Brinton, breathing heavily, glowered at Foxon through tearfilled eyes. “Some years ago,” he wheezed, “for some reason which now escapes me, Foxon, I authorised your promotion to the plainclothes branch.” He paused to cough and clear his throat. Blinking furiously, he went on: “Which, in case it has slipped your memory, Foxon, means that you are supposed to be—heaven help us all—a detective. And detectives, Foxon, are supposed to observe. And to follow clues. And to make intelligent deductions!”
He cleared his throat once more. “So what the hell do you mean by asking me if I’m all right? I’ve just swallowed a peppermint the wrong way—I nearly choked to death—do I look as if I’m all right?”
“Now you come to mention it, sir . . . ,” Foxon began; then grinned. “Of course, far be it from me to suggest you might recommend me for the Police Medal, but—”
“Police Medal? When I’ve only this minute been telling you what a lousy detective you are?”
“But I did,” Foxon pointed out, contriving to look both hurt and modest at the same time, “save your life, sir. You told me so yourself. Nearly choked to death, you said, with the inference that if I hadn’t—”
Brinton hurled the packet of mints in the direction of his insubordinate sidekick, who ducked neatly with one hand outstretched, caught the mints, and returned them to the superintendent with a bow. “Yours, sir, I believe?”
Brinton muttered something, then cursed aloud as he surveyed the havoc he had caused among the papers on his desk. “I hate you, Foxon,” he groaned, and raised despairing eyes to the ceiling. “Look what you’ve made me do!”
But his young tormentor was already on his hands and knees, collecting the scattered reports from the floor, to which they had been tumbled by the force of Brinton’s outflung arm. As he shuffled the reports into some sort of order, Foxon whistled—successfully—with surprise.
“Three more burglaries last night and you’re cheerful, sir? Isn’t that a bit—well, unusual?”
Brinton grunted his thanks as the reports were handed back to him, and motioned Foxon to sit down. “We don’t know all three of ’em happened last night, remember. It’s the same old story. Only small items taken, no obvious signs of illegal entry, householder eventually notices something’s wrong and starts checking—finds stuff missing and yells for help, no idea how long it’s been gone. We’re dealing with a regular pro team here, no mistake about that.”
Foxon risked a faint smile. “Then at least we can rule out the Choppers, sir.”
“For once, I’d agree with you. That gang of hoodlums might well be at the bottom of a fair amount of petty crime and local vandalism, but this sort of thing is miles out of the Choppers’ league. Not that it’s top-flight stuff, of course—these characters aren’t exactly stealing to order, nothing fancy—but what they pinch is good quality. Easy to fence. Portable. Carefully in, and carefully out with a duffel bag over their perishing shoulders, crammed to the brim with goodies—that’s the way the blighters work. And wouldn’t I,” growled the superintendent, “just love to catch ’em at it!”
“I think we all would, sir. May I, er, deduce that it was thinking of such a possibility that made you so cheerful? Something has occurred to you, sir. Inspiration has struck. Any minute now—”
“Any minute now what’ll be struck is you, Foxon. Didn’t anyone ever warn you about taking the mickey out of your superiors? But, since you’re so obviously trying to show me I was wrong to regret having turned you into a detective—apply yourself to these reports, laddie”—Brinton held the folder across the desk—“and then tell me what made me so cheerful. You have five minutes.”
“Don’t need ’em, sir.” Foxon took the folder and handed it straight back to the startled superintendent. “I, er, couldn’t help noticing, as I was putting it all together again—no report from PC Potter, sir. Which, er, means there’s nothing going on in Plummergen . . . at the moment,” he added, just as Brinton seemed about to smile. The burgeoning smile vanished.
“She’s in Scotland, laddie. Nowhere near this patch—nowhere near this country, thank the Lord! And I’ll thank Him a second time, for giving us such nice, peaceful, harmless crooks—more or less—to chase after, for a change. I’m getting too old for the big-time stuff. Let’s leave all that to the Yard!”
In the office of Detective Chief Superintendent Delphick, at New Scotland Yard, more reports were being studied. Detective Sergeant Bob Ranger, the Oracle’s sidekick, stretched his massive frame and yawned.
