“You can’t,” said Mutford, “just go a-barging into the super’s office as you please, young woman.”
“I don’t want to barge,” said Mel. “I want you to tell him I’m here, and I’m on my way, and he needn’t bother laying on an escort because I already know where I’m going—”
“You’re going nowhere,” she was informed. “Regulations say as nobody’s to be let wander willy-nilly about the station, lest their eyes light on things it’s not their lawful business to see.” Desk Sergeant Mutford was a staunch member of the Holdfast Brethren, a curious sect renowned for sticking as closely to the strict letter of the law as the twentieth century would permit. “Moreover,” he added, as she was about to protest, “it’s not fitting.”
Mel’s brows arched above her beautiful eyes. “Why not?”
Mutford looked scandalised. “With you a weaker vessel, and him a married man? To think I should ever hear words so brazen, with my very own ears!”
“Well, you’d hardly hear them with anyone else’s—”
“Brazen,” thundered Mutford, “and immodest! Besides, he isn’t in yet,” as Mel could contain herself no longer, and burst out laughing: hunger had made her light-headed, and if she didn’t laugh, she’d explode. She’d once written up the Brethren in a tactfully-disguised Piece, but she’d forgotten just how unyielding they could be. She was surprised she could find it so amusing ...
“What’s the joke?” came a voice from behind—a voice she knew. “Sarge, that was never you laughing? Miss Forby! What are you doing here?”
Mel turned, smiling with relief. “Trying,” she said, with emphasis, “to see your boss. But it’s turned out more difficult than I’d expected.”
Detective Constable Foxon, who knew very well what she meant, smiled back at her before turning to the fulminating Mutford, who was babbling that Brinton wasn’t in, for one thing. And for another—
“It’s okay, Sarge, I’ll vouch for the lady. And wouldn’t it save bothering the super about seeing her if I talk to her first, and find out what she wants?”
“What I want,” said Mel, as she followed Foxon down the corridor in the direction of Brinton’s office, “is coffee—and plenty of it. Do you realise I missed my breakfast to be here early—so early I hadn’t the heart to dig Jack Crabbe out of bed with his taxi? But what good’s it done me? If you hadn’t come along when you did—”
“But I did,” said Foxon, striking an attitude before diverting towards the canteen. “The early bird catches the constabulary coffee ... And try to look,” he begged, as he threw open the canteen door, “like an informer, if you can. Sergeant Mutford’s right—you’re not really supposed to be here, and you’ll never kid anybody you’re one of us plainclothes lot.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” murmured Mel, thinking of recent successful kidding. But she knew, as all good journalists must, how to be discreet, and she said nothing more—on the topic of impersonation, that is. She was, however, more than eloquent on the topic of Miss Seeton ...
One quick coffee and a sticky bun later, she was urging Foxon back to Brinton’s office to study the sketches in detail. The superintendent had still not arrived as Foxon sat Mel in his visitors’ chair, dragged his own round the desk at an angle, and sat gazing at the two sketches and the menu Mel spread on the blotter before him.
“She drew this one first,” said Mel. “A day or so after she got back from seeing the Oracle about the Ram Raids ...”
Foxon spent a few moments studying the sketch, and then found he was clearing his throat with unnecessary vigour.
Mel twinkled at him. “Got you the same way, has it?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “either she’s gone in for a bit of weather-forecasting, and wanted to warn us about this morning’s fog—it was pretty murky in patches, which must be why the super’s still not in yet ...”
“Or?” prompted Mel, as he paused to cough again.
“Or she’s getting ahead of herself somehow, because Guy Fawkes isn’t until November, and these certainly look like fireworks, to me.”
“Starbursts,” said Mel. “I thought so, too.”
“And that flag ...” He jabbed a finger at the proud standard blowing in the breeze. “Don’t tell me—I used to be a Boy Scout, and national flags was one of the badges ... Stentoria,” he said, remembering, as Mel applauded quietly. “Never dreamed it would come in useful again.”
“I guess she got that,” said Mel, “from something I said about the ambassador’s Rolls-Royce being used for one of the Ram Raids, and then Admiral Leighton’s Trafalgar Day party. Boy, does that man know how to celebrate!”
