Miss Seeton Paints the Town (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 10)

by Hamilton Crane

  Miss Seeton Paints the Town

  A Miss Seeton Mystery

  Hamilton Crane

  Series creator Heron Carvic

  FARRAGO

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Note from the Publisher

  Preview

  Also Available

  About the Miss Seeton series

  About Heron Carvic and Hamilton Crane

  Copyright

  chapter

  ~1~

  “GOOD GRIEF!” SUPERINTENDENT Chris Brinton of the Ashford constabulary blinked, and stared, rubbing his eyes. “What in heaven’s name did you have for breakfast today, Foxon?”

  Detective Constable Foxon looked puzzled. His superior did not normally display so much interest in his dietary habits. “Just the usual, sir. Porridge to start with—”

  “Porridge? In the middle of summer? I always suspected you might be mad, Foxon, but being a good copper, I’ve been waiting for proof. Proof which you’ve now given me.”

  “But, sir, I like porridge. Soaked overnight and cooked properly, of course, and none of this serving it with sugar, or honey, or treacle. A good sprinkling of salt, that’s what decent porridge needs, sir,” said Foxon, warming to his theme. “Sea salt, if you can get it—” He broke off as the superintendent groaned. “Something wrong, sir?”

  “Everything’s wrong, if the investigation of crime in this part of Kent is being carried out by lunatics like you—and don’t remind me that I gave you the job, laddie. It’s too early in the morning. Go on telling me what you had for breakfast—for the sake of my own sanity, I need a solution to the mystery.”

  “It’s no mystery, sir. I have the same every day: first the porridge, then a good fry-up—bacon, sausage, a couple of eggs, and some fried bread, then a few slices of toast and marmalade to finish up with, sir.”

  Brinton shuddered, then sighed. “Well,” he said, “it had to happen in the end, I suppose. I fought a good fight, Foxon, but now it seems I’m just as crazy as you. I must be—it’s taken longer to lose my marbles, but they’ve definitely rolled away to join yours. Because I could have sworn, laddie”—he leaned forward across his desk to jab a menacing forefinger at his baffled subordinate—“that you must have eaten a good sack or two of fertiliser for breakfast and washed it down with a few gallons of weed killer. What other explanation could there possibly be for that horrible flowery excrescence sprouting on your chest? Or is it merely the delusion of a lunatic?”

  Foxon, who had been growing increasingly bemused by his superintendent’s words, now relaxed and grinned. “You’ve hurt my feelings, sir. Don’t you like my tie? Someone I’m very fond of gave it to me—it’s the latest fashion.”

  “It’s hideous. It looks as if you’ve been molested by a manic exhibit from the Chelsea Flower Show. The very least you could do is hand out sunglasses to poor beggars like me who’ve got to look at it first thing in the morning. And, talking of glasses, if you don’t want some short-sighted old dame to do you a spot of unwitting bodily harm with a pair of shears, better keep well away from herbaceous borders in case you get picked by mistake.” All of a sudden, Brinton became serious. “You’re sure this is what the youngsters—heaven help us all—are wearing nowadays?”

  Foxon knew his chief’s thought processes almost as well as he knew his own. “I’d fit in fine, sir. No question.”

  “You may have to.” Brinton shuffled the papers on his desk. “Petty vandalism may be what they’re calling it now, but if these yobs’re allowed to get away with it, they won’t be stopping there. Things will start to hot up, Foxon, and we want to be ready with the extinguisher before they burst into flames. I hoped we’d seen the last of the Choppers. We popped ’em all inside for a fair old stretch after that business in Plummergen, and anybody normal would’ve learned their lesson and come out of the nick like a flock of little lambs—but this lot stirring up trouble now is the younger generation, if you ask me, been taught a few tricks by its older brothers, who’re too wise to get involved again themselves, but don’t mind passing along the odd tip on how to make our lives a misery. And then, while we’re busy sorting out what baby brother’s been doing, we haven’t the time to keep an eye on anybody else—or so they hope.”

