Sweet Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 20)

by Hamilton Crane

  Charing Cross at midmorning is busy, but not frenetically so. It did not take Miss Seeton long to move near to the front of the taxi queue, where she was startled by a sudden swooping rush about her head by a multitude of flurried plumy peckings about her feet, as pink pigeon claws pattered on the ground in pursuit of biscuit crumbs being scattered by the small boy in the queue behind her. More pigeons whirred and cooed above in greedy chorus, preparing a swift descent to snatch more than their fair share. Fearing an accident to her cockscombed hat or to her second-best winter coat, Miss Seeton automatically opened her umbrella.

  There came a whoosh, a swoosh, and the upward beating of a thousand wings as the pigeons took simultaneous flight. The air was a thunderous whirlwind of falling crumbs and feathers, and Miss Seeton’s hat was blown from her head to land upside down on the edge of a kerb-side puddle and roll there in ominous spirals.

  “Now, then, Tommy,” said the small boy’s mother, boxing her son’s ears in an absent-minded way. “You just look what you’ve done! Go and pick up the lady’s hat and tell her you’re sorry.”

  “Shan’t,” said Tommy, squirming in her grasp and resisting her forceful push with a stubborn force of his own.

  “Oh, no,” said Miss Seeton quickly. To be the cause of a tantrum when the child’s mother had the rest of the day with him ... “No, thank you. It was entirely my own carelessness ...” Not stopping to furl her brolly, she bent without a single click or a creak from her knees to retrieve her property before it should tip those last five dangerous inches to ultimate destruction in the waiting puddle.

  She was not quite in time.

  “Hop in, ducks.” While this drowning tragedy was being enacted, her taxi driver had hopped out to open the door. As Miss Seeton mournfully arose, the drenched and battered headpiece in her hand, he bowed with major-domo stateliness to usher his passenger inside, stopping her only to take the open umbrella politely from her grasp and hold it over her head until she was safely out of pigeon range. He twirled the brolly at the whirling birds, furled it, feinted with it as with a rifle; then handed it to Miss Seeton with another bow, closed the door, and hurried round to his cab.

  “Where to, duchess?”

  “Oh, dear.” Miss Seeton sighed. “The Galerie Genèvre, please ...” She brushed the worst of the mud from the crimson felt and did her best to straighten the soggy, crumpled cockscomb; but she feared her favourite hat was now beyond repair. She sighed again.

  The taxi driver chuckled. This was perhaps surprising, in the circumstances, but Miss Seeton had long known that her sense of humour was ... well, not as robust as some. The humour of the Cockney, as her cabbie had shown himself to be, was undoubtedly robust. And if, on such a dreary day—the taxi had by now edged its way out into the rainsoaked Strand—her little mishap had made him laugh, should she begrudge the poor man some mild amusement?

  “Dunno when I’ve laughed so much in years,” said the cabbie at last, braking for a red light. “It’ll be a while before them pigeons comes back to make their blasted mess, pardon my French, on our roofs and bonnets—shame about your bonnet, ducks, but believe me it was lost in a good cause. Forever down the car wash, we always was, and that don’t come cheap.” He chuckled again. “Coo, as you might say. Get it?”

  After a moment, Miss Seeton got it. Politely she smiled. The amber appeared, and the cabbie turned his head to wink at her before stamping on the accelerator at the green. “Getcher there in no time,” he promised. “Okay?”

  London was its normal bustling self, the streets full of traffic, the pavements bobbing with umbrellas as people ran rather than walked through the storm. From time to time a brolly would be brandished to hail some passing taxi; from time to time some drenched pedestrian with less foresight than his brolly-bearing colleagues would give up the unequal struggle and slip into a shop with no intention, Miss Seeton suspected, of buying. Though in such weather one could not altogether blame the subterfuge. The windscreen wipers squeaked to and fro; the rain drummed on the cab’s metal roof; the tyres hissed through puddles—Miss Seeton silently mourned her ruined hat—and threw up clouds of spray as dull and grey as the pewter clouds above.

