeton sighed, even as she recalled Brinton’s hope that everything would be back to normal by the morning. Or at least, had been. It was a cruel, and wicked, return for such great kindness in taking time from her work merely to reassure ...
Miss Seeton frowned. Or maybe not. Since poor Miss Stanebury had died before having revealed what she knew of the provenance of the treasure ch—
No. The carved wooden box. She must never, ever again allow herself to think of her purchase in any other way. It was her fault, hers alone, that harm had come to poor Miss Stanebury. Entirely through her romantic—she blushed—folly, an inflated idea of the value of the box and its contents must somehow have become general knowledge, must have tempted some callous thief to break in and—
Miss Seeton gave one little gasp, then firmly shut her mind against all thought of what had happened next. She had been asked to sketch a likeness of the chest— the box— to show Mr. Delphick, who was busy in London and could not spare the time to come down to Kent. She would have offered to take it up to him herself, but Mr. Brinton had not seemed to think this a good idea; and, since he had said he wanted to send Mr. Foxon first thing in the morning and would not let her back in the house until later, she would have to sketch it from memory. Yet memory, she feared, might prove, after—after what had happened ... might prove less reliable than Mr. Brinton evidently supposed ...
She explained all this, and more, to Brinton when he and Foxon arrived at Martha’s door on the dot of nine next day. “I am so sorry, Superintendent”. Her hands moved restlessly on the closed cover of her sketchbook, and her eyes wore an anxious, guilty air. “So very sorry—but somehow I cannot, in all honesty, feel that my drawings are likely to prove particularly helpful. The details of the carving—apart, that is, from the Latin, where letters and words are easier to recall ... but I hope you won’t think it a—an impertinence for me to say that I—I believe Mr. Foxon could, in these distressing circumstances, use his time rather more profitably than in taking my foolish doodles up to London.”
“He couldn’t use it less,” Brinton told her, slandering his subordinate with the very best of motives. Everyone who’d ever had dealings with MissEss and her Drawings knew that she more often than not had to be coaxed into handing them over. “He might just as well waste it annoying the Oracle instead of me, for once, then I could get some good honest coppering done in peace and quiet. You’ll be doing me a favour, Miss Seeton—both of us, in fact. If I can only get him out of my hair for a few hours, I’ll be far less likely to want to chuck things at him once he’s back under my feet again.”
Miss Seeton turned a startled face to where Foxon stood at Brinton’s shoulder. The younger man was a strangely reassuring sight as he winked and nodded as if agreeing with every word the superintendent said. Which, if Mr. Brinton had been serious about—about throwing things at him, could well be true. Except, of course ... She had always accepted that her sense of humour was possibly not as—as robust as that of others; and Mr. Brinton, she had remarked before, had a certain tart sense of fun to which his colleagues must be far more accustomed than she. Even if she, too, ought perhaps to consider herself a colleague, since she was, after all, paid a retainer for her artistic services—
“Oh!” The faint cry signalled a sudden realisation of her failure, so far, to justify that retainer. Recalled to duty, Miss Seeton blushed, smiled her polite acknowledgement of Mr. Brinton’s little joke, and handed him the sketchbook without further demur.
As the train rattled out of Ashford station, Foxon found himself a comfortable seat in a No Smoking compartment, opened his newspaper, and under cover of The Daily Negative studied Miss Seeton’s first sketch.
Well, it was a box. He supposed. But she’d shown it so piled round with such an assortment of junk he wouldn’t care to swear to it. A barometer, a set of golf clubs, a wrought-iron bedstead; a set of arrows with matching bow; a spur-heeled chicken with a malevolent glint in its eye; binoculars, very small, in a case; a violin, likewise small, but perfectly drawn to the last detail.
Detail. That’s what he ought to be looking for. What had MissEss taken most trouble to draw?
To Draw, he meant. Because if Old Brimmers was right, that was what she’d done with this lot ...
Lot. Foxon chortled for a few moments. She’d drawn the auction, where all this had started: he’d bet a fiver these were some of the lots she’d seen that day with Lady Colveden and, later on, the super. Not that Brimstone had said he recognised any of ’em, when MissEss handed over the book: a quick thank-you and goodbye Foxon, that’d been the size of it. Probably rather not know the worst until he had to ... Until the Oracle had given him the translation. Foxon wished him joy of translating this lot.
He chortled again and turned the page. Another box, or the same one, more visible: carved, bound with iron bands, and with a sprig of—he thought back to Christmas—mistletoe, of all things, poking out of one of the padlocks. Next to the box, a couple of books, encyclopaedia-sized, and on them a heap of what looked like papers, closely written. Foxon realised that he was squinting in an attempt to read the words. Detail. Papers?
