Miss Seeton, By Appointment (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 6)

by Hampton Charles

  To his own amazement Sir Sebastian Prothero had, in spite of his ghastly experience, slept remarkably well. Perhaps the human organism could only cope with one nightmare in any given period of twenty-four hours, and his had been the long walk back to Brettenden and the ride on the bus—fortunately he had been the only passenger and the damp patch he had left on the seat had probably dried out by now. The night porter at the White Swan had been too engrossed in a TV program to notice the state he was in, and his second long hot bath that day had calmed him down.

  Now, after a quick shower and a shave, and dressed perforce in the same clothes as he had worn on arrival the previous day, he looked at the soggy heap of new but now probably ruined garments he had so recently paid good money for and realized (a) that he was good and mad, (b) that he was damned if he was going to let that creature make him abandon the whole thing, and (c) that on the whole he’d probably be feeling a lot more unhappy if he had woken up to face a murderer in the shaving mirror.

  In spite of everything there was no reason why his plan should fail. Maybe he’d let Miss Seeton get him down unnecessarily. Maybe she really was as naïve and innocent as she seemed, and just had a talent for getting in the way. The more he thought about it the more it seemed it could have been an accidental gesture that had toppled him into the canal.

  Thank goodness even in his extremity he’d found the strength and determination while waiting for the bus in Brettenden to make that late evening telephone call to Marigold Naseby at the George and Dragon. He’d been in such a foul mood, it’d probably scared the pants off her. The stupid little cow had hardly said a word: just listened to his brief repetition of the appalling things that would happen to her if she let him down, and then in her flat, common little voice said yes, she would do like what he said. Chuck the stuff out of the window of the lav at eleven o’clock and then wait for ten minutes. In the light of morning he realized anew what a good idea that had been. The girl was obviously so abjectly terrified, she would follow his instructions without question. She’d probably emerge from the bathroom in the end like an automaton, and very likely as white as a sheet.

  If she looked awful enough, Benbow and the others might even be taken in for a while and believe she really had been menaced at knifepoint and coerced into handing over whatever jewelry she had been wearing. Only for a while, though. The story was so preposterous—and she would no doubt recite it in such a wooden, unconvincing way—that the police would soon shake her down.

  Sooner or later—sooner, probably—she’d admit she’d thrown the stuff out of the window . . . and the reason why. And what good would that do the flatfoots? Not much point in their searching the area outside the window. He’d be carrying a few twigs to sweep the earth behind him and wreck any footprints he made. Not that there’d be many: the long dry spell had left the ground as hard as concrete. And in any case, Benbow’s crew milling about in the grounds for the best part of a week would have made a fine old mess around the house. Mind you, one mustn’t underrate the craftiness of the forensic johnnies these days, so the cheap plimsolls he’d be wearing on his feet would be disposed of in two well-separated garage forecourt trash cans on the way to London. The sort that were emptied every day.

  That would leave the police with nothing but a tale about a voice on the phone, a voice that had threatened a featherheaded dollybird with a roughing up at the hands of three goons who did not exist. They might look into the business of the photos if she blabbed about that, and grill the fellow who took them. Well, let them. No problem for master criminal Prothero there. He had located this character Harry Manning by dropping the odd oblique question into casual conversations with some of his acquaintances among the paparazzi who hung about the Club Mondial, sure. So what? Marigold Naseby and her rocketing career were typical nine-day wonder topics of conversation among them, and even if the fuzz started asking questions, none of them would remember Sebastian Prothero as showing any unusual interest or curiosity.

  Manning himself he had never met, and if they were ever to encounter each other, Manning certainly wouldn’t imagine for a second that the suave, upper-class front man at the Club Mondial could possibly have anything to do with the disappearance of the set of cheesecake pictures from his untidy, hopelessly insecure studio. No, whatever the girl said, the police would have to conclude that the invisible man had made off with several priceless pieces of Lalique jewelry. At the very minimum there ought to be a couple of rings, a pendant or other neckpiece, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet, maybe more. And all wrapped in plenty of toilet paper to keep them together. Phase Two, the negotiations with the insurance people, would be a real test of ingenuity as well as an excellent excuse for a very long holiday abroad; but as for the heist itself, oh, what a sweet little caper!

