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

by Hamilton Crane

  “A trouble shared,” said Miss Seeton slowly, “can indeed be a trouble halved, Martha dear—but, apart from lending a sympathetic ear to your family troubles, which of course I am only too happy to do, I fear I can conceive of little, if anything, that I might do to assist. I could hardly, for instance, act as a character witness on your young cousin’s behalf, since I have never met him. And, although after so many years I believe I may claim, if not close friendship, then certainly a professional relationship—if it is not immodest of me to say so—with Superintendent Brinton, he would not, I fancy, take at all kindly to the interference in his affairs of one who is a mere amateur in matters of, well, of criminal investigation. Which is not to say,” said Miss Seeton hastily, “that I necessarily believe your cousin to be a criminal—the police, after all, are only human, and mistakes can be made—besides which there is also, if my understanding is correct, the fact that he has not, or so it would appear, been arrested. I myself,” and Miss Seeton blushed with discreet pride, “might, after all, have been said on occasion to be helping the police with their enquiries—and I would hope,” firmly, “that nobody would ever suppose me to be under any cloud of suspicion as I did so. It is no more than one’s plain civic duty, is it not? To help, I mean. And, though your cousin may be still a comparatively young man with a . . . a somewhat bohemian attitude towards his responsibilities . . .” Miss Seeton looked back on some of the bohemian types she had known in her own young days. With a smile, she patted Martha kindly on the arm. “The police, Martha dear, are obliged to ask questions, if they are to solve any of their cases. Your cousin, I feel sure, need have no great cause for anxiety.”

  It must be nice, thought Martha as she returned Miss Seeton’s smile, to have as few worries about life as dear Miss Emily seemed to have. She was always so kind—never more so than at times like this, though heaven alone knew she hoped there’d never be another time like this—but it didn’t seem fair to take too much advantage of her kindness. Some people, reflected Mrs. Bloomer, just never could see the dark side of anything—and it would be downright wicked to break it to them that life wasn’t all sweetness and light, the way they thought. Martha smiled again at her employer, and said she could well be right about there being nothing to worry the family over after all, and she’d get along now and pick her cabbage and be off home to cook it before Stan died of starvation, if that was all right by Miss Emily . . .

  “Quite all right, Martha dear. And I am so glad,” Miss Seeton said, “that I was able to be of some help . . .”

  Only after Martha had gone did Miss Seeton start to ask herself just how much help she’d really been. One had been so preoccupied with the weeding, and so startled by the news of Stan’s arrest—which, though it turned out to be untrue, had been most disturbing for some minutes afterward . . . and, though one recalled that Martha had smiled and waved as she slipped out through the garden gate—the click of the key in the lock had sounded almost cheerful—there had perhaps still (mused Miss Seeton, tidying away her trowel and fork) been something of an air of . . . disappointment in dear Martha’s mood. Nothing so strong, one hoped, as accusation, or criticism that one might not have done all that one could—yet one might, she supposed, perhaps have done rather more—although really it was hard to know what . . . Or was she (she wondered, as she began to prepare for her luncheon picnic beneath the apple tree) confusing Martha’s understandable agitation with dear Nigel’s regret at not having been able to watch himself—and his borrowed umbrella—on television? Not to mention (Miss Seeton smiled, and shook her head) the emotional coils one understood to envelop dear Nigel, and his friend Clive, and that pretty girl—something of a flowery name. Erica? No, Heather—who had been standing next to him . . .

  Until her own mental confusion might be resolved, Miss Seeton knew she could have no enjoyment in her picnic, or her garden—indeed, in anything, while her restless fingers remained unstilled. One could hardly trust oneself to slice tomatoes, to cut bread, or to carry a loaded tray in safety; and certainly not to wield secateurs or shears. One might deplore one’s regrettable tendency to be ruled—sometimes there was really no other word for it—by one’s desires (Miss Seeton, even in the privacy of her home, blushed)—but the fact of the matter did seem to be that when one’s fingers tried so pointedly—dear Nigel!—to dance, one was spared much useless agonising if one simply let them carry on as they wished until the irritation—if that was the word—had worked its way out of one’s system.

