“The Germans,” Captain Grange went on after another uneasy pause, “are a damned methodical bunch—and method coupled with madness makes ’em as dangerous as they come. A megalomaniac like Hitler won’t take too kindly to the idea of a bit of the world within easy reach preferring not to join his nice, tidy European empire. He’ll invade, Chandler, and it’s up to you and me and the rest of our crowd to see that this island of ours isn’t—isn’t handed to him on a plate by innocent-seeming schoolmarms who go sketching on Hampstead Heath!”
“We could have her in for questioning,” suggested Chandler, after yet another pause.
“If she’s guilty she’ll have her story ready. If she’s genuine,” said Captain Grange, scepticism in every syllable, “then she still needs a warning shot across her bows—for upsetting everybody.”
“The same as the haystack artist?” enquired Chandler, and Captain Grange emitted a furious snort.
“That damned artist,” he said through obviously clenched teeth, “was sketching what could have been a vital military installation. The L.D.V. have spent the past two months preparing roadblocks and building camouflaged redoubts and ammunition dumps—camouflaged, Chandler, remember!” Then, for the first time, certainty wavered. The captain coughed. “The fact that on this particular occasion,” he hurried on, “the lady happened to sketch a—a genuine haystack is—is neither here nor there in the general scheme of things. At a time like this you—we—can’t be too careful.”
While Chandler was inclined to agree with the captain in principle, it was his private opinion that the Local Defence Volunteers had objected to the lady artist’s sketch more on account of the pub in the background than the haystack in the foreground. Haystacks were by nature anonymous, transitory structures: public houses endured and could be identified. Yet it still seemed a case of overreaction on the part of the amateur soldiers. Were Hitler’s troops ever to find their way to the pub in question—an oak-beamed pub in an ancient village as far from the sea as geography allowed—they would be unlikely to ask its name, or the name of the village. It was the sort of village to which nobody went unless they already knew of its existence; to which nobody went unless they had good cause. Debt collectors, bailiffs, shotgun-toting fathers of despoiled virgin daughters—yes. Nazi storm troopers ... no.
Or at least he hoped it was highly improbable ...
“What was that, Chandler?”
“Nothing, sir.” Chandler pulled himself together. “Or rather—yes, you’re right, we can’t be too careful. I know about ‘innocent until proved guilty,’ but I have to agree with you—Miss Seeton seems ... too innocent to be true.”
“My point exactly,” said Captain Grange in triumph. “If you’re a fifth columnist or any other sort of damned traitor, you cover your tracks—try to fit in with the people around you—lull them into accepting you as one of them. You take care you don’t do anything to excite their suspicions that you’re getting ready to sell ’em down the river. But good God, man, by all accounts, this Seeton girl’s never lulled anyone in her life. Wouldn’t have had so many of ’em phoning in about her—her queer cavortings, if she had. Never fitted in, they say ...”
“Artistic temperament?” offered Devil’s Advocate Chandler as the captain paused for breath.
Captain Grange made clear his opinion of temperaments, artistic or otherwise, in one crisp nautical phrase. Chandler deemed it wise to say nothing.
“It’s a cunning double bluff,” said Captain Grange at last. “The female of the species, remember, Chandler. With her family background the girl ought to be above suspicion—and that could be what they’re relying on.”
“Surely you don’t think her mother—”
“The Huns, you fool, not the family—but wait.” Chandler duly waited. “Your man Steptoe,” said the captain after a moment or two. “Checked the mother out with her doctor, didn’t he?”
“He did his best,” Chandler told him. “Blood out of a stone, though. The doctor’s hot stuff on professional etiquette and the Hippocratic Oath. All he was prepared to tell us—once Steptoe had waved the Official Secrets Act under his nose—was that Mrs. Seeton is genuinely delicate, which says everything and nothing at the same time. It’s a pity half the neighbours have evacuated to the country—not so much gossip around as there might have been—but from what we can gather, it’s one reason the girl never left home: her mother’s never been the same since the flu epidemic of 1919. Wore herself out nursing her husband and the younger child, according to rumour—not that the doc would confirm it, of course.”
