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

by Hamilton Crane

  His last thought, as the ambulance rumbled away in the direction of the hospital, was that when the Oracle and Foxon finally arrived from Town, they’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

  * * *

  “Explanations?” Delphick’s smile was faintly mocking. “As any explanation must inevitably involve Miss Seeton, Chris, are you sure your nerves are equal to the strain?”

  Superintendent Brinton skewered Foxon (whose chortle had been just a little too loud) to his chair with one blistering glare. “I’m sure. Strain, shock—so what’s the difference? I’ll live. They said so.” Despite protests, he had discharged himself from hospital the instant he’d heard that Buckland was in no danger, and was now—battered, weary, but triumphant—holding court in his office. “I wouldn’t care to guarantee your chances of survival, though, if you don’t tell me what the hell’s been going on. And what,” he added, “I’m supposed to put on the charge sheet, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Sergeant Ranger, the evidence, if you please.” Delphick smiled again. “And I don’t, just yet, mean the sketchbook,” he added for Brinton’s benefit. “Foxon still has custody of that particular item—thanks, Bob.” From his sergeant’s huge hand he gently took a charred sheet of paper, which he passed to the superintendent without a word, watching with interest as Brinton narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the spidery scrawl.

  “Need a magnifying glass for—oh. ‘The production of—of ionised species of naturally nuclear’—no, ‘naturally nonpolar compounds.’” He blinked. He drew a deep breath. He tried again. “Can’t make out this bit, either ... ah. ‘Its standard octane rating of zero would be altered dramatically if ...’ If what? The chap could’ve used a few hours with a copybook ... uh-huh ‘... series of experiments with high voltage elec-electricity’—no, ‘electrolysis has been designed. If the status’—no, ‘the static charge from a van der Graaf gen ...’” He looked up. “That’s the lot. Might as well be talking Russian, for all the sense it makes to me. Do you seriously mean to say it’s for the sake of this”—he brandished the paper—“this dammed jargon that three people died?”

  “Indirectly, yes.” Delphick reached into his breast pocket for a folded envelope, on the back of which he had made a few notes. “I took the liberty, while you were hors de combat, of phoning the Yard and speaking to one or two of our explosives experts. They confirmed the rumour that reached me only this morning, but which had reached certain members of the criminal fraternity some weeks ago—that, according to this, the self-styled Professor Eldred Quendon was working on a method for turning seawater into what we may, for convenience, call petrol.”

  “Quendon? Seawater—into petrol? You’re joking.”

  “I’m not. Nor, from what the experts tell me, was Quendon, necessarily. May I?” He gestured for the paper, and Brinton passed it over with a grimace. “Unlike you, Chris, I was not suffering, even in the mildest sense, from delayed shock when I first saw this.” He raised a warning hand as Brinton opened his mouth to protest. “In the very mildest sense,” he said firmly. “As you yourself agreed, you’ll live—but it’s bound to have addled your thinking processes to some extent.”

  With a grunt, the superintendent acknowledged the truth of this, then grimaced and said he doubted he’d be any less addled if he looked at the thing for a week. He was a good, honest, straightforward copper who liked his cases good and straightforward, too. Which wasn’t how he’d describe secret damned petrol formulas, not by a long chalk it wasn’t.

  Delphick did his best not to sound smug. He almost succeeded. “I was able to make out a few words more than you—a very few, but significant, I gather.” He tapped the note-scribbled envelope, then readdressed himself to the charred paper. “Ahem. ‘The best fuel economy credible with existing engines for domestic vehicles, which can be remedied by’—and here, Chris, we meet—‘the production of ionised species of naturally nonpolar compounds.’ And, again,” he said as Brinton could only blink at him, “‘generation of the species ...’” He stopped. Even the Oracle must boggle at the pronunciation of C7H16++. After the briefest of pauses, he smiled. “The species—ahem—blank is what would, in theory, ‘dramatically alter the standard octane rating of zero.’ Don’t ask,” he entreated, as Brinton prepared to demand enlightenment, “what it means. I may be able to decipher it, in part, but beyond that I have to confess to being utterly perplexed.”

