“Blame whom, Sergeant Ranger?”
“My Aunt Em, sir,” replied Bob, who had adopted MissEss as an honorary relation some years past, and rarely seen any reason to regret it. “I know things tend to go a bit, well, peculiar sometimes, when she’s around—but she’s not around here now, is she, sir?”
“Thankfully, she is not,” Delphick replied, breathing hard. Bob joined him on the carpet, collecting confetti. Between them, the detectives hunted down every last scrap.
When things were back to normal, Bob said: “D’you know, sir, I’ve been thinking. About how things go wobbly when she gets involved—involved with us, sir. The police. Yet the rest of the time, she seems to live a perfectly normal sort of life down in Plummergen—Anne’s parents would tell us if anything funny happened, and they never do—and when Anne and I go to see her, sir, as ourselves—I mean, me as me and not as a copper—well, she seems almost like any other maiden aunt, sir. Anybody’s aunt, she could be.”
“Almost like,” Delphick echoed him. “There you have it, Bob: she can never be exactly like anyone’s aunt because, there’s no denying the fact, Miss Seeton is unique. I don’t see how her position as an artistic consultant to Scotland Yard, being paid a retainer fee for a small number of drawings each year . . .”
He tailed off, and fell silent, looking back on the remarkable association of Miss Emily Seeton with the Metropolitan (and, as her fame spread, other) Police: which first came about when, leaving Covent Garden after enjoying a performance of Carmen, Miss Seeton had interrupted a young and vicious dope peddler while he was knifing his girlfriend—had prodded him in the back with her umbrella, disapproving his ungentlemanly attitude towards the weaker sex.
“Weaker sex!” muttered Delphick in an ironic tone, recalling Miss Seeton’s subsequent survival of gassing, coshing, abduction, attempted human sacrifice, bombing . . .
“But only because we asked her to, I suppose,” he said to himself. “All in the line of duty, she’d say—and,” he regarded Bob with a pensive look, “we’re the people who pay her for doing her duty, as you’ve pointed out. She knocks things completely off-balance as she goes along, of course, because that’s the sort of person she is—but she wouldn’t necessarily be going along in that particular direction if we hadn’t first asked her to . . .”
“That’s what I meant, sir, yes. We sort of—set her up to go off, sir. Like a rocket. The gunpowder’s always capable of exploding, but unless someone puts a match to it, it can’t. And, well, we might be Miss Seeton’s matches, sir.”
“I might, you mean. As you have so shrewdly brought to my attention, Miss Seeton appears to indulge in few of her gyrations when left to her own devices. How peaceful,” said Delphick, with a sigh, “life in Plummergen must be when she hasn’t received any call to arms from the police . . .”
He shook his head, brooding, while Bob went back to his paperwork after having made a silent bet with himself. Give it twenty-four hours—forty-eight at most—and MissEss and the police’d be up to their ears in it again. Even after all these years, he didn’t know how she did it—she didn’t mean to, anyone could see that—but she only had to appear over the horizon, waving that brolly of hers, and the whole world wobbled on its axis.
In fact, she didn’t even have to put in a personal appearance—someone else could set the ball rolling on her behalf. Someone like Inspector Terling of the Art Squad . . .
“Twenty-four hours,” he murmured, glancing at the clock.
“Sorry, Bob, what was that?”
“Nothing important, sir,” said Bob, with mental fingers crossed; and he glanced at the clock again.
It was not twenty-four hours but nineteen minutes later that the telephone rang on Delphick’s desk.
“Sir Wormelow Tump? Asking to speak to me?” Delphick blinked. “I suppose I could see him if necessary, but—did he give you any idea . . . Oh. Very well, send him up, and my sergeant will meet him at the lift.”
“Sir Wormelow Tump?” said Bob, every ounce of his seventeen stone sweet innocence. “I seem to know the name, sir. Isn’t he that courtier chap who takes care of the Buck House collection of arty souvenirs the Queen doesn’t have time to dust? I seem to remember something about a shrunken head, and a girl modelling jewellery—somewhere in, er, Kent—a village with a fruity sounding name, sir, wasn’t it? And didn’t this Tump go on some Aegean cruise a couple of years ago—the one MissEss was given as a sort of bonus, and then you had to be called in because—”
“Bob!” Delphick slapped the palm of his hand flat on the desk, and winced at the sting. “If you don’t stop grinning like that, I won’t be answerable for the consequences. Sir Wormelow may have called on an utterly unrelated matter. In fact, I hardly see how he can not have done so. Go along to fetch him, will you? And for heaven’s sake, stop looking like the Cheshire Cat. You have no reason at all to be so horribly cheerful: moderate your mirth, if you please.”