  Miss Seeton, bowing to the inevitable, sighed; and slipped a beaded muslin cover over her half-prepared meal before hurrying from the kitchen to the cupboard in which she kept most of her sketching gear. Pencils, eraser, charcoal, and paper—even while reaching for her equipment, she felt the tingle in her hands as an almost electric shock, followed by a surge of relief as she collected everything together and set it out on the sitting-room table under the window. Now barely conscious of what she did, Miss Seeton seized one of her pencils and began to draw . . .

  Stan, Martha, Nigel Colveden, and his parents, Sir Stanford Rivers, Dame Lavinia Sheering tumbled together from the graphite tip as Miss Seeton worked. Stan, with his comfortable, slow smile and his hands bearing a wicker basket full of gleaming fruit . . . Martha, clad in everyday dress while incongruously adorned with jewellery—necklace, earrings, brooch and bracelets, a heavy tiara—no, a crown—on her head . . . Sir George, standing at the salute beneath the Union Flag waved by his wife . . . Nigel, carrying an umbrella decorated with horseshoes and sprigs of white heather, looking as if he were about to turn cartwheels in his exuberance . . . Sir Stanford Rivers, frivolous as he could surely never be in real life, his flowing white locks crowned by the flowing, feathered headdress of a Red Indian chief, his body contorted with the tension of coaxing music from tuneless hordes . . . Lavinia Sheering, in the splendid Britannia costume with which she had delighted the Promenaders . . .

  Dame Lavinia. Good gracious. Miss Seeton blinked, and stared. The postures in which she had drawn some of these children of her imagination were certainly varied. There was dear Stan, looking much as he ever did—and Martha, who seemed awkward and unhappy in her extraordinary finery—it came as no surprise, of course, that Sir George, a military man, should salute his country’s standard with ramrod stiffness, or that his wife should so gracefully pose with the flagstaff in her hand; but that Nigel should even attempt to turn cartwheels while carrying an umbrella—and one knew that dear Nigel was a resourceful young man—seemed, well, odd—and Sir Stanford, one felt sure, would never, even in private, indulge in such energetic antics, such flamboyant fancy dress. Whereas the fancy dress worn by Dame Lavinia was perfectly in keeping—and yet . . .

  “India, of course,” said Miss Seeton, as light dawned. “She must be, as I am, a practitioner of yoga . . .”

  For why else would the stately soprano be standing, with such undoubted poise, upon her head?

  chapter

  ~ 16 ~

  “BUT SURELY NOT,” murmured Miss Seeton, as she continued to stare at her drawing, “in a helmet? So very uncomfortable, as well as being most precarious when trying to keep one’s balance . . .” For, despite her topsy-turvy pose. Dame Lavinia still carried, as she had during her television appearance, the trident and shield of Britannia.

  “Upside down,” mused Miss Seeton. She frowned, stiffened, and stared more closely at the figure of Sir George Colveden—or rather, at that of his wife: and in particular at the flag she waved above his head, while below and to her right, in the shadow of the flag, their son prepared to engage in his gymnastics. “Does not the flag, too, appear to be upside down? I believe it does,” as her eye noted that the white border to the diagonal cross was narrow, rather than wide, on the side near the staff. “Yes, of course. Girl Guide signals—and that story of the Admiral’s which dear Sir George told us last night . . .”

  The general atmosphere of reminiscence had continued at Rytham Hall long after the television had been swi
tched off. Miss Seeton had contributed one or two more thirty-year-old episodes from her wartime teaching days; Lady Colveden had appropriated from her spouse (and, in deference to their guest, censored) a few of his more repeatable anecdotes; and Sir George, nettled, had countered by narrating some of Admiral Leighton’s more humorous experiences, gleaned during the Battle of Britain Day get-together. One which had particularly amused Miss Seeton, who recalled from her schooldays the difficulties in which enthusiastic Guides could find themselves, had concerned an exchange of signals between two ships. The eye of the senior ship’s captain (Miss Seeton, whose own eye was not slow, smiled again with approval as she remembered) had been as quick as the wits of the junior . . .

  “How long do you expect to be after leaving harbour?”

  “Three hundred and ten feet, as usual.”

  According to the Admiral, there had followed a brooding pause. Then: “Your Union Jack is upside down.” (And here Sir George explained to his appreciative audience that such a display of the national flag is a recognised signal of distress.)