  “You want me to try infiltrating the gang, sir? Find out what they’re really up to?”

  Brinton eyed him thoughtfully. The flared trousers of deep, rich burgundy, artfully concealing the platform-soled shoes of sparkling white; the wide-collared shirt, almost emerald in its greenness; the flapping floral neckwear that had prompted the superintendent’s outburst; the shoulder-length hair which Brinton could never quite bring himself to comment on. He suspected Foxon of putting his wavy locks in curlers every time he washed them, and dreaded finding out that the young man used conditioner as well.

  “But you certainly look the part,” he acknowledged with a scowl. “Maybe a bit long in the tooth for the Choppers, revised version, and you’re rather too clean-looking to mix unnoticed with gentry of the sort we’re worrying about—if they take a bath more than once in a blue moon, I’d be very much surprised. Still, perhaps they’d take you for some kind of harmless eccentric.”

  “Doing my own thing, sir,” suggested Foxon. “Peace and love, tolerance, letting everyone do what they feel like.”

  “And a better recipe for anarchy I never hope to hear,” snorted the superintendent, thumping his fist on the desk. “Where should we be if everybody did exactly what they felt like whenever they felt like it? These damned Choppers, now—what they seem to feel like is smashing windows and bashing chunks out of people’s garden fences, breaking into telephone boxes and helping themselves to the cash, joyriding in stolen cars all over the place hooting their horns in the middle of the night—need I go on?”

  Foxon, despite everything, tried to be fair. “No, sir. But I think the peace-and-love lot always add ‘provided it doesn’t upset anybody else’ to the basic theory—”

  “Upset? I’m more than upset, laddie, I’m furious. With the Choppers and their friends who’re starting to make life such a misery for the people in this town—and with us, for not being able to catch ’em. They’ve grown cunning, Foxon, and I don’t like it. Their big brothers have been coaching the blighters rather too well.” He glared once more at the sheaf of papers on his desk. “And if we’re being realistic—don’t let’s try kidding ourselves, Foxon. You’re far too normal, despite your ghastly taste in clothes—you’d stick out like a sore thumb among that shower, no matter how good a detective you might be. You’d never carry it off.”

  “I could try, sir.” The detective constable’s expression was grim. “They had a go at my grandmother’s cottage a few nights ago—uprooted her new bedding plants and made a bonfire of ’em in the front garden, with her gate, as well. She’s not on the phone, and she was scared half to death—said they were
dancing and yelling like mad things, enough to curdle your blood to hear ’em at it, she said.”

  Brinton nodded. “I’ve read the report, of course, but with the surnames being different I didn’t realise . . . and I’m sorry about it, Foxon.” He sat up suddenly. “So that’s why you asked for a couple of days off!”

  “Compassionate leave, sir, and I’ve got the backache to prove it. Every one of those blessed plants was replaced, and the burnt patch of the front lawn seeded over, and when she’s chosen a new gate, I’m going to fit that for her, too.” Foxon rubbed his lumbar region thoughtfully. “The tie’s by way of a thank-you present from her, sir, though of course I chose it really. Gran just came along for the fun—and she was even more, er, forthright about my choice than you were, sir. She’s not afraid to speak her mind—not usually, that is.” His face hardened again. “But she was sure as hell scared the other night . . .”

  “You’re itching to nobble them, aren’t you? For which I can’t say I blame you in the least, Foxon, but if it’s got personal with you, it could turn nasty—distort your judgment, maybe make you take risks you wouldn’t otherwise have done—and I don’t like the thought of any of my men running unnecessary risks.”

  “I’d take care, sir—”

  “No. And that’s an order, laddie—no heroics, understand?” Brinton glared. “Foxon?”

  “If you say so, sir. I suppose you were right in the first place, about me not fitting in very well, anyway . . .”

  “And there’s always the risk—the biggest problem of all—that they’d recognise you, remember. That they’d recognize anybody from Ashford, if it comes to that.” And the superintendent began to brood.