  Delphick contrived, by his manner, to suggest that such utter perplexity was a rare experience indeed for the Oracle of Scotland Yard: as Brinton had silently to admit that it was. “You’ll hazard a guess, though,” he said aloud.

  “Hazard implies risk.” Delphick’s self-satisfaction was evident. “I risk little, I believe, by basing my submission on the conjectural ability of the Yard boffins—who, admittedly, can’t be completely sure of their facts without seeing the exact formula, the remainder of which appears to have been lost in the explosion. Whether they’ll be able to make any use of this, to my eyes inadequate, remnant is, however, neither here nor there: you—we—have evidence enough, I submit, to charge Radwinter, when he is fully recovered, for the murders of Quendon, of Terry Mimms, and of Myra Stanebury. And with the burglary at Sweetbriars, even if we can’t really do him for the attempted murder of Miss Seeton,” he added. “In this aspiration he was not, I suspect, unique—but we’ll come to that later,” he added as Brinton groaned. “And I doubt we should hold him personally to blame for the decease of Artie Chishall, even if—”

  “Who?” The Oracle was going too fast for a man suffering from shock. “Chishall? Never heard of him.”

  “An informer, given to turning his coat at an alarming rate for which he was notorious among the fraternity. At a critical point in his latest double-cross, his ... carelessness rendered him liable to the extreme penalty—though in London, not Kent. Radwinter has the parochial instincts of his kind. He may well have been inspired by Cutler to kill three other people, but realistically we shouldn’t blame—”

  “Cutler?” This was altogether too much. “Who the hell is—? No, wait,” he said as Delphick prepared to explain. “That bloke who choppered his way out of Pentonwood, right?” The ferocity of his look subdued explanation to a silent nod. “You mean,” Brinton said, “he’s been holed up in my manor all this time?” Delphick nodded again. “While you’ve been chasing about Town looking for the blighter?” Another nod. Brinton gritted his teeth. “So when I yelled for help, you—you damned well needed it as much as I did?”

  “The perfect professional partnership,” Delphick said cheerfully, gesturing to Foxon. “Assisted, of course, by Miss Seeton and her invaluable doodles—thank you, Foxon.” He rested the sketchbook on his knee and tapped the closed cover with his forefinger. “It’s all in here, Chris, though I appreciate you’re in no fit state yet for the full rigmarole: I’ll be letting you have a written report once I’m back at the Yard, by which time your concussion, or whatever it is, should have lapsed. Or whatever it does.”

  “I haven’t—oh, what’s the use?” Brinton closed his eyes. “Where that woman’s concerned, I feel as if I’ve got it even if I haven’t, if concussion means your head goes round in circles and you haven’t a clue what’s what. Which is why,” he reminded his colleague, “I asked for a translator in the first place. So go ahead and translate before you become liable for the extreme penalty. It’d almost be worth losing my pension for—but not quite. Just tell me what’s been going on, and why. And then we can all be happy again.”

  chapter

  ~ 27 ~

  “CHEAP, VIRTUALLY LIMITLESS fuel,” said Delphick, “must be the ultimate dream of the inventor. It would not be overstating the case to say that such a fuel would have a revolutionary effect on world economy: lower manufacturing and transport costs of goods are only two of the most immediate effects that spring to mind. Not that the oil industry would regard such a fuel with approval, of course. Legends abound of people who have discovered a water-based power as, ah,
powerful as petrol, who have been paid vast amounts of money to keep their mouths shut.

  “Professor Quendon hoped to make millions from his discovery, whether by marketing it in the usual manner or ... by taking the other way.”

  “Blackmail,” said Brinton, scowling.