  Sailing as he was under false colors at the hotel, Prothero paid his bill in cash, which the receptionist who had registered him the previous day accepted with a melting smile, then went out to his car. The loot from Melbury Manor was, needless to say, perfectly safe, and this fact earned the surprised and gratified attendant another tip: just ten bob this time, but still pretty handsome.

  And now it was heigh-ho for the open road and to hell with Miss Seeton.

  “We don’t of course know where he will have spent the night,” Chief Inspector Brinton said, “and we don’t know where he is now, except that he certainly isn’t anywhere in the grounds yet. However, he’s specified eleven o’clock for the pickup, and he’s going to want to be in place at least twenty minutes or so beforehand, wouldn’t you say, Sir George? In other words, about forty-five minutes from now.”

  He sat back in his chair in the Rytham Hall library, trying hard to conceal his irritation at having had to admit the head of the household to his confidence at all. At this stage, he firmly believed, the whole thing ought to be purely a matter for the police. But unfortunately the chief constable, who thought a lot of George Colveden, had probably been right in quoting President Lyndon Johnson—in a bowdlerized form—and pointing out that on the whole it would be safer to have the old boy inside the tent, er, spitting out, than outside the tent spitting in.

  “Shouldn’t wonder. Won’t want to hang around too long if he’s got any sense.”

  “Right. Now, we’re counting on your help, General,” Brinton said cunningly, “and what I’d like to suggest is that you might be good enough to post yourself inside the house. On the top floor, in a room overlooking the drive and the main gates.” And as far away as possible from the action, he added to himself. Might even be a good idea to turn the key on the old fool to keep him from getting underfoot.

  “Don’t you mean overlookin’ the back? You said the feller’s going to be lurkin’ round there somewhere, in sight of the ground-floor ablutions.”

  “Precisely. And with your professional grasp of tactics, you’ll recognize that if our man is the smarmy Cuthbert we take him for, he won’t skulk in furtively. Remember, he has no idea we’re on to him. No, he’ll very likely stroll straight in through the main gates as bold as brass, counting on being taken for one of Mr. Benbow’s assistants. Now, we don’t want anybody to be in view, certainly not one of my men. Chummy won’t be expecting—”

  “Chummy? Who’s he?”

  “The villain, sir. In the police we refer to an unidentified criminal we’re currently interested in as Chummy.”

  “Do you, now? Interesting. Like ‘Fritz’ during the war. Or your ‘Johnny Gurkha’ I suppose. It’s a kind of dog food as well, you know; we give it to ours. Or I do, usually. It bothers them to get it from anybody else. Chummy Chunks.”

  “Ah. Quite so, sir.” Brinton felt himself beginning to lose his grip on reality, and pressed on hurriedly. “Anyway, as I was saying, the villain won’t be expecting to be challenged, and of course he mustn’t be, because the whole point is to catch him redhanded; but thanks to you we shall know the moment he’s arrived. And furthermore, if he should by any chance slip through our fingers and have the ga
ll to try to go out the same way—”

  “I shall be at my observation post with both barrels of a shotgun loaded and ready to pepper the bounder’s backside. Soon settle his hash between us.”

  “Is it wise to let him sit upstairs with a shotgun, sir?” Ranger asked after Sir George had bustled off.

  “No, I shouldn’t think it is, but it’ll keep him out of our hair for a while. Besides, you know and I know that Chummy won’t be going out that way. Not on his own, at all events. He won’t be going out at all, except in a squad car. Foxon’s already in place in the toolshed outside with a clear view of a fifty-yard arc from the lavatory window, and you’ll be off to hold his hand and wipe his nose for him in a minute.” He looked at Ranger’s huge bulk approvingly. “If you can’t bring him down with a rugger tackle and keep him down, it can’t be done. We’ve got a couple of chaps under cover watching the far side of the back wall, and another one with P.C. Potter in the field that overlooks the place Chummy must have hidden his car the day Miss Seeton clobbered him. There’s nowhere else remotely convenient, so I expect he’ll use it again. Potter’ll tip us off when he turns up there.”

