“Unworthy,” said Delphick again, in a reproachful tone, and sighed. Mel stifled a giggle. Bob cleared his throat with unnecessary force, and without invitation dropped weakly down on the nearest chair. Such springs as there were shuddered. Mel, wincing at the noise, seated herself daintily on the other chair, and regarded Delphick in an expectant silence.
It was broken by a tap on the door, and by Delphick’s command for the tapper to come in. Now, with the appearance of a burly uniformed bobby bearing a tray, was his chance to have Amelita Forby summarily ejected from the hallowed premises of New Scotland Yard ...
He missed his chance—as Mel had gambled, as Bob had guessed, that he would: as she’d said, they went back a long way. As the bright-buttoned Ganymede made his exit, Delphick shook his head in self-reproach. “Do help yourself to sugar,” he invited. “None for me, thank you: nor for Sergeant Ranger, on whose waistline the, ah, sweetness of married life has already wreaked havoc enough. Speaking of which,” above Bob’s indignant splutter, “where is your own particular sweet wreaker at the moment?”
“Abroad without me, the rat.” Mel, handing cups, omitted sugar from all three. “Switzerland,” she enlarged, sipping. “Some drugs-and-corruption case that’s going to bust a few admirals in the Swiss Navy back to able-seamen, if the leads he’s chasing are right, which knowing Banner they most likely are. Which means he’s all set for another scoop, and I ... wait for mine like a good little girl. Because virtue always gets its due reward, right?”
“Wrong.” Delphick did his best to frown: a quick look at his in-tray made it easy. “There is too much evidence—as witness these bulging files—which I do not, incidentally, propose allowing you to study—to the contrary, Miss Forby. Crime, at least in the short term, does seem to reap considerable rewards, and with the police overworked as we undoubtedly are ...”
“You’re never averse to calling in a spot of outside help, right? Hence Miss S.’s visit yesterday.” Mel ignored Delphick’s loud, weary, protesting sigh. “Came up with the goods as usual, did she? Except—no, I guess she can’t have done, or you’d have been there on the Stentorian embassy doorstep warning them to keep the official garage well and truly padlocked. Though she’ll have managed to work in a few references to snow or something, won’t she?”
“Will she?” Delphick raised an eyebrow. “Why should she? According to yourself, Thrudd’s visit to Switzerland is in pursuit of a major scoop, which means he’s unlikely to have spread the word around that he was involved in drugs in case someone else scooped him. Which—”
“Banner be blowed! There’s snow and there’s snow, Oracle, and you know darn well I’m not talking about the other sort. Apart from anything else, cocaine’s not what Thrudd’s after, though you’ll have to wait until you read the story in one of his World Wide rags for the details. I mean wet, white, and fluffy. Falls out of the sky, blocks the roads—and freezes pipes, because it’s so darned cold. In winter.” Mel sat up, and set her empty cup on the tray. “Guess nobody but me’s noticed the coincidence—the name of the gallery the Rammers raided today—the owner’s name, I mean.” Delphick stared. Bob gaped. Mel smiled.
“A chilly sort of female, I should think, though I’ve never met her. Any more than I or anyone else has ever met Chrysander Bullian ...”
Delphick blinked. He drew a deep breath. “Mel, that’s—that would be—fantastic. The suggestion’s been made before, in a—a half-hearted fashion, but ... No, it’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Like me and Sir Heavily in the lift? Coincidences happen, Oracle, you know they do. The way I know you’re holding out on me about Miss S’s sketches. Did she, or didn’t she? There isn’t another newshound who’s nosed it out ...yet—and that’s the way I’ll keep it, if you’ll only play ball. If you don’t ... well, it’s not such a long trip to Plummergen, and if any of my pals from the Street spotted me catching the train at Charing Cross, they’d soon put two and two together ...”
Delphick forced a laugh. “You won’t persuade me in a million years that you’d ever go shares in a scoop—if it is a scoop, Mel, and I’m not sure why you’re so keen to insist that it is, apart from your natural wish to best Thrudd in the matter of front-page headlines. But the idea of descending on an elderly woman, perhaps browbeating her, in order to achieve those headlines, should be repugnant even to a Daily Negative reporter ...”
