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

by Hamilton Crane

  “Strange,” mused Mel as Miss Seeton yielded and went to collect her original sketch, “how she always needs bullying—make that coaxing—before she comes up with the goods. I can’t believe she’s ashamed of her stuff, but her reaction puzzles me. She never seems to realise, does she—”

  She broke off as Miss Seeton, pinker still, emerged from the french windows with another sketch in her hand. “Would anyone,” she enquired, uncomfortable, “care for another cup of tea?” Evidently she had no wish to watch while they all studied her sketch that didn’t seem to make sense. Taking pity on her, everyone said that they would indeed care, and, relieved, she went back into the house, leaving her three friends to pore over her drawing.

  “Strictly speaking, Miss Forby,” Delphick said, politely placing the sketch directly in front of Mel on the table, so that he and Bob had to lean across to look, “this sketch is official property—by virtue of the fact that the artist is a retained police consultant—and you really shouldn’t be looking at it, let alone commenting on it. Which I am sure, of course, that you had no intention of doing, had you?”

  Mel flashed a knowing look at him, but said nothing. For a long moment there was silence.

  “It reminds me,” said Mel at last, “of Some Like It Hot—that era, anyway. The costumes—flappers, fringes, those long bead necklaces—looks as if they’re going to start up a Charleston any time now, doesn’t it?”

  Delphick laid Miss Seeton’s second sketch, over which she had studiously laboured, beside her first inspired scene of the nightclub dancers. “This one”—he tapped it with a thoughtful finger—“is just what I expected—a copy. It looks like what it is—a burned-out building. Any one of a hundred artistic workhorses could have produced it. But the other . . .”

  The nightclub scene was swiftly sketched, figures drawn in quick pencil strokes in the background, a general impression of the frenetic lifestyle which had been so skilfully depicted in the movie to which Mel had referred. Nobody was drinking, however: or, if they were, it was restrained, and in the background. The two foreground figures had neither glasses in their hands nor bottles on the table beside them.

  “So probably no bootlegging connection,” murmured Mel, a wary eye on Delphick. “And most likely no police raid any minute, nor guys with machine guns in violin cases . . .”

  “You must brush up on your British history, Miss Forby. England never suffered Prohibition, except under Cromwell, and that of another nature altogether,” Delphick told her, but absently. This was no time for badinage: he had to make sense of Miss Seeton’s drawing, and preferably before she came back and grew uncomfortable again.

  A man and a woman stood facing each other in what was clearly a nightclub. She wore, as Mel had pointed out, the Twenties vamp-like costume—straight fringed dress, and long strings of beads—the effect heightened by her bobbed hair. With one hand she had drawn the man close to her and looped a knotted string of black beads around his neck: Miss Seeton had somehow contrived to give this delicate fetter a lustrous, expensive air. The imprisoned man regarded his fair captor with a look of burning intensity: in the near background, another man watched them, equally intense, and ignoring the livelier group behind him.

  “Wish someone thought I was worth a black pearl necklace,” said Mel, thinking of Thrudd Banner and brooding on her birthday. He’d taken her out for a slap-up meal (three weeks late—he’d been away at the proper time), but it would have been nice to have some more tangible sign of his affections. Ordinary pearls, Mel thought, had too much of a twin-set, tweeded, unexciting air: black pearls, she felt, sounded as if they’d make her feel dangerous, moody, interesting, raffish . . .

  “Knotted black pearls,” said Delphick. “The prominent feature of this drawing—and she’d already heard about the crime before I told her, she said so. Which is probably the simple explanation for all this, and there’s no more to it than her subconscious memory—”

  “You said yourself, sir,” broke in Bob, protesting, “we can trust Miss Seeton to give us what we want. All we have to do is interpret what she’s really showing us, and then—well, then we know what she means.” He went red, coughed, and pushed back his chair. “I, er, think I’ll go and ask her if she wants a hand in the kitchen,” he said; and went.

  “Bless the boy,” said Mel. “Rushing to the defence of his dear Aunt Em and tying himself in knots like that.”

