Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion
A Miss Seeton Mystery
Hamilton Crane
Series creator Heron Carvic
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Note from the Publisher
Preview
Also Available
About the Miss Seeton series
About Heron Carvic and Hamilton Crane
Copyright
chapter
~ 1 ~
IT WAS THE end of a glorious afternoon in mid-September, an afternoon which keen gardeners the length and breadth of Kent had used to good purpose. Throughout the county, justly famed as the Garden of England, evergreen shrubs, violets, and carnations had been planted; rambler roses and loganberries pruned; grease bands fixed to fruit trees. Maincrop carrots and beetroot had been lifted; the last tomatoes picked; potatoes taken up for storage; vegetable seedlings thinned and pricked out. The air was filled with the snip of secateurs, the snap of shears, the whirr of mowing machines, the song of birds . . . and, at Rytham Hall in the village of Plummergen, the curses of a baronet.
Major-General Sir George Colveden, Bart, KCB, DSO, JP, was not so much a gardener as a farmer. Lady Colveden looked after the Hall’s flowerbeds and herbaceous borders; Sir George, with the assistance of his son Nigel, his foreman Len Hosigg, and an assortment of loyal workers, ran the Hall farm—and ran it well. So well, indeed, that his presence was not always absolutely necessary . . .
“We can do without you for a while, Dad—the rest of the day, if you like. For goodness’ sake, why not go home and have it out with her, before you die of sunstroke?”
Nigel had come upon his father in the shade of a laden beech tree, loudly complaining that the new straw hat his wife had imposed on him a few weeks ago still didn’t fit. “No use,” he’d barked at his grinning son and heir, “your mother trying to tell me I’ll grow into it. May have worked for you children, but—”
“But Julia and I were never such a tough proposition as you. I couldn’t agree more.” Nigel stared thoughtfully at the top of his father’s head. “If you want my honest opinion, I’d say you’ve proved your point—your bald patch is most impressively red. She’ll have to believe you now. Why not, as I said, go home and—”
“Bald?” Sir George blew indignantly through his moustache. “Maybe thinning a bit, m’boy, but surely . . .” Nigel favoured his sire with a quizzical glance, and Sir George subsided, his face turning as scarlet as his sunburned pate. One hat, he muttered, was not just like another, no matter what Some People might think . . .
“You could always,” suggested Nigel, “tie knots in the corners of your handkerchief instead—if you’re scared of having it out with Mother, I mean. Think how convenient—”
“Scared of your mother? Rubbish!” Sir George managed to sound almost convincing as he squared his shoulders and reminded himself that he was a holder of the Distinguished Service Order. “Threw that hat of mine away without a word of warning. Sneak attack. Unsporting—ought to have put m’foot down on the spot.” He squinted through the beech leaves towards the richer gold of the slowly sinking sun. “Time to, er, drive into Brettenden, you think?”
Nigel opined that as a grand gesture, an escape to the nearby shopping centre would probably serve little purpose, as everywhere would be long shut by the time his father arrived. It might require, Sir George should bear in mind, a lengthy search before he found another hat of similar . . . similar character, said Nigel, to that of the late lamented straw. Though perhaps, if and when he was lucky enough to find a suitable replacement, he should consider buying two, ready for when the next hay bale fell on one of them . . .
“Pah!” snorted Sir George, and forthwith set off Hallwards: to Nigel’s relief. His father was no more comfortable in hot weather than anyone else, but he refused to give in to discomfort in case it made him feel old. Nigel, whose thick and wavy brown hair showed neither a hint of grey nor a sign of thinning, smiled with all the amused tolerance of the mid-twenties for the late fifties as he watched his father hurry away, and wished he could be a fly on the wall during the coming skirmish—except that on so glorious an afternoon his mother was sure to be in the garden, where walls didn’t come into it.
Lady Colveden was not in the garden. True, she had been there since just after lunch, and had worked tirelessly and well for several hours without a break; but she had become conscious of that sort of aching back which only a good cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits can cure, and was administering the last of this cure to herself as her husband stamped into the house and slammed the door behind him.
There came a clatter as the wire letter basket fell to the floor. Sir George’s blood, which had been (for all his fine words) cooling rapidly as he approached the house, now froze in his veins. He brushed his moustache with nervous fingers, and greeted his wife with a shamefaced smile as she emerged from the sitting room.
“Hello, George. You’re home early. I’m just having a cup of tea. Would you—George!” He tried to shuffle backwards to hide the evidence of his crime, but was too slow. “George, how could you! Martha will be absolutely furious—you know how long it took her to polish away the scratches last time.”
“Pah!” said Sir George, as he recalled that Mrs. Bloomer wasn’t working at the Hall today. “Parquet? Ought to cover the lot with lino. Wears better. Much less bother.”
“Don’t be silly, George. It would look hideous, and anyway, who could be trusted to lay it correctly, even if you really wanted it? Which I’m sure you don’t, unless you’ve caught a touch of the—George!” as she observed him clearly for the first time. “You have caught a touch of the sun—why on earth didn’t you wear your new hat? You look like a—like a boiled lobster, or something equally dreadful.”
