“I don’t think I like the way this case is going,” said Delphick. “That picture was very unpleasant.”
“Sort of catches you on the hop, doesn’t it, sir? There you are with Mole and Ratty safely in Badger’s house, then suddenly you realise it isn’t safe anymore. As if somebody is about to break in and smash the place to smithereens.”
“And the way that fire looked about to boil over and engulf everything . . . No,” as Bob made to cross to the car, parked outside the George and Dragon, where they had elected to stay, “we’re going to see the Colvedens, and it hardly seems worth driving. I don’t know about you, but I could do with the walk to clear my head.”
They walked in thoughtful silence for a few minutes; Bob broke it at last by remarking, “That picture she drew of the south end of The Street going up in flames . . .”
“Yes,” said Delphick. “Another of her offerings which, by all accounts, is very unpleasant. If it’s rattled Sir George, I want to look at it—need to, in fact. That man’s neither a fool nor a coward—you aren’t awarded the DSO for nothing. If a chap like Colveden says he’s worried, then so ought we to be.”
At Rytham Hall they found Lady Colveden on her knees by the open front door. “Hello, and don’t come any nearer,” she greeted her guests cheerfully. “We’re having the Before and After Exhibition in the village hall tomorrow—Nigel and George are down there now, setting up all the folding screens and notice boards we managed to scrounge—and you’d never believe the number of drawing pins there are in one of those little packets, until you drop it. You’d better come in through the kitchen until I’ve collected them all. I’ll lock the door in case of accidents—the light’s much better for looking with it open, but it would be just like George to come grumbling back from his good deed and tread all over the parquet. Martha,” said Lady Colveden with a smile, “is a dragon when it comes to polishing. I’d be scared to face her if anyone scratched the floor.”
“It was about the exhibition that we’ve come,” Delphick said as they settled themselves in comfortable chairs, and refused the offer of tea or coffee. “I understand that Miss Seeton drew, or painted, pictures based on photographs taken by your husband?”
“Before and After,” Lady Colveden agreed. “George did a very good job, considering how long it’s been since photography was his hobby. Cedric Benbow gave him lots of advice, and lent him—but you’re not”—and she smiled at him—“really interested in George’s hobbies, are you? It’s Miss Seeton’s pictures you’ve come to look at.”
“Are they still here, or have they already been taken to the hall ready for the exhibition? I should very much like, if it’s possible, to see them—one of them in particular.”
Lady Colveden’s smile grew knowing. “Let me guess which one that might be. Not Mr. Stillman’s post office awning, I shouldn’t think, and definitely not the ghastly garden gnome somebody stole from The Nuts—I can’t imagine Scotland Yard bothered about that. There are plenty of other pictures, of course, but my guess would be the one Miss Seeton produced showing the south end of The Street in flames . . .”
“Not a fair guess,” said Delphick dryly. “Sir George was worried enough about it to telephone Superintendent Brinton at Ashford, and my guess is that the pair of you have been wondering about it all week. May I see it?”
“Indeed you may. Did George tell Mr. Brinton we cut it in two? We didn’t want to worry poor Miss Seeton—after all, it’s her house that’s right in the middle of the fire—so we’re going to tell her it somehow got torn, if she says anything.”
“You haven’t thrown it away?” asked Delphick urgently.
“Oh, no, we couldn’t do that. It would have felt . . .” Lady Colveden hesitated. “My first thought was to throw it away, but I didn’t like . . . I wondered about burning it, but that would have felt even worse, somehow. It’s such a very, well, uncomfortable picture . . .”
It was. Lady Colveden retrieved the smaller, smoke-dark and flame-filled portion from the bottom of her needlework box. “Well out of harm’s way,” she explained. “Nobody ever uses it except me—and hardly ever me, for that matter.” She took the remainder of the picture from its place in the exhibition folders and set it down on the table so that the pieces joined to make a whole. Beside them she placed Sir George’s photograph.
“That’s what Miss Seeton was working from,” she said. “And there’s no sign of a fire anywhere in that, is there? Not even from the blacksmith’s forge . . .”
