by Heron Carvic
“Superintendent Delphick?” asked Nigel.
“That’s right, Greek . . .” She broke off. “George, why are you staring at me like that?”
“Paying attention, m’dear.”
“Well, don’t. I’m not used to it and it’s very unnerving. I think it must have been Effie who started it. I can’t imagine why somebody hasn’t done something about that child with all this ‘I Spy’ business of hers.”
“That one needs strangling,” agreed Nigel.
“Oh, don’t,” protested his mother. “There was another in the papers only this morning. A little boy at Lewisham. I do wish they wouldn’t. But if they must strangle children, I do admit we could spare Effie. Should we advertise or something?”
“Stick to the point, mother, and don’t rattle.”
Lady Colveden was hurt. “As if my big end’d gone. Well, I told Mrs. Welsted it was complete nonsense, but she assured me that someone else had been in who’d got it from Martha, who’d got it from Molly Treeves, that it was embezzlement. Really, people. Anyway, that’s quite ridiculous, because it was Martha’s day here this morning and she never mentioned it then.” She pondered, then brightened. “Actually, in some ways I think it’ll be a very good thing if Miss Seeton starts up again.”
“Starts what?” asked Nigel.
“Oh,” his mother looked round the room for inspiration, “murders and things. I don’t think she can help it. I think she’s one of those people things happen to—or she happens to them, I’m not sure which—without her noticing it. It’ll give the village lots to talk about and then perhaps at last they’ll forget those wretched flowers.”
“Embezzlement story’s got to be stopped,” remarked Sir George.
“Oh, it has been,” his wife assured him. “I stopped it. I told Mrs. Welsted that Miss Seeton was dining here tonight.”
“Here?” ejaculated Nigel.
“Yes. I called at Crabbe’s garage and found out that Scotland Yard had ordered a car to meet Miss Seeton at Headcorn on the six-forty, so I canceled the car and told him not to go.”
“You . . .?” For once Nigel was speechless.
“Yes. I thought you could go and fetch her while I get on with the dinner. And drive rather slowly down the Street on the way back so that everyone can see. And I decided if the poor little thing’s tired, I’ll make her put her feet up on the sofa and give her dinner on a tray.”
“You—you mean,” spluttered Nigel, “that you’re going to hijack her just to find out what she’s been up to?”
“Not at all,” retorted his mother. “It’s just a kindness. It’ll help to put a stop to the talk. And, anyway, it’ll be one in the eye for the Nuts. And if she chooses to tell us what she’s been doing, there’s no harm in listening, is there? Actually I explained the whole thing to Mrs. Welsted—and to Crabbe—so it should’ve got around by now. I told them that she’d gone up to London because Scotland Yard had engaged her to do some drawings for them. There’s not a word of truth in it, of course, but I thought it better than the other story.”
Sir George’s eyes bulged. “Happens to be true.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, George!” exclaimed his wife. “You’re not listening. Of course it isn’t true. I just told you. I made it up on the spur of the moment.”
“True,” insisted Sir George. “Delphick rang me this morning to explain, before leaving.”
“Oh, really, George!” She was exasperated. “You’re quite impossible. Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you’ve known this all along and never said a word?”
“Not our business.”
“Of course it is. Everybody makes it their business, and it’s our business to protect her. And there have I been running round the village inventing lies with the best of intentions, when all the time, if you’d only told me, I could perfectly well have invented the truth.”
While in a narrow sense the quirks of the countryside may be difficult for the city-bred to grasp, on a wider scope the over-all picture is easier to realize from afar. From London distance can give perspective to the view; if it does not lend enchantment.
“Rats, you just can’t do this to me. I’d die—just die.”
“I’ll send a wreath,” promised the editor of the Daily Negative. “On expense account.”
“But,” Amelita Forby gripped the edge of the editor’s desk with both hands and leaned forward, “goddammit, this is Fleet Street—the Street. This is my home town.” She snatched a pencil from his desk; prodded his arm. “Remember me? I’m the one you said could go Crime—not Foreign Correspondent. I’m a city girl. What do yu expect me to do in some Godforsaken dump?”