“There you are, then,” said Captain Grange, once more triumphant. “The woman knows she may not have long to go—heart, perhaps—so she’s prepared to take the risk of turning her daughter into a damned pacifist—or worse—so that she’ll be ... well looked after when the Nazis get here. Not that they will,” he added sharply.
But the pious phrase I hope was all too audible to Chandler’s inward ear, unspoken though it was ...
“Double bluff, as I said,” concluded Captain Grange with a thunderous clearing of his throat. “We can’t be seen to persecute delicate old ladies without concrete proof, but the daughter’s young enough to take care of herself. If we are making a mistake—well, better a mistake now than leave a traitor on the loose for the future—a future that’s damned uncertain, Chandler.”
“You hardly need to tell me that, sir.”
“No.” Captain Grange cleared his throat again. “If,” he said heavily, “the girl really is the—the innocent patriot she’d like us to believe, then she’ll be happy with an apology for the misunderstanding and a pat on the back for helping the war effort by keeping quiet about it all. But get her in for questioning, Chandler—and make it soon!”
It was not, in truth, a long walk home from Finchley Road underground station, but the weary Emily Seeton found herself counting every step and marvelling at how slowly the lampposts seemed to pass. She had been on her feet for hours, and the chance to sit down had been denied her even on the tube. It had been the start of the rush hour when she finally left Euston, and only her slightness of frame and youthful agility had allowed her to squeeze into the crowded train to stand, too short to reach the strap, so close to the door that each time it opened she had to step out on the platform to allow those farther along inside the carriage who wished to get out to do so.
When Alice Seeton heard the door click shut, she hurried down the hall to greet her daughter. “Emily, dear, you look exhausted,” she said. “I’ve had the kettle filled and ready to boil for the past half hour, so by the time you’ve taken off your hat and freshened up, the tea will be ready.”
Emily smiled at her mother. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to telephone—I hope you weren’t worried—but they asked for King’s Cross volunteers to help at the Euston canteen, and of course one could hardly refuse.”
Alice, smiling back, gently shook her head. “Remember what your dear father used to say was the motto of his men? ‘Never volunteer: you have no idea what might happen next.’ ”
Emily quickly stifled the thought that in these times nobody, volunteer or otherwise, had any idea what might happen next. For her mother to mention her father—who after twenty years remained a cherished, seldom-spoken memory in his grieving widow’s heart—must be a sign that she was worrying more than she wanted her daughter to know. Her daughter would humour her in her loving deception.
“What happened next,” said Emily with a rueful chuckle, “is that I washed quite as many cups at Euston as I’d been filling with tea at King’s Cross. If not more,” she added with another, fainter, chuckle.
“Tea,” responded Alice with gentle firmness. “We’ll take it through to the drawing room, and we can listen to the wireless while we eat.” She glanced at Emily and hesitated. “Did you ... hear the News earlier, by any chance?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“At four-fifteen,” replied her daughter, “I was travelling the Northern Line betwee
n King’s Cross and Euston—but everyone on the afternoon shift has been talking about what happened at one o’clock.” She patted her mother gently on the shoulder. “If, that is, you are asking whether I know about ... the names.”
Alice, suddenly unable to speak, winked away tears as she nodded. Emily patted her mother’s shoulder again.
“Tea,” she reminded her, “in the drawing room. I’ll be down in five minutes—no, four,” she amended as she looked at the grandfather clock beside the hall stand. “In time,” she said bravely, “for the six o’clock news.”
In the drawing room mother and daughter were silent as they arranged the cups and plates, the teapot, the milk jug, and—though it was empty—the sugar bowl. Neither of the Seeton ladies cared much at the best of times for sweetened tea, and had in any case resolved to do without for the duration: but the empty china bowl was a gesture of defiance against the dictator who wanted to disturb far more in the world than England’s teatime ritual.
Still in silence, Mrs. Seeton reached out to turn the Bakelite knob. The wireless, warming, hummed slowly into life. The chimes of Big Ben rang out and died away.
“Good evening,” said the announcer. “Here is the six o’clock news, and this is Frank Phillips reading it.”