“Which building is the forge?” Delphick asked. She put a slim finger on the white building with the steep-pitched tiled roof and yellow double doors. “No fire,” she pointed out, and Delphick nodded.
There came the sound of clattering outside in the hall. “I told you George would try to come in that way and tread drawing pins all over the house,” said Lady Colveden. “It’s just as well I locked the door. I hope they have the sense to come in through the kitchen—when men go broody about doing their good deed for the day, they’re sometimes quite unreasonable afterwards.” She twinkled at Bob. “No doubt Anne would say exactly the same about you.”
Sir George and Nigel soon appeared in the sitting room, looking pleased with themselves. “Mother and her cronies can pin the wretched things up in some tasteful arrangement later on this evening,” Nigel said. “Dad and I have done more than our bit for the beautification of Plummergen—and so has Miss Seeton, of course, with her pictures.” Then he became serious. “The village is buzzing with the news,” he said. “Potter and Jack Crabbe did their best, but you know how gossip spreads in this place. I suppose it’s true, and Miss Seeton really did find a dead body?”
“What?” cried Lady Colveden, horrified. “Nigel, no, you can’t mean that. George—Mr. Delphick—surely there’s some mistake? Miss Seeton, finding a body? Oh”—as from their grave expressions she realised the truth—“the poor thing! How did it happen? Where? And why didn’t you tell me—” she turned to Delphick—“instead of letting me chatter on about photographs?”
“I admit that I was surprised you didn’t appear to have heard,” said Delphick. “Especially in Plummergen, news of that sort travels fast.”
“I haven’t been to the shops today, and nobody’s called—we aren’t exactly handy for casual dropping in, here, are we? And so many people have been ringing up to moan about the Before-and-Aftering, and the Competition, and the Watch my husband has set up, that this afternoon I simply took the phone off the hook and decided to ignore the lot of them.” Lady Colveden shook her head. “Today of all days—I feel dreadful. But poor Miss Seeton must feel so much worse—how is she? What happened, or aren’t you allowed to say?”
Delphick told her as much as he thought advisable, and she looked more upset than ever. “You could hardly have been expected to guess,” Delphick consoled her. “And Miss Seeton herself, after the initial shock, is coping well.”
“Ought to have guessed,” said Sir George gruffly. “Told Charley Mountfitchet, when a guest doesn’t come back after a night out, ought to ask a few questions.” He looked rather grim as he said this. “Have a word with you about that, in a few minutes.”
“I’d be interested,” Delphick said, “to hear anything you can tell me that might help—but,” he added trying to be fair, “I’m not sure we can really hold the landlord at fault. By all accounts, Miss Hawke was much given to staying out at night and wandering around during the day, which makes it rather difficult to check up on her movements, and to know whether or not to start worrying, and when.”
“Erratic, certainly,” agreed Sir George. “Makes your job harder, I should think. No regular habits to deviate from—no alibi to break.”
“It’s hardly Miss Hawke who needs the alibi, Dad,” Nigel pointed out to his father. “Mind you, I’m not surprised she got herself bumped off—”
“Nigel!” His mother was shocked.
“Nil nisi bonum,” added Sir George, looking as if he was slightly doubtful of the wisdo
m of this.
“What makes you say that, exactly?” enquired Delphick, a calming note in his voice. Sir George and his wife subsided into an anxious silence.
“She was bossy,” Nigel said, after a pause. “Interfered all the time—told everybody how to do things, and annoyed pretty well the whole village. Everyone who met her, anyway—and you needn’t shake your head at me like that, Mother. Dad’s keeping quiet, but he was one of her first victims, if you can call them that, and I know there were others.”
With much throat-clearing and prompting, Sir George told his story. “Tried to make out Cedric Benbow doesn’t know his stuff,” he said indignantly. “Soon put her straight, of course, but the boy’s right. An annoying woman—though not enough to hit her over the head, I’d have thought.”
“But somebody did,” Delphick reminded him. “Somebody, perhaps, with a less equable temperament than yourself. Who else did she try to, shall we say intimidate, in this way?”
