Sold to Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 19)

by Hamilton Crane

  “Miss Seeton? Meg Colveden. I haven’t rung too early, have I? Are you still eating breakfast?”

  Miss Seeton, with genuine pleasure in her voice, assured her ladyship that she was interrupting nothing more important than one’s perhaps rather foolishly self-indulgent contemplation of the weather.

  “Yes, awful, isn’t it? I know it hasn’t been forty days and forty nights, but it certainly feels like it. Nigel’s begun threatening to demolish the largest barn and use the wood to build an ark. He says with so much hedge-laying and ditch clearing, he’s grown quite skilled with an axe.”

  Miss Seeton smiled: the humour of the aristocracy. It would be only courteous to reply in similar vein. “I had no idea,” she ventured, “that any of the Rytham Hall barns were constructed of gopher wood. And what does dear Sir George think of the idea?”

  Lady Colveden giggled. “Actually, that’s why I rang. In a roundabout way, I mean,” she added as Miss Seeton uttered an involuntary squeak for the thought that perhaps Nigel’s desire to imitate Noah wasn’t a joke after all. “George has been even worse about the weather than Nigel, so you can imagine what life’s been like here for the past week or so with the pair of them brooding all over the place about the work they can’t do until it stops. To be fair, I suppose I can see their point, though it’s quite as annoying for me, with the garden. And nobody,” said Lady Colveden firmly, “has caught me smashing barometers to pieces up and down the house, no matter how heavily it was raining.”

  A second exclamation from Miss Seeton, shocked. Meg Colveden hastened to explain.

  “So you see,” she concluded, “because it was a wedding present, now he’s had a few days to calm down George feels it ought to be replaced, if it can’t be repaired. Well, so do I, of course, but I knew if I said anything before George did I’d end up having to spend the housekeeping. And now he says he’ll treat it as a belated Christmas present, only I said I’d make all the arrangements, because if there’s the slightest let-up in the rain they’ll want to be out in the fields, and by the time they got back from Brettenden it might have started again. So I wondered whether you’d care to come with me. I’m sure you must be quite as tired of stewing indoors watching puddles as I am.”

  Miss Seeton admitted that indeed she was, and accepted the invitation with thanks. She would be ready, she told Lady Colveden, within a quarter of an hour ...

  One’s winter coat, or the mackintosh? When the day was not only cold, but wet, she supposed it depended on how far one might anticipate having to walk in the open air. Lady Colveden had said that a trip to one or other of the Brettenden auction houses could be on the agenda, if the jeweller said that the barometer was beyond repair, as from the description sounded all too probable. Which would mean parking behind the shops, and cutting through one of the many little alleys to the main street, which would be sheltered from the worst of the weather, yet puddles, of course, there would undoubtedly be, no matter how much shelter the walls might give.

  “My mackintosh, then, and gumboots,” said Miss Seeton to herself, pinning on her hat before the mirror. “Rather than galoshes, today. And, of course, since it is my first real outing since Christmas ... my new umbrella.”

  Miss Seeton’s lifelong habit of carrying an umbrella, in every conceivable climatic condition, has been the cause of some innocent amusement among her friends: but that same habit has spared these friends much racking of their brains each time a present for the little spinster is in order. Another brolly for Miss Seeton’s by now remarkable collection is always welcome. She would never be so extravagant as to purchase technically unnecessary accessories on her own account, but she takes a secret (albeit guilty) delight in her ability to choose, from the many clipped in the rack beside the hall table, the correct umbrella to match whatever outfit she might wear on any particular occasion.

  Miss Seeton’s very best umbrella she keeps for the very best occasions. She values it highly. It was given to her in appreciation of the invaluable assistance she once rendered to the police during a drugs-and-murder investigation, and was made especially for her with a handle of real gold. Not solid gold, she will quickly explain to any who might ask; solid gold would have been far too heavy, as well as—Miss Seeton blushes, for a gentlewoman does not discuss money—far too expensive, and more than she deserved, in the circumstances, but the dear superintendent had been so complimentary ...