  “Gallery Geneva,” announced the cabbie, making Miss Seeton jump. He pulled his cab neatly into the kerb, braked, put the gearbox into neutral, switched the wipers to slow, and turned to grin at his passenger through the open glass partition.

  “Out you get, ducks.” His left hand flew up and across in a motion too swift even for the sharp eyes of the retired art teacher. On the clock, the red electric figures flickered and died.

  “Oh.” Miss Seeton blinked. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite see the fare before your meter ...” She hesitated over the correct term. Blew a fuse? Her kettle had once done this, or at least the plug had. Or perhaps the damp had got in, although the rain had now calmed to a drizzle, so probably it hadn’t. On one occasion, when Sweetbriars had been struck by lightning, the vacuum cleaner had emitted a most peculiar sound. Which could, she supposed, have happened in this case, since above the noise of the engine she might not have noticed it, though a flash of lightning would have been rather more noticeable. And she hadn’t. “For,” she mused aloud, “while the day is indeed stormy, it is unlikely, I think, when it is so cold, to thunder. Noticed, I mean.”

  “Never noticed meself, neither,” said the cabbie promptly. “Stopped anyone trying to take your cab, though, eh? You have this one on me, duchess. Call it a late Christmas present—or an early one for this year, if you like. Get yerself a new titfer. Proper cheered me up, that did. Gave them pigeons something to think about, eh?”

  And he had hopped out of his cab, round to the passenger door, and coaxed Miss Seeton out into the drizzle before she knew what was happening, and was gone without even waiting for a tip.

  Miss Seeton stood collecting herself and blinking up at the ornately lettered legend above the door of the Galerie Genèvre. It looked most impressive. She hoped that what was exhibited inside would not disappoint: she feared that it might. Still, one must not forget that an open mind ... Once more she sighed for the ruin of her hat, contrived to straighten it on her head into some semblance of smartness, hooked her umbrella over one arm, the handle of her bag over the other, and mounted the two low, broad, black marble steps to the gallery door.

  She skidded on the top step, which was still slippery from the rain, and as she stumbled pushed the door open with a sharp thump as the ferrule of her umbrella caught against it. The attendant looked up, frowning, from his perusal of what Miss Seeton assumed was the catalogue.

  “Good morning, madam.” He gave her no time to catch her breath. “May I offer you a copy of Antony Scarlett’s Elucidation?” He held out the leaflet he had been reading as Miss Seeton erupted into the room. It was of a pale cream shiny paper printed in dark brown ink: the chocolate influence, she supposed. “May I take your hat—your coat? Your umbrella,” he said as Miss Seeton smiled her thanks and shook her head, “you must leave with me, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh,” said Miss Seeton. This was different. A ruined hat could—would, in any case—be replaced if removed by some unauthorised person from a public cloakroom rack; a coat, likewise. But her umbrella ...

  Miss Seeton is the most modest of maiden ladies. An English gentlewoman does not flaunt herself or her possessions. She maintains a discreet silence over her financial affairs, her religion, and her politics. Above all she does not boast or allow herself any display of pride.

  But Miss Emily Dorothea Seeton, spinster of the parish of Plummergen, could not help but be proud of the best umbrella of all. She had amassed quite a sizeable collection of ginghams over the years; friends, when in doubt, knew that another umbrella would always be welcome as a present for Christmas, a birthday, or some other special occasion. Superintendent Brinton of Ashford had, not a month ago, given her a splendid model in royal blue silk, with E. D. S. embossed in gold script on the curved leather handle. Miss Seeton was charmed with her une
xpected Christmas gift ... but it was not the first umbrella she had been given by a superintendent of Her Majesty’s constabulary.

  He had been promoted since the giving. Now he was Chief Superintendent Delphick of the Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard’s renowned Oracle, friend, and, unexpectedly, colleague to Miss Seeton. Seven years before, Miss Seeton was making her post-opera way along Covent Garden when she took objection to the manner in which a young man was behaving towards a young woman. Remonstrating with him as he struck his companion a violent blow, she applied the ferrule of her brolly to the small of his back, little realising that in this daring application she had interrupted the notorious César Lebel, drug peddler and hoodlum, in the act of knifing to death a known prostitute. Delphick, summoned to obtain Miss Seeton’s statement, having learned she was a teacher of art, had asked her to draw her impressions of the event ...