  “Commercial opportunism,” Delphick corrected him drily. “A not uncommon characteristic: and he wasn’t, though I very much doubt that he was aware of this, the only opportunist in the case. He must naturally have supposed that the oil companies, should they learn of his work before the method had been perfected, would try to prevent its successful completion: but he had no reason to expect that Cutler would display his own—considerable—interest.” He indicated the sketchbook, which Brinton had placed cautiously in the middle of his blotter. “Miss Seeton gives us no firm idea of how Cutler came to learn of Quendon’s work, though I suspect the secrecy with which he apparently surrounded himself would have stimulated some curiosity among his neighbours, not all of it legitimate. Once the gentleman in question is again in a fit state to be questioned, the exact method may become clear, though it hardly matters. His grape-vine, even in prison, was invariably efficient.”

  “Efficient enough,” grumbled Brinton, “to organise his personal flying taxi to pick him up whenever he felt like it, for a start.”

  “Whenever he felt like it?” Delphick raised an eyebrow. “I’ve no doubt he felt like a change of scene on many occasions, but he never took the chance. He’s a scientist: he would have calculated the odds and decided that staying in gaol, at the known centre of his information network, was a safer bet than making the break and risking an even greater loss of freedom after his inevitable recapture and reduced parole. All along we kept asking ourselves why, so close to the end of his sentence, he would hazard everything as he did. The stakes had to be pretty high: and they were. Cutler wanted the formula for seawater petrol ... which he had already failed to acquire by more orthodox means.”

  Brinton sat up. “The burglary! When they hit the poor bugger over the head and killed him—that was Cutler?”

  “That was Radwinter. Cutler, remember, was still in prison: but there’s little doubt he was the moving force behind the break-in, though for myself I have considerable doubts as to whether he would have ordered Quendon’s death, at least not until he’d learned how close the research was to completion—whether he, with a few picked assistants, would have been able to bring it to fruition without the professor, and make the best use of its possibilities. You may recall that Cutler is a chemist of some ability, but with a specialised subject like this, it’s far more probable he would have preferred trying to coerce the old man into joining his team ... We’ll ask him that, too, once he’s out of hospital.”

  Involuntary memories of disinfectant and floor polish tickled the inside of Brinton’s nose, and he made a frantic dive into his trouser pocket. “It’ll be—achoo!—some time,” he observed grimly. “Achoo!”

  “Bless you.” Delphick, Foxon, and Bob spoke together: but Delphick was a chief superintendent. It was he who continued, in answer to Brinton’s observation, “Indeed it will. Which is all to the good, as it may, I fear, be some time for us also, before we have a case anywhere near strong enough to bring before the courts. With Radwinter’s house completely destroyed, and the laboratory equipment with it—but I digress,” he said as Brinton raised an exasperated face from the depths of his handkerchief. “The basic facts for now: the details must wait for later.”

  Brinton grunted, finished blowing his nose, and returned his handkerchief to its proper place before folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. “The facts,” he said, with as much command in his voice as a man suffering from shock may achieve. “Please!”

  “Sorry. I’ll try to keep it short. Briefly, what seems to have happened is that Cutler heard about the petrol substitute, wondered if it would be worth his while to follow up on his release, and arranged, through his second-in-command Wimbish, for Neville Radwinter—I beg his pardon, for Peace—with or without companions we don’t yet know—to burgle Quendon’s laboratory and report back on what they found. It wouldn’t have been a quick job. Radwinter’s no chemist; and before they’d learned anything remotely useful, they were disturbed by Quendon, whom they killed. This left Cutler worrying that the professor’s goods, chattels, notes, and equipment might be acquired by people who either wouldn’t understand their true worth, and would destroy them—or who would, and whose exploitation of the process would be well advanced before he could do anything about it.”

  He paused. He caught Brinton’s eye and received a nod in return. “So far,” said Delphick, “so good, then. Cutler escaped with Wimbish’s help from prison, and took refuge chez Radwinter. Peace found out when Quendon’s effects were coming up for auction and escorted Cutler there to examine the lots to be sure of buying the right packing case. And while they were making sure ...”

  “In walked Miss Seeton.” Brinton shuddered. “And me. I saw the little creep and didn’t cotton on—I could kick myself!”