  Brinton hauled himself up out of the chair. “Come on, shift your backside. I honestly think we’ve got this one taped. S’long as nothing’s scared him off. Sure the bit of crumpet didn’t give anything away when he rang her last night? She’s none too bright if you ask me.”

  “I’ve got to agree with you there, sir,” Ranger said, “but after we managed to persuade her to go back to the George and Dragon yesterday I spent a long time coaching her in what to say and what not to say, and this morning she swore she’d done it word for word. I wish we could have attached a tape recorder to the phone extension in her room, but that would have meant putting far too many people in the picture. All the same, I’m not worried on her account. Even now she’s still obviously so terrified of him that I’m sure he won’t have suspected anything. What does bother me is that we’re going to have all these extra people around this morning. I’m afraid Cedric Benbow got a bit carried away inviting all and sundry. On the other hand he does seem to have kept his lip buttoned.”

  “It’s only three extra, isn’t it? I know La Seeton’s here already, but then you said she’ll earn her keep because the girl’s taken such a shine to her. She’ll keep her up to the mark before zero hour and calm her down after it’s all over.”

  “Yes, sir. And then there’s Benbow’s two VIP guests from London. Mr. Szabo the art gallery owner, and the titled gentleman.”

  “Sir Wormelow Tump. Crikey, what a name to go to bed with. They’re due any minute. Nobody else, is there?”

  “Not that I know of, sir, but that’s quite enough. I just hope Benbow manages to keep them well clear of the fun and games.”

  “So do I—hang on a minute—” Brinton’s own walkie-talkie emitted a squawking noise and he picked it up and pressed a button. “Birdlime One receiving you. . . . Don’t hold it so close to your cake hole, Potter, I can’t make out a word you’re saying. Yes, that’s a bit better, but there’s no need to shout either. Down the track by the wall, you say? Just the job. No, you two stay where you are in sight of his car. Taken the registration number, have you? Good, what is it? I’ll jot it down and have it checked. Right, I’ll read it back . . . okay? Good, Birdlime One out.”

  chapter

  ~17~

  HAVING TRAVELED in separate compartments as far as Ashford, where they had to change trains, Ferencz Szabo and Sir Wormelow Tump met on the Brettenden branch line platform. At that stage they were no more than casual acquaintances, but they conversed amicably until the local-stopping train reached Brettenden station, by which time they were getting along splendidly. Szabo in any case respected Tump’s expertise, and was delighted to find himself tête-à-tête with him. He was also acutely aware that the good opinion of a man of Tump’s social eminence and with his connections could do a great deal for the future prosperity of the Szabo Gallery, so he set out to charm him. Ferencz Szabo was very good at that.

  Tump for his part was diverted by the dapper man with the Hungarian accent. Foreigners were a peculiar lot, of course, and in general he held that it was a useful rule of thumb to trust Bond Street dealers about as far as you could throw them. Then again, this fellow, for all his clothes, his cigarette holder, and his Penhaligon cologne, was, alas, not one of us . . . strange how one could always tell. Nevertheless he had a fund of amusingly scandalous gossip about people they both knew, and was able to confirm Tump’s suspicions about a certain dealer in Munich. Yes, one could have been stuck with a much more tedious companion than Szabo.

  In the station forecourt they found no taxi as such, but an elderly man sitting in a car that looked not a great deal younger than himself. He seemed loath to set aside the copy of The Sporting Life in which he had been immersed but eventually admitted that both he and his vehicle were available for hire and agreed to take the two men the five miles to Rytham Hall near Plummergen. He was almost as good as his word: the car made ominous noises from the outset but did not wheeze to a complete standstill until they were within sight of the gates. There Szabo paid its owner off over Tump’s protests and they set out to walk the short distance remaining, leaving the driver peering disconsolately into the bowels of the engine.

  Chief Inspector Brinton had just arrived back in the library after a final brief conference with Foxon and Ranger in the toolshed when a great bellow from upstairs shattered his relative calm.