  Miss Seeton can never understand that the compliments of the as-yet-unpromoted Detective Superintendent Delphick were by no means empty, and were more than well deserved. Almost without her realising it, she had been the catalyst behind the breaking of a society drugs ring and the capture of the notorious Cesar Lebel, a dope-peddler and killer, whose path had—literally—crossed that of Miss Seeton when they met in a dark alleyway near Covent Garden. Miss Seeton was making for the station after a performance of Carmen; Lebel was knifing a prostitute after an argument over her part in the drugs traffic. Delphick, in charge of the case, had asked the little art teacher to draw (in addition to her written statement) her impression of the anonymous young man she had chastised for his rude behaviour to his girlfriend—whom she had chastised by prodding him firmly in the back with her umbrella; and the young man became anonymous no longer, as the features of Cesar were instantly recognisable from Miss Seeton’s swift sketch. In due course, after innocently leading the forces of law and order a merry dance about the byways of Kent, Miss Seeton served up Lebel to Delphick and his colleagues neatly trussed and garnished, on a plate; and the Oracle had commissioned the black silk, gold-handled umbrella as a token of his, and Scotland Yard’s, esteem.

  Scotland Yard was not the only constabulary force to set a high value on the services of Miss Seeton, who—after a second successful case involving post office robberies and a spate of child stranglings—had been taken on the strength as an Official Art Consultant in order to investigate the sinister Nuscience cult, and a burgeoning popular interest in witchcraft which the criminal element seemed all too ready to exploit. Miss Seeton’s appointment had been partly brought about by the good offices of the then Chief Inspector Brinton of Ashford, in whose manor the Nuscientists and devil worshippers had attempted to flourish. Brinton applied to the Yard for Delphick to use his influence with Plummergen’s resident artist to coax her to produce some more of her lightning sketches as a help in solving a case that had left him baffled: and solve it, with that help, he had. The chief inspector’s name was added to the growing list of those (on the right side of the law) who sang Miss Seeton’s praises ...

  Miss Seeton’s newest umbrella bore witness to Brinton’s high regard. He had given it to her after an outbreak of crime threatened to run over the recent Christmas holidays and was tripped well and truly up when Miss Seeton thrust her brolly in its path. Like Delphick’s earlier gift, Brinton’s umbrella was custom-made: and it was with pride that Miss Seeton took it now, a slim shape in royal blue, from the rack in the hall, admiring its furled silken neatness and hand-stitched leather-covered crook handle, embossed with her initials in gold. If—she reflected, with a smiling glance in the mirror—there was time, she might slip into the milliner’s for a new hat, since none she had seemed to do her new blue umbrella sufficient justice ...

  Suddenly the cheerful pipping of a car horn outside the front gate warned her that Lady Colveden had arrived. Miss Seeton gathered up her bag, pulled on her gloves, and, locking the door carefully behind her, hurried off to spend an enjoyable few hours pottering from antique shop to auction house in Brettenden.

  For anyone but Miss Seeton, this would be a perfectly harmless, uneventful timetable.

  For anyone but Miss Seeton ...

  chapter

  ~ 5 ~

  “IF ANYTHING,” SAID Lady Colveden, changing gear to slow the Hillman round a corner, “I’d say it’s raining harder than ever, wouldn’t you? Oh, dear, I do hope George will be sensible. I’d rather not spend the next week hearing him sneeze his head off all over the house. H
aving him and Nigel grumbling everywhere is quite bad enough, and then of course there’s always the worry it might turn to pneumonia.”

  Miss Seeton offered the reassurance that Sir George—with dear Nigel to assist, perhaps, in the trickier spots, whatever they might be, for even after seven years in the country she must confess she had very little knowledge of farming—that Sir George was unlikely to come to much harm, no matter how muddy the ditch or how deep the water. She thought. If Lady Colveden didn’t mind her saying so.

  Meg Colveden smiled. “Oh, if it was just the farm I wouldn’t worry, because you’re right, Nigel and the others are sure to stop him doing anything silly, like working for hours with leaky boots knee-deep in freezing water. But he’s not on the farm. After the fuss over the barometer”—the smile became whimsical—“he was so apologetic, he made me feel guilty—goodness knows why I should—and I suggested he take the morning off for a round of golf. I thought it might cheer him up. George may not be a particularly good golfer, but he does so enjoy all the fun and games and gossip at the nineteenth hole.”