  “Loyalty’s no bad thing,” Delphick reminded her. “And he’s perfectly right. We mustn’t dismiss this as what it superficially appears to represent—oh, it is a nightclub scene, and she’s echoing what she’s heard—Notley Black, and knotted black pearls—it’s obvious. So obvious that there has to be some other meaning behind it—which is what sooner—or later,” and he sighed, “we have to work out—if for no other reason,” he concluded, rallying, with a grin, “than to give you your promised scoop, Miss Forby.”

  To which Mel replied, with her own grin, as Bob emerged with a tray in his hands, followed by Miss Seeton: “Good for you, Oracle. I knew I could rely on Scotland Yard . . .”

  Plummergen, with its strong sense of identity, was not slow to volunteer for Sir George’s Village Watch scheme, in view of the various depredations to which it had recently been subjected. There was a strongly held opinion that most of the blame for these occurrences should be laid at Murreystone’s collective door: the rival parish being, after all, only five miles distant. Much could be done under cover of dark to sabotage neighbouring hopes of a prize in the Best Kept Village Competition: and Murreystone was known to be harbouring a more-than-usually-intense grudge after the loss of its hall, for which it felt that Plummergen, in some unspecified way, was probably to blame.

  Any husbands, brothers, or sons reluctant to offer their services to the Night Watch Men (as the Colveden volunteers were soon called) were given short shrift by their womenfolk, who eschewed the Lysistrata technique for more certain methods. Lumpy custard, late meals, judicious nagging, and aspersions of cowardice soon subdued this feeble pacifist spirit: it was not enough to claim a need for eight hours’ sleep a night, or to suggest that there would be enough help without adding more. Plummergen’s blood was up.

  Everyone was so fired with enthusiasm that Sir George was able to pick and choose his team. Old men, all women of whatever age (Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine were a vociferous lobby on the Liberation ticket, but retired, worsted), and of course all children were denied any part of the proceedings. The night was divided into two-hour periods, the men into groups of four, each group to patrol its given sector until relieved by its successor. There would be a half-hour handover period for exchange of information and tactics, as necessary; thus, apart from the first and last watches of the night, when traces of daylight should lessen the risk of enemy activity, there would never be fewer than six men on duty in any given area.

  The standing orders were for the patrols to keep watch on Plummergen’s main street and immediate surrounding areas, never forgetting that it was possible to reach Murreystone, and for Murreystone to reach them, by side roads and across fields from the back. “Eyes all around you,” instructed Sir George, “and no smoking, in case the blighters spot you and put it off for another night. Need to catch ’em in the act to stop ’em properly. Give ’em a thorough fright.”

  There was no doubt in the minds of most people that Murreystone had been responsible for the theft of Miss Nuttel’s garden gnome and the wrought-iron flower baskets and lamp brackets, though some blamed Mr. Alexander, or (more likely) the mystery mistress nobody ever saw. But Murreystone were the odds-on favourites; and, if they could only have been proved, the recent plague of moles, and even the Brown Wilt, would also have been laid at the age-old rival’s door. Mrs. Flax (who lays out for the village, and is popularly regarded as a Wise Woman) led a small group eager to assign the moles and the fungus to Murreystone’s harnessing of Sinister Forces. The Nuts, thwarted in their attempt to join the Village Watch, announced that they would be holding
a seance in order to ascertain the truth and the best method of combatting it.

  Sir George learned with some relief of this proposal, realising that, though it might not work as intended, it would serve to keep the hysterical element out of his way, which could only be a good thing. Nigel suggested that earplugs should be generally issued to deaden the sounds of table-tapping and cries of “Is anybody there?”; Lady Colveden thought that everyone ought to supply themselves with sandwiches and flasks of coffee, which Sir George vetoed on the grounds that it would turn the whole affair into a bally picnic and they’d just forget what they were supposed to be doing. He repeated his warnings about cigarettes, and some murmurs of disaffection were heard.