  Miss Seeton’s impressions are not always like those of other people. As some march to a different drummer, so does Miss Seeton, on occasion, see in a different way—a very different way. She looks through and beyond what seems to be there to focus intuitively on the truth of the matter, whatever that matter might be. Her vision might appear distorted to some—indeed, to herself, for she is embarrassed by this Drawing of truths none but she can perceive, and she feels that it is somehow ... not right. Those such as the Oracle can, with persuasion, overcome her embarrassment; can coax her to yield up the sketches and doodles her subconscious has granted to her skillful hand and her inward eye ... and they can interpret those sketches, as Delphick did at their first meeting, with the happy result that Lebel ended up behind real-life bars Miss Seeton’s instinct had sketched across his face several weeks before.

  Delphick next called on the services of Miss Seeton’s swift pencil when a series of child stranglings had left the Yard baffled. Once again it was the Oracle’s interpretation of Miss Seeton’s unique interpretation of events that led to the arrest of the culprit, for good measure adding to the bag a gang of shotgun raiders who had been terrorising local post offices for months past. Before Miss Seeton’s third criminal adventure, it was decided by none other than Sir Hubert Everleigh, Assistant Commissioner, that her position should be regularised. She was therefore retained by the force as an Official Art Consultant, to be paid a regular salary and expenses as required, said expenses, more often than not, involving necessary repairs to what had long ago been dubbed her small arms: her umbrella.

  Though it had been Delphick who gave her the black silk, gold-handled gamp in gratitude for her help in the Lebel case, it was Brinton who later advised her to save it for such comparatively safe excursions as taking afternoon tea with friends. Miss Seeton, visiting a London art gallery, had automatically chosen her very best umbrella from the row of clips in the Sweetbriars hall ...

  “But it was a present,” she explained as the young man with the catalogue—no, the Elucidation—held out his hand for Mr. Delphick’s gift. “I don’t know what I would say to him if anything should happen ...”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “The word’s gone out, after what did happen—last night—that nobody takes anything into the exhibition that could be used to damage the exhibits. Not that I think you would,” he added as she blinked. “You don’t look the type—but Miss Watson would have my hide if she knew I’d let you in the place carrying this. You should see what—well, you will, of course.” He smothered a grin, wondering if the old dear would be shocked by what she saw. “Nice piece,” he went on quickly, studying the hallmark. “Real gold, is it? I promise I’ll take the greatest care.”

  Miss Seeton hovered between reluctance to allow her prized umbrella out of her sight and a pardonable curiosity as to what had happened the night before. Damaged exhibits? There had been nothing about this in The Times, though one did not always read every single column on every single page—especially when one was in a hurry, as with oversleeping she had been—so perhaps she had missed it. She glanced at the front page of the Elucidation the young man had thrust into her hand as he deftly removed her umbrella. Perhaps the mysterious happening would be explained—that was to say, Elucidated—here. Miss Seeton drifted along the red carpet of the entrance hall until she found a comfortable bench and sat down to read.

  “The Galerie Genèvre is proud to reintroduce to the West End the work of Antony Scarlett, widely acknowledged as a modern Rubens ...”

  Miss Seeton frowned. Widely acknowledged? Not by The Times, to the best of her recollection. She read on.

  “... a modern Rubens who refreshes both the twentieth-century spirit and its metaphorical flesh. Rich, smooth, and deeply sensual, his chocolate creations nourish humanity at its every level ...”

