Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 15)

by Hamilton Crane

  Almost every hand went up. Miss Seeton nodded, pleased. “Now, hands up those who think their second half isn’t quite as close to my picture as the first.”

  The same hands waved at her. Miss Seeton beamed. “And now, hands up those who can tell me anything special about where I’ve put the ruler?”

  Frowns, and mutterings. Finally, a small voice ventured: “That’s where I knew what it was I was drawing, Miss.”

  “Indeed it is,” said Miss Seeton, as a general murmur arose from those who had squealed and bounced. She included the whole class in her next remark. “Can you tell me why your drawings aren’t as close to the original from my ruler downwards?” Shaken heads and silence. “No?” And Miss Seeton’s smile was kind. “It’s because you all stopped seeing the pattern of lines, and you started to see a man on stilts walking upside down—and you told yourselves you couldn’t possibly draw men on stilts, because it was much too difficult, when this was your first lesson of the year. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Wide eyes and open mouths greeted this evidence of Miss Seeton’s mind-reading ability. Old Mother Flax had never pulled a stunt like this, had she? Just wait until everyone at home heard how Miss only had to look at you, and she knew what you were thinking!

  “And now, I want you to draw the man again, exactly as you see him, the right way up. No,” as there came gasps of dismay, “no nonsense, please. You managed perfectly well when you were simply copying lines, didn’t you? Until you began to think about it, instead of just drawing what you could see? Then there is no need,” as everyone nodded dumbly, “to be so foolish about copying the same lines again, just as you see them . . .”

  Miss Seeton distributed a second round of paper, and waited with interest as the class settled down to a rerun. Would the special insight she’d gained yesterday evening, when she’d seen the world upside down from her yoga headstand, still hold true today? She awaited the results of the children’s labours with as much interest as they did . . .

  It was a proud class which scurried home at last to display to family and friends its surprisingly recogniseable portrayal of a man on stilts. Like magic, the way she’d got ’em drawing! No doubt of it, she’d cast a spell, all right—and never mind that she said it was just teaching ’em to see. How did she think they’d gone on all these years if they couldn’t see their way around proper? Must think they were daft! They knew better than that . . .

  Miss Seeton, happily oblivious to the effect on Plummergen parenthood of her little experiment, trotted homewards down The Street with her handbag over one arm, the rolled-up drawing under the other, and her umbrella slipped into the middle of the slim brown-paper cylinder to help stop it unrolling. A most satisfactory day: not just the proving of her upside-down theory, but enough to occupy her to stop her fingers twitching in that uncomfortable way they sometimes had when she wanted to draw a sketch, yet didn’t really feel she should. It had been dear Mr. Delphick, as she recalled, who once referred to her as a drug-taker with a craving for pencil and paper, not pills. She hadn’t quite known what to make of that remark at first. Still, if she was honest with herself—and a gentlewoman ought surely to pride herself on her truthfulness at all times—she believed she did know what he meant, but, if one thought about it, it was all rather, well, embarrassing—because one didn’t actually know why one was doing it—which made one seem a little foolish, to say the least. “A silly old woman,” murmured Miss Seeton as she passed the post office door; and received a furious glare from Mrs. Flax, who had popped in for a tin of creamed rice and a gossip, but there had been nobody there and she’d popped out again.

  Still happily oblivious, Miss Seeton continued on her southerly way, vaguely conscious of the tingling in her fingers and promising them she’d let them loose on the sketch pad once she was safely home. Home. A smile curved her lips as she looked along to the end of the road, and saw her dear cottage smiling back at her from where it stood on the corner of that block formed by the division of The Street into two. It narrowed, and ran straight on, bounded on one side by the brick wall of Miss Seeton’s back garden; it forked sharply to the right, and ran Rye-wards past (among other places) Rytham Hall, where Sir George and Lady Colveden lived—and dear Nigel, of course . . .

  “Hello, Miss Seeton!” She jumped. Out of her private thoughts, Nigel Colveden had manifested himself in person just behind her. She turned, and saw the little red car of which he was so proud, running so much more quietly now that clever Jack Crabbe had done whatever-it-was in the garage, instead of trusting Nigel (who was, after all, more used to the insides of tractors) to fix it for the umpteenth time. Nigel smiled. “Sorry to have startled you, but—would it be silly to offer you a lift home? I was on my way to see you, as a matter of fact.”