  A muffled figure, trouser-clad and carrying a mysterious package, was spotted making its stealthy way from the George and Dragon southwards down The Street—the package looking, to suspicious eyes, very like a bomb. Jack Crabbe and his troop of farm workers, armed with sacks, stalked the figure as it made for the narrow road bounded on one side by the brick wall of Sweetbriars, and pounced as it drew near the side gate which Miss Seeton was supposed to keep locked at all times. From within the sack loud and furious shrieks suggested that their booty was a woman.

  “How—how dare you!” blazed Miss Ursula Hawke, once she had been unwrapped, and the bomb revealed as her shoulder bag, containing nothing more sinister than binoculars, a torch, two packets of sandwiches, and a notebook. “This is unpardonable—assault—private citizen, going about her lawful business—free country—at liberty to walk where I please—inform the police . . .”

  They tried to apologise, but Miss Hawke was too angry to listen. If the owls of Ashford Forest, which she had looked forward all day to observing, now eluded her because of this delay, she would make the strongest protest in the highest quarters. Did they not know that their chief constable, who was a personal friend, was also a keen naturalist in his spare time? He had given her every support in her project and would be annoyed enough to hear that her book had been put in jeopardy: he would be even more annoyed to learn that the work of policing his county had been taken out of official hands by a band of amateur incompetents who molested innocent passers-by and took them, however briefly, prisoner. “Unlawful arrest,” muttered Miss Hawke darkly, and glared as she opened the side gate, withdrew the bicycle which Miss Seeton had kindly arranged to lend her, and pedalled off into the darkness.

  The patrol did not mention this embarrassing encounter to their relief when the time duly came. Plummergen knows how to keep its own counsel.

  Nothing else of moment happened for the remainder of the night.

  chapter

  ~17~

  THE BUS FROM Crabbe’s Garage drew up outside Plummergen JMI School, and a chattering, excited crowd of junior mixed infants surged from the playground to form a more or less orderly line in front of the door. Miss Seeton, umbrella in hand, marshalled the line into proper order, then tapped on the door. Driver Jack Crabbe pressed the lever, there was a rubbery hiss, and with a thud the door folded open.

  “Quietly now, children,” commanded Miss Seeton. “Climb the steps one at a time, and sit down in the first empty seat you come to. No pushing, please.”

  The embarkation commenced. There were minor problems.

  “Marcus, you have dropped your packet of sandwiches. Don’t tread on—oh, dear. Are they very badly squashed? . . . Henry, you are not to push poor Biddy so roughly. You might knock her over, then she would hurt herself . . . Helen and Katherine, one at a time, please . . . Now, who has left their anorak on the gatepost?”

  But eventually everyone was settled, and the excursion to Ashford Forest set off.

  Miss Seeton had recently been brushing up on her natural history. Once she had learned from Mel of Miss Hawke’s secret enthusiasm, she had ventured to ask the naturalist for advice on what she might best show the children during their trip; Miss Hawke, still starchy and abbreviated with people, was prepared to unbend a little in Miss Seeton’s case after the episode of the magpie and barked several helpful suggestions at her before requesting the loan of Miss Seeton’s bicycle one moonlit night. There were barn and other owls to be seen, she felt sure, in Ashford Forest—not that Miss Seeton and her horde of children could hope to see them in daylight, and if the school excursion was planned for this week, it would be better for serious observation purposes if Miss Hawke went there first. “Disturb too much wildlife,” said Miss Hawke, looking irritated at the thought.

  But she had been helpful in sharing her knowledge, and Miss Seeton now silently thanked her once more as she sat in the front seat of Jack Crabbe’s bus as it drove out of Plummergen and headed for Ashford Forest. The bus had set off more or less on time; nobody had been left behind, nor had any item of food, clothing, or scholastic equipment been forgotten. The children were excited, of course, but on the whole were behaving very well, and a good brisk walk through the trees, never straying too far from the bridle paths, should help them work off their surplus energy.