  While he did so, Foxon slumped lower on his chair as he tried to polish the toe of one shoe on the back of a convenient trouser leg. When he dropped his eyes under Brinton’s challenge, he’d spotted a few specks of dust, which offended his fashionable sensibilities. Not for Foxon the dirty sneakers, unsavoury-looking jeans, and ripped old leather jacket of—

  “Sleaze Arbuthnott, sir!” Inspired, Foxon sat upright. “He’d be perfect for the job, if we could get him.”

  “Who? No, wait—the name sounds familiar—Arbuthnott . . . something’s saying ‘tennis’ to me. But I don’t think he could possibly be our white hope for Wimbledon. Why are you pulling those horrible faces at me, Foxon?”

  “Trying to give you a clue, sir. I’m twitching my nose, like a rabbit does, and”—he stamped his foot hard on the floor—“I’m thumping a warning signal, sir—”

  “Of course, the Thumper case! How could I forget? For a moment there, Foxon, I thought you really had gone out of your tiny mind. But it’s all coming back to me now. Trish Thumper, one of England’s genuine Wimbledon white hopes, and that poor devil who tried to kidnap her, and asking Sussex if they wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on the suspect once we had him in the frame. Harry Furneux at Hastings sent the Arbuthnott lad to play the slot machines in that Cranhurst pub with a microphone stuck in the back pocket of his jeans—and wasn’t he in at the kill with Bob Ranger when chummie tried to snatch young Trish at Glyndebourne?”

  “That’s him, sir. He’s a scruffy-looking chap”—Foxon regarded his own natty attire with satisfaction and tried not to smirk—“but he’s a damned good detective. I bet he could infiltrate the Choppers easily, no question.”

  Brinton brooded a while longer, then made up his mind. “It’s always worth a try,” he said, reaching for the telephone. Then he withdrew his hand as if it had been burned. “Hang on a minute, Foxon. You called him Sleaze, and no doubt it suits him, but that’s surely not his real name. I can hardly ask the Fiery Furnace to lend us a plainclothes man if I don’t know what he’s called, can I?”

  “I think he was christened Julian, sir.”

  Brinton gazed heavily at his subordinate, but Foxon’s face showed no hint of mischief. “I’ll take your word for it, laddie,” said the superintendent, dialling briskly. “And as this was your bright idea, you might as well hang around to find out what happens . . . Hastings police? Could I speak to Inspector Furneux, please?. . . Superintendent Brinton from Ashford . . . Yes, in Kent.” He rolled his eyes. “Over the borders, in the wild country . . .”

  The telephone receiver informed him that he was being put straight through, and there followed a series of clicks and a dull buzzing sound. Brinton sighed; then brightened.

  “Hello, Harry? Chris Brinton from Ashford here.”

  “And let me congratulate you, sir, on the arrival of the telephone in the sticks,” came the greeting from Inspector Harry Furneux of the Sussex constabulary. “I’d have expected communication by tom-tom, or smoke signal—or carrier pigeon, if things were desperate. Which I suppose,” he added, “they are, or you wouldn’t be ringing me. Always glad to be of service to our less fortunate colleagues. So, what can I do for you?”

  “You can lend me Sleaze Arbuthnott,” Brinton informed his flippant friend. “If you can spare him, that is.”

  “Now, he’s a good man. One of our best youngsters—”

  “Which is why I’d like to borrow him, Harry. Our own youngsters are too well-known around here, never mind being not young enough really—they wouldn’t fit in so well. But your sleazy character’d be just the ticket . . .” And Brinton gave Inspector Furneux a potted version of what the Choppers had been up to, and what he feared they might do next. The Fiery Furnace listened in an understanding silence to the gloomy narration of his colleague.

  “Well,” he said as Brinton concluded his summary, “yes, I see what you mean, because we’ve been having similar problems down here. One theory is that it’s the summer sunshine boiling their stupid brains and sending them cuckoo—that, and possibly drugs, just to spice things up a little.”