  “That’s hardly the way to speak of a professional colleague, Chris.” Delphick hid a smile. “It was hardly Miss Seeton’s fault that her path crossed that of Cutler: call it fate, if you must, but don’t call it creepy. It was ... one of those things that seems to happen, when Miss Seeton and her umbrella—any of her umbrellas—are around.”

  Brinton shuddered again. Foxon sniggered and turned it into a cough. Big Bob Ranger shifted on his chair.

  Delphick ignored them all. “Radwinter recognised you, of course, even if Cutler didn’t, and warned him to duck out of sight. They didn’t dare draw attention to themselves by putting in their bid when they’d just seen Miss Seeton signalling, as they thought, to you: they hung around long enough to realise you weren’t going to do anything right away, then took the opportunity to head for safety when you, ah, started to—to create a—a slight disturbance.”

  “That bloody wooden box,” moaned Brinton with his eyes closed. “That damned umbrella! I should have known ...”

  “But you didn’t know. Nor did they—that it was a simple mistake, a happenstance: a coincidence, nothing more. It’s a pity they didn’t. Their consciences began to trouble them: Miss Seeton ought to be silenced, for the common good: she might at any time inconveniently remember what and who she’d spotted to inspire her to signal as she did before she was—ahem—distracted.” He ignored Brinton’s muttered curse, though he smiled as he went on:

  “But they had no idea who she was or where she lived. Nor did they know who had, in the end, bought the professor’s equipment: hence, the burglary of Candell and Inchpin where Terry Mimms and his young woman were unlucky enough to get in Peace’s way—and the ransacking of the files that so distressed Miss Stanebury.”

  Brinton opened his eyes. “Yes, what about her? Had she recognised the chummies, as well as Miss Seeton? As well as they thought Miss Seeton did, I mean, because she didn’t, of course.” He sat up. “Did she? Were they right? Not that she was signalling, I mean, but that she’d spotted there was something a bit odd about ’em?”

  “According to Miss Seeton—with whom I’ve had time for only a brief telephone conversation—she noticed nothing untoward. Consciously noticed, that is, though her subconscious noticings are quite another matter, as we all know.” Brinton muttered something that his friend chose to ignore. “It was her subconscious that produced those Drawings on your desk—and as for Miss Stanebury, my guess is that she, likewise, noticed nothing. She wasn’t given to attending sales on the floor, I gather. Her filing system appears to have taken up most of her working day—and if you’re about to ask me why she was killed, don’t.” He allowed a smile to quirk his lips. “Ask Foxon instead.”

  “I was right, sir,” chirped the irrepressible one, as Brinton favoured him with a resigned but enquiring glare. “It was mistaken identity: he thought she was MissEss. The first time he broke into Sweetbriars he bumped into Martha, and he knew she wa
sn’t—she’s twenty years younger, for one thing—but the second time, I suppose he was worried he’d bungle it again, and he’d only ever got a quick look at her the day of the auction—so when he found her, that’s Miss Stanebury, inside Miss Seeton’s cottage he was sure that’s who she was, and he—he killed her, sir. By mistake. Like I said. Sir.”

  “So you did.” Brinton glared at him again. “What you didn’t say was what the Stanebury woman was doing there in the first place. I don’t—I won’t—believe she’d just dropped in out of the kindness of her heart to tell MissEss where that blasted box came from, not if you try till doomsday to make me believe it.”

  “Then we won’t,” said Delphick as Foxon subsided. “We will rather explain that it is a—a second strand to the mystery: the subplot we should have suspected from the very beginning, given our knowledge of Miss Seeton. A second coincidence, yet related to the first in that the unfortunate Myra Stanebury’s encounter with Miss Seeton only came about in the first place because of the wooden box, and Miss Seeton’s earnest desire to know its provenance. Myra, you see, also suffered from an over-sensitive conscience. When Miss Seeton came asking her innocent questions, Miss Stanebury began to lose her nerve. It can’t have helped, of course, that after speaking with her Miss Seeton went straight into a conversational huddle with Mr. Candell. Miss Stanebury, we must assume, had an attack of panic, and decided that she must be silenced. For,” he repeated, with another quirk of his lips, “the common good.”