“Then do the Sir Galahad bit,” said Mel, trying to look like someone capable of severe browbeating, “and show me the sketches, and I promise I’ll try not to do an Oliver Twist. Except—well, I’m kind of curious, I admit. I wonder what Miss Seeton’s doing right now.”
chapter
~ 16 ~
WHAT MISS SEETON was doing was pouring tea from a sprigged china teapot into dainty porcelain cups, while the teapot’s owner sat watching with her arm in a sling.
Miss Wicks, despite her bandages and straps, was excited enough by the after-school visit of her friend Miss Seeton to treat it, as far as possible, as an Occasion, with sandwiches and scones and two sorts of preserve. Advanced in years as she was, lavish entertainment of that kind offered by her parents in earlier days was, sadly, out of the question; but a little tea-party from time to time was quite another matter, and something she could manage easily, in normal circumstances. She owed, she knew, a great deal of hospitality—people in the village were always so sociable and kind—but somehow the idea of vast numbers of persons in her little cottage ...
Miss Wicks had no idea that people positively preferred her not to invite them to tea. It was far more embarrassing going to her house than having her come to theirs: in their own, they had other rooms to which, on one excuse or another, they could briefly escape when her oppressive sibilance was in serious danger of imposing itself upon their modes of speech. Miss Wicks had false teeth of a decidedly squirrel-like appearance, and, while these may have fitted perfectly in the past, the evidence strongly suggested that this had been several decades past. Miss Wicks, in short, whistled when she spoke; and, as a yawn is infectious, so is a severe case of hissing when one converses with somebody insistent, for some unknown reason—quite unconsciously, Plummergen was sure—to use more than her fair share of esses.
Miss Seeton, obviously, suffered in this respect more than most, but, being of that class and generation which uses Christian names only after long acquaintance, had no real remedy beyond self-control. Her seven years’ residence in Plummergen must be seen as a matter of minutes only on the clock-face of familiarity, and it would take at least an hour before she could feel at her ease being addressed by the older woman as Emily—and two hours or more before she could ever hope to bring herself to call Miss Wicks ...
Miss Seeton, passing the old lady her cup, realised that she had no idea what Miss Wicks’s Christian name might be. She would hazard a guess, however, that it would be nothing so convenient as Winifred, Hilda, or Maude.
“So kind,” whistled Miss Wicks, accepting her cup with a smile. “So careless of me, to slip on the steps and sprain my wrist in such a fashion.”
“I imagine,” said Miss Seeton, sipping tea, “that it is easily done, in an absent-minded moment—and it could have been very much worse.”
“Indeed, yes. Dr. Knight has given me a severe scold for having gone outside in my new shoes. The soles were still smooth, and there were damp leaves on the top step—but as I slipped, luckily, I caught at the balustrade, which stopped my falling any farther. And I was most fortunate, so Dr. Knight says, not to have dislocated my shoulder, instead of a simple sprain ...”
The old lady brandished her bandaged arm in a manner which, in someone less Victorian, might have denoted pride. “I had expected,” said Miss Wicks, with a twinkle, “a plaster cast, so that I was agreeably surprised only to have a sling, except, of course, that one cannot ask one’s friends to scribble amusing messages on a sling. When my brother broke his arm—dear me.” She twinkled again. “Such a coincidence. It was at precisely the same seas
on of the year, as I recall, for he fell out of a horse chestnut tree, which he had climbed in search of conkers.”
Miss Seeton nodded, twinkling in turn. “Murreystone,” she murmured. “The children are very restless at present—the coming contest, you see.”
Miss Wicks, gazing back to her long-distant youth, gave a little chuckle. “Dear me, such rascals we were, poor Sebastian and I—my twin brother, you know. Always up to mischief, of one sort or another ...” She sighed. “It seems only yesterday we were scampering round the estate without a care in the world ...” She sighed again. “He died in the Great War: he was a Sapper.”
As Miss Seeton expressed quiet sympathy, the old lady’s sad eyes brightened. “I have such happy memories. Miss Seeton. When we were youngsters ... We went everywhere together, and shared everything. Bows and arrows—except that I was strictly forbidden to use a sharpened point ... We used to play Robin Hood—I, of course, was Maid Marian. Sebastian and his friends would hold a contest for the Silver Arrow ... And sometimes we played King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, with catapults and stones for besieging the Castle of the Black Knight ... Dear me!”
