Miss Seeton Quilts the Village

by Hamilton Crane

  They chatted for a while about the Colvedens and other friends; about the wedding; how the display of photographs and presents had led to the current enthusiasm for needlework; how Miss Seeton was grateful to dear Louise for showing her how to appliqué, and to Miss Armitage for explaining the mysteries of the sewing machine. Delphick noticed that, even when she was relaxed and laughing gently at herself for her lack of stitch-craft, Miss Seeton seemed uneasy if Summerset Cottage drifted into the conversation. It was understandable; that Devil Henry fresco wasn’t pleasant when you knew it for what it really was, clever thought the artist had been—but it wasn’t like her to be so squeamish. Superstitious. If that’s what she was being.

  Or did it mean she knew there was more to be discovered? And was worried about what that discovery might be?

  The tea things cleared away, Miss Seeton took her sketchpad and pencils from the bureau, then stood irresolute. “Lady Colveden has asked me to keep my sketches for the quilt secret from everyone but the committee. Policemen, naturally, can be trusted more than most—but I did give my word.”

  “Then I’ll look at some of your books, if I may.” His eye was caught by half a rainbow arching across the worn black cover of a book near the bureau. “Cole’s Funny Picture-Book? I’ve never heard of that, either.”

  “It belonged to my Cousin Flora. I recall looking through its pages when I was young, and not caring much for the pictures. Clever, but somewhat bizarre for a child. I had meant to show it to Dr. Braxted—you see, upside-down drawings are less unusual than she thought—and yet somehow I haven’t managed to find the time.”

  Or haven’t wanted to, thought Delphick. “You’ve been too busy with the quilt sketches, of course. But might I give you this new set of photos and ask for your latest impression, while I study the bizarre and clever work of Mr. Cole?”

  From the corner of his eye he watched her take the photographs from their envelope and set them on the table in front of her. She moved those she had seen before to one side, the new ones closer. She might have been shuffling a pack of cards as she arranged and rearranged them. She stared; she concentrated. He began an ostentatious flipping through the picture book so that she wouldn’t be distracted by his interest. Then, to his surprise, he became intrigued by Mr. Cole’s—yes, bizarre—view of life, and as he read on, and contemplated the pictures, he became absorbed.

  He spluttered. Miss Seeton, flushed, looked across at him.

  He was contrite. “I’m sorry to have broken your train of thought, Miss Seeton, but it was the whipping machine for naughty boys. It made me think of carpet-beaters. Efficient, to say the least, but I do see what you mean about bizarre.”

  She nodded. “Children, of course, have a decided taste for the macabre, which is why they enjoy ghost stories so much, and scaring each other with turnip lanterns in the dark at Halloween, and pretending that peeled tomatoes might be dead men’s eyeballs, or that twigs are their finger-bones and toes. But they always know it isn’t real, and I always felt the whipping machine was one step beyond what one might call normally frightening, because of factories—production lines, you see—it might just have worked.”

  “This style of drawing was popular at the time, I imagine.” Delphick studied the pictures. “Think of Edward Lear—odd proportions, huge heads, and spidery writing for the speech bubbles. I’ve never greatly cared for it either.”

  He saw that he had not, in fact, interrupted her; she had already set down her pencil and had been watching him as closely as he at the start had watched her. “As you say, Miss Seeton, not real. Distorted. Perhaps the artist needed glasses, and the lenses of the time weren’t sufficiently precise. Astigmatism, perhaps, or anisometropia.” He closed the book. “As for artists, what have you to show me now?”

  She moved instinctively to cover what she had drawn, He recognised the signs. She was unhappy with her sketch and felt guilty about letting him down. He held out a hand.

  “I should like to see it, please.”

  “I think I must be a little tired,” she said. “With so many quilt sketches, I suppose. Otherwise I’m sure I would have...that is, I’m sorry, but I looked and looked and simply couldn’t think of anything else...”

  Delphick looked at the drawing. It was still recognisably Gabriel Crassweller, and yet it was at the same time another drawing of Henry VIII as the Devil.

  Delphick frowned. Miss Seeton went on apologising. He ignored her.

  The doorbell rang. “Lady Colveden,” gasped Miss Seeton. “I didn’t realise the time. Please excuse me...”

  Delphick went on staring at the sketch. It was swift, and—for all Miss Seeton’s evident doubts—sure. This was what he wanted: one of her instinctive, inspired drawings that went right to the heart of the matter. Most of her work was painstaking, accurate—as a photograph is accurate. She might draw something from real life, but there was no true sense of life, no animation, in too many of her pictures. Anyone with even a modest talent could produce them. But this...

  She was telling him the case was still upside down. That he was still missing some vital point. That he still saw Gabriel Crassweller in completely the wrong way.

  He needed to think. He heard voices approach the sitting room. He folded the drawing, swept up the photos, and bundled everything inside the envelope.

  He rose to his feet as Lady Colveden came in. There followed greetings, and pleasantries, and Miss Seeton, relieved to see that he hadn’t minded too much about the sketch or he wouldn’t have taken it, ventured to tease him about his interest in the quilt, and told Lady Colveden that their secrets had been protected by herself at great personal risk.

  “From the little I’ve heard it sounds fascinating,” he said. “I’ll be sure to come and see it when it’s on display. I had no idea so small a village had so much of interest to show. Bob and Anne tell me there has been an almost unprecedented degree of enthusiasm, and the church roof is guaranteed to benefit from everyone’s efforts.”

  “Even mine,” said Miss Seeton, “though it is not finished yet, I fear.”

  “Don’t leave it too late,” warned Lady Colveden, “the way a few people seem to be trying to do—though they’d better not for the quilt, which of course is why we needed your sketches. For the overall layout,” she explained to Delphick, who tried to appear politely interested when all he wanted was solitude, and time for thought.

  Lady Colveden sensed his preoccupation. Miss Seeton, responding to the gentle hint as to the purpose of her ladyship’s visit, hurried to the bureau and withdrew a stout cardboard folder.

  “And of course,” she said, handing it over, “as well as my sketches, I must give you back the list.”

  “The most secret of secrets.” Lady Colveden smiled. “The master plan,” she couldn’t help telling Delphick, “as to who intends to sew what, and how many of each topic. Miss Seeton’s sketches will be invaluable in the final planning.”

  “Unless anybody changes her mind,” he suggested absently. He knew the value of Miss Seeton’s sketches, and he wanted to consider this latest one in private—and as yet he couldn’t...

  “They’d better not,” said her ladyship. “Now we have the sketches we’re about to start work.” She patted the pocket of her jacket. It jingled. “I’m meeting the rest of the committee at the village hall shortly, and we’re going to lock ourselves in. If anyone tries to talk to us, well, they can’t.”

  He saw his chance. “Did you walk here, Lady Colveden? Yes, I thought you wouldn’t want to waste such a lovely afternoon. Allow me to offer you a lift. I have the car nearby and I’m collecting Bob from the Knights’, so we’ll be going right past the door. Miss Seeton, I must thank you for the tea, and for your help—” he waved the envelope “—and wonder if I might trespass on your kindness and ask you to telephone Bob while I escort Lady Colveden to the village hall...”

  The car turned into the nursing home and Delphick saw Bob, bright-eyed and with an evident case of the fidgets, waiting by
the most convenient flowerbed.

  “Miss Seeton telephoned,” his sergeant greeted him, snatching open the passenger door and cramming his bulk inside.

  “As I asked her to,” said Delphick. Saying goodbye to his family must have disturbed his young sidekick more than expected.

  “No, sir—I mean, yes, you did, and she did—but just as I was leaving she telephoned again.”

  Delphick put the car in neutral, and waited.

  “She said she’d had another try at what you wanted,” said Bob. “She said it hadn’t worked out the first time—”

  “But it did.”

  “—because she must have been distracted by thinking of the quilt sketches, only once she’d handed them over to Lady Colveden she thought she’d try again. So she did, sir.”

  “And she thinks we would be interested in the result.” It was not a question.

  “That’s how it sounded to me. She was a bit muddled about it—wavering a bit, the way she sometimes does—but she said it just sort of happened, sir, and she thought she’d better let us know because those are the kind of sketches we pay her for, and she knew we were going back to town and she was worried about wasting time if she put it in the post.”

  “She could be right.” Delphick put the car in gear, swung round and out of the drive, keeping an eye open for vehicles on the wrong side of the road, and once more headed in a southerly direction.

  Miss Seeton wondered about offering tea and gingerbread, but hesitated.

  “Anne’s been stuffing me with biscuits and cake, thanks,” said Bob, as Delphick looked at the sketch she had completed just a few minutes previously. “May I see, sir?”

  Under a dark and stormy sky two complete strangers, one male, one female, carried between them a chest, or a very large strong-box, decorated with flowers as they emerged from a building that seemed to have strayed from Threadneedle Street.

  “The Bank of England.” Bob recognised it at once.

  Delphick caught Miss Seeton’s quick intake of breath, and saw her shake her head. “A local bank, Miss Seeton?” He saw her nod. “Who are these people?”

  “I’m not sure, though I may have seen them occasionally on the bus, but I met them the other day in Brettenden, when I dropped my umbrella. We exchanged a few words, as one does, because it was my fault for not paying proper attention, and they very kindly picked up my things for me. So careless. Mr. Brinton gave it to me—the umbrella, that is—and the man I’d bumped into teased me a little about having friends in high places when I explained why I was so thankful it had not been damaged through allowing my thoughts to wander.”

  Delphick considered the faces of the two strangers. Recognisable, should he meet them, but unlikely to stand out in a crowd. What had Miss Seeton noticed about them that was so remarkable she had felt the urge to draw them? “What did you talk about? While they were collecting up your bits and pieces.”

  “I’m not sure there was any conversation, as such. It was, as I explained, merely an exchange of pleasantries.” Delphick said nothing.

  She made an effort to remember. “I know they admired my umbrella, with its leather handle and gold initials, and we talked about the Roman treasure—the silver—and the mosaic found at Rytham Hall, yes, and I told them it was all in the museum...”

  Delphick pointed at the chest the two carried. “Why the flowers? Brettenden, like Plummergen, is in Kent. Are they perhaps Canterbury bells?”

  She brightened. “Oh, yes, of course—or rather, no, but it was the mention of silver, you see. A little anecdote about a child who drank half a tin of Bluebell polish and, thank goodness, survived. I remember that he, or possibly his wife, said they were glad not to have to do such work any longer.”

  Delphick and Bob studied the faces again. “A retired butler, perhaps. Servants of a sort, anyhow.”

  “Ye-es, that does seem a possibility...but it is only a vague impression of a chance encounter some days ago, and I haven’t really given it any further thought...”

  Try as she might, she could recall nothing more, and began to look a little anxious. He had no wish to put pressure on her, and was busily thinking.

  He was still thoughtful as once more he took leave of his hostess, promising that he would be talking to Accounts and she could expect the usual cheque in due course.

  “But for what,” he said to Bob as they drove up The Street, “I’m not entirely sure. First, she looked at the new photos of Crassweller and produced a near duplicate of Henry-as-the-Devil—strongly suggesting that we are still looking at it all the wrong way round.”

  “Double indemnity, sir?” suggested Bob.

  “I think so, yes.” Delphick shook his head. “As for the bluebells of Brettenden and the silver treasure and the museum...”

  He turned to Bob. “Ashford,” he said. “The police station. I think we need to show that sketch to Superintendent Brinton.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  BRINTON REGARDED THE entrance of the Oracle and his sidekick with misgiving. “What’s she done now?” he demanded. “And don’t tell me she hasn’t. I won’t believe you.”

  “Good afternoon, Superintendent Brinton.” Delphick politely ignored Foxon, struggling to suppress a splutter at his corner desk, and motioned Bob to take a visitor’s chair while he himself dragged the other from under a teetering pile of files and folders he then crammed on top of a cupboard already full to capacity. “How reassuring that your paperwork is in a similar state to ours.” Foxon began to go slowly red in the face. “We do not suffer alone, Sergeant. Charming weather for the time of year, don’t you think?”

  Brinton closed his eyes. “The minute the front desk phoned through, my heart sank. The only reason you ever come into these parts is Miss Seeton.” He opened his eyes in a flash of irritation as the younger members of the party shifted indignantly on their chairs. “And not a word from either of you two champions. Tell me the worst and get it over, blast you, Oracle.”

  The two elder men were old friends, and all four were colleagues of long standing. “She’s drawn a sketch on which I’d value your opinion—opinions,” the chief superintendent corrected himself, inviting Foxon to join the party. “May I show you?”

  Brinton grunted permission, and Delphick made his selection from the contents of the brown envelope. “Observe the stormy sky,” he said of the treasure-chest drawing. “She has already produced one sketch with a similarly inclement feel to it—that of the Plummergen house with Nazi connections. I can’t help but wonder why this later picture—of a possibly retired possible pair of servants—makes me think of the other drawing, unfortunately, left behind in London. But can you see the similarities, Sergeant Ranger?”

  Bob warily agreed that he could, insofar as one stormy sky could be said either to resemble or to differ from another when the same pencil was used to depict them both.

  “Miss Seeton told me this particular sketch was inspired by a brief encounter she had with a couple of strangers in Brettenden, except that she seemed to feel some doubt that they were indeed strangers. Have you any idea what the servants who ministered to the late Miss Griselda Saxon looked like?”

  “Name of Brattle,” said Brinton. “Nothing officially known. Sorry.”

  Foxon likewise expressed ignorance of anything beyond the name.

  Brinton pondered. “Potter said as soon as their late employer was decently under ground they pushed off, as far as anyone in Plummergen knows. They never made much of an impression about the place, he says. They mostly shopped once a week in Brettenden. Never spoke to anyone on the bus. Didn’t mix with the village crowd any more than she did. Came from London originally. Agnes and Sam, I think.”

  “But no criminal record,” said Delphick. “At least, under that name.”

  “No.”

  Delphick was puzzled. “As soon as she was buried. Didn’t they even stay around to see if they would benefit from her will? It’s usual to leave a small bequest to any servant not under notice at the
time of the employer’s decease.”

  “Far as I know she didn’t leave a bean to anyone,” said Brinton. “She didn’t have even one small tin of beans to bequeath. According to Potter, everyone who thought about the woman at all, which most of the time nobody did, knew that she lived there more or less at Sir George Colveden’s discretion—peppercorn rent and so on. He’d promised the father, as I recall the story. Just after the war.”

  He tapped the sketch with the blunt end of a pencil. He wasn’t as clever at decoding Miss Seeton’s efforts as Delphick, but here he had local knowledge to assist him. “If that’s supposed to be the Brattles, could that mean they were feathering their nest at her expense? And didn’t want to hang around to answer awkward questions?”

  “Possibly. They’re carrying the box out of, rather than into, the bank. That could hint at some form of appropriation—removal—of funds formerly thought secure.”

  “I’d have thought a bank was pretty secure,” said Brinton.

  “And honest,” said Delphick. “The tax people will want to know, and the bank will be legally bound to tell them—the basics, anyway.”

  “Keep it under the mattress or up the chimney and nobody need ever know a thing.” Brinton grinned. “Especially if you disappear before they pounce on you.”

  “Bury it in the garden, sir,” said Foxon. “Buried treasure.”

  The other three looked at him. “Well,” he protested, “that’s what I’d do, and I bet that’s why so many rumours about metal detectors have been bubbling up recently. Someone’s looking for it.”

  “Metal detectors?” Delphick regarded the young man with interest. “In Plummergen?”

  Foxon and Brinton exchanged glances. It was the superintendent who finally spoke.

  “Potter says people have been seeing lights moving around in the middle of the night, down by the churchyard near some bit of land that used to belong to this blasted cottage there’s been so much fuss about.”