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

by Hamilton Crane

  “Isn’t?” Brinton’s empurplement intensified alarmingly. “Isn’t what? You mean he’s dead? It’s the first I’ve heard about it.”

  “Isn’t really called Thaxted,” Borden informed him with a very slight tremor of mischief in his tone. The superintendent’s apoplectic nature was a byword in police circles, and sometimes those in a freakish mood would see how far they could push him towards explosion. But Borden was freakish, as he was everything else, in moderation. Those who handle affairs of finance cannot afford to be seen as lightweight personalities.

  He grew serious. “I’m assuming, of course, that we’re talking about the same Thaxted. Norman Thaxted?”

  “That’s him.”

  “No, it isn’t. Well, it is now, but not formerly. Your Norman Thaxted used to be called Sampford, Posthumus Sampford, would you believe? Only son of ‘Snatch’ Sampford, whose name may be familiar to you.”

  “It certainly is,” breathed Brinton, recalling what he knew of the legendary jewel thief and cat burglar. “So he’s Snatch’s son, is he? Well, well. What a modest son he is, too—never a word of this to me.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Borden coughed. “There’s more you ought to know before you go questioning him again—it was Pommy Sampford who carried the can, fifteen years ago, for a big jewel heist that went wrong. Well, his father never got around to teaching the kid all the tricks of the trade, so you’d expect Pommy to miss out once in a while. So, he was unlucky—but his partner got away. And his partner was one Notley Black . . .”

  chapter

  ~24~

  BRINTON BANGED DOWN the telephone to break the connection and immediately picked it up again. “I’ll send Potter to bring the blighter in faster than he can blink,” he growled, “and if he tries playing any more games with me, I’ll scalp him. Pommy Sampford, indeed! Norman Thaxted!”

  Mabel Potter answered the telephone and promised to run down at once to the village hall to relieve her husband of his self-imposed duties there and to direct him to Murreystone and the residence of would-be squire, Norman Thaxted. She also said that Delphick and Ranger had collected the car and driven off about half an hour ago, but that she hadn’t seen them and had no notion where they were headed. Brinton replied that he had a good idea of their destination and that he’d like her, if she saw them again, to tell them to return to Ashford as soon as possible.

  “And tell Potter the same,” he reminded her as he rang off with another furious bang. “Pommy Sampford!”

  P. C. Potter had spent more time by the road outside Plummergen village hall, directing tourists to other places of interest, than he had spent inside the exhibition: with the result that he failed to spot the stranger who had displayed such interest in Miss Seeton leaving the hall to stroll, studiously casual, down The Street and into the post office. Where, still more casual, he bought a box of matches—and a packet of cigarettes, as a decided afterthought—and made enforcedly light conversation concerning the artist whose pictures had made such an impression on him. Indeed, he had hopes of persuading her to sell him one. Did she live close by? What was her name? And when would he be likely to find her at home?

  Mrs. Stillman, who might have recognised the stranger and wondered why he had not approached Miss Seeton while she was yet in the hall, was herself still there, chatting with her friends and making the most of her snatched free time. Mr. Stillman it was who, delighted to be of assistance to Miss Seeton, a favourite customer, told the stranger that she was currently teaching at the school, and his best course of action would be to approach her at home either in the afternoon, or (even better) the evening. “She won’t be going anywhere tonight,” said Mr. Stillman confidently. Plummergen knows its neighbours’ business every bit as well as its own. “You’ll catch her then, I’m sure.”

  And he wondered, briefly, after the man had thanked him and left, why the look in his eyes was more of apprehension than pleasure. But then Emmy Putts, slicing bacon, almost lost a fingertip as she pouted after the disappearing stranger and felt ignored; and in the resulting commotion, Mr. Stillman forgot all about the man who had shown such an interest in Miss Seeton.

  The Meadows was much as Delphick and Bob remembered it from that earlier adventure: isolated at the end of a narrow lane about a mile out of the village, behind a high brick wall partly covered with honeysuckle and ivy. Set in the wall were two large wooden gates, and a small door to the left of them without bell or knocker, but with a ring-handled latch which Delphick lifted. The two policemen passed within. On the concrete path, their feet made no sound.