“Coffee, sir? Might help to keep us awake.”
Oracular eyebrows were raised. “No sergeant of mine is supposed to fall asleep on the job—but I have to admit,” and he stretched in his turn, “this isn’t the most gripping batch of files with which we’ve ever had to deal. Your suggestion of coffee is both timely, and apt. It is a source of much regret to me that you will be unable to fulfil it.”
Bob grinned as he pushed back his chair and rose to his full height of six-foot-seven. “Well, would you settle for coffee-flavoured machine dishwater, sir? Or we could pop down to the canteen and have something a bit nearer the real stuff. Nobody’s going to miss us for ten minutes or so . . .”
He cast a scathing glance at the heap of reports, midway between his in-tray and his out, on the desk before him. He couldn’t remember the last time he and the Oracle were both so up-to-date with their paperwork. Very odd. Of course, the holiday season was in full swing—even crooks went away sometimes, and by late August those that hadn’t were being nagged by their wives and pestered by their children—but it was odd, everything being so quiet. Unnerving, almost.
“Anne and I had a postcard from Miss Seeton this morning,” Bob remarked, as he hunted in the filing cabinet for the cache of small change on which the coffee machine at the end of the corridor depended. He paused with his hand on the tin. What had made him think of Aunt Em out of the blue like that?
“Mine arrived yesterday,” said Delphick, trying not to frown. “Didn’t I mention it? Anyway, all she says is that she’s having a good time.”
“Same as ours, then. Of course, sir”—Bob rattled the tin glumly before removing the lid—“she wrote before Mel’s story broke. I do hope she’s still enjoying herself—oh.” He tipped the contents of the tin into the palm of his hand. One five-pence piece winked forlornly up at him from the vast pink expanse. “Sorry, sir. Looks as if we’ll have to slog down to the canteen anyway, unless . . .”
They both fumbled in their trouser pockets, Delphick’s haul being an assortment of coppers, two fifty-pence pieces, and three of what, in pre-decimalisation days, had been sixpenny bits. “I’d intended popping out to the bank at lunchtime,” he explained, with a sigh.
Bob’s contribution was an even larger assortment of coppers, some florins—now known as ten-pence pieces—and two more fifty-pence coins. “So the only bob around here’s me, sir,” he said, with a chuckle. “The canteen, then? We can offload these horrors, at least.”
“Legal tender, Bob. You shouldn’t be so rude about them—though I agree they aren’t my favourite coin of the realm. You’d think we’d be used to them after however many years it is, but they wear too many holes in my pockets for my wife’s liking, and I consider them confoundedly heavy for the sum they’re nominally worth.”
Bob nodded. “How long ago is it—three, four years? And still nobody likes the things. So you have to hand it to those blighters Inspector Borden’s lot are so busy chasing, sir—pretty smart of ’em to cash in on the way everyone hates them—sorry, sir”—as the chief superintendent groaned at the unwitting pun—“and go to all the bother of forging them. Mind you, if I had their equipment, I think I’d rather wait until someone invents a pound coin, wouldn’t you? Make the game more worth the candle.”
“Sergeant Ranger, you have a criminal mind. It comes as no surprise now that there was so little cash in the tin—yet on what, I have to ask, did you spend it? Was it squandered on riotous living—on wine, and song? Any
one with such a wife as Anne has no need of women, of course. Gambling, perhaps.” Chuckling to himself, Delphick followed Bob as he marched down the corridor towards the lift. “A syndicate! I wish now that I’d locked the office door, since not even the hallowed floors of Scotland Yard seem safe from the taint of corruption. Or maybe you’re paying blackmail over incriminating photographs?”
Bob jabbed a thumb on the call-button, sighed, and gazed in stony silence at the indicator light. Sometimes the Oracle let his sense of humour run away with him so fast, it made everyone within earshot dizzy—and thank goodness in this case there wasn’t. Anyone within earshot. Who might misunderstand . . . And Bob scowled as he reproached himself for starting to sound—to think, he amended glumly—too much like Miss Seeton for his peace of mind. A couple of postcards, and she’d got the Oracle talking rubbish and him talking muddled. How on earth did she do it?