At least it had taken her mind off the damage done by the wire letter basket to the hall floor. Sir George mopped his forehead warily, and muttered about the desert, and dehydration, and cast hopeful glances in the direction of the kitchen.
“I’ll make a fresh pot,” promised the wife of his bosom, and she sent him, with an irritated little loving push, to sit down and rest where it was cooler, if he didn’t want to explode: lobster, now she came to think about it, wasn’t the word for what he most looked like. She didn’t want him on her hands with heatstroke when she was so busy now with the garden . . .
Ten minutes later, Lady Colveden entered the sitting room carrying a tea tray—and slightly anxious about her spouse, who would never in normal circumstances have permitted her—or any woman—to bear even so light a burden when an able-bodied man such as himself was within earshot. She found Sir George fiddling with the television set, and concentrating on that to the exclusion of all else.
“George, are you sure you haven’t caught a touch of the sun? What are you doing?”
“Weather forecast.” He shook his head, winced, then brightened as his ey
es fell on the tray. “Interested in what it might be like tomorrow . . .”
“I would have thought,” retorted her ladyship, pouring tea, “that you’d know without needing to be told. Farmer’s instincts, and so on. And especially without needing to switch on the television—you know how bad the reception’s been since that last thunderstorm.”
Sir George, once more twiddling knobs, scowling at the series of black-and-white snowflake lines scrolling their horizontal way up the screen, did not listen. Lady Colveden set his cup on the table with a loud sigh.
“We were lucky the house didn’t burn down, with the aerial being hit the way it was—look at how poor Miss Seeton lost her burglar alarm when Sweetbriars was struck by lightning. I suppose if we’d had a colour set instead of black and white, the Hall would have burned down . . .”
This was too much for her husband, who proceeded to deliver a lecture on cathode ray tubes which assured his spouse there was no cause for her to feel anxiety over his mental state. Her own, however, began to give her cause for concern, as he continued to twiddle and adjust the old television set to the accompaniment of hisses and crackles which threatened to drive her mad. She poured another cup of tea for the frustrated electrician, collected her own used crockery to take into the kitchen, and spoke of going back to finish weeding the border nearest the drive before calling it a day well spent.
There came a brisk ring at the front door, followed by a rat-tat-tat. Lady Colveden sighed, set down her cup and saucer, then hurried to let the visitor in.
“George, here’s the Admiral come to see you. Do switch that thing off and be sociable—I’ve already explained that I simply must finish my border before supper, so . . .”
Rear Admiral Bernard “Buzzard” Leighton courteously ushered Lady Colveden out of her own front door, bowing with true Naval gallantry. Then, guided by the hisses and crackles from the still-faulty television set, he strode into the sitting room to greet his host and issue the invitation he’d come to deliver.
Sir George rose from his knees to welcome his guest. The Admiral, suddenly realising what he still carried in his left hand, shook his head for his forgetfulness. “Meant to give this to your good lady,” he said. “I’ve been extracting honey, you know. Thought she might like a pot—perfect for toast, or scones for afternoon tea.” Above his neat ginger beard, the Buzzard’s eyes twinkled. “Should give you both an idea of what to expect if you decide to come in with me next spring. Just pop it down here, shall I?”
Sir George responded with a twinkle of his own. The Admiral, a newcomer to Plummergen, had startled the village by moving into Ararat Cottage with four hives of honeybees, and had managed to fire the major-general with unexpected enthusiasm for this new hobby. Lady Colveden, however, had firmly vetoed a Rytham Hall apiary, and Sir George had been disappointed until Nigel suggested a compromise solution of shared hives, to be kept on the Admiral’s property. Sir George, golden visions of next year’s honey harvest before his eyes, now accepted the gleaming glass jar with thanks, and placed it on top of the television set, which was still emitting unlovely noises.
The Admiral regarded the troublesome appliance with a frown. “Give the damn thing a good thump,” he suggested. “Let it know you won’t stand any nonsense—you’d be amazed how often that sort of trick works.”
Sir George explained that the fault probably lay in the aerial rather than the set, but that he wanted to be sure before detailing anyone to scramble about on the roof. The Admiral nodded. As bad, he remarked, as dressing the mast at a Naval display—he’d often wondered how the button boy right at the top kept his nerve. For himself, he’d need a couple of stiff drinks inside him before—
“Drinks!” he cried. “Why I came, of course—to let you know I’m hoisting the gin pennant on the fifteenth. Battle of Britain Day. Had some good friends in the Few, God bless ’em,” he added gruffly. “Not the sort of chaps we should forget in a hurry, even more than thirty years on.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, there it is. Cordial invitation extended to join me in the wardroom. Sixish.” He glanced at his watch, and nodded in a meaningful way.
Sir George was sunburned, weary, and deafened by electrical noises. He was annoyed by the faulty television which emitted them—and he could recognise a hint when one was dropped. “Care for a spot of something?” he enquired, with a genial nod in the direction of the small cupboard which did duty as a sideboard.
