Miss Seeton Quilts the Village

by Hamilton Crane

  Bob had the best view, sitting at an angle to a painting in its frame above the fireplace. He smiled as he watched her in the reflection. Years ago, after their first encounter, she had drawn a swift cartoon likeness of himself as the footballer she didn’t then know he was, that she later gave to Anne. In similar fashion she had produced a watercolour of a bleak, windswept heath that was somehow a realistic impression of the then Superintendent Delphick, seen by Miss Seeton as a Grey Day and which, in the course of a later adventure, had been made more wintry still by the application of pastel chalks and given a new name: Ilkley Moor on a December Day.

  Now it was having its third incarnation, as a looking glass. He watched her study a blank page, fiddling with her pencil. She flipped back to glance at some previous sketch, seemed about to close the book, then suddenly her fingers twitched, she seized the pencil, and began dashing its point across the paper. Good for MissEss. That quick, instinctive drawing was what old Brimstone had wanted—and she was coming up with the goods before his very eyes.

  “...didn’t find a sausage,” Foxon was saying, as Bob returned to the muted chat and left Miss Seeton to work in private. “The super told me I’d be getting fresh air and exercise, but all I got was backache.”

  “You should help in your gran’s garden a bit more,” said Brinton, whose potatoes sometimes won prizes at local shows. “You’re getting soft. A fine way to thank her for your birthday present, wouldn’t you say?” he asked of the Rangers.

  “Mr. Brinton would have preferred a Fair Isle pattern.” Foxon indicated his stripes. “I’d never dare tell my gran that, though...”

  Bob tuned out again. In the glass, Miss Seeton now sat without moving, gazing down at her sketchpad. He glanced across at Brinton, rolled his eyes, and tilted his head to one side. Brinton at once looked in the same direction.

  “All done, Miss Seeton? That’s splendid. May I see?”

  “It’s not particularly helpful, I’m afraid. I seem to have muddled it with something I drew earlier.” She passed the sketchbook to the superintendent, who grinned.

  “Three old biddies climbing the stairs.” Miss Seeton turned pink.

  “They…they were coming down them, before. At first I thought of the Fates, or the Weird Sisters in Macbeth because Nigel Colveden said that was what he and Julia used to call them, when they were children—the Saxons, that is.”

  Brinton’s head jerked up. “You mean these are your idea of the three Miss Saxons? Show me the one you think you muddled it with.”

  He handed the sketchbook back, and she leafed obediently through until she found what he wanted. He gazed at it, with Foxon peering over his shoulder, Bob and Anne as interested spectators. “Coming down the stairs,” said Brinton. “And going up them.”

  “I believe they are wearing jackboots,” said Miss Seeton. “At the time, of course, I had no idea, but Martha has told me, and so has Lady Colveden, a little...”

  “If you think the stairs are important, Miss Seeton, so do I.” Brinton hesitated, then returned the sketchbook and rose to his feet. “Come on, Foxon. Let’s hope your horrible clothes don’t panic the lady into raising the alarm. We’re going round to this cottage we’ve heard so much about to ask Dr. Braxted if we can come in to look for a hidden panel on the stairs. And I’ll lay you odds we find one!”

  Bob looked at Anne. She smiled and nodded permission as he, too, rose with alacrity to his feet. “You could be right about those stripes, sir. They’re enough to terrify anyone out of her wits—sorry, Tim.” Foxon grimaced as Miss Seeton emitted a discreet little chuckle and Anne giggled. They could all see that Detective Sergeant Ranger, on leave or not, was eager for any excuse to be back in action. “If I come with you, well, Dr. Braxted’s met me, and I can vouch for both of you.” He turned to Miss Seeton. “May I leave Anne here with you? You could show her your sewing, if it wouldn’t be giving away too many secrets. With luck we won’t be long...”

  The three men tried not to hurry as they made for Nowhere Lane. “Let’s just hope,” growled Brinton, “nobody starts spouting more rubbish about exhumations.”

  As expected, Euphemia Braxted appeared at a window the instant their feet sounded on the path. She took one look, immediately recognised Bob, and flung the casement wide.