“By all accounts,” Foxon said, “he does. Potter once had to warn Sir George—” He pulled himself up sharply. “Flags, and fireworks—funny kind of star, though ...”
The Stentorian flag drawn by Miss Seeton was just one of many, flown not from a vertical flagpole but from a horizontal line, hanging between two stout posts: the effect was more that of a string of party bunting than a sober naval signal or a display of national flags. Only the Stentorian flag was clearly drawn, with the others mere roughed-in shapes, as roughly shaded, giving the impression of movement without detailed form, and obscured for the greater part by debris from those puzzling starbursts.
These—if starbursts they were—had been shown exploding not above the line of flags, but below it, close to the ground. Through Miss Seeton’s pencilled streaks of debris, smoke, and light could be glimpsed three persons of indeterminate gender, with, in the far background, a large, powerful car. Near the rear of this car the most violent of the firework explosions seemed to have occurred. Strange shapes—oblong, square, round—of various sizes—some almost as large as a car door, some smaller than one of its headlamps—were arranged, as far as Foxon and Mel could tell, in an assortment of pyramids, clumps, and rows, most of them in the foreground, but some—the largest—near the back of the car, in less formal array.
“I only came down to ask her about the Ram Raids,” Mel said. “I never thought about anything else, but now—well, I can’t help wondering. Just take a look at the sketch she drew on the menu, and see what you think about her having muddled what I wanted to know with what she wanted to tell me ... about those Sideboard Swipers you’ve had around here for the past few—sorry?”
Foxon was breathing heavily. “I said they got an old family friend the other day, damn them. Almost broke my grandmother’s heart, finding him like that—so I just hope you’re right, Mel. Or rather that Miss Seeton is ...”
The menu sketch was a vivid depiction of a room with a graceful, bow-fronted sideboard—Chippendale? Sheraton? Hepplewhite?—in its exact centre, and bearing, as well as a tempting group of bottles and an indistinct photograph in a frame, a selection of plates and dishes heaped with assorted goodies such as cheeses, sweetmeats, and fruits of different kinds. To one side of the rug, towards the back of the room, stood a television inside a cabinet with similar curved lines to those of the sideboard: it was almost as if those early masters of furniture design had foreseen the twentieth century. In the foreground lurked a faceless figure in trousers and a buttoned mackintosh, with a folded newspaper under its—his?—arm, and a notebook and pencil in its other hand as if jotting down—maybe sketching—details of the scene.
“Doris at the George,” said Mel, as Foxon looked up with a pucker between his brows, “can chatter away with the best of them, if she’s in the mood. She was telling us last night about all the fun they’ve had recently with the television research people, and the reporter”—she tapped the notebook-and-pencilled figure with an emphatic finger—“who wants to make his name writing the definitive article on Jeremy Froste, for some strange reason.”
She fixed the still-silent Foxon with a meaningful look. “Now, let me throw a few guesses at you, and you tell me if I’m right. The Swipers’ victims—they’re usually elderly people?”
“Around here they are, yes, more’s the pity. And I’m p
retty sure it’s the same in other parts of the country.”
Mel nodded. “From what I’ve read, it is. And these elderly people—they’ve all been in the papers, one way or another, not so long before they were burgled?”
Foxon nodded. “The old girl in hospital had told ’em how she was starting some charity collection in memory of whatever-it-was her sister had just died of—and then there was poor old Reg. One minute it’s his golden wedding, with ’em taking snaps of him and Gertie cutting the cake, and the next he’s at her funeral. They wrote a grand obituary for her, though, and he really went to town on the entry in the Deaths column—I’d never have believed a stiff-upper-lip sort of bloke like him’d let everyone know how upset he was. Then what happens not five minutes later but some devil breaks into the house and ...”
He stopped. He looked at Mel, whose stare was still as meaningful as it had been a few moments earlier. He said:
“Let’s think this through, Miss Forby of Fleet Street. You’re a reporter, and a pretty famous one, as well—now.” Mel’s eyes gleamed, but she said nothing. Foxon went on: “But you had to get started somehow, didn’t you?”