  “YOU THERE, BRINTON? Up here, at the double, man!”

  Reminding himself grimly that he had himself appointed this ancient warrior as an observer, and moreover that he was a JP and the master of the house, Brinton sighed and began to mount the staircase. Sir George met him on the upstairs landing. “He’s arrived! Just as you thought, strolling up the drive as though he owns the place. Chummy’s a confoundedly cool customer. Done up to the nines, and brought an accomplice with him. Seedy-looking character, bit long in the tooth for a job like this, I should have thought, but he’s probably an expert safe-blower or something. And they’ve had the gall to leave their getaway car in clear view—driver’s pretending to fiddle with the engine.”

  Very gently, so as not to precipitate a genuine crisis, Brinton caused the double barrels of Sir George’s shotgun to point somewhere other than in his own direction. “Um, perhaps it would be better to leave the gun upstairs, sir. Right, now let’s go and have a look, shall we?”

  Two minutes later the chief inspector gazed down from the attic window at the spectacle of Ferencz Szabo and Sir Wormelow Tump chatting animatedly as they cut across the lawn toward the part of the gardens where he knew Cedric Benbow and his entourage were currently working with Marigold Naseby. Then he turned, binoculars in hand, to Sir George Colveden.

  “My word, sir, nobody’s going to get past you, I can see that.” Sir George nodded sternly, but looked slightly sheepish as Brinton went on. “Um, actually, though, those two men are all right. They’re guests of Cedric Benbow. And that’s old Mr. Baxter from Brettenden out there in the lane messing about with his car: it’s probably broken down again. I expect he brought them from the station.”

  “Really. Ah, well. Should have remembered about them. Made a bit of a chump of myself. Heat of battle, I s’pose.”

  “Call it a dry run, shall we, sir? Now if you’d be good enough to keep watch again, I’ll get back downstairs. Oh, one last thing—We’re counting on total silence inside the house for a least ten minutes either side of zero hour. Agreed, sir?”

  “Mum’s the word.”

  So far, so good. The car was safely tucked away in that perfect spot that might have been made for it: not so carefully concealed as to make anybody who did notice it suspicious, but well out of casual sight. And there hadn’t been a soul about to see him stroll casually down the track that ran at right angles to the lane, along the side of the Rytham Hall grounds, which were bounded there by a mellow old red-brick wall.

 
Not that it would have mattered if anybody had been about: a passerby would see in Prothero a simple rambler in casual clothes, a knapsack on his back, peaceably enjoying the Kentish countryside. Nature was collaborating wholeheartedly by arranging for a few fluffy white clouds to drift decoratively across the otherwise clear sky and for birds to twitter in the approved fashion. Man, too, was doing his bit, for a farm tractor in use somewhere not too far away laid a neighborly wash of sound over the scene, as if emphasizing its everyday normality.

  The house itself was invisible from the point at which Prothero stopped, but he knew exactly where he was because the tops of the group of trees he had noted when scrutinizing the exterior of the house in his telephone-repairman guise showed above the wall.

  The wall itself presented no problem to a man who had on more occasions than he cared to remember run the gauntlet of the obstacle course at Sandhurst. He had been a good bit younger then, true, but on the other hand he’d been wearing boots, carrying a rifle, and humping a large quantity of gear on his back. To be able instead to wear the light gym shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt into which he’d changed after parking the car more than made up for the intervening years of good living. And the little knapsack that within, let’s see, half an hour or so would contain the loot was feather-light on his back.

  A quick look round, a conveniently placed boulder that gave him a good eight inches advantage to start with, a leap, a scramble with hands, elbows, a knee, and a foot, and Sir Sebastian Prothero was lying flat, comfortably balanced on top of the wall. His heart was thumping not so much as a result of his exertions but because that had been the first risky part, when he had simply had to trust to luck that nobody had chosen precisely that moment to wander through the trees on the other side. But fortune favors the bold, and the initial assault had been carried out according to plan. Even trickier moments lay ahead, but from now on he’d at least be able to see where he was going.