The old lady smiled. “I fear I must have been something of a tomboy, Miss Seeton. Disgracefully unladylike, my governess told me, more than once, for I played truant from my lessons many times. Still, I feel sure my dear mother was only ever teasing when she said her Cecelia was a sad piece, so I’m sorry to say I took little notice of poor Miss Scott. But they were such happy days—playing at Sir Lancelot, Sir Gaheris, Sir Bors de Gannis ...”
She sat up. “Have I ever shown you the photograph of my childhood home? In the silver frame on the mantelpiece.”
Miss Seeton, with a smile, hopped up from her chair to follow the old lady’s pointing finger. One had, of course, on many previous occasions observed the proud display of sepia and fading hand-washed colour prints on the overmantel, but naturally one had never cared to pry. Since her hostess—and how right she’d been not to think of her as Winifred, Hilda, or Maude—since her hostess was, however, minded to reminisce, Miss Seeton must be the perfect guest and fall in with her mood—which suited the guest very well. Miss Seeton smiled, stood on tiptoe, and reached between the ormolu clock and what she realised, now that she was close to it for the first time, was a piece of genuine Meissen. Holding her breath as she thought of the ornament’s likely value, with great care she lifted down the small, rectangular picture of a gracious country house.
The artist’s eye is all-noticing. Miss Seeton’s glance was caught by a nearby studio portrait of a handsome young man in army uniform. “This would no doubt be your brother, Miss Wicks?” she ventured to enquire, recognising the identical cheekbones and jawline which the passage of more than sixty years had not altered. “He is very handsome.”
Then she blushed, fearing that her artist’s appreciation of Sebastian Wicks’s distinctive facial structure might be thought rather too personal; but she need not have worried. Sebastian’s sister beamed with pleasure. She had been, in the manner of twins, extremely close to her brother: there were no other children in the family, and few cousins of similar age. Cecelia Wicks was delighted to have the chance to talk about the old days with her friend Miss Seeton, to remember her dead twin and their vanished youth, and to show some of her most treasured souvenirs. So many had been ... lost, over the years (Miss Seeton nodded in sympathy, guessing that the old lady had been forced to sell them to help make ends meet) but there remained more than enough memories to fill a very happy hour for Miss Wicks. Miss Seeton admired glittering glass candlestick lustres, a cheerful pair of china dogs, a lockable double tea-caddy lined with lead, a tiered cake-stand with four plates, a large blue-and-white domed cheese-dish, and an unusual tantalus of three silver barrels with a rollicking satyr astride the topmost, brandishing in tipsy fashion a brimming flagon.
Each of these treasures had its own story, which Miss Wicks narrated with sibilant relish. Sebastian and she, running illicit races round the dining room, had knocked the cake-stand off the table and broken the smallest plate beyond repair: if Miss Seeton looked closely, she would see that it didn’t quite match the rest. Polishing the silver barrels had been their favourite task on rainy Sundays; the cheese-dish had been their dear mother’s wedding-present from a much-loved aunt. Dear Sebastian had kept his champion conkers in one compartment of the tea-caddy, supposing that the lead fumes would make them even stronger ...
When Miss Seeton at last—having cleared away the tea things and had her offer of doing the washing-up refused—said goodbye, she prepared to leave the little cottage in a comfortable glow, conscious that she had done a good deed in cheering Miss Wicks’s housebound solitude for a while.
“No, really, there is no need at all for you to trouble yourself coming to the door.” Miss Seeton gathered up her bag and umbrella, and patted her hat straight with an automatic hand. “Do forgive the impertinence, dear Miss Wicks, but as Dr. Knight has told you to rest, then I am sure he knows exactly what is best for you—such a good doctor, and so very wise. A sprain can be awkward, as well as painful, and it is bound to affect your sense of balance—the sling, I mean. If you were to slip again—after all, it has been raining while I have been with you—and I would feel dreadfully to blame should you perhaps hurt yourself even more.”
“So considerate,” whistled Miss Wicks, smiling: not that she had intended to do more than go to the top of the steps, but since dear Miss Seeton had advised against it, she would stay in the sitting-room and save herself the slightest risk of stumbling. “The sense of balance,” she said, “is something of which I must suppose you to have a considerable understanding, Miss Seeton, so I will follow your advice ...”