Slowly, Mel nodded, her eyes still bright. Foxon said:
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I think,” said Mel, “that I just might be.”
There was a pause, during which the two exchanged conspiratorial glances. In the end, Mel said:
“I guess it’s pretty far-fetched, when you think about it in cold blood, but—well, coincidences happen ...”
“And,” said Foxon, “if they don’t—I suppose they can always be helped along a bit, can’t they?”
There was another pause. Mel, in the end, was the one who broke it.
“Of course, she’s never been much of a one for—well, for playing a part for the press—and we’ve gone along with that, as far as we can. If we want to try this, though ...”
Foxon laughed. “Playing a part? We all know she’s not what you’d call an actress, but—you think she’d have to? Besides, she’s gone undercover, so to speak, before—like that witchcraft business a few years back.” Absently, he rubbed the upper arm injured by the hired thugs—Majordomes—of the sinister Nuscience cult it had been intended Miss Seeton should infiltrate.
“Of course—and in Switzerland,” said Mel, still half-heartedly brooding on Thrudd’s refusal to let her accompany him, though she had the feeling that a possible Seeton Scoop in the hand was worth any number of seasick Swiss sailors in the abstract. “And that gambling case, except I know she wasn’t too keen on dressing up for the casino ...”
“But she did it,” said Foxon, who’d only come in at the end of the Thatcher affair, but who’d had graphic accounts of its origins from others. “Don’t forget her sense of duty, Mel. Once she knew what it was all about, I’m sure she’d be the first to want to do something—and yet ...” The tone was very serious now. “I can’t help wondering—and the super’ll do a damn sight more than wonder. Is it really such a good idea to let Miss Seeton loose on this?”
chapter
~ 26 ~
FRIDAY’S FINAL PATROL of Night Watch Men, homeward bound at sunrise on Saturday, were not greatly surprised when they met PC Potter emerging from the police house with the air of one who has already broken his fast on eggs-and-bacon, sweet tea, and plenty of toast. Potter was on foot, not in his car. His buttons were bright, his regulation cap had been replaced by his trusty, hard-topped helmet, and he carried a stout, old-fashioned truncheon in his hand.
“Morning, lads,” he greeted Jack Crabbe and company. “Off to your beds, eh, and leaving all well?”
“So far,” replied Jack, in ominous tones, “all’s well. You’ll be bound for the village hall, I don’t doubt.”
“I am,” said Potter. He tapped the side of his nose in a knowing fashion, and winked. Jack and his colleagues exchanged glances. Potter, intercepting the glances, brandished his truncheon at those who glanced.
“We’ll have due respect for the forces of the law, if you please, lads—though that’s not to say as I might not have to call on you later, if things get ... lively.” Chuckles and mutterings greeted this remark. Potter grinned. “But until they do—and just maybe they won’t—well, we’ll keep the peace, as best we can. All right?”
Reluctantly, the patrol agreed that it was—and headed bedwards as Potter had instructed, leaving him to make his way up the Street to Plummergen Village Hall, outside the front door of which—having checked fire-doors and lower windows for signs of illegal entry—he took up his station, very much on guard.
In normal circumstances, produce show organisers do not require a police presence at the scene of the event. Jars of home-made jam, bottled fruit, sponge cakes, and baskets of vegetables are hardly given to riotous assembly. Novelty displays such as Hats Trimmed: Fruit or Seed-Box Gardens sit peaceably on wooden benches until their proud designers take them, disassembled, home. The most probable excitement at a produce show is the inadvertent hatching of wrongly-dated eggs, warmed in their cotton-wool nest by the autumn sun ...
PC Potter nodded a greeting to the first arrivals, but said nothing as he slapped the truncheon in the palm of his hand, watching further arrivals—evidently dismayed by so prompt a start to proceedings—appear almost simultaneously at the end of the path. The newcomers huddled together, suspiciously staring, before marching up the path en masse. A large key appeared from someone’s pocket, the door was unlocked, and Plummergen—closely pursued by suspicious Murreystone—hurried into the hall to arrange its exhibits for the joint Produce Show.
