WITH HER UMBRELLA in mid-brandish, Miss Seeton froze as she looked quickly from Brinton to the podium. What bid had her—her foolish carelessness now caused her to make? What was she now duty-bound to buy, if nobody else bid higher? Explanations: so embarrassing. And one could hardly expect people to excuse her folly when one had already been responsible for so much—well, disturbance, with one’s umbrella. (Hastily, she brought the brolly down from the salute to rest with its ferrule on the floor.) Dropping it so many times. And now this. Whatever it was.
Still on tiptoe, supporting herself with the umbrella, she stared—and stared again at what stood on the auctioneer’s table, far too heavy for the holder-upper to hold up. It was a squat, massive, oblong box of age-darkened wood, carved in curious patterns, criss-crossed with iron bands for reinforcement, padlocked and clasped and fastened by dull, rusting metal which might be who-knew-how-many-hundred years old.
It might almost be a pirate’s treasure chest.
“One hundred and fifty pounds the opening bid,” said the auctioneer as Miss Seeton continued to stare. “Who’ll make it two hundred—you, madam?” to Robin Hood: who shook her head. “Anyone else give me two hundred?”
Nobody moved. “One hundred and eighty, then. Who’ll bid one hundred and eighty pounds for this piece of history, ladies and gentlemen? History and mystery, because we’ve somehow or other mislaid the keys. Whoever buys this could find the Crown Jewels inside, for all we know. Left behind by Captain Blood in the seventeenth century,” he improvised rapidly. “The ones in the Tower now being forgeries, of course. One hundred and eighty pounds for the Crown Jewels, and a handsome box to put them in!”
His audience chuckled appreciatively, but were otherwise unresponsive. Miss Seeton’s bid was still valid.
“Miss Seeton!” gasped Lady Colveden, as she realised the predicament of her elderly friend. She did frantic calculations in her head. Noblesse must oblige: if she hadn’t brought Miss Seeton to Brettenden in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened: but would George ever forgive her?
“One hundred and sixty pounds?” invited the auctioneer. “Ah, thank you, madam,” as Lady Colveden, trusting to the Galahad within her spouse, raised a trembling hand. “One hundred and sixty pounds I’m bid for this mystery box. Now then, who’ll make it one hundred and seventy? Everyone loves a mystery, don’t they?”
Miss Seeton was quite mesmerised by the man’s professional eloquence. How could she deny it? How often had she listened to plays on the wireless, or gone to the cinema to see—and now could watch on television, as she’d been doing over the past few days—the Thin Man films, or Charlie Chan? So entertaining. The Falcon, Mr. Moto ... One had to agree that, even if “love” was certainly an exaggeration, one did enjoy mysteries of that sort ... And she nodded.
“One hundred and seventy pounds,” said the auctioneer, who never missed a trick. “One hundred and seventy, I’m bid. And ... eighty, madam?” to Lady Colveden. “One hundred and eighty pounds for the long-lost treasure of Captain Blood?”
Perhaps, if she hadn’t watched Humphrey Bogart and John Huston the night before, Miss Seeton might have allowed the box to be knocked down to her ladyship. Perhaps. But she had; and she found herself holding her breath and clutching her umbrella in the suspense of the moment.
“Do I hear one hundred and eighty pounds?” enquired the auctioneer, his eye sweeping the room before it returned to Lady Colveden. “The bidding’s with you, madam. One hundred and eighty pounds?”
Lady Colveden’s horrified face was enough to bring him straight back to Miss Seeton. “Then one hundred and seventy pounds I’m bid, from the lady with the blue umbrella ...”
And he picked up his hammer.
Lady Colveden suddenly pulled herself together. “Miss Seeton, no!” she hissed, tugging at her friend’s sleeve. “We must explain!” She looked about her: everyone so much taller than Miss Seeton. “We must! Would you like me to do it for you? Or perhaps if you just kept shaking your head, he might see that it was a mistake and start the bidding again ...” On the other hand, he might not. Then inspiration struck. “I’m sure Mr. Brinton would be able to sort things out—if we could only catch his eye ...”
She couldn’t. Brinton, like everyone else, had his eye on Miss Seeton and her upraised brolly, while Miss Seeton had hers on the auctioneer.
“One hundred and seventy pounds,” he intoned, his gavel poised above the plate.
Lady Colveden had given up hope of attracting Brinton’s attention. “Oh, wait!”
“Going—”
“There’s been—”
“Going—”
“—a mistake!”
Lady Colveden and the auctioneer spoke together: and his voice was louder than hers.
“—gone! Sold for one hundred and seventy pounds to the lady with the blue umbrella!”
And the gavel came down with a most decisive bang before the banger, turning to his assistant, asked for the next lot to be put up without delay.
“Miss Seeton, I’m so sorry.” Lady Colveden hardly knew what to say. “I should have been quicker. I should have shouted. I should have made them realise you didn’t mean to bid—Mr. Brinton,” she said as the superintendent came looming out of the crowd, “you could tell it was all a mistake, couldn’t you? Poor Miss Seeton never wanted ... never intended ... I’m afraid it was my fault for distracting her, and when she saw you arriving she ... That is, what possible use could a locked wooden box be to her?”
Brinton had been about to make some jocular remark concerning hidden treasure and Miss Seeton’s good fortune; but now he looked from Lady Colveden’s anxious eyes to the hands of Miss Seeton, twitching as they clasped about the leather-covered handle of the blue umbrella; and he realised what had happened.
“More my fault than yours, Lady Colveden. If I’d given MissEss a box of chocolates for Christmas instead of trying to do an Oracle with a swank umbrella, she wouldn’t be stuck with the wrong sort of box now. But don’t you worry, Miss Seeton. Candell and Inchpin’s a reputable firm—the good, old-fashioned sort. They’ll have this sort of thing happening all the time, I don’t doubt—and even if they’re minded to shuffle a bit with your ordinary citizen, well, a superintendent of police ought to be able to get things sorted out in no time. Put it back up for sale right away, and no real harm done ...”
The superintendent’s voice—normally the confident, carrying extension of his robust personality—tailed away as he saw the look on Miss Seeton’s face, and the insistent way she was shaking her head. As he fell silent, Lady Colveden hurried into the breach.
“You do see, Miss Seeton? This muddle can be sorted out in no time, with Mr. Brinton’s help. You needn’t worry ...”
And then she, too, fell silent as Miss Seeton—her hands restless, her eyes worried, her cheeks beginning to turn pink