  “That would be very kind, thank you—and very pleasant, too. Will you stay for tea?” Miss Seeton gesticulated with her brown-paper roll in a manner suggestive of largesse of some sort, probably dietary. The roll began to uncurl, and she snatched at it. “Bother—I should really have found another rubber band after the other broke, but . . .”

  With Nigel’s assistance, Miss Seeton, the drawing, and her umbrella were loaded into the little MG. He paid particular attention to the umbrella. It was not, of course, the gold-handled model she kept for best, the black silk masterpiece given her by Chief Superintendent Delphick in appreciation of her efforts in the first case on which they’d worked together, but one of the everyday variety. Miss Seeton had a wide selection of umbrellas, and a special rack, with clips, for them in the hallway of her cottage.

  “Sweetbriars,” said Nigel, swinging the MG round to stop right outside Miss Seeton’s garden gate. He opened the door and hurried round to assist his passenger, and her parcel, out of the car and into her house. He watched her put the brolly in its clip, her handbag on the table, her hat on the hall stand. The large brown envelope, still loosely rolled with its cartridge paper enclosure, she carried absently through to the kitchen, Nigel following close behind.

  Miss Seeton topped up the kettle, which had been waiting for one, and found an extra cup, plate, and saucer. Nigel, who had asked if he might look at her drawing, was amused when she made him pull it out a few inches at a time, then gloomed over the fact that half the children had guessed what it was and he hadn’t. “All depends, I suppose, on how you look at things,” he said, with a chuckle. “And, talking of looking, Miss Seeton—it seems an awful cheek to ask, but half the fun of going is to have people look at you, and—gosh, this sounds awfully muddled.” Miss Seeton, pouring boiling water, nodded in sympathy. Nigel grinned back, and took a deep breath.

  “What I meant to say, Miss Seeton, was—that is, I was wondering—please could I borrow your umbrella?”

  chapter

  ~ 6 ~

  MISS SEETON GAZED at her young friend in some surprise. One hardly associated farmers, of all people, with umbrellas: weren’t they supposed to be, well, hardened to the whims of nature? And so terribly impractical. Tractors, for instance—from the safety point of view, surely it was essential that the driver should keep both hands firmly on the wheel? “Tie it on with string, perhaps,” murmured Miss Seeton in some confusion, still clutching the teapot lid.

  Nigel was equally confused. “String? Not very festive, is it? I thought, more streamers—and flags, if you didn’t mind too much, and if I could persuade Mother to sew them into a sort of cover that wouldn’t damage the main fabric. Not your best umbrella, of course, but if you could possibly spare one of the others—I should have asked earlier, I know, but I’ve been so busy helping to organise the lawnmower race I didn’t think—and when I saw you walking down The Street, I remembered I’d meant to drop in before this. We’re not really ones for brollies up at the Hall, you see. My mother has one of those folding ones, and Dad has a singularly battered golfing umbrella, but that would be too big, really—and you’d need far more streamers and flags than I think I could lay my hands on in time.”

  Miss See
ton came to her senses, and popped the lid on the teapot. She drew a deep breath. “Nigel, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “Why should anyone want to tie streamers to my umbrella—to any umbrella, if it comes to that? When it rained,” she pointed out sternly, “they’d get wet. Which would hardly be practical. Besides, it is my view that the best umbrella to have is the largest one can most comfortably carry—a golfing umbrella, for a strong young man like yourself, would be a far more sensible size than one of my own. Not,” she added hastily, in case she’d sounded rude, “that you aren’t indeed welcome to borrow an umbrella, if you wish—but I’m rather surprised, that’s all, that you should need one.”

  Nigel clapped a hand to his forehead. “Fool, Colveden! I’m sorry, Miss Seeton, I didn’t explain, did I? It’s the Young Farmers—we’re getting up a party to go into Town on Saturday for the Last Night of the Proms. And, well . . .”