“Certainly, sir.” Bob pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “It’s just that I’m five quid better off than I was half an hour ago . . .”
And he made for the door, escaping through it before his infuriated superior had time to work out what he’d meant.
Sir Wormelow Tump, custodian of the Royal Collection of Objets de Vertu, was an austerely aristocratic personage of imposing height and impeccable manners. He greeted Delphick with a grateful smile, shaking hands and seeming entirely at his ease; but the look he directed, very briefly, towards Sergeant Ranger suggested to the chief superintendent that he had come on no ordinary business.
Which probably meant Miss Seeton was involved, after all—as, if he’d been honest with himself instead of letting Bob wind him up, he might have guessed, from the start. “No ordinary business” just about summed her up. There were coincidences, and coincidences . . .
“You remember my sergeant, don’t you, Sir Wormelow? You met at Rytham Hall during that little affair of the Lalique jewellery.”
“Indeed I do, Chief Superintendent. Sergeant Ranger and I have already renewed our acquaintance. A pleasure to meet him again.” Sir Wormelow’s elegant features, however, reflected little pleasure, despite his courteous words.
“Let me assure you that Ranger is the very soul of discretion, Sir Wormelow. We have worked together for several years; whatever you have to discuss with me may be safely discussed in his presence. Won’t you sit down?”
Delphick waited while Bob brought a chair across for his visitor, then raised his eyebrows and indicated that the sergeant should make himself, as far as possible for one so large, unobtrusive. Behind Tump’s back, Bob motioned in the direction of his notebook, and looked a question. Delphick shook his head, very slightly.
Sir Wormelow did not appear to notice the byplay: he was reaching into his jacket pocket. As Bob seated himself at his desk, a slim-fingered hand withdrew from the pocket a pale grey envelope.
“This is—a rather delicate matter, I fear, Mr. Delphick.” Sir Wormelow took a deep breath. “I’ve no doubt that you will reproach me—justifiably so—for not having come to you before, but . . .”
He turned the grey envelope over in his hands. “There are, if you understand me, some griefs which at first one feels should remain private . . . One does not always care to speak of, well, one’s emotions . . .”
“Yes, I understand, Sir Wormelow,” the chief superintendent assured the unhappy man in front of him. Tump’s unorthodox sexual preference (which was what Delphick supposed he was referring to) had been generally known to the police high-ups for some years, but as the man was neither blatant nor a security risk—indeed, it had been MissEss, Delphick reflected wryly, who’d helped to clear him when the finger of suspicion had pointed his way—he had been left to pursue that unorthodox preference in peace.
Sir Wormelow took a deep breath. “It was in today’s Blare—my cleaning lady always reads it during her all-too-lengthy coffee break, and I confess to a sneaking curiosity about the more sensationa
l forms of journalism . . . I babble, do I not, Chief Superintendent? I make excuses, and put off telling you what must be told.”
“As you say, Sir Wormelow. But as long as you tell me eventually, no real harm has been done.”
Sir Wormelow’s sculptured lips smiled thinly. “You have a delightful way of instructing me to stop wasting your time, Mr. Delphick. I thank you for not losing your temper with me—I find it difficult to express . . . to explain . . .”
With a sudden movement, he held out the envelope across the desk. “Please read this, Chief Superintendent. Then I believe you’ll understand why I came.”
“If you wish, Sir Wormelow.” And, as Delphick withdrew a folded letter from inside the grey envelope, Tump lowered his head. It might have been a gesture of acquiescence; Bob Ranger could almost suppose, from the set of Sir Wormelow’s shoulders, that there were tears in the man’s eyes.
An uneasy silence filled the office while Delphick read the letter, which was written in a fine cursive script on embossed paper. It began “My dear Wonky,” and concluded with a valediction in Greek, which Delphick (despite his surname) did not understand. But he saw no need to press for a translation: the meat of the letter was in plain English, and he turned back to the beginning to read it again.