  The front door was of plain oak, and also without bell or knocker. “They don’t seem to be expecting visitors, do they?” murmured Delphick, raising his hand to rap. As soon as he did so, there came an explosion of barking from inside the house and sudden scratchings from the other side of the door as if the wolfhounds were trying to break through. Bob saw Delphick flinch, but said nothing.

  From one of the windows on either side of the door came a flicker of movement as a face—male? female?—peered out and studied the newcomers carefully. The Borzois continued to bark. The policemen waited. A command was issued, and the dogs fell silent. Delphick’s shoulders relaxed.

  There came a rattling from the other side of the door as bolts were drawn, and the latch lifted. The door, opening, swung outwards. Delphick took a step back, and the face of a man looked cautiously at him.

  “Yes?” The man had not opened the door wide; only his head and one shoulder were visible. He was evidently ready to slam the door in the visitors’ faces if necessary. “You have,” went on the man, “business with me? I cannot think what this could be. Possibly you are mistaken. This is a private house.”

  “Mr. Alexander?” enquired Delphick politely, pausing for a split second between the two words.

  “I am he.”

  “We are police officers, sir, from Scotland Yard. Here is my identification . . . and that of my sergeant here. We’d like to talk to you for a few minutes, if we may.”

  Mr. Alexander studied the warrant cards closely, looking from one face to another. “The good Potter, of course, is known to me,” he said. “But is not Scotland Yard the—the big noise?” He produced the slang with some amusement and relaxed his grip on the door. “We had wished,” he said with a sigh, “to remain unnoticed here, but if it is a matter for the authorities, you had better come in. Excuse me.”

  He turned back to issue another command to the dogs, and opened the door wide enough to admit the two detectives to the house. “My mistress,” he went on, ushering them into the spacious hall, “I would prefer not to be disturbed, if this is possible—we do not”—he gestured towards the two Borzois, on guard at the foot of the stairs—“encourage visitors, you understand.”

  And he led the way through to the sitting room.

  P. C. Potter drove along the B2080 southwards in the direction of Murreystone, racking his brains and trying to put a face to the name. He had ignored the lure of the longer, though better, route to the north: Superintendent Brinton’s message had sounded urgent. He must want this Thaxted bloke in a real hurry—but who was Thaxted? Potter’s beat covered more than the immediate Plummergen area, and he prided himself on knowing almost as much about other villages as he knew about his own. But Murreystone, the deadly rival, was a natural exception to this knowledge, the place he tended to avoid except when absolute duty called—as it did now.

  He did not waste time hunting for the address: the Big House of any village was where the squire lived, and Potter could remember that Thaxted had played the squire last year when he captained Murreystone’s cricket team. He’d shelled out for a complete new set of whites, and they’d put him in to bat at number eleven, just to keep him happy.

  Potter passed through Ivychurch with a grin on his face as he remembered how he’d caught Norman Thaxted at silly mid-on for a duck, and how even the Murreystone team had been applauding behind the wretched man’s back. But what, thought Potter,
of his face? Suppose he came to the door, took one look at the uniform, and said that Mr. Thaxted was out and he had just come to read the meter?

  Still frowning in thought, he turned into the drive of the manor house and drove slowly over the gravel towards the central steps which, aping their betters, sported stone lions couchant at either end. The door at the top of the steps was very firmly closed . . .

  And nobody responded to Potter’s knocking. If Thaxted was in, he wasn’t at home to visitors: Potter trod around the side of the house and peered in at the kitchen window and tried the back door. It was bolted, and every window on the ground floor was closed. Maybe the man really was out: it wasn’t so unreasonable, after all. The world and his wife had been enjoying the sun today, dropping into Plummergen’s picture show and—

  Potter stopped dead. He closed his eyes. He concentrated. “The man at the exhibition,” he muttered, conjuring up in his inner vision the face of Norman Thaxted—last seen in Plummergen village hall.