“Incriminating photographs,” Delphick mused. “I trust the offender isn’t dear old Cedric Benbow. My faith in human nature would be totally destroyed, should that prove to be the case. Might I enquire how much you have been asked to pay for the nega—Ah, good.”
The lift, with a clunk, had arrived at their floor. Bob sighed again as the doors opened: with relief, that the lift was empty. If the Oracle was going to carry on like this all the way down to the canteen . . .
“You’re right, of course.” Delphick was completely serious now. “It’s clever of them, whoever they are. Coins, of course, require less sophisticated equipment than notes, if you’re going to forge them—and, once the equipment’s up and rolling, always provided you’re careful how you release the dud stock on an unsuspecting public, you’re on an almost certain winner, I should say. And very few clues as to the identity of the coiners, or the whereabouts of their press . . . Although we could always suggest to Inspector Borden”—in a lighter tone, as they emerged from the lift on the canteen floor—“that he try searching in the Eyford area.”
Bob looked sideways at his superior. “I’ve heard quite a few Fraud blokes talking about the case, of course—but I don’t remember them mentioning a place by that name, sir.”
“And why should they? It’s my own idea entirely—or, rather, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s: which Borden, since he has no clues worth speaking of, could do worse than follow. The Engineer’s Thumb—remember? The village of Eyford, near Reading, was where the unfortunate hydraulics expert met the self-styled Colonel Lysander Stark and his meat cleaver, as well as the beautiful English woman and the morose man with the chinchilla beard: the three persons who made up the gang of coiners with whom Sherlock Holmes would have crossed swords had they not set fire to the house and escaped with a selection of sinister, bulky boxes before his arrival.”
“Oh,” said Bob; there seemed little more to say. Delphick, however, wasn’t going to leave it at that; and, as they joined the canteen queue, he went on:
“If my recollection of the story is correct, though the birds may have flown before Holmes arrived, the nickel and tin which they used in the coining process remained.” Delving once more into his trouser pocket, he pulled out one of the fifty-pence pieces. “Easy enough, I should imagine, if you have an accurate die and a heavy press. No milled edge—just seven smooth sides, plus front and back, though I believe the technical terms are obverse and reverse.”
“Heads and tails will do fine for me, sir,” said Bob, as Delphick brushed away his offer to pay for the coffee. The chief superintendent chuckled again as they threaded a path through tables and chairs towards two empty seats.
“You really must try to control that gambling streak, Sergeant Ranger. What does Anne have to say about it? I’m sure she’s as reluctant as I am to think of you living so dangerously. A quiet life has much to recommend it, don’t forget.” Then a quick sigh escaped him. “In moderation, of course. We must hope I’m not placing temptation in the way of Fate—but I suspect that many more days of this relative idleness, and you and I will be begging Inspector Borden to let us join him in his search for the coiners—who are, we must remember, almost certainly killers, as well. Old lags who claim to go straight, who have learned the art of diecasting, and who disappear from public view from time to time—and who are eventually discovered bound, gagged, tied in a sack and shot through the head—do not end up in such a fashion without, as Inspector Borden insists—rightly so, in my view—a degree of assistance from the criminal fraternity.”
Bob, wondering whether to go back for a danish pastry—it seemed a long time until lunch—was glad of the diversion. He nodded. “I bet the poor bloke tried blackmail, sir, once he’d set up the presses and what-have-you for the gang, and they wouldn’t wear it—well, nobody would, would they? Still, it’s the first real slip they’ve made so far, being careless disposing of the body and someone finding it. On the whole, they’re a clever bunch, I reckon. Very . . . restrained, sir, nothing over the top. Just enough snide to make it worth their while, but not so much that it’s easy to follow their tracks. Somebody pretty smart’s organised this particular scam, sir. Sir?”
Delphick was idly scratching with an abandoned fork at the Britannia side of another fifty-pence piece. “Extremely smart, I should say. How many people would think to check for snide? One always expects forgers to forge notes—high denomination ones, at that—not coins. And, provided the weight feels right, and everything looks in regular order . . . it’s a serious precedent, Bob. Counterfeit currency—in sufficiently large quantities—could undermine the whole economy, given enough time. If the gang grows more greedy—if the equipment falls into the wrong hands . . .