“Paper violins.” It sounded even more daft when he said it out loud. Just as well nobody else had got in when the train stopped at Headcorn; they’d’ve thought he was crazy. Which he probably
was, trying to do the Oracle’s job for him when even the super gave up without a fight ...
He turned to the third sketch. Evidently Miss Seeton had been unhappy with her previous attempts, for here was the carved wooden box again, this time with its lid open and a necklace of what might be diamonds spilling over the side from among a wealth of treasure: gold coins, crowns, sparkling stones. On the edge of the open lid perched the glint-eyed chicken, with the violin case in its beak and a piece of that close-written paper in one upraised claw. Against one side of the chest, the set of golf clubs leaned; around the other side, pooling in front under the necklace, a mass of dark material, trimmed with ermine, sprawled.
Foxon muttered something and turned the page.
Miss Seeton’s fourth effort showed an altogether smaller box. It was plain, not carved, open as before but with a display of knives and forks in neat rows, rather than a jumble of jewels. Beside it stood a male figure in mediaeval dress—flat, feathered cap, tunic and hose, and over all a long, fur-trimmed robe, reaching almost to the ground. In one hand, he held another sheet of paper; in the other was a violin, full-sized, and about his neck hung, not a necklace, but a heavy, ornate chain of office.
“The Lord Chief Justice?” Foxon shrugged. “The Lord High Executioner?”
There was no box (of whatever size) on the fifth page. A sheet of paper, beautifully written in what it was easy to see was a foreign language, and with what looked like an official seal at the bottom, was held in the wicked beak of that same malevolent chicken, perching one-footed on the bridge of the violin while its free claw clasped a briar pipe, from which woolly white circles puffed slowly upwards. “Smoke signals,” said Foxon. And wondered.
Miss Seeton had obviously made a desperate effort for her sixth, and final, sketch. With nothing cluttered about it to block the view, there was the iron-bound wooden chest. Its lid was open, and there were carved letters around the inside rim; but in place of jewels and gold, the chest held bundles of knives and forks, and spoons with curlicued handles and deep, rounded bowls.
“And that,” said Foxon, “is the lot.”
He didn’t chortle this time.
It was auction day at Candell & Inchpin, one of their regular Fine Art and Furniture sales for which an advertisement had appeared for the past three weeks in numerous trade and public papers. Had it not, the senior Candell repeatedly insisted, they would have closed the establishment for the day, as a mark of respect. A loyal employee of such very long standing as Myra Stanebury ...
“Don’t worry, sir, I quite understand. And I’m sure she would, too,” soothed Brinton, as Mr. Candell wrung his plump hands together in a frenzy of mingled guilt and embarrassment. “I should think you’d find it almost impossible to turn folk away when they could be coming from the other end of the country, for all you know. If Miss Stanebury was as devoted to the interests of the firm as you suggest—”
“She was! Oh, she was. From school, you know, she’d been with us full-time. Even before then, she worked here at weekends, and during the holidays. She was”—Mr. Candell closed his eyes, evoking a vision of dedication beyond the call of duty—“a veritable legend about the place, Superintendent. If she took a holiday, I’m sure I can’t remember when. We paid her double for those weeks,” he added hastily, in case Brinton should suspect him of exploitation. “And she was never ill.” Brinton’s look expressed surprise, but he had no time to comment before the eulogy resumed. “Always the first to arrive in the morning, the last to leave at night. She knew the business inside out—and I simply don’t know what,” he said, wringing his hands again, then plunging his right into his trouser pocket, “we’re going to do without her.”
As he paused at last to blow his nose, Brinton managed a few words before Mr. Candell, oblivious to anything but his loss and the requisite tribute, broke in on him. “Never ill? Didn’t it strike you—?”
“Never.” He leaned forward to wag an arch finger under the superintendent’s nose. “Now, this is in confidence, Mr. Brinton. You may consider my remarks somewhat lacking in taste—mean-spirited, even, but in a case of—of—” As so many did, he baulked at that six-letter word for death. “In such a shocking case, Superintendent, it would be ... ridiculous not to give you the fullest facts.”
“Which are?” enquired Brinton as Mr. Candell’s red silk handkerchief was once more applied to his nose.
“Which are that poor Myra—Miss Stanebury—has—had—the most ghastly mother you can imagine, Mr. Brinton. Calls herself an invalid—ha! Lazybones would be a more suitable term.” Mr. Candell crushed the scarlet silk into irritated invisibility in the palm of his plump hand. “The tyranny of the possessive mother, Mr. Brinton, that’s what it is—was. And poor Myra too devoted—devotion was in her nature, the dear thing—to realise how she was being exploited. Mama,” he said, grimacing awfully, “must have attendance danced upon her at every free moment of the day. Her digestion was so delicate, her nerves were so frail, that she had to have the best of everything, in case she might suffer a relapse.” Mr. Candell didn’t quite say Faugh!, but his distaste for the ailments, real or imagined, of Myra Stanebury’s mother needed no such gloss to be fully understood.