The two women listened without speaking to the rest of the recital. When it was over, Emily, after a glance at her mother’s face, switched the wireless off.
“It is only a precaution,” she said. “So that we will recognise at once should they ... succeed in breaking into the same wavelength as the BBC to—to tell us even more of their wicked lies.”
“Should they invade, you mean,” said Alice, and Emily did not—could not, truthfully—deny it. “There are armed guards,” her mother continued, “outside Broadcasting House, so I have heard.” She suppressed the quiver in her voice. “Which is of course no more than another, very wise, precaution,” she went on in tones intended to be bracing. She drew a deep breath. “And,” she ended firmly, “no more than one would expect of Sir John Reith, who has a good deal of common sense.”
“Indeed he has,” agreed Emily, and raised her teacup as if drinking a toast to the Scottish founding father of the BBC. “Although I am sure it will come very hard with the Nazis if they ever attempt to parachute decoy newscasters—or anyone else—into this country, no matter where they might land.”
There was a lengthy pause.
“I have been looking through your dear father’s things,” said Alice at last as Emily sipped her tea. “I thought—that is, I wondered ... his army revolver, you know. It is still in the wrappings as he ... left it. We ought perhaps to think of—of cleaning it in readiness ...”
Emily stared at her gentle mother. When, earlier in the week, the word had been passed round the Hampstead ladies that helpers would soon be needed to remove twenty years’ worth of storage grease from the Great War rifles expected any day now from America as arms for the newly formed Local Defence Volunteers, Alice Seeton had shivered at the very idea of handling a lethal weapon. Emily, with her neat artist’s ways, would have been far handier than her mother and had every intention of offering her services ...
And now it seemed her services might be required rather sooner than soon—and rather closer to home.
But before she could reply, the front doorbell rang.
chapter
~ 3 ~
“THERE!” SAID MRS. SEETON, rising to her feet. “How silly of me to forget, but when you were late home ... That is, Mr. Badgery was asking for you this afternoon, and I told him to come back in the evening.”
“Constable Badgery?” Emily, now also on her feet, was at first puzzled, then resigned. “No doubt one or two of the children have been misbehaving again. Oh, dear. I had hoped, with so many extra classes ...”
“Mischievous children will never be short of mischief,” said Alice with a faint smile as Emily, waving her mother back to her chair, prepared to hurry out into the hall before the bell should have to be rung a second time, which would hint at discourtesy on the part of the hostess to an expected guest.
When, however, she opened the door, Emily Seeton stood and blinked at the man in the porch—a man she had most certainly not expected. While his face, on reflection, had something familiar about it, the man who had just finished brushing his feet on the mat in no way resembled the plump, uniformed PC Badgery. This grey-suited stranger—no, not a stranger: she had seen him in the High Street from time to time—was tall and thin, with an air of distinction from which his trim moustache detracted not a whit.
“Miss Seeton?” the man with the moustache greeted her, and raised his hat politely.
“I am she,” said Miss Seeton, equally polite.
“My name is Steptoe,” said the man, replacing his hat with one hand as with the other he held out a folded card, about three inches by four, overprinted and stamped in what seemed a highly official way.
Automatically Miss Seeton took the card and opened it. From inside, the rectangular black-and-white image of the grey-suited Steptoe regarded her with the blank, frozen gaze customary in such documents—although for a moment, until she blinked, she thought she could, behind the blankness, see the anguished eye of a man of action who had been forced to endure the static demands of the camera lens.
Miss Seeton blinked. The sharp, soldierly features at once dissolved into those of the man who, in his grey suit, was bureaucracy personified.
She turned to the front of the folded card. She’d been right: Mr. Steptoe was a civil servant. Ministry of Information, she read. Subsection P(F/S).
“Publicity,” supplied Steptoe as he saw her quick frown, “and fact sheets, you know.”
“No,” echoed Miss Seeton, the pucker still between her brows. “I’m sorry, but I fear that I do not. I had thought you—that is, Mr. Badgery—wanted to talk to me about the children.”
It was Steptoe’s turn to frown. “Children?” He shook his head. “Badgery? Oh—the beat bobby, you mean.”