The editor tilted his chair beyond the range of the jabbing pencil. “Gain experience and widen your horizon.”
Miss Forby snorted. “My first week in this setup widened my horizon to a fifty-foot screen. And as for experience . . . Boy—more loss than gain. Anyway, where is this damn Plum-whatever? How do I get there? Do I need a passport?”
“I don’t think so,” said the editor reasonably. “It’s listed as a British possession. You could always go on safari to Ashford and then write Plummergen on a piece of paper and show it around till someone says ‘Aye’ or ‘Ah’ or whatever they say down there. You should be grateful for the assignment, Mel. Think of it. March, with spring just round the corner. Kent’s known as the garden of England. And they say it’s very bracing.” He shuddered.
“Bracing, for God’s sake.” She flung down the pencil. “And do I look like a garden flower?”
He studied her angry face. “Frankly, no. More like an overheated orchid.” He dropped his chair back and pushed the pencil out of her reach. “Sorry, Mel, but it’s all yours. My spies tell me that Delphick fetched her up to London, took her to Lewisham this morning, and now they’ve gone on to the Yard. I want to know why.” He grinned at his irate subordinate. “You’ll go down there and you’ll stay down there till you’ve got the story.”
“And if nothing happens?”
“Then you’d better marry a farmer and settle down. I don’t want to see you back in the office till this one’s wrapped up.” He spoke slowly, thoughtful: “I’ve got a feeling about it—got a nose for these things. Lewisham. Where that kid was strangled yesterday. Mel,” he was suddenly enthusiastic, “this could be one of the big ones. And at least on this Seeton woman’s previous form, you should have a lively time.”
“Previous form?” she exploded. “For Pete’s sake, I read all about her previous form last year. The Battling Brolly. Some overmuscled battle-ax of a schoolmarm busting her way through life with an umbrella. You know just what you can do with your feelings. And you can do the same with your nose.”
The editor shook his head. “In my opinion that business last year was badly handled in the press. I think it needs a woman’s touch.”
“You do? Well, in my opinion, it’s you who’re touched. From what I remember reading, it would need an all-inwrestler to handle her.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’d better get myself a workout at a gym someplace.”
The editor clasped his hands on the desk and spoke seriously. “Listen, Mel. You don’t stay in newspapers as long as I have without learning to smell when something’s cooking. I’m giving you a free hand. Handle it anyway you like. Slant it anyway you want. But stay with it till you’ve got it. You’re in on it from the beginning—before it’s begun even. So make it a story and make it good. Deliver once, twice, three times a week, or daily—depending how it pans out. I’m leaving instructions for your copy not to be spiked, so don’t overwrite—or spend.”
“Not spiked?” She gaped at him. “You must’ve flipped. And what d’you mean—you’re leaving?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning for Italy. And a fortnight’s sun—I hope.”
Mel Forby stopped in the doorway. “See Naples—” she suggested venomously, “and I’ll stand your wreath myself.” The door slammed.
The editor chuckled. H
e pulled forward an internal phone.
“Dick? I’ve told Mel—she’s madder’n a hatter, but as she’ll be quitting town tonight you won’t have to cope. Leave her alone down there and print whatever she sends in just as is.” He listened for a moment. “Of course it’ll be God-awful, that’s what I want, and don’t let others catch on to why she’s there. If anyone’s interested it’s a sob-sister rehash on the Battling Brolly settling down quietly to live a quiet life in the quiet countryside. And the quieter it’s kept the better I’ll like it.” The telephone protested. “You don’t have to worry,” the editor told it. “It’s a calculated risk, and the calculation and the risk’re both mine. I’ve cleared it upstairs so you’ve got no comeback coming and anyway Mel doing maybe-crime reporting in a village and a temper should be good for a laugh. Personally I’ll take a bet it’ll pan out—might become a popular feature.” He put back the receiver and laughed to himself. Pity to be away and miss it. Mel on Fashion was one thing, but Mel as a crime correspondent should be out of this world. But she’d get the facts if there were any and no rival was likely to cotton to it and start sending its own men down to muscle in. If he was right in what he thought was hatching, the Negative was going to get a scoop.
chapter
~3~
MISS SEETON’S SKETCH lay upon the assistant commissioner’s desk.