  A wounded pause. Then: “This is how it was received from Naval Stores, Portsmouth.”

  A triumphantly brief pause. “Some people would drink sulphuric acid, if it came in a gin bottle.”

  (“Which reminds me,” concluded Admiral Leighton, after everyone had finished chuckling. “Another drink, anybody?” But Sir George saw no need to elaborate on this . . .)

  Acid, of course, mused Miss Seeton, was used to etch metal. Possibly a reference to the patterns on Britannia’s shield—but farfetched, she felt, as a connection. Yoga was much more probable—the Indian attire of Sir Stanford—cowboys and Indians . . . school days . . .

  “Of course!” cried Miss Seeton, happy at last that the puzzle was solved. “My new method of teaching the children to see. That must be why . . .”

  And she held out the sketch at arms’ length for one last look, before putting it safely away with hands that neither tingled nor twitched any longer.

  As the little convoy of cars had drawn up at the entrance to the Cana Hop Garden, it appeared that Brinton and his associates were about to do no more than repeat the same tired routine for the umpteenth time, achieving nothing . . .

  But appearances can be very deceptive.

  “Pull in here a minute,” instructed the superintendent, when the neatly lettered wooden signboard came into view. “Wave her over—I want a quick word before we go in.”

  Foxon sounded his horn, and flipped on his indicator. Her reporter’s curiosity aroused, Mel drew in behind the police car as it slowed, and hurried to undo her seat belt.

  “Thought I’d better explain, Miss Forby,” said Brinton, as she poked her head in at the passenger window and demanded an explanation. “He’s a bit of a character, the bloke who owns this place—Hezekiah Aythorpe. Hasn’t owned it all that long, for one thing. And for another, he’s one of the Holdfast Brethren—”

  “You’re kidding! That hellfire and damnation crowd over in Brettenden?” Mel had written a carefully disguised Piece on this unusual religious sect several months ago. “They’re all rabid teetotallers, surely—and you don’t grow hops to make nonalcoholic beer, do you! What on earth’s a guy like him doing with a place like this?”

  Without waiting to be invited, Mel opened the rear door and slipped gracefully into the car: if Briton’s explanation turned out to be as involved as she suspected it might, she was bothered if she’d hang around outside bending down with a crick in her neck while she listened. Brinton, with a nod of absent welcome, carried on with his tale.

  “Hezekiah lived in Brettenden all his life—he’s seventy-eight now—until a couple of years back, when his second cousin Jabez Buntingford died and left him this lot.” Brinton jerked a lugubrious thumb in the direction of the wooden sign. “Old Man Buntingford fancied himself as a bit of a wag. This used to be Frogbit Farm, you know, before Hezekiah changed the name. Jabez had some daft joke about frogs hopping, and rabbits hopping, and that’s what the farmer did, too.” Brinton snorted as he said this, and failed to notice Mel’s delighted giggle. “Still, you can’t run a bloke in for having a warped sense of humour—though Hezekiah would have liked to, I dare say, for getting him in bad with the rest of the Brethren by leaving him the farm. Left a tidy sum for everyone to have a party after the funeral, too, which didn’t go down at all well in certain quarters. Some scorching sermons preached that week, there were. Fire and brimstone . . .”

  He paused in some surprise as not only Mel, but Foxon, exploded in stifled mirth. Superintendent Brinton was apparently unaware of the nickname which his hasty temper had won him. “. . . and regular breach-of-the-peace stuff, some of ’em,” he continued, glaring sideways at Foxon and trying, at the same time, to scowl over his shoulder at Mel. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there—I just thought I’d warn you Hezekiah needs careful handling, Miss Forby. I’d like you to keep as much out of the way as you can. Temptations of the flesh,” he said rapidly, turning pink round the ears and the back of the neck. “Er—oh, yes, and none of your candid camera shots, either. The Brethren call photographs graven images. He’d probably just chuck you bodily off the property if you tried to speak to him, but you poke a lens in his direction and he’ll go bananas.”

  Mel’s journalistic instinct outweighed her feminist indignation. How, she enquired, since the principles of the Holdfast Brethren were so firm, had Hezekiah Aythorpe contrived to square his religious conscience with the shocking nature of his inheritance?