  And now wanted for questioning by the police . . .

  “In my own country,” said the Russian slowly, once Delphick had explained his interest in the inhabitants of The Meadows and promised confidentiality, “I would by rights call myself the Count Alexei Vissarionovitch Goncharov. But I am not in my own country, and yours has received me kindly. Therefore, I prefer to be addressed by your compatriots as ‘Mr. Alexander’—it is easier”—and he smiled bleakly—“to speak on the tongue, is it not?”

  “It certainly is.” The chief superintendent glanced at Sergeant Ranger, struggling over his pot-hooks, and grinned. Poor Bob would never be able to spell it, even if he could read the shorthand back phonetically. Come to think of it, he’d be unlikely to do any better, himself. He cleared his throat, and enquired: “The lady of the house—your wife?”

  “My mistress. The Princess Katerina Andreyevna Stakhova—my employer, I believe I should say. My family have given loyal service to hers for many generations, but now we two are the last of our respective lines. The Revolution—very much blood was shed, and very many lives were lost. We were fortunate, in that our elders heeded the warning signs and took what some at first saw as the way out of the coward, though later, too late, others wished they had done as we. The princess’s mother was a distant cousin of the late Tsar, you understand, and there were fears for the safety of the whole family. The princess was a child in arms when she was taken to Switzerland, where she has lived ever since.”

  Delphick’s attention had been caught particularly by the final sentence. “Switzerland? I suppose you didn’t meet a Mrs. Venning out there, by any chance, did you?”

  Mr. Alexander smiled. “My cousin Sonia—again, distant, but we share a heritage. Her family fled to England before the Revolution—her grandfather, who married an English wife, and his sister, who entered the convent of a strictly enclosed religious order. There is a dark intensity to the Russian character, as you may know”—Delphick remembered commenting upon gloomy novels, and nodded—“which in my cousin’s grand-aunt, and also in my cousin, manifested itself in waywardness of spirit. My cousin’s aunt sought to purge herself of the spirit through perpetual devotions—my cousin, I understand, took a less . . . honourable course, she confessed to me. But this, no doubt, you know of.”

  Delphick nodded, but did not explain all the details of his acquaintance with Sonia Venning. “Please continue,” he said, fascinated by Count Alexei’s story. Bob Ranger had stopped taking notes and was listening in amazement.

  “We White Russians perhaps cling to one another and the past too much for our own good, but we are as we are, and can do little now to alter our ways. The princess, in particular, has relived repeatedly a past she does not remember, that she knows only from what she has been told. When we chanced to meet my Cousin Sonia as she convalesced in Switzerland, and heard the sad story of the loss of her only daughter, the princess became . . . confused about what had happened and feared that the Bolsheviks, having assassinated once, would come to do so again. Behind every tree she saw enemies, and in the face of every stranger. My cousin tried to reassure her, and did some good—but the princess would not be entirely persuaded. She craved the complete privacy it was not possible, without much money, to obtain for her in Switzerland—we émigrés are not as rich as those who speak of us would believe. The long-lost treasure of His Majesty Tsar Nicholas does not lie concealed in a bank vault for the support of his followers, I fear.”

  He paused. “This is of interest to you? I wish only to give a full explanation for our presence here. Your Foreign Office—a man called Corymbe was truly cooperative—have been kind enough to permit our stay in this village. Where my Cousin Sonia owns this house, you understand—a house of high walls, and safety, a house visited by few persons from the outside world, and where my mistress may reassure herself that there is nothing to fear. Already she is greatly improved in her spirits. The dogs protect her, and they are a reminder to her of home, if anywhere can be home to one who is a permanent exile from a forbidden land . . .”

  “Did you believe him, sir?” enquired Bob, after they had taken their leave of Mr. Alexander and were sitting in the car outside in the lane. “It sounded to me just like one of those historical romances some women read all the time. And we didn’t get to see this princess of his, did we? Suppose she’s more queer in the head than he’s letting on, and it’s turned her into a firebug? He wouldn’t want to let us meet her then, in case she somehow gave herself away.”