“Well,” said the Admiral, who had no intention of refusing, “the sun’s pretty well over the yardarm, so . . .”
Lady Colveden paused to rub her back and became conscious that sounds of merriment had been emerging for some time from the window of the sitting room, which in her weeding progress she had steadily been approaching. How fortunate for George that it had been the Buzzard who’d come along just then, and not some less sympathetic soul who wanted to ask about becoming a Justice of the Peace, or to collect for charity or seek advice on some farming matter or other—about which, if she was honest, Nigel probably now knew more than his father. Wye College, on the far side of Ashford, was one of the best places in the country to study agriculture; Nigel had passed out with satisfyingly high marks on the practical side, although his written work had left something to be desired. She smiled.
She jumped, as Nigel’s voice suddenly broke into her reverie. “If we have visitors, Mother, why aren’t you indoors doing the hostess stunt in your best bib and tucker?” He offered an arm to help pull her to her feet. “If you’ve been hiding out here since lunch time, I’m prepared to give you absolution for whatever sins you think you’ve committed, so that you can go inside to join the fun.”
“I’m not an old lady, Nigel, thank you all the same.” His mother rose gracefully from her knees and ignored his outstretched arm. “And I’m not doing penance, either—your father’s just looking after the Admiral while I finish this border, and then I expect we’ll all have a drink together.”
“By the sound of it, they’ve started without you.” With his head on one side, Nigel listened to the cheerful bursts of conversation wafting on the evening air from the sitting room, on a background wave of hisses and crackles. “What on earth are they doing in there? It sounds very odd. Hadn’t we better go in and restrain them? You know how the Buzzard enjoys his sundowner, and with Dad sitting on his emergency bench again tomorrow, it—”
He broke off, and Lady Colveden uttered a little cry, as a sudden uproar erupted through the window. Shouts, cries, and curses were followed, after a brief pause, by a bellow of masculine laughter which had an ominously resigned note about it. Lady Colveden looked at Nigel, who was grinning. He looked back at her.
“A fine example for a magistrate to set! What’s the betting they’ve broken something in their drunken frenzy, and have decided there’s nothing they can do about it, so they aren’t going to bother?”
“Nigel, really, you can be very silly sometimes. As if your father would be so . . .” Lady Colveden remembered other instances when the Admiral and the major-general had been drinking together, and fell into a brooding silence.
Nigel was about to say something else when she rallied. “Why, they might be as sober as . . . as judges, for all we know,” she told her undutiful son, and set off smartly in the direction of the house to find out whether her optimism had been misplaced.
Things (she decided on first entering the sitting room) could have been a great deal worse. There were the glasses, just as Nigel had suspected; and a bottle, which she was almost sure had been nearly full the last time she’d noticed it, and now wasn’t; but a quick look round the room seemed to show nothing broken or torn or overturned. The two former officers had fallen silent at her appearance, mumbling greetings to their boots; but that was (she told herself firmly) no more than typical male unease when surprised in mild folly by a member of the opposite sex. The sitting room was an oasis of calm, apart from the vague buzzing of a very loud bee somewhere nearby. Even Nigel stood silent behind her instead of�
��
Silent. Mercifully, they’d switched off the—
“George!” After which Meg Colveden could say no more, speechless with shock. At her side, a startled Nigel, seeing what his mother had just seen, spluttered. His father shuffled guilty feet and twirled his moustache; the Admiral stroked his beard, and coughed.
“Sorry about, er, all this,” he ventured, when it had become clear that nobody else was capable of saying anything. “Trying to, er, fix the television, you know . . .”
At which Nigel could maintain his silence no longer. He let out a sudden guffaw, and rushed from the room. His exit seemed to release the built-up tension, and his mother found speech at last returning: speech she struggled nobly to keep under control.
“George,” she said: very, very gently. “I do appreciate the trouble you and Admiral Leighton have gone to, but was it really the only way of fixing the television?” She pointed towards the now-silent set, which had been pulled round to face the light—and out of the back of which a sticky golden stream was slowly trickling. A stream at which Lady Colveden could see bees busily feeding . . .
“Did you,” demanded Lady Colveden, “have to pour honey into the works?”
chapter
~ 2 ~
MRS.BLAINE WAS in the kitchen, chopping young dandelion leaves with a sharp knife. Miss Nuttel, a thoughtful pucker between her brows, was contemplating the small bottle of cold-pressed olive oil which stood on the worktop beside two bulbs of garlic (“Too good for the heart, Eric!”) and a sad-looking lemon which would shortly be combined into the salad dressing. The Nuts, as the two ladies who inhabit Lilikot are popularly known in Plummergen, were about to have supper after a busy day, spent half on self-sufficiency and half on scandal: the latter very possibly the more pleasurable half. Erica Nuttel and Norah Blaine (“Bunny” to her friend) are rampant vegetarians and dedicated gossips, whose plate glass–windowed home was chosen originally for its prime position in the village’s main street (formally designated, with proud capitals, The Street), overlooking both the bus stop outside Crabbe’s Garage and the post office, the village’s principal shop, next door.
Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 15) Page 1