“All sorts of people,” Nigel said. “There was a bit of a row with Jacob Chickney when she found out who he was, for one. The village mole catcher,” he explained to Delphick.
“There was practically a fight, so I heard,” volunteered Lady Colveden. “They were discussing it in the post office when I went in for some sugar—apparently Miss Hawke cornered him in the George and harangued him for ages about the ethics of his job, the horrid old man, and he used the most dreadful language back at her.”
“Which is no different,” Nigel pointed out, “from the way he behaves to everyone else normally. You can’t use that as evidence . . .”
He tailed off as Delphick regarded him with interest. “Indeed, Mr. Colveden?” Nigel winced: it had been some years since the chief superintendent had been so formal with him. “Then why did you feel the need to mention the incident in the first place?”
“You asked,” said Nigel after an infinitesimal pause, “who else she’d tried to push around. So of course I said. Not that I believe there’s anything in it, though. Old Jake is a miserable, money-grubbing, antisocial oaf with the manners of a pig—which is insulting to pigs—but even so, I can’t believe he’d murder anyone.”
There was a pause. “Who else?” Delphick enquired with a stern glance round at all three Colvedens. “It’s no use saying there are lots of people, then only mentioning one.”
There was a further pause. “It’s too silly,” said Lady Colveden, weakening at last. “But in books, and on television, they always seem to suspect the person who finds the body, and . . .”
“And you were afraid we’d suspect Miss Seeton,” Delphick concluded for her. “Why should we do that? You must know she’s above suspicion. Apart from anything else, how could she have reached Ashford Forest in the middle of the night, when she’d lent Miss Hawke her bicycle—her only means of transport?”
The atmosphere lightened at once. Nigel grinned shakily at Delphick. “You’re right: we didn’t think it through. In any case, if Miss Seeton lent Miss Hawke her bike, it means they must have sorted out whatever differences they might have had—and it was only gossip, anyhow. You know how the village loves to get hold of the wrong end of the stick where Miss Seeton’s concerned.”
“I do indeed. But what could anyone have said to make you believe Miss Seeton also had a . . . an exchange with Miss Hawke? She never mentioned any such thing to us, and she’s the most truthful person, as you know. She explained to us in great detail how they’d rescued a magpie from a cat, or something of the sort—nothing about any argument.”
Lady Colveden said, “You see, there was some nonsense about Miss Seeton painting a picture and Miss Hawke telling her how to do it—as Nigel said, the poor woman was really very, well, opinionated and interfering. And annoying. But then other people said they’d been rescuing a cat together, or something—I’m not sure about any magpies, but I gather Jacob Chickney was somehow caught up in that little episode. Anyway, it all seems such a muddle, I don’t believe any of us knows what to think.”
“You can stop thinking that Miss Seeton’s involved in any way, for a start,” Delphick said, trying not to smile. “And then, when you’ve ordered your thoughts, you can tell me, Sir George, what you were going to tell me earlier—about Miss Hawke’s midnight wanderings, I believe.”
“Ah, yes.” The major-general stroked his moustache and looked thoughtful. “Feel a bit to blame—my men letting her go off to be murdered like that. Bad show.”
“It’s hardly your fault, George, you were nowhere near,” protested his wife at once, but Delphick motioned her, with the utmost courtesy, to silence, and she subsided.
“Do please continue,” prompted the chief superintendent; and Sir George explained how the Village Watch had come upon Miss Hawke behaving, as they thought, suspiciously, in the vicinity of Sweetbriars (“Little woman lives alone. Can’t be too careful, lunatics on the loose,”) and had apprehended her, then let her go. “Go to her death,” concluded poor Sir George. “First chance for the Watchmen to prove their worth—and they mess it up. Bad show.”