  Delphick fastened his seat-belt before answering, while Bob’s hand hovered over the ignition, keys jingling. “I’ve had dealings with Corymbe,” he said at last. “That business a few years back when Miss Seeton went to Geneva. Although it sounds almost unreal, I believe he’ll confirm Alexander’s story—he gave us names and addresses, didn’t he, and too many to be phony—unless someone’s planning an incredibly complex crime, requiring the back-up of a large organisation and set up over several years. Which nobody, surely, would come to Plummergen to carry out.”

  “Nobody in their right minds, sir,” said Bob, starting the car. Having put forward his theory, he was reluctant to abandon it. “But he as good as told us the princess, if she is a princess—well, the woman, whoever she is. He told us she was a bit cracked. Which could mean anything.”

  Delphick smiled. “You think it might not only be the English who are given to understatement? A healthy touch of scepticism is what every detective should cultivate, Bob, but in this instance I’m prepared to give Count Alexei—or Mr. Alexander, if he prefers—the benefit of the doubt. As soon as we’re back in Ashford, I’ll put a call through to the FO and have a word or two with Corymbe . . .”

  But it was not as soon as that. Brinton greeted them in a whirlwind of demands to know where they had been and what they had been doing, followed by commands not to tell him as he had far more important news for them than theirs for him.

  As he had. Delphick was more than interested. “Chickney has found some faces he remembers? And Thaxted’s in the frame for the Notley Black killing? Things are looking up.”

  Brinton glowered. “Oh, no they’re not. Not until we can find him—because Thaxted has completely disappeared . . .”

  chapter

  ~25~

  POSTHUMUS SAMPFORD HAD never had an easy life of it. Childhood friends mocked him for his unusual Christian name: it took years for him to persuade them to address him as Pommy, and after an Australian boy came to the school, he wished he hadn’t. He fought grim and bloody battles at playtime to remind everyone that he was not of illegitimate birth, and that his mother was a respectable widow, and his father had died before he was born. Died before he could show his son any of his professional tricks: so that Pommy was left to find things out for himself.

  Pommy was a slow learner, yet he never failed to achieve his goals in the end, even if it took him longer than it would have taken anyone else. Recognising his weakness, he preferred not to work on his own; accepting his limitation
s, his friends knew how far he could be relied on. The system worked well—until Notley Black persuaded him into robbing a jeweller’s shop that would set them up for life . . .

  Pommy didn’t go to prison for life, but any sentence is grim when your partner has escaped at the first eruption of the new burglar alarm neither of you knew about, and you are left to take the blame; more especially so, when you learn that, consoling your girlfriend for your loss, he has stepped into your shoes and even married her. When Pommy came out of prison, the iron had entered his soul. If he had chanced upon his treacherous ex-partner in crime, he would have given Notley Black far more than a bloodied nose, but Notley (who had abandoned his pregnant wife after some years spent ill-treating her) took great care to keep well out of Pommy’s way. Pommy began to drink, and to gamble: he brooded over his Pools coupons, and studied The Sporting Life fervently. He began to win—then it seemed he always won. His luck had changed.

  So had his name. Pommy Sampford disappeared, and Norman Thaxted became a noted race-goer whose opinions of horseflesh were increasingly respected. He mixed in circles more reputable than before, although he never lost complete touch with old associates: he decided that he liked being a pillar (albeit shaky) of society and began to call himself a business man. He cut back on the booze, but thought it a shame not to make use of his experience: he bought half a share in a London nightclub, then sold it at a profit to his partner when he heard about The Singing Swan. He bought the club and moved to a large house in the country, determined to put his inglorious past behind him and play the part of one who has always been decent, legal, honest, and truthful. Even in his ownership of the newly named Half Seas Over, he resolved to operate according to the letter of the law: no underage drinking, no sidelines like prostitution . . .