Miss Seeton blushed again, though this time for a different reason. While she was not in the least embarrassed by having, seven years ago, taken up the practice of yoga to the great benefit of her knees, she could never help but be embarrassed when people chose to regard her—entirely without encouragement from herself—as an expert. “Years,” she murmured, blushing again. “If not a lifetime, according to Yoga and Younger Every Day—for one to become expert, that is. Such strict mental and dietary regimes, not to mention the, er, rigorous and rather excessive cleansing techniques, which are hardly ...”
She recollected herself with a start, blushed once more, and bade her hostess farewell with a further warning to take the utmost care when walking up and down stairs. And were there any errands, was there any shopping Miss Wicks wanted doing? It would be no particular hardship to carry a few additional items back from the post office ...
The rain had almost stopped by the time Miss Seeton came out of the cottage, to pause on the top step and gauge with an expert eye the likely slipperiness of the drifted, soggy leaves which had caused the downfall of Miss Wicks. With a cautious hand on the wrought-iron chill of the balustrade, Miss Seeton, her handbag and brolly over the other arm, trod warily down the steps, pausing again at the bottom to unfurl and open her umbrella. She did not notice, as she turned back to Miss Wicks at the sitting-room window, that her actions had been the cause of some curiosity just across the road, in a window of the George and Dragon; nor did she notice when, making up her mind that the rain would very soon, in all probability, stop, instead of hurrying the thirty yards to Sweetbriars she turned in quite the opposite direction and headed up the Street in the direction of the post office ... with those curious eyes following her from the George before they drifted to Miss Wicks, alone in her cottage, waving her bandaged arm in valediction.
“Can’t say I’m too keen myself, Colveden. In fact, I couldn’t agree with you more. Seems to me half the village have lost their heads over this television nonsense.”
Rear Admiral Bernard “Buzzard” Leighton, leaning comfortably on his front gate, was chatting with his friend Sir George—whose car, on its way back from Brettenden, had drifted to a coincidental halt right outside Ararat Cottage, landfall of the retired Sea Lord. The drifting (Sir
George would insist, should anyone be so bold as to enquire) was clearly coincidental, common knowledge in Plummergen though it might be that at any time (and on any excuse) after five in the evening, the admiral spliced the mainbrace with considerable enthusiasm, and welcomed with open arms and unstoppered bottle any of his acquaintance who just happened to be passing—as Sir George had innocently been doing when, glancing across the Street as dusk began to fall, he’d caught sight of the Buzzard’s ginger beard bobbing among the flower-beds at the front as shrubs were pruned and weeds plucked out ...
It had (the major-general silently rehearsed for Lady Colveden’s eventual benefit) been no more than common courtesy to pop out of the car and across the Street to pass the time of day with a chap who, after all, was (in a manner of speaking, he being Royal Navy and the baronet Army) a former comrade in arms. “One of the best, the Buzzard,” Sir George was wont to tell his family, in tones rather more slurred than usual, after one of the admiral’s little get-togethers.
“Bowls a mean googly,” his son would agree, referring to Admiral Leighton’s renowned hat-trick with his first three balls in the recent Murreystone match. A chap who was good at cricket couldn’t be such a bad influence, could he?
Her ladyship, much as she liked Rear Admiral Leighton, rather suspected he could. She inclined to the view that she would like the admiral even better if he served black coffee instead of pink gin when he was entertaining. She had, however, sense enough to know that boys, and for that matter grown men, would be boys, once in a while, and that her wisest course was to adopt a philosophical attitude, and to stop Nigel teasing his father too much when Sir George complained about the terrible racket made by his son’s toast when crunched in quantity at breakfast time.
“Of course,” the Buzzard continued, “I know about the Best Kept Village Competition. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that—always like to see a place looking shipshape. Self-respect in the community, and so on. Can’t be bad. But that was more a—a local affair, as far as I can make out: Kent, Sussex, and people who read guidebooks. Whereas all this popping in and out of people’s houses and gardens, putting them on display for the whole country to goggle at once the blasted programme’s been broadcast ...”
Miss Seeton Undercover (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 17) Page 13