Delphick pressed him for more details, adding that he would be visiting Jack Crabbe and the rest of the patrol to confirm what he was sure was the truth. The Colvedens were now glad to offer what assistance they could, but, despite close questioning, and further study of Miss Seeton’s picture, nobody came up with any bright ideas. Lady Colveden offered coffee, and while she made it Detective Sergeant Bob joined Nigel in the hunt for mislaid drawing-pins. In one respect at least, the visit to Rytham Hall proved a success.
chapter
~20~
JACK CRABBE, AND those members of his patrol whom Delphick was able to run to earth that evening, told the same story as reported by Sir George. Miss Hawke had left the George and Dragon in the middle of the night, in perfect health, without mentioning either whether she planned to meet anyone else or even where she intended to go on Miss Seeton’s borrowed bicycle. She had been angry, they all agreed, and forceful, but otherwise uncommunicative.
“And they all alibi one another for the rest of the two-hour period,” Delphick remarked to Bob as they headed back to the George and Dragon for a snack, a drink, and their well-earned rest. “And I find it hard to believe that any of them brooded for over two hours and then went charging off into the forest to kill her. For one thing, how did they know where she’d be? Everyone’s agreed that she never told anybody her plans.”
“I wouldn’t believe it of Jack, or the others, anyway,” said Bob, adopted son of Plummergen, loyally. “I expect it will turn out to be Mr. Brinton’s unwanted random killer, after all.”
Delphick shook his head with such a sorrowful expression on his face that Doris, about to serve him with his ploughman’s platter, thought he had changed his mind and started to take it away again. This took some sorting out before they were able to resume the discussion.
“About the random killer, Bob—you’re not thinking this thing right through. Who in the world is going to be wandering around a wood in the middle of the night on the chance of meeting someone he, or possibly she, could kill?”
“A lunatic, sir,” supplied Bob promptly. “If it was a full moon last night . . .”
“Moonshine,” came a voice from over his shoulder, and it was followed by a tray with three glasses on it. Mel Forby had intercepted Doris on her second trip to the constabulary table, added her own half-pint of lager, and tipped the weary waitress fifty pence to misdirect any of her reporting rivals who might turn up. “Mind if I join you for an exclusive interview?” enquired Mel, not waiting for an answer. She unloaded the tray, pulled up another chair, and sat down with a bright smile.
“Strictly off the record for now,” Delphick said, though he smiled back in acknowledgement of her journalistic impudence. Bob was too busy eating pickled onions to do more than nod a greeting. Mel tapped her handbag.
“Notebook tucked away until recalled to duty, as per our arrangement,” she said. “But I’ve just come from visiting Miss. S. over th
e way—heard a weird rumour about how she found Miss Hawke’s body in some blackberry bushes in Ashford Forest, and went to see if it was true—and it was. Poor little soul’s not sure what to make of it all, and I don’t want her babbling to any of the others and giving the wrong impression—she’d say anything out of politeness, you know she would, and the muckrakers would twist it any old way to make a good headline. I’ll take care that when the story finally breaks she doesn’t get a mention except as the good old Battling Brolly, and I’ve told her to keep indoors for the next few days and not answer the door unless she knows for sure who’s out there.”
Delphick thought back to the first time he and Mel had met: when she arrived in Plummergen to find out how a series of child murders might, or might not, be solved by the power of Miss Seeton’s pencil. The power of Mel Forby’s pen had been put to good use in that case, for she had, in her own words, plugged the Brolly angle so everyone would forget the name, and had joined that band of Miss Seeton’s protectors who did all they could to maintain her genteel innocence of the world’s wicked ways. Delphick knew he could trust Mel to look after Miss Seeton’s interests, and he told her as much as he safely could of the case so far.
“The Wind in the Willows, you say? Could be she thought of Ashford Forest as the Wild Wood—which it certainly was for Miss Hawke.” Mel frowned. “I’m a bit rusty—wasn’t that where the bad guys lived?”
Delphick grinned in the direction of Bob, who was just finishing his chunk of pork pie. “Our expert on children’s literature,” he said gravely. This time Bob did not blush.
“Any conscientious uncle,” he told Mel, before she could crack any jokes at his expense, “would know as much—it’s where the Stoats and the Weasels live, and the Riverbank folk never go there. It’s not healthy . . .”
Miss Seeton Paints the Town (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 10) Page 15