  Miss Seeton’s eyes twinkled. “I have always understood that golf is not so much a game as a—a social event; and social events are always more enjoyable in the company of one’s friends, are they not?”

  Lady Colveden laughed. “You’re being beautifully tactful, Miss Seeton, but we both know—or at least I think we both suspect—George’s real motives. Of course, he huffed and shuffled and was awfully cagey about it all, so I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he shut himself away to use the telephone before he left, and if you ask me, he rang Admiral Leighton and asked him to go with him.” Her ladyship laughed again. “Mind you, if we’ve guessed right, George has just lost any sympathy he might have won from me, because you know what he and the admiral can be like when they get together.”

  Miss Seeton, who did indeed know, murmured something non-committal, and thought it diplomatic to change the subject. “Do you know,” she remarked, “this will be a new experience for me, if it cannot be repaired. I have never attended an auction before, with renting my flat, you see, furnished; and with dear Cousin Flora leaving me her house with the contents, there has really been no need ...”

  Cousin Flora, Miss Seeton’s godmother and (following the death of her mother, Flora’s first cousin) only living relative, had been better known to Plummergen as Old Mrs. Bannet. A deaf and arthritic widow, she had been well into her tenth decade before at last fading out of life bequeathing everything of which she died possessed to dear Emily Dorothea: everything to include, as well as fixtures, fittings and the cottage—Sweetbriars—itself, the invaluable services of Martha Bloomer, domestic paragon, and Stan, horticulturalist par excellence.

  “And I was wondering,” continued Miss Seeton absently, her eyes misty as she contemplated her great good fortune in the devoted friendship of Martha and Stan, “whether—afterwards, naturally, and always provided that you were in no great hurry to return home—whether I might slip along to Monica Mary. My new umbrella, you know. Just for a few minutes. It is such a splendid colour that I feel it really needs a different hat, or at least trimming, to set it off to best advantage. But only, of course, if there should be time. Dear Mr. Brinton was so generous, and so very complimentary in his letter—although I believe,” she said, turning pink, “the bus runs today, and you have already been most kind. So perhaps ...”

  Flustered, Miss Seeton fell silent with embarrassment. Her wish to change the subject from Sir George’s anticipated peccadilloes at the nineteenth hole had led her to commit the grave solecism of asking one who was already doing her a favour to perform another before the first was complete. It seemed so—so ungrateful. Taking advantage ...

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be taking advantage of me,” said Lady Colveden cheerfully. “It would be more me taking advantage of George, because he does brood so whenever I have a new hat. And I shall make him pay for it if I buy one today, which, knowing Miss Brown, I probably will.” She smothered a giggle. “Her hats are such a temptation, he never lets me anywhere near the shop if we’re in Brettenden together. Poor George—still, it would balance the barometer, don’t you think? And if we happen to spot a comfortable easy chair at the auction, then I’ll bid for it, to make up for the one I made him put on the bonfire. I’ve always felt it was my fault, in a way.”

  Miss Seeton, relieved that her kind chauffeuse would not complain should they pay a visit to the celebrated and exclusive Brettenden milliner, nodded and smiled. She was—as her ladyship had expected—completely untroubled by the casual reference to Sir George’s late easy chair, though the circumstances of its demise had been such that the demise of Miss Seeton herself was very nearly accomplished at one and the same time. Miss Seeton’s complete inability to understand that anyone could ever deliberately mean her any harm—even when, bound and gagged inside a sack, her unconscious form had been hoisted by malefactors to the summit of a Guy Fawkes bonfire to await incineration—was well known to her friends, who—failing Miss Seeton’s indicating the least worry over whatever might occur—frequently worried themselves into near nervous breakdowns on their friend’s innocent behalf. One day, they feared, her luck would run out; but her luck, everyone knew, was remarkable ...