  Jack Crabbe parked the coach neatly in one of the wide gateways to the forest and settled down, once everyone had climbed out and those who were absentminded had climbed back to retrieve their belongings, to compile another of the cryptic crosswords which he regularly sold to the literary periodicals. He nodded a cheerful farewell to Miss Seeton and her band, telling them not to fret, he’d be happy enough till they got back, and no need to hurry themselves. They were to have a good time, and if anyone found a wild bees’ nest, they were to mark the tree and let him know, because wild bees gave the best honey and his great-grandfather swore by it for his rheumatism.

  Miss Seeton was a conscientious teacher and had read as much as she could about the Kentish woodland before the day of the excursion. “Look carefully at the trees which mark the boundary of the forest, children. They are hornbeams, and you may recognise them by their bark—so very smooth and grey, isn’t it? Almost the colour of lead. And such an unusual way the trunk of the tree sometimes grows in grooves—fluted, we might call it. It would perhaps make an interesting picture—some of the twisted shapes, that is.” Everyone obediently turned to study the silver-trunked trees with their curious leaves, very dark green above but, when you stood underneath the tree, looking almost yellow. “Now, these particular hornbeams have been pollarded,” Miss Seeton said, clearing her throat. “That is, the tops have been cut off about ten feet from the ground—”

  “Why did someone cut them off?” young Marcus wanted to know. Miss Seeton, still imparting the results of her careful study, replied: “So that when the wood grows again from the top, it will grow faster than before, and it may be cut and used earlier than if it had been left to grow by itself.”

  “What do they use it for?” somebody else asked.

  Miss Seeton was ready for that one, too. “Hornbeam,” she said, “is one of the hardest timbers, and the strongest, too. People used to make mill wheels out of it, and the hubs of cartwheels.”

  “But does anybody use it now?” demanded Marcus suspiciously, as the previous enquirer fell silent. Miss Seeton stifled a sigh. Education, after all, had many guises: the main point was surely to arouse interest in a child and, once having aroused it, to satisfy it. Besides, she just happened to remember the answer.

  “Hammers, for pianos—and chopping boards, and mallets, and skittles, and anything that needs, well, strong wood. So this,” she said firmly, “is pollarding. Now, who can tell me what it is called when trees are cut off very close to the ground? We shall see some of these other trees later, inside.”

  There were giggles and nudgings, but nobody knew the answer to Miss Seeton’s question. “Coppicing,” she told them firmly, “and you must watch out for some very old beech trees which were coppiced many years ago. They have one very large base, called a bole, and several smaller trunks growing out of it.”

  Miss Seeton marshalled her little army into some degree of order and led the way along the woodland ride into the depths of Ashford Forest.
She pointed out the beauty of dancing butterflies, sunlit in a glade of low bracken; she showed holes in tree trunks which might belong to either of the two species of spotted woodpecker, lesser or greater, known to inhabit the wood. She agreed that the small scarlet jewels of wild strawberries were good to eat, but warned that a surfeit might cause some internal distress, and that no child should eat more than six each. “We must leave the rest for the birds and wild animals,” she said. And such was the respect in which Miss Seeton was held that not the greediest child ate more than the specified half-dozen fruits, though many more than this number were to be found.

  The search for wild strawberries had so delighted the children that, without realising it, they had wandered from the main ride in among the high-fronding, graceful bracken with its furled tips and pale green leaves. Strawberries were forgotten in the excitement of other discoveries. Fallen tree-trunks and exposed roots were covered with velvety mosses of various colours and kinds, about which Miss Seeton was forced to confess her ignorance. Narrow beaten paths through the undergrowth were attributed to badgers, or to deer. Helen and Katherine found a dead mouse, while Henry snagged himself on some brambles as he tried to pick blackberries.

  “I believe,” remarked Miss Seeton, “that somewhere in this part of the forest there are some spindle trees. They were once used,” she added, before anyone could ask, “to make, well, spindles, and knitting needles, things of that sort—but nowadays I understand it makes excellent charcoal, and of course we use charcoal sometimes in our art lessons. I think it would be interesting to see where it comes from.” Miss Seeton had not been a teacher for many years without learning that to ask don’t you think it would be interesting to . . . often resulted in nothing but blank stares and shuffling feet.