After the second reading, he looked thoughtfully at Tump for a long moment. “Blackmail, Sir Wormelow, is a crime, as I’m sure your friend must have known. It is greatly to be regretted that he felt unable to go to the police—”
“In his position—his exact position—I wonder if you would have gone, Mr. Delphick? I doubt if I could be so sure that no . . . harm . . . to myself, or to others, would ensue from such an action. It is all very well to be willing to make a sacrifice of one’s own reputation in a good cause, but . . .”
Delphick nodded, saying nothing. Tump said pleadingly: “Until now, this was simply a . . . private grief—but the newspaper said that the night watchman had been brutally attacked, and was . . . was in intensive care . . . and I knew I had been a coward . . . and I remembered your . . . kindness . . . on board the Eurydice . . .”
Delphick nodded again. “I understand, Sir Wormelow—in part, that is. But what exactly do you want me to do?”
Tump squared his shoulders, and raised his head. “These evil people must be stopped, Chief Superintendent. Nothing now can bring my poor friend back, but others should never have to suffer the mental agonies they forced him to undergo before he . . . took the only escape he could find. You must stop them, Mr. Delphick. And—one does not wish to speak of vengeance, but I . . . will help you, in whatever way I can.”
chapter
~5~
CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT DELPHICK hesitated. “Naturally, we in the police are always grateful for the public’s cooperation, Sir Wormelow, and I’d be only too happy to introduce you to Inspector Terling, who is our Art Squad expert, but—”
“No.” Tump raised a hand, very slightly, to emphasise the refusal. He shook his head. “I have no doubt that the inspector is a competent man, but I would feel . . . I would prefer to work with you, Mr. Delphick. I know you, and . . . and trust you. And you, of course, know me.”
“I do indeed. But, as I was about to explain, this case is nothing to do with me. Art thefts, unless they involve a loss of life, really aren’t my particular concern. There’s not much I can do to help, on any official basis . . .”
Sir Wormelow, a long-serving courtier sensitive to every hint, didn’t miss this one. “But are you quite so helpless unofficially? I think perhaps not, Mr. Delphick.”
The chief superintendent smiled. “There is certainly no harm, in my opinion, from talking the matter over, Sir Wormelow. Might I suggest that you have already given it some thought? I’d be interested to hear your views.”
Tump, returning Delphick’s smile, bowed slightly. “From the moment I read the newspaper I knew that something had to be done: and I have, indeed, thought the matter over with as much care as possible, given that my knowledge of the case is limited to . . . to my poor friend’s letter, and the reports of the popular press. Which, one must assume, contain some degree, at least, of truth?”
“Thrudd Banner’s generally considered a reliable man,” Delphick told him. “Allowance always has to be made for the journalist’s hyperbole, of course, but judging by the report from Inspector Terling which I’ve just read I’d say Banner has most of his facts correct. Such as they are. This is one of the most clue-less cases the Yard has dealt with for some time—the speculations of The Blare could end up being as close to the truth as we’re ever likely to get.”
Sir Wormelow considered. “This . . . this mad millionaire collector is coordinating thefts throughout Europe in order to gratify his . . . his megalomania, and nobody knows his identity. His hired thugs break in to steal, and terrorise the guardians of the artefacts he craves—but they vanish without trace. If, indeed, all the thefts ascribed to the man Croesus have been carried out at his behest. Some owners of disappearing works of art might be more than grateful for an insurance payment, not to mention the cachet which having one’s possessions craved by a connoisseur may bring . . .”
“Except that, as I was saying to my sergeant just before you arrived, if all these Croesus thefts are Croesus thefts, the last thing he could be called is a connoisseur. The man merely accumulates.”
“Or woman,” suggested Tump, as a sudden thought struck him. “May one rely on the press assumption that Croesus is male, or have the police other information which they do not wish to share with the general public?”
“According to Inspector Terling, the—admittedly few—whispers he’s picked up, shared by Interpol and police forces throughout Europe, suggest that Croesus is a man. Not,” added Delphick, “that it makes much difference, really, as nobody suggests Croesus carries out the thefts him—(or her)—self, or hits night watchmen over the head—excuse me, Sir Wormelow. In this job, one becomes, unfortunately, rather hardened to the more brutal facts of life—a form of self-preservation, you understand.”