Miss Seeton nodded, pleased that her acceptance of Mr. Steptoe as a neighbour had been correct.
“No,” said Mr. Steptoe, “my department has nothing to do with the police, or with any children—but we do indeed want to talk to you.”
Miss Seeton, blushing, recollected her manners. “Won’t you come in?” she invited, handing back the folded card and stepping aside as Mr. Steptoe smiled, pocketed his identification, and removed his hat.
“Thank you, Miss Seeton.” Mr. Steptoe brushed his shoes once more, though they hardly needed it, and crossed the threshold in one long stride. Miss Seeton paused politely for him to hang his hat on the mahogany stand—he did no more than flinch at the remarkable summer straw that was its neighbour—and then led the way into the drawing room.
“Mother, this is Mr. Steptoe ... from the Ministry of Information.” Emily tried to sound calm, as a gentlewoman should, but her voice held a note of uncertainty. “Mr. Steptoe, this is my mother.”
“I’m sorry to intrude on you at teatime, Mrs. Seeton.” Steptoe’s regret sounded genuine. “There’s almost nothing worse than stewed tea, is there?” His eyes met those of Alice, who, like Emily, had expected someone else and found it hard to conceal her surprise. Mr. Steptoe smiled. “And with the ration only two ounces a week,” he went on, “I know you can’t afford to pour it away and start again. Please, don’t let me interrupt you—what I have to ask your daughter won’t take long.”
Once more Miss Seeton recollected her manners. “If you would care to sit down ...” she murmured, as her mother returned Steptoe’s smile with a wary twinkle and prepared to play the hostess by offering the stranger a cup of tea.
“Not for me, thank you.” Mr. Steptoe divined her intention before she could speak, and bowed a graceful refusal as he took his seat and turned, with another smile, to Alice’s daughter. “Miss Seeton,” he began. “I understand that you are something of an artist.”
Miss Seeton blushed. “A teacher of art,” she corre
cted him politely with a sigh. “Those who can,” she explained as he seemed about to protest at her modesty, “do—as Mr. Shaw has so pithily expressed it. Those who cannot ...” She sighed. “Teach,” she concluded sadly.
“My daughter is an excellent teacher,” Mrs. Seeton chimed in as Mr. Steptoe appeared likely to let this mournful utterance pass without further comment.
“I have every reason to believe that she is,” said Mr. Steptoe, and Alice subsided with a blush that was as proud as her daughter’s was embarrassed.
“Your school, they tell me, was evacuated,” Mr. Steptoe pressed on. Miss Seeton recovered herself to confirm the events of September 1939 as they related directly to the pupils and staff of the private establishment where she had been the art department’s deputy head.
“Your chief has remained with the pupils and most of the other teachers in the country. You stayed for a while and then came home,” said Mr. Steptoe.
Emily glanced fondly at her mother. “Yes, I did,” she agreed. “Once the children were properly settled—one or two were a little unhappy in their billets at first, and changes had to be made—but as we were sharing the premises of another school, which already had an excellent teacher of art, it seemed to me that I could be of rather more practical use to the war effort here at home. Not every parent took advantage of the evacuation scheme, you know.”
“I certainly do,” said Steptoe with emphasis.
“And many of those who did,” Miss Seeton went on, “began bringing the children back to London once the immediate threat of ... gassing and bombs appeared to be groundless.” She glanced at her mother again. “And even now, when the situation is so grave ...” She coughed. “You see, with so few teachers to—to keep them under control, and with most of their parents busy with war work of various kinds, it made sense for me to offer my services as a—a part-time tutor, so to speak, though I know little of much except art, beyond my general reading—for of course one tries not to become too narrow—but it has been difficult to organise curriculum lessons while so many are away from home, studying at a different rate. Yet one has to keep them out of mischief during the day—or rather”—and once more she blushed—“one has to try. Which is why I had supposed you to be Constable Badgery, bringing another friendly warning about what my young charges might have been doing while I was occupied elsewhere.”
Miss Seeton's Finest Hour (A Miss Seeton Mystery) Page 2