“No wonder Inspector Borden’s bothered. It’s not just that they’re ruthless enough to dispose of anyone no longer of any particular use to them, but the setup’s potentially as dangerous as anything the Yard’s had to deal with . . .
“So maybe we should be grateful for the peaceful life while it lasts.”
chapter
∼ 3 ∼
IN PLUMMERGEN, MR. Stillman raised despairing eyes to the ceiling as his entire shopful of customers abandoned all pretence of buying anything and rushed to stare at what was happening on the other side of The Street. Even Emmy Putts, caught up in the excitement, darted from her post behind the grocery counter and forced her way to the door, there to stand gaping with everyone else as Mrs. Blaine, in her most horrified squeak, demanded:
“Oh, Eric! What on earth is That Man doing now?”
Plummergen is not generally noted for having a peripatetic population. Most of its inhabitants were born there—marry and raise families there—and intend (in their own good time) to be buried there. The village harbours deep suspicions of any incomers; it takes months, often years, to make up its mind about them. In Miss Seeton’s case, as has already been noted, the passage of as many as seven years has not made it possible to reach any firm decision about her, though Miss Seeton, of course, is a special—not to say unique—case. Four or five years should be considered the usual period after which one may regard oneself as a Plummergenite of good—though not the highest—standing.
The highest standing belongs, naturally enough, to the natives, and to them alone. Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine, for example, have lived a dozen years in the place, and are now thought of as Permanent Plummergen—but only of the Second Rank. The Nuts labour joyously under the illusion that they have achieved First Rank status; they suppose that, as such ranking was awarded to their erstwhile neighbours in Ararat Cottage—neighbours whose behaviour was, to say the least of it, peculiar—then it must surely be awarded them, whose behaviour is so very public-spirited.
The Nuts are mistaken. The Dawkins of Ararat Cottage may well have been members of the Holdfast Brethren, a religious sect with its headquarters in nearby Brettenden; but what does it matter that nobody else in Plummergen has ever belonged to the Brethren—whose customs, it must be said, are more than eccentric? The Dawkins, therefore, were also seen as eccentric—but acceptably so, they having been born in the vil
lage . . . though Ararat Cottage was best avoided after dark. Just in case.
With the death of Old Mother Dawkin, last of her line, the cottage became home to an assortment of migrant incomers who would lease it for a few months, make—generally—little impact on village affairs, and then move on. Nobody local would touch it. The estate agents regarded it with despair: the minimal rent they could charge, and the rapid turnover of tenants, barely covered their administration costs: Ararat Cottage, in short, was a white elephant. What they wanted was a Siamese nobleman to take it, once and for all, off their books.
What they got was a retired First Sea Lord. Rear Admiral Bernard “Buzzard” Leighton, whose first attempt at landfall had been with his widowed sister, was a reluctant best man when Bernice married a local Group Captain—like himself retired—and, muttering darkly about Brylcreem Boys, had decided he would like a change of scene. Ararat Cottage appealed to him before he’d even seen it: somewhere, he said, for an old sea-dog to rest his wandering ark at last; and, with typical Naval efficiency, he offered cash down for a quick sale at a reduced price, an offer which the estate agents were delighted—and relieved—to accept.
The admiral had now been installed in Ararat Cottage for five days: days during which his neighbours had worn themselves almost to shreds in running repeatedly from the front of Lilikot to the back. Nothing Admiral Leighton might do, the Nuts were determined, must escape their notice—and not much (they being experts at the game) did, though his most notable characteristic hardly needed their help to commend it to village curiosity. Ginger beards, however neatly trimmed, are rare birds in Plummergen. The suspicion with which the admiral’s was viewed was tempered only slightly by the news that to make the cottage—he was heard to say—shipshape, he had brought in a team of builders from nearby Brettenden. The builders, being local, were duly pumped as to their employer’s intentions. He wanted everything set to rights within the week, they said—had insisted on it—had proposed to invoke penalty clauses if it was not.
Miss Seeton Goes to Bat (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 14) Page 2