“I think I do. You dwell in a less rarefied atmosphere than I, Mr. Delphick. However,” and the fine-featured aristocrat squared his shoulders, “even a member of Her Majesty’s court knows when facts must be faced.” He favoured Delphick with a shrewd look. “You say that you have been reading the report from one of the senior officers involved in the case. Am I correct in assuming that it was sent to you, despite your . . . ah, tenuous official connection, because of the-the strong artistic influence?”
Behind him, Bob Ranger uttered a choking exclamation of suppressed mirth. Delphick glared at him, felt Tump’s eyes brighten, and cleared his throat. “A colleague’s courtesy, nothing more, Sir Wormelow. You no doubt know that my nickname is The Oracle. And oracles are supposed to know everything that happens. Inspector Terling was merely pandering to my conceit in wishing to justify . . .”
As Tump continued to regard him fixedly, Delphick found his own gaze faltering as he ran out of words. He glared at Bob again, cleared his throat with incredible vigour, and took a very deep breath.
“We can hardly involve her officially, Sir Wormelow,” he said at last. “You know how . . . chaotic any case in which she becomes embroiled always becomes, and, as I explained, this Croesus affair is nothing to do with me. Yet,” he found himself adding, to Bob’s evident glee. “That is—dammit, Sir Wormelow, whenever Miss Seeton shows up, even on the periphery of anything . . .”
“I know, I know. But she does—excuse me—achieve the required result, does she not?”
“She does,” Delphick acknowledged grimly. “At considerable risk, on occasion, to herself, and to others. She sees it all as her duty, of course, and can never really believe anything’s going to happen to her—which, so far, I suppose you could argue, it hasn’t—but one day her luck may run out—and I feel that if we want to take advantage of her remarkable talents we ought to . . . save them for the most . . .”
Once more, he drifted into an uneasy
silence, under the interested gaze of Sir Wormelow, with Bob Ranger in the background, ever watchful. There was a long pause.
“You’ve worked with her before, haven’t you? One might almost say she’s a friend of yours,” Delphick said, as he’d known all along that he would. “This isn’t a police state, you know. One could hardly prevent a friend from visiting another friend without an outcry from the civil liberties people—and if police officers are careless with reports,” he added, stretching across the desk for his ballpoint pen, knocking to the floor a document with the Art Squad stamp on its cover, “they have only themselves to blame if members of the public pick up those reports, and read them, and maybe act upon the contents. Reprehensible, in the eyes of the law, though that would be . . .”
He stood up, stretching again. “You’ll excuse me, won’t you, Sir Wormelow? I’m rather busy this morning, I fear, and must leave you to the tender mercies of my sergeant, who will show you the way out. Ranger, why not take Sir Wormelow on a little tour of the place before he leaves? I feel sure he’d be interested in all our up-to-date crime-busting equipment—in particular, the photocopier . . .”
Ten minutes later, he was back in the office, brooding over Inspector Terling’s report (which was back on his desk), while Bob sat and watched in a tumult of curiosity, not daring to breathe a word. First time he could remember the Oracle breaking, well, bending the rules like that, but this Tump wasn’t just your ordinary member of the public. More like an honorary comrade-in-arms of the Miss Seeton Irregulars . . .
Bob chuckled, and Delphick looked up from his brooding. “You think it’s funny, do you, Bob?”
“Sort of, sir. Sorry.”
“What happened to Tump’s friend—and, presumably, to an unspecified number of other unfortunates—wasn’t funny. He killed himself rather than betray his trust. The gang put pressure on him to show them the best items to steal and the best way to go about it, or they’d publish his homosexuality abroad and ruin his career, at the very least. Caught on the horns of a very uncomfortable dilemma, Bob. If he went to the police, maybe helped set up a trap to nobble the gang and give some sort of lead back to Croesus, he’d still know that his little weakness wasn’t private anymore. Tump was right. I doubt if, in the circumstances, I’d have been all that quick to ask for help.”
Miss Seeton by Moonlight (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 12) Page 4