  As he shrugged expressively, Miss Seeton’s eyes twinkled with a relieved understanding of what he’d been trying to say. “The Last Night of the Proms! Why, Nigel, how exciting for you and your friends. Certainly you may borrow an umbrella, although they are all, I fear, very plain. And with today being Thursday, I do hope there will be time . . .”

  “Gosh, thanks, Miss Seeton!” Nigel grinned with pleasure, and waved the airy hand of one who has never in his entire life sewn on so much as a button. “If you’d let me take it back straight away after tea, Mother can start on it at once—I’ve been in the attic hunting out all the stuff we had for the Coronation, and Martha’s promised to look for ribbons and things.” Mrs. Bloomer was a celebrated needlewoman as well as a noted domestic and a renowned cook. “It shouldn’t take long for Mother to fix it up for me,” Nigel assured Miss Seeton, in happy ignorance. Miss Seeton, who was slightly less ignorant about such matters, smiled kindly on his enthusiasm, and said nothing to dampen it.

  They had a splendid tea, sitting on Miss Seeton’s flagstone patio. Nigel demonstrated, beyond all doubt, that while farmers may indeed be hardened to the whims of nature, they are not hardened against the lure of large quantities of chocolate biscuits. Miss Seeton watched him demolish almost a whole packet as he told her of the Young Farmers’ plans for Saturday, then began to expand into a breathless recital of the arrangements he’d been making for the coming Grand Lawn Mower Race, to be held at the Village Playing Field the following Saturday, for the benefit of the Plummergen Pavilion Fund and a favourite charity, in equal proportion. Miss Seeton expressed no little interest in this novel enterprise, and urged him to the consumption (once the chocolate biscuits had all gone) of fruit cake as he told her more. Nigel, only too happy to oblige his hostess, ate two thick slices and confessed himself saved, in the nick of time, from starvation. It was, he explained, an unusually busy time on the farm: they were one man short, since his father—as Miss Seeton of course remembered, a magistrate—was having to take the place every day of a bedridden colleague. Nigel had, however, managed to make the briefest of escapes to see someone about the posters for the Race . . .

  “Gosh, yes!” Nigel swallowed his last crumb, and gazed to the end of Miss Seeton’s garden. “I bet Stan Bloomer’s clocked up simply hours of practice on your lawn, Miss Seeton. If I talked him into entering, would you let him borrow your mower?” Then he chuckled. “Goodness, I do seem to be horribly on the scrounge this afternoon, don’t I? First one of your umbrellas, then your lawn mower—”

  Miss Seeton assured him that she didn’t mind at all, nor did she consider that one or two friendly requests amounted to scrounging. She was, as surely he realised, only too happy to be of service in any way she could. If Stan wished to use her mowing machine, then naturally he was more than welcome to do so, although she hoped dear Nigel had considered the risk of—so one gathered—crowds of persons running around close together, pushing machines with sharp, rotating blades in front of them. One really could not help thinking that it all sounded rather, well, dangerous.

  Nigel nodded. “It would be, if that’s what we’d planned—but we’re doing it properly, I promise you. I’ve talked the whole scheme over two or three times on the phone with a jolly helpful chap called Jim Gavin, who’s secretary of the, er, British Lawn Mower Racing Association . . .”

  Miss Seeton was long accustomed to Mr. Colveden’s aristocratic sense of humour; and she had, though seven years retired from full-time teaching, never forgotten the April Fool tricks her pupils used to play. She raised startled eyebrows as Nigel brought out the final few words, then—the perfect hostess—smiled very politely, saying nothing.

  Nigel caught her look, and grinned. “Yes, I know, you think it’s just another of my jokes—but it isn’t. There’s an honest-to-goodness, real-life, full-blown organisation devoted to racing lawn mowers, as true as I’m sitting here—and it’s practically on the doorstep! Over in Sussex, anyway, and I’m going over to see him later on this evening, when things have quietened down a bit here, to discuss the details. Apparently, when it all first began it was a crowd of blokes in a pub, chatting about the good old days of car rallies and how the fun had gone out of it as everything got too big and commercial—and, well, one of them said what a pity there wasn’t anything else, instead of cars. Somebody suggested combine harvesters, only there aren’t enough in the area to give a good day’s sport—but pretty well everyone has a lawn of some sort or another, haven’t they? And, depending on which size lawn—and mower—you have, there are three classes—if you’re running a big competition, that is, but we won’t, not when it’s only for the village.” Nigel paused. He was proud of being a Plummergenite, but there were certain disadvantages to a place with only five hundred inhabitants.