  “You grow no smaller, Sergeant Ranger! You still won’t fit—but your friend the psychedelic Tigger would, if he wanted. I’ll come and unlock the door.”

  Bob waved thanks, and she vanished as Brinton began to laugh. “I warned you about those stripes, young Tigger. Psychedelic—the very word!”

  Foxon joined in the laughter. “I notice she didn’t offer to let you, sir, climb the ladder and scamper about on the rafters. Perhaps she thought you’d be as out of place as Sergeant Ranger?”

  Whatever Brinton might have wanted to reply, he didn’t. Euphemia was at the open door, with a nod and a smile to usher all three policemen inside. Bob made the introductions, then left Brinton to explain why they were there.

  “Panels on the stairs? Hmm. Felix! Madeline!” Feet clattered above, and Mr. Graham appeared from one direction while Miss Staveley came from the other. Both carried notebooks; Felix had a camera slung around his neck, Madeline held a flat leather cylinder in her other hand.

  “They’re not interested in my fresco, they don’t want to see our priest’s hole,” Euphemia said after further introductions. “Probably a wise decision,” she added, calculating the chances of a safe ascent, balancing act and descent on the part of Superintendent Brinton, potato fancier, and not liking the result. Foxon chortled quietly; Bob hid a grin. Felix and Madeline were courtesy-to-strangers personified. “They’d like you to check your measurements for the stair panelling.”

  Consultation in notebooks, discussion, shaking of heads. “There’s no difference between the wainscoting and any of the rooms alongside,” said Felix. “Everything fits.”

  “There’s an alcove by the chimney breast in one room,” said Madeline, “and we had our doubts about that, but Felix is right. It’s deceptive, but it does all work.”

  Euphemia flung out her arms. “Have you ever met researchers as thorough as these two? If they say it’s impossible, then it is. Every day I pat myself on the back for having persuaded them to come and help.”

  Brinton sighed. In the absence of the Oracle, Bob Ranger or no Bob Ranger, his inexpert interpretation of Miss Seeton’s special sketches must be wrong. Just as he’d been afraid.

  Foxon was less easily quenched. “But you were looking for somewhere big enough to hide a man?” The three historians agreed. “Would you have bothered checking the measurements of the stairs themselves? The width of the treads, the height of the individual steps?”

  “The vertical part,” said Dr. Braxted, in lecturer mode, “is the riser.” But she, like the others, looked taken slightly aback. “Not in detail, no. Once we found the secret room it didn’t seem necessary to check elsewhere—the stairs are too far from the attic, and much too public, for a bolt-hole.”

  So where, thought Brinton, might someone agile have hidden a stash of gold coins in days past. He’d have to send young Foxon up in the roof after all…No, he wouldn’t. The old lady was producing South African sovereigns for Sam Brattle to change into English pounds not long before her death. And she’d been declining for several years. Foxon had said she’d have wanted them within easy reach. And Miss Seeton had suggested...

  “Could you measure the stairs now, please? For any discrepancy that might show there’s a smaller than man-sized hiding place there?”

  He felt obliged, now, to explain to the historian and her colleagues why he wanted to know, though he kept the details brief. I saw three old biddies going up and down the stairs in a drawing was pretty weak, as an explanation. We have reason to believe would have to do: he could hardly say acting on information received, given the sort of information it was. He hoped the other two who’d been there would keep quiet about it all.

  They did. They stood
with him and watched as Felix and Madeline, whose flat leather cylinder was a tape measure, went painstakingly up the stairs, measuring each step at a time, tapping the wainscoting for good measure.

  At the second step from the top, they stopped. “Sounds a little different,” said Felix.

  Madeline checked the measurements. “It’s the same size as all the others.” She peered along the whole width of the stair. “Far too big to slide sideways into the wall—it would stick out several feet into the next room, and I can’t see a join for only part of it to move.” Her fingers ran lightly from one end of the riser to the other. “I can’t feel any join, either.”

  “But it’s at ceiling height,” said Felix. “Suppose there’s a beam directly opposite on the other side of the wall, and it’s not structural but hollow?”