  “That’s what we’re wondering about, too. But it’s hard to infiltrate a local crowd like the Choppers with everybody tending to know everybody, the way they do in a town like Ashford—or Hastings.” Brinton sat forward, his eyes bright. “You’d like to nobble your lot, and I’d like to nobble mine, and we face the same difficulties. Shortage of manpower being not the least among them. But, Harry, suppose we did a deal? You lend me Arbuthnott, and I’ll send you one of my men, who wants to see a bit of action on this.” Foxon’s yelp of delight echoed round the superintendent’s office and evidently made itself heard in Hastings. Brinton grinned at the receiver in his hand.

  “Yes, Harry, that was him. Foxon by name, and a regular contrast to young Sleaze, from what I recall. None of this merging into the background for Foxon—he dresses like an artist’s palette, so I’ll send over a pair of sunglasses with him when he comes . . .”

  “Which reminds me,” remarked Furneux, “talking of artists—when they said it was you on the phone, I began to wonder—how’s that Miss Seeton of yours nowadays?”

  A groan burst from the superintendent’s lips, which had suddenly turned pale. “For heaven’s sake, Harry, don’t go tempting fate! This Chopper business is nothing to do with Miss Seeton, thank goodness.” He scowled at Foxon. “And you can stop grinning like that, laddie, or the deal’s off, garden gate or no garden gate, understand?”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Foxon, not sounding it, while the telephone remarked in the stricken superintendent’s ear:

  “You’re forgetting what you told me once, sir. About how if she can get herself tangled up in a case somehow, she will—your Miss Seeton, that is. There was that affair of the Lalique jewelery, and the Dick Turpin crowd I gather she pretty well caught single-handed—so what you really mean, surely, is that it’s nothing to do with her . . . yet.”

  chapter

  ~2~

  MISS SEETON WAS not thinking about the Ashford Choppers and their vandalism; she was not even thinking about Mr. Jessyp’s recent proposal—or, she hastily corrected herself, perhaps one should say proposition—though that also might lead to a degree of . . . misunderstanding. Miss Seeton, even in the privacy of her bedroom, blushed. Suggestion, she
decided in a fluster, would be the best word . . . although even that . . .

  “Oh, dear,” said Miss Seeton with a guilty sigh as her eyes fell upon her well-worn copy of Yoga and Younger Every Day, and she forced her wayward thoughts back to the candle flame upon which she had been attempting to focus. But her guilt had been so great, her sigh so gusty, that the flame of the candle had flickered out.

  “Oh, dear,” said Miss Seeton. She was beginning to suspect that she would not achieve even pratyahara, the withdrawal or preliminary stage of yogic concentration, never mind the deeper techniques of dharana, dhyana, and—rarest and highest of all—samadhi. It was doubtless easy for the author to say that the ability to concentrate at will came as a result of strict self-discipline: years of practice and learning, Miss Seeton knew, went into the makings of a yogi. Her own half-dozen years of practice had certainly resulted in a suppleness of body—especially her hitherto troublesome knees—that she would never have believed possible: the advertisement had promised so very much, and for once an advertisement had not misled.

  Perhaps—she blushed again—it had been an unsuspected hint of unladylike pride in her physical achievements that had prompted her, after all this time, to think about extending her daily routine to include some of the more esoteric pages at the end of the book. Perhaps she should have left well alone . . .

  And yet . . . although she had bought neither candles nor matches for the especial purpose—living in the country, one should be prepared for stormy weather and power cuts even in summer—Miss Seeton felt that it might be regarded as wasteful, as well as weak-willed, to give up the attempt at trataka without one final effort. Apart from other considerations, she was curious to learn whether the facility of inner visualisation would (if she ever managed it) in any way assist her artist’s outward eye. Not that one regarded oneself as a particularly gifted artist, but maybe for that very reason one should explore every avenue . . .

  Miss Seeton leaned forward from her suggested straight-spined pose and picked up the box of matches. She slid it open, shook out a match, and struck it briskly along the side: the familiar acrid smell spiraled through the air as she applied the flame to the smoking wick of the candle, and she held her breath as the flame flickered a little, then in a quick burst caught the wick and began to burn.