  Not so much remarkable as (to those not of its number) incomprehensible is the attitude of the British aristocracy to change. True blue blood dislikes, almost distrusts, the new. It prefers—feels comfortable with—the old; and, given its hereditary nature, feels most comfortable of all with the heirloom-old, passed down unaltered from generation to generation. Sir George’s fireside chair had belonged first to his grandfather. His father had inspired an outcry when he allowed his wife—a noted needlewoman—to darn its worn tapestry arms. Lady Colveden, profiting by the example of her mother-in-law, took no such risk when the horsehair stuffing once again began to show through: she left the fabric of the chair untouched and, as her husband muttered of prickles through his sleeves, produced a pair of loose covers once embroidered by her great-aunt Eliza, and thus of unimpeachable pedigree. A wayward spark from an unguarded fire caught the cover of the nearby arm, burst into flame, and caused irreparable damage to tapestry, horsehair, and wooden frame alike; sadly, fighting a rearguard action every inch of the way, Sir George had in the end to accept the chair’s banishment from polite society. Lady Colveden had always meant to make it up to him; and now her chance had come.

  “With the weather so bad,” said her ladyship, reversing at an angle into a parking space, “there might not be as many people at the sale as there often are. We could find the most wonderful bargains, Miss Seeton.” Her lovely eyes began to sparkle. “It sounds shocking, to say so out loud, but I do hope the jeweller can’t fix the barometer. I’m longing for a good excuse to poke about looking for things, and George’s chair doesn’t really count.”

  Miss Seeton secretly saw no reason why it shouldn’t but, as she’d been looking forward to the auction herself, agreed aloud with Lady Colveden that antique shops and jewellers could be visited, after all, any day, except early closing, whereas her understanding was that Brettenden’s two auction houses held sales once a week, at most. Perhaps they should go straight there, rather than take a detour and risk the loss of some truly spectacular bargain?

  “Done,” said her ladyship, at once. “Only—go straight where? The choice must be yours, Miss Seeton, as you’re my guest. The Brettenden Auction Rooms are bigger, but Candell and Inchpin’s closer. And it’s still raining ...”

  Unlike the umbrella-armed Miss Seeton, Meg Colveden had only a silk headscarf tied over her thick, wavy brown hair as protection against the downpour. “Candell and Inchpin, I think,” said Miss Seeton, and saw her hostess smile.

  They left the broken barometer, newspaper-wrapped, in the locked boot of the Hillman, and made their hurried way through the rain down narrow alleys and along streets far less crowded than on an ordinary market day, yet still not so empty that Miss Seeton could comfortably share her
umbrella with the friend who was several inches taller than she. Lady Colveden repeatedly assured her that this did not matter. They would, she said, be there almost before either of them knew it ...

  And they were. They skirted puddles; they dodged half-blind pedestrians with their heads bowed against the downpour; and within minutes they were squelching side by side up the majestic sandstone steps beneath the legend “Candell & Inchpin, Auctioneers and Valuers, Established since 1782.”

  Just inside the double doors, a Candell of the umpteenth generation stood to welcome visitors with a smile, a copy of that day’s catalogue, and the murmured advice that the sale had already begun. The advice was murmured not because there was any fear that clients of Candell & Inchpin would start yelling at the tops of their voices unless stern hints were dropped to the contrary, but because the young Candell was ... well, young. Learning his job. A murmur informed without giving the impression that the informer knew more than he did: firm tones implied authority, and until two or three senior generations of Candell had burned themselves out, there must be no chance for lesser lights to shine too bright.

  “Through here, isn’t it?” Having shaken herself free of raindrops, Lady Colveden smiled her thanks for the catalogue and indicated a second set of double doors nearby. Through the crack in the middle floated the confident voice of a man destined from birth to stand on a podium and wield a gavel.

  “... advance on fifty? Fifty, I’m bid—yes, thank you, madam, sixty. Sixty I’m bid—any advance on sixty? The bidding’s with you, sir, at sixty. No? Then it’s on sixty. Sixty pounds—ah! Seventy from the gentleman with the red carnation, seventy just entered the bidding. Seventy pounds—and eighty, madam? Thank you, eighty—and is that ninety, sir? Ninety from the red carnation, thank you. Ninety I’m bid. Any advance on ninety? The bidding’s with you, madam, at ninety pounds. Care to make the ton? One hundred? Thank you, one hundred pounds I’m bid ...”