Curious, reflected Sir Hubert, to have such a feeling of disappointment. He hadn’t expected much, if anything at all, but the feeling of let-down persisted.
Delphick, too, felt depressed. It had been a chance. And the chance hadn’t come off. But it wasn’t until now that he recognized how high his hopes had been. He had ridden roughshod over Miss Seeton’s objections last night. And she had objected; had proved, for her, curiously stubborn. He had appealed to her, pleaded with her, and finally, when it had dawned on him that it was not that she was loath to visit a mortuary but, which seemed strange, that she was unwilling to do any drawing at all, he had resorted to moral bullying before she would consent. In view of the result, perhaps she’d been right. He should have left well alone.
Waste of time. Chief Superintendent Gosslin shifted in his chair and tried to think of an excuse to get back to his office and get on with some work. The Oracle had slipped up on this one. If that was art, give him photos, front and side, any day. Looked as if she’d started all right, got bored, and then, realizing what a duff she was making, crossed it all out and done a bit of geometry.
The assistant commissioner, lifting the teapot, glanced at the drawing again. The left side of the face wasn’t bad, probably quite a recognizable likeness though a bit blurred, but the right side was a mess; smudged, unfinished, and in some way repellent. Then why those regular wavy lines drawn across it with, after a break, two half circles, one within the other? Useless. But, looking at it again, the sketch had an undeniable—a haunting—quality. You couldn’t dismiss it; nor forget it. He pulled himself together and made a determined social effort.
“Tell me, Miss Seeton,” Sir Hubert handed her a second cup of tea, “these character drawings of yours or perhaps, more correctly, I should say these cartoons, of which the superintendent has been telling me, have you always done them? Or are they a recent development?”
How very awkward. She could wish Sir Hubert hadn’t asked her that. She sipped her tea—so very strong. But no sugar, thank goodness. Miss Seeton’s dilemma was real. She knew that she must give a truthful reply and yet the truth was difficult to define. Cartoons? Character drawings? She had never thought of them as such. And had she always done them? That again was difficult to answer.
She had in fact always done such drawings but she had learned to frown upon the doing. It was her early aptitude for revealing sketches of people and events from memory that had led her to take up art as a profession. It would be easy to imagine that two fairy godmothers had attended at Miss Seeton’s christening, each determined to do her best for the child according to her lights, but without previous consultation. The first, in the grand convention, diaphanously garbed and with a glittering wand, had waved that wand and had ordained: This child shall be a Great Original; adventures shall befall her; danger shall be her portion; but she shall always triumph in adversity and shall stand as an example of how Right shall vanquish Wrong. The second godmother, in a more modern convention, tweed coat and skirt and with an umbrella in her hand, had raised that umbrella and decreed: This child shall be meek; full of humility and grace; she shall conform to an accepted pattern; she shall prove the triumph of Respectability over Disorder in this world. Both ladies might then have taken off in individual puffs of smoke, congratulating themselves on their good intentions, unaware that between them they had set their little godchild the unenviable task of treading two divergent paths through life. It is a credit to Miss Seeton’s character that she has so far kept one foot on each of these split ways without doing in actual fact the splits. At art school Miss Seeton’s ebullience of pencil and her lightning sketches met with disapproval. That great cartoonist of the century’s turn Phil May, it was explained, had always worked in meticulous detail before choosing the few brief lines that he would oversketch in ink. No one but genius, it was pointed out, should attempt to work freehand and only then after long and arduous study. Miss Seeton’s humility could not envisage genius save in others. The meticulous and the arduous became her aim and the teaching of drawing to indifferent children her lot. Her occasional and irrepressible breakthroughs of inspiration and originality she deplored, or excused as being notes to be worked on later. So in her life Adventure sought her out, cavorted round her, and intruded. Miss Seeton, armored in Respectability, ignored it, or when perforce involved she used the Nelson Touch; refused to see that continual implication in strange circumstances implied a personal implication. In life, for her congenital imbroglios and escapades—such as prodding a young man in the back with her umbrella when he was in the act of striking a girl, with a view to reproving his manners, only to find that she had committed the solecism of intruding on a purely personal matter of murder—she would blame herself; a misconception here; there a failure to understand; nor would she admit to any sequence in such events since to do so would be to deny the placid, conventional existence she truly believed she led.