“She had no social life, Mr. Brinton—Myra, that is, not her dear mama. Mama believed that social intercourse of the most exclusive nature, among equally refined and delicate souls, could only serve to ease her weary path through life. And what mama wanted, she had.”
“In Brettenden?” Brinton could hardly believe his ears.
“In Brettenden. Mrs. Stanebury contrived—heaven knows how—to achieve for her sickroom the reputation of a salon in the most fashionable sense of the word.” Once more, Mr. Candell grimaced. “Whether or not such reputation was justified, I am in no position to judge. Mama was careful to hold court only while Myra was out of the house, and always dismissed her guests just minutes before her daughter was due home—a home which was, by all accounts, luxurious in the extreme. The salon itself, I gather, is a marvel, the very picture of an eighteenth-century literary meeting-place—and all paid for by poor Myra! Of course, we only charged her cost price plus ten, you know, when she bought from Candell stock.”
He sniffed. “Mama, you see, dared not fritter away her precious widow’s pension on such frivolities as chandeliers and French windows to the conservatory—with a grapevine,” he added grimly—“and miniature peach trees—poor Myra! One day, mama maintained, her daughter would marry, leaving her alone and destitute. Against which day—a day she took the greatest care Myra had no chance to see—the pension must, of course, be hoarded. There was never any suggestion that Myra might wish to save her wages on her own account—and, poor girl, as far as I know she didn’t.”
Mr. Candell shook his head. “She’d been brainwashed, Mr. Brinton—brainwashed almost from birth. Her papa succumbed to a heart attack after no more than a year or two of wedded bliss—and that,” he concluded, “is the reason, I suspect, for her willingness to spend so much time here at work.” He waved an airy hand to emphasise his suspicions. “Oh, it was subconscious, I’ve no doubt, but she must have realised that the longer she was out of the house, the less opportunity mama had to play her nasty little games. And”—he hushed his tone to become still more confidential—“I also suspect that of recent years the worm had begun to turn—that some of those double holiday wages went into a separate account: I do hope they did. I believe poor Myra was not only escaping, in daylight hours at least, from her dreadful parent: I believe she could actually have been planning her escape! When she had saved enough money, I suspect that Myra Stanebury was going to slip her leash completely, and be off ...
“But we would always have cherished the hope that she might one day come back to keep our books in order and our files straight. Now”—he sighed, from the heart—“that hope is gone. And what we’re going to do without her, I simply do not know!”
“If she was so indispensable,” said Brinton, seizing his chance, “I’d
have thought you’d be surprised when she never showed up yesterday for work. Didn’t—?”
“Oh, but she did.” Mr. Candell was so keen to set Brinton straight that for the second time he interrupted him in mid-question. “She arrived in the morning at her usual hour—such devotion! She tried so bravely to work through as she always did, and it was only after lunch that she admitted she didn’t feel quite the thing. A migraine—and who could blame her? She took such a pride in her work, she had invented a filing system unique to our requirements, and when the burglar made that terrible mess, not to mention the shock—that poor young man ...”
He rapidly shook the crumples out of his anguished handkerchief, and blew his nose again. Nothing, it seemed, would persuade him to speak the full enormity of what had happened to Terry Mimms: and—Brinton silently echoed Mr. Candell’s own words—who could blame him? “One thing after another,” he observed. “For instance—”
“It most certainly is!” Mr. Candell sat up, looking positively affronted. “It seems that Brettenden is suffering a veritable crime wave, Superintendent! If it weren’t enough that our premises should be burgled, and our employees”—he took a deep breath—“attacked—and what she was doing in Plummergen, of all places, I’m sure I couldn’t say”—Brinton heaved a sigh of relief that one of his unasked questions had been answered—“but after last week’s dreadful affair at the museum, I might almost begin to believe there was a—a jinx on Candell and Inchpin. Only consider how—”
“Museum?” This time it was Brinton’s turn to interrupt. “Jinx? What affair? Oh, yes,” he said before Mr. Candell—looking amazed that this knowledge could have been denied a superintendent of police—should enlighten him. “I remember the report—they had a break-in a few days ago—but I don’t know that I’d call it a burglary, because—”
“A matter of days,” said Mr. Candell, his voice deep with meaning, “after the curator had attended our Household Sale! And the items he acquired at that sale were vandalised, Mr. Brinton—vandalised before there had been time for a proper cataloguing of the contents. How can we be sure that nothing was stolen?” He wagged another finger. “With our records in a muddle, we can’t.”
Sold to Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 19) Page 22