  He sighed. “I don’t suppose there are enough of the big sit-upon machines to make it worth having a Class Three section, which sounds like the most fun—they even have an all-night race! They fit headlights to the mowers and then charge round the course for twelve hours on the trot, though I know we couldn’t run to that—but quite a few people have the towed-seat sort. That’s Class Two. And positively dozens have what the BLMRA calls the run-behind models, like yours, the sort you push, except that Jim says a good racer doesn’t so much push the machine as get pulled along by it, if it’s going well. They’re Class One. Even children enter the Class One races—and they run relays, too. And they remove the blades, in case anyone gets hurt—and you keep the grass-box on, to make it safer, in the other classes—and Jim sent me a copy of the rules, and passed on heaps of tips about safety—straw bales, and old tyres, and so on. And, er, Heather’s Red Cross-trained, you know. She thinks we couldn’t be more safety-conscious if we tried—oh, yes. Talk about scrounging—I must have a word with the Admiral, too, before I forget.”

  Miss Seeton blinked. “Admiral Leighton? Do you think, Nigel, that at his age—that is,” for she recalled that Sir George was of similar vintage to the Buzzard, and Nigel was fond of his sire, “is it altogether wise to, er . . .”

  “Good Lord, I wouldn’t dream of asking him to compete! Not unless we had a veterans’ class, or something tactful like that.” Nigel grinned. “Which wouldn’t go down well with Dad and Mr. Stillman and the rest, would it? No, I was thinking I must ask to borrow his Union Jack, to start the races with. You know how he’s always making such good use of that flagpole since he had it installed in his front garden. I don’t quite know where we’ll find a chequered flag for the finish, though. I suppose Mother . . . once she’s finished the umbrella, that is . . . if you’re sure you don’t mind my borrowing it for a couple of days . . .”

  And Miss Seeton, quite captivated by the thought of her brolly attending, as one might say, so traditional an occasion as the Last Night of the Proms, jumped up at once from the table and said that Nigel must come through to the hall with her immediately, to choose the most suitable umbrella from the rack.

  In the office of Superintendent Brinton, Detective Constable Foxon was putting the final touches to a report. He felt
rather pleased with himself, because it would leave his in-tray almost empty: and almost empty was as good as he knew he was ever likely to get. He’d never manage to clear the tray completely, of course. There were always at least four reports waiting to be written up, and very often many more. But when his backlog was reduced to four, Foxon allowed himself a small pat on the back—even though it was a fair bet Old Brimstone would soon pull rank and off-load some of his own routine bumf or, worse, sneakily dump it in the tray when he thought Foxon wasn’t looking.

  But Brinton wasn’t in the office right now, and Foxon grinned happily to himself as he copied date, time, and name of witness (in capitals) from his notebook to the last page of the hunt and peck-typed report. Start and finish, Brinton always insisted: belt and braces, to be on the safe side when things were quoted in court.

  Court wasn’t the only place, mused Foxon, where things might be quoted: what was wrong with Ashford Police Station? “Make assurance doubly sure,” he said, brooding on belt and braces as he wound paper out of the typewriter with a brisk flourish. They’d done Macbeth at school: the Scottish Play, his English master had always been careful to call it. Some theatrical superstition about bad luck—well, Foxon wasn’t at school any more, he was a hard-nosed copper with no time for anything except facts. “Macbeth,” he announced experimentally to a sparrow which had alighted on the windowsill, “doth murder sleep.”

  “Don’t talk to me about murder!” The voice of Superintendent Brinton close behind him set the windowpanes rattling. The sparrow, startled, flapped its wings helplessly as it fell backwards, blown by the blast.

  Foxon, who’d been so preoccupied with his typing and its ripping aftermath that he hadn’t noticed Brinton’s arrival, then turned warily to face his chief. He knew the superintendent’s moods as well as his own. “What’s wrong, sir?”