Equally, in work, any strangeness such as her recent difficulty in drawing could not, she was convinced, be due to an outside influence, but must, she was quite sure, have a mundane source—oneself—one’s age. But she couldn’t—no, she really couldn’t go into all that. She’d known that to attempt any drawing just at the moment was unwise. But then the superintendent—such a kind, such an understanding man, as a rule—had been so persuasive, so insistent even. But, of course, she’d been wrong to agree, because it had been even worse this time. So very embarrassing. For everybody. However, it was no good worrying over what was done and couldn’t be helped. And, in any case, she had an appointment with Dr. Knight tomorrow morning, so then, at least, she’d know where she stood. Meanwhile Sir Hubert’s question was such a difficult one to answer. Truthfully, that was. And with the police, of course, it was so very important to be exact.
“I’ve always been inclined to do them,” she confessed. “Though very seldom. And I’ve never approved. You see, I feel, as I’ve always tried to impress upon my pupils, that one should only draw precisely what one sees. Or as near as one can, that is. Imaginative work should only be for the highly trained. Or, of course, again, for the very gifted. And in either of these cases, naturally, the rules shouldn’t apply. And, recognizing this tendency toward extravagance in myself, I’ve always tried to suppress it. Though I’m bound to admit that it does seem to have been getting worse since I’ve been standing on my head.”
Gosslin wuffed; then retrieved to a cough when it dawned that he’d wuffed out of season. Too late he put his cup and saucer on the assistant commissioner’s desk.
Sergeant Ranger had effaced himself so far as was possible by placing his chair against the wall,
his notebook and pen on his knees, for confidence, teacup and saucer in one hand and a plate with a buttered bun in the other. He felt bitter. It should be even chances, but it never was. It was always odds on they fell buttered side down. He recovered his now bewhiskered bun and pushed the plate under his chair and out of his mind. Anyway, he hadn’t poured tea all over his pants like old Goosefeathers.
Miss Seeton regarded Sir Hubert anxiously. “Of course,” she continued, “I don’t say there is necessarily any connection.”
The assistant commissioner made a valiant effort. “No. I can see that you wouldn’t say that. Or, not necessarily. But I quite appreciate that you feel bound to give consideration to the fact that the possibility is there. Or thereabouts.” He looked helplessly at Delphick.
Delphick laughed. “So you’re discovered; your secret is out. What made you take up yoga?”
“My knees,” she explained. “The advertisement was so very encouraging that it seemed to be worth the attempt.”
“Somehow, Miss Seeton,” observed the assistant commissioner, “I find it difficult to picture you indulging in meditation or flights of fancy. Your feet—or more properly I should say your head—appear to be planted too firmly on the ground.”
“Oh, no,” Miss Seeton assured him. “I don’t try anything mental. I believe it’s very difficult and takes years.”
“A pity,” remarked Sir Hubert. “We could do with some mental gymnastics. The man we’re looking for on this child murder case is certainly mental, or at best indifferent sane. Presuming always that it is only one man.”
“You mean . . .?” Miss Seeton was shocked. “Oh, but surely, there couldn’t be more than one?”
“We trust not. But a case that is given detailed coverage in the press is liable to produce imitative crimes. And in this instance the method is easy enough to copy. To cross your hands, to throw a loop of wire over your victim’s head from behind, to jerk it tight, rendering him helpless, doesn’t take any strength, or very little. A woman, even a child, could do it.”