  Miss Seeton muffled a sigh and shook her head before stopping to wonder whether this behaviour wasn’t perhaps a little ... ungracious. After all, she hadn’t yet seen the exhibits. Perhaps the new-look Antony Scarlett did indeed deserve the reputation of a modern Rubens, even if honesty and her vague memories of his earlier work would suggest that he probably didn’t. Genius, by definition, was surely unique. Inimitable. And who would wish to be a second-rate, imitation Rubens when, with sufficient genius, one might be a first-rate (if indeed he was) Antony Scarlett? She skimmed the rest of the paragraph, already weary of what was being said by—with relief she reached the bottom of the page—Genefer Watson. Not a critic of whom she had ever—oh. Genèvre, of course. She should have realised. Well, one could hardly expect an unbiased opinion from the owner of the gallery ...

  She turned the page. A photograph of a brooding Antony Scarlett headed a further—she flicked through—six pages she felt she really could not bear to read in detail, the more so because it seemed they had been written by Antony himself. Her eye caught various phrases to make her shake her head again. “The contrast between formal and inherently informal values of perception ... an ironic and uncompromising tightrope stretched by his art between coherence and incoherence ... consistent, yet clearly unsettling logic of life ... clarity of childhood’s vision transformed by the growing self-knowledge of an adult ... exuberant profundity ... powerful paradox ...”

  Miss Seeton sighed gently for a third time. One must at all costs keep an open mind, she reminded herself ...

  chapter

  ~ 4 ~

  “I SUPPOSE IT could be blackmail, sir.” Detective Constable Foxon of the Ashford force had just been listening to his superior break a confidence.

  The information divulged to Brinton by his bank manager had posed something of a puzzle for the superintendent over the past few days. In the rare free moments when he wasn’t busy with the many cases officially on the books, he was to be observed in a brown study, scribbling on bits of paper he would shove in an unmarked folder if anyone drifted too near his desk. At home he brooded over his meals. At work he had almost (though not quite) lost his appetite for peppermints, and on those occasions when Foxon annoyed him he had refrained from throwing even an empty packet at the lad.

  Foxon, who had hopes of making detective sergeant one day, deduced that his superior was either ill or worried. He considered Brinton’s ruddy face, his brisk step, his far from tremulous voice. Not ill, then. Worried? Trouble at home? Mrs. Brinton was some ten years her husband’s junior, but there had been no rumours of anything ... untoward, thought Foxon as he chewed the top of a ballpoint pen and frowned. Money troubles? Well, hadn’t everyone, after the season of statutory good will and present giving? Wait a bit, though. There’d been that morning when Old Brimmers had come in late, and someone had said he’d spotted him trotting up the steps of the City and Suburban Bank ...

  It was when Foxon came to work wearing a purple tie with a yellow floral pattern and Brinton didn’t even groan that the young man knew drastic action must be taken. Instead of crossing to his own desk, he pulled out the visitors’ chair in front of his superior and sat firmly down.

  “Go away,” Brinton had said without looking up from what looked like yet another anonymous piece
of paper.

  “No, sir.” Foxon shook his head gently as Brinton, scowling, looked up and thrust the paper into its cardboard folder. “Not until you tell me what’s up.”

  “Up?” The scowl turned to a glare. “You mean with me? There’s nothing up with me, Foxon. What the devil do you mean by saying there is?”

  “Of course there is, sir.” Foxon jabbed a finger at the cardboard folder. “And that’s the evidence—whatever it is. You won’t tell me. And you’ve never been this—this cagey since I’ve known you, sir. It makes me nervous.” As Brinton glared even harder at him, Foxon nodded. “Honest. I haven’t the foggiest what you’re doing, but I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing if I’m waiting for the explosion and it never comes because you’re ... bottling it up. It’s been three days now. The suspense is killing me. Look, sir,” he continued as Brinton continued to glare, “they say two heads are better than one. Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on? Then I can relax and get back to solving nice ordinary crimes without worrying about you and yours.”

  “Crimes?” Brinton, who had been building up to a fair-sized explosion as Foxon talked, suddenly subsided with another scowl. “Not guilty. I haven’t been dipping into the petty cash, lad, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “Perish the thought, sir.”

  “Right.” The superintendent sighed. “I mean,” he said, as if continuing a lengthy discussion, “it’s not as if we’re even sure there’s been a crime committed in the first place. Or crimes. Not really ...”