  “Well done, Felix!” Dr. Braxted shot a triumphant look at Brinton. “The riser could slide sideways into the beam, and nobody would see it.” She looked at Bob Ranger, six foot seven in his stockinged feet. His shoes would add another inch. His arms were in proportion to his frame...

  “You may not be able to investigate the priest’s hole, young Goliath, but for people in a hurry you’re an excellent substitute for a stepladder.” She beckoned him to follow her into the neighbouring room. Felix and Madeline double-checked their measurements. Brinton and Foxon exchanged glances, and hurried after Bob. The room had leaded windows and what looked like the original beams, massive and black.

  “Splendid, aren’t they?” said Euphemia. “But,” she added, after some stretching on Bob’s part and further checking of measurements, “there isn’t one in the right place. A great pity. It was such a good idea.”

  “Too good, perhaps,” suggested Brinton. “I don’t mean clever-clever,” he corrected as she bristled on behalf of her protégé, “but too obvious, maybe. For something supposed to be hidden. If it’s there at all,” he finished. Yes, he needed the Oracle. Talk about a wild goose chase.

  There came a shriek from the stairs. Everyone rushed back out to the hall. They saw Madeline, left behind when Felix took the tape measure in to the others, with her hand on one of the uppermost balusters.

  And they saw, as they hurried up the stairs, a dark, narrow crack at the base of the riser that hadn’t been there before.

  “I heard you talking, and guessed it was no go. I was a bit fed up, and tried to push it sideways anyway, and grabbed at the baluster to keep my balance, and—I felt it move! Only a little, but I twisted it some more, and—look!”

  With a slight effort she repeated the manoeuvre. There was a faint squeak of oak on oak, and the narrow crack widened as the riser tilted back on an unseen hinge. Everyone crowded round to watch. Eyes were bright, breath was held. Madeline, encouraged by Euphemia, twisted some more. Further back went the riser—darker and more secret grew the cavity now revealed.

  “Good girl,” said Brinton. His grin was as wide as any of Foxon’s. “Well done, young Madeline!”

  “Here’s a torch.” Euphemia tugged a small flashlight from her cardigan pocket. “You’re not afraid of spiders, of course...”

  Then congratulations became loud and general as Miss Staveley put her hand into the hiding-place and rummaged about, before withdrawing a grey canvas bag.

  It clinked.

  Chapter Twenty

  FOXON DROVE BACK to Ashford. Brinton glowed with satisfaction deeper even than when his potatoes took First Prize. Who’d thought of asking MissEss to sketch? Who’d made sense of what she drew? Who needed Chief Superintendent Delphick? Or perhaps that was going too far. But the Oracle was on leave, his Goliath sidekick officially wasn’t there either...

  “It’ll have to be reported to the coroner,” he said aloud.

  “Surely not exhumation after all, sir!” Foxon knew his duty as feed.

  “Treasure trove, laddie. Valuables found in a place of deliberate concealment. The legal bods are going to have a high old time deciding if it counts as part of Griselda’s estate. The Brattles can testify she was spending that lovely golden oodle almost to the end—until she grew too frail to turn the baluster, I suppose, which is why the Brattles thought the money had run out—but does it count as hers in the first place?”

  “The sovereigns were minted in South Africa, sir. The old colonel’s father really might have brought them back from his prospecting days. We can’t prove they’re anything to do with the Nazis—”

  “So it’s just coincidence the shoulder-flashes and buttons were in the other bag.”

  “A safe hiding-place is a safe hiding-place, sir.” Foxon grinned. “The way backache is backache. The hours we trudged up and down with that metal detector—”

  “You might have enjoyed it. Plenty do. A new hobby, the chance to apply your detecting skills in a different way.”

  “Not my idea of fun, sir—though some of the rougher elements have been in the shop asking how much the things cost. I’m surprised they took the trouble to ask. Knowing the Choppers and their pals, a brick through the window and help yourself is more their style.”

  “They’d have to know how it worked. Even if they had the sense to think of swiping one at the same time—which they haven’t—I doubt if the Choppers could read their own names on a charge sheet, let alone an instruction manual.”