  “Money,” said Brinton, “talks. All the other Brethren pay the normal ten per cent tithe—but Hezekiah coughs up twenty-five, so I’ve heard. And they very kindly let him keep the rest . . .Jabez must be laughing fit to bust inside his coffin, the old cynic.”

  Mel was still digesting this remarkable history as they drove up the rutted, weed-free track towards the main area of activity at the Cana Hop Garden, formerly Frogbit Farm. It was a bustling, well-ordered place, with row upon row of hop cages hanging heavy green curtains to the ground, row upon row of bare wires beneath now-empty frames. There were long benches surrounded by chattering, busy-fingered hordes, and trailers driving from bare wires to those benches laden with high-piled vines whose bounty, stripped and borne off in wicker baskets, would come at last to the horsehair nets and sulphur fumes of the oast-house drying floor.

  The approach of unknown vehicles made the workers pause momentarily in their labours, though nobody did much more than glance fleetingly up before returning their attention to the vines. Hop gardens pay on a piecework rate. Even the head men of each gang merely registered the presence of strangers, then carried on as before: it was nothing, their expressions suggested, to do with them if there were visitors. Let the big boss sort it out!

  Hezekiah Aythorpe was indeed a big man, despite his many years. He loomed suddenly out of a green-gold leafy archway as the three newcomers climbed from their cars, and replied to Brinton’s greeting with a grunt and a scowl.

  “Police business? Today is the Sabbath, Mr. Brinton, and Bible-bound to be kept holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work—that is God’s law, Mr. Brinton, and you being sworn to uphold the lesser law of man should set an example to other miserable sinners, not prove yourself and your colleagues to be the worst transgressors of all.”

  Brinton glared pointedly in the direction of the trundling trucks, the hop cutters with their long poles, and the crowded benches. “Plenty of work going on hereabouts right now, it seems to me, Mr. Aythorpe. If it’s good enough for the likes of you and yours, it’ll do just as well for me.”

  “Hired labour,” said Hezekiah swiftly. “Outsiders, who know no better—unlike those who have spent their whole lives within the saving influence of the Brethren, yet seem heedless to their cause. Woe to the unbelievers!” It was unclear whether he meant by this the outside labourers, or the local heathen. “Not a soul,” he went on, “who labours here in your sight comes from these parts, Mr. Brinton—if s
ouls, indeed, they have.” His tone suggested considerable doubt on this point, despite those evangelising attempts which the creed of the Brethren required of its members.

  “Suits me fine,” countered Brinton, “because it’s the outside workers we want to talk to. I’m not too bothered about the locals, at present.”

  The whirr of Mr. Aythorpe’s brain was almost audible. “That’s as may be—but you’ll be wanting to take them off their work, I suppose, to ask your questions? That’ll put me all behind—and they won’t thank you, either. Paid by the bushel, so they are. If you waste their time—”

  “It shouldn’t take long,” Brinton assured him, remembering how quickly his questions had been answered in the other farms they’d visited that day. “Besides, I’d have thought you’d be pleased they’d be, er, furthering the interests of justice. Helping the law . . .”

  Hezekiah favoured him with one last scowl, enjoined him to take no longer than necessary, and grudgingly agreed that he might as well get on with it. He only hoped the superintendent wouldn’t change his mind and want to waste yet more time tomorrow, when the local workers returned on duty . . .

  “Most probably not,” said Brinton. “Though if I have to, I will. But let’s see what this lot can tell us first, shall we?”

  They were summoned from their various tasks one gang at a time, in much the same way as had happened on the other farms. The same questions were posed, and the same answers given. Were they all known to one another? They were. Did they work together, or at least within sight of one another, every day? They did. What about after work: where did they go? They were too tired to go anywhere, and stayed in and around their huts until it was time for bed. Had there been any change in their routine during the previous week? There had not . . .

  It was not until the fourth group were being questioned that any deviation from the norm could be noticed. While Brinton introduced himself as a superintendent of police, he observed a woman in her late fifties give an obvious start, which she tried to suppress; and one or two curious, knowing glances were darted in her direction. The woman, her face already flushed with the sun, turned still more red.