The Judging Committee was, for safety, composed of an equal number of gardeners and gourmets from each village. The hall was cleared as judging took place: a large and interested crowd gathered on the path as PC Potter, his ear cocked for sounds of dissent from within, kept his eyes open for signs of disaffection without.
“... really too bad,” grumbled Mrs. Blaine, “if all your hard work doesn’t win a prize, Eric, because I’m sure if anyone knows how to grow leeks, it’s you.”
Miss Nuttel gazed modestly down her equine nose, and did her best to blush. “Luck of the game, Bunny, when all’s said and done. Only a bit of fun, after all.”
“Fun?” Mrs. Putts, perennially debarred from the Cakes and Pastries class on grounds of professionalism—her job in Brettenden’s biscuit factory was deemed to give her an unfair advantage—was minded to strike a sour note. “Some people take it a sight too serious, if you ask me. There’s bin talk,” with a darkling glare for the Murreystone contingent, “of duck-eggs painted to look like chickens’—ah, and of marrows fed on sugared water, which nobody could say was good honest fertiliser, now could they?”
Murreystone pointedly ignored the insinuation, gazing in any direction but that of the frustrated pastry-cook. PC Potter shifted from one side of the doorway to the other, reminding everyone of his presence. Jeremy Froste nodded as Bethan Broomfield opened her bag to scribble something in her notebook: Not All Roast Beef would no doubt contain a stirring episode of Horticultural Sabotage and Dirty Tricks in its next series. For a long while, nobody spoke.
On the still October air, voices were heard from the body of the hall. The crowd began to edge forward, hoping to peer inside, yet keeping well out of truncheon-range ...
The Show proper opened at two o’clock. PC Potter had remained on guard the entire time, asking Sir George and Nigel, as working farmers too busy to grow things for fun—Lady Colveden’s eggs didn’t count—to act as his deputies when the necessary aftermath of his early-morning tea took him away from his post. For Nigel in particular, this was no hardship. Miss Broomfield, soon abandoned by a bored Jeremy Froste, was taking notes in great detail, and asking questions Sir George promptly professed himself unable to answer. Lady Colveden, arriving with her eggs, read the unspoken appeal in Nigel’s eyes, and went home to return with a flask of tea, which she insisted PC Potter must share with her menfolk, and from which N
igel poured with a more than lavish hand. For his part, he could have stayed outside all morning, notwithstanding a wireless forecast of heavy rain: he hoped midday would never come ...
Eleven o’clock came, and went. Twelve, and the sun was overhead, the promised rain as yet only a hint of high, faraway cloud. Twelve-thirty, and everyone except PC Potter popped home for something to eat. By one-forty-five, they were nearly all back again; by one-fifty-five, in a bristling silence, what seemed like the larger part of Plummergen and Murreystone was waiting outside the village hall—on pointedly opposite sides of the path—to learn the fate of their various entries in the first ever combined Produce Show.
“Miss Seeton!” Lady Colveden greeted the new arrival with a wave. “I know you wanted to walk up, but do remind me to offer you a lift on the way back—I imagine the rain won’t hold off much longer.”
Miss Seeton, wearing her yellow bead necklace and a new hat in honour of the occasion, patted the gold umbrella over her arm and smiled. “You are very kind, but I am well prepared, as you see, and wouldn’t wish to make you wait when it is really no great distance. And I have promised to drop in afterwards to see dear Miss Wicks, to tell her about the conker contest, in which she is naturally most interested.”
Listening Plummergen shuffled its feet, and hid smiles of secret understanding. Puzzled Murreystone, whose knowledge of Miss Seeton was much distorted by five miles’ distance and an almost total ban on communication with its neighbouring village, wondered what point it was missing.
“And of course,” continued Miss Seeton, “since dear Stan was unwilling to let me enter my eggs in the Show, there was really nothing for me to carry—or my apples, or indeed anything else, ready for church tomorrow—though I suppose it would have been in the morning. To be judged, I mean, rather than in the afternoon—to bring them, that is, as, presumably, you did, which would have been most helpful, except that I didn’t ...”
Miss Seeton Undercover (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 17) Page 21