  Foxon was thoughtful. “I wonder how the foreigners managed. From what he said, it could have been the Costaguanans who bought a detector the other day. Their English is pretty basic, according to Ned Potter.”

  “It was probably them prowling round the village after the gold that started the rumours in the first place. Exhumations be damned!” Brinton sighed. “Dr. Braxted may swear everyone to silence about that painting, but by not swearing her or those youngsters to silence, with luck the word will get around that there’s nothing for anyone to find, and it will all calm down again.”

  “With Plummergen, sir, you never can tell.” A strange logic prompted Foxon’s next remark. “MissEss was pleased, wasn’t she?”

  “All nice and officially receipted, with a cheque in due course.” Again Brinton savoured his—Miss Seeton’s—triumph. She had been delighted that her sketches had helped, and showed great interest in the sovereigns, though her distaste for the Nazi buttons, buckles, and insignia was clear. She had, she reminded him, lived through the Blitz.

  And she had been quick to change the subject. “Her sewing’s pretty good too, isn’t it, sir? Her work looks just like her cottage—and no need to swear any oath. The map’s not what they’re all in such a tizz about, it’s the quilt. Everyone in the village who can sew seems to have joined a secret society. They’re worried Murreystone will try to steal a march on them.”

  “I thought all this rigmarole was in aid of that writer bloke’s centenary for being born in Plummergen. Unless the chap was really born in Murreystone and moved when he was a kid, how could they possibly steal a march—or even take a stroll?”

  Foxon lamented his superior’s short memory. “You know they’ve been squabbling for a thousand years, sir. If Murreystone can outdo Plummergen, they will. Remember the cricket match—how they got that horse drunk on fermented apples and took it to the smith for shoeing? Dan Eggleden is Plummergen’s best bowler, and they nobbled him good and proper. And what about the Best Kept Village competition and the—”

  “Shuttup, Foxon. Dammit, of course I remember. And I don’t see how Manville Henty can be anything to do with Murreystone—or why it has to be kept so secret.”

  Foxon, having spent a morning metal-detecting up and down the Kettle Wedge with PC Potter, had the all facts. “It’s because the quilt is depicting local legends and history, sir. Anyone can make a map of their own village, but Murreystone isn’t so far across the marsh—”

  Brinton guffawed. “So both sides might have a claim on the same stories?”

  “Yes, sir, and Plummergen wants to get in first. As anyone would after the Brown Wilt, and the moles, and everything.”

  During the Best Kept Vi
llage competition, Murreystone had outdone itself in skulduggery. Plummergen’s unloved and unlovely mole catcher, Jacob Chickney, was bribed by the across-the-marsh rival to supply living moles rather than dead, to be released to do their worst in Plummergen gardens—which gardens were also attacked in the night by Murreystone with flasks of boiling water, scalding prize plants to withered brown stems, and spoiling the green of velvety lawns with ugly, burned blotches.

  “And everything,” echoed Brinton. “Oh, yes, I get it now. Murreystone’ll probably find an old house with two priest’s holes and a smugglers’ tunnel to boot, and make a quilt twice the size into the bargain.”

  “Yes, if they could.” Foxon half believed it. “Hence the need for secrecy.”

  “Not one word more from you, then.” And Brinton settled back to resume his quiet gloating on secret panels, treasure troves, and final proof of Nazi sympathies, if a two-way radio hidden in a priest’s hole wasn’t enough. Buttons, buckles and flashes were more than enough. The de-buttoned uniforms would have been buried, of course, as they couldn’t be easily burned. Natural fibres—no nylon, in those days. Somebody once told him that if you left a book, all paper and glue and cloth binding, in the open air it would disappear within a twelvemonth. The churchyard soil, so close to the canal, must be pretty moist all year round. After thirty years...He was going to enjoy writing up his report. The Imperial War Museum could argue with Brettenden and Dr. Braxted over who got to keep the radio once the security bods had taken a look. He rather thought he’d back Euphemia to win that argument...

  Superintendent Brinton, Miss Seeton’s sketches neatly folded in his pocket, two canvas bags safe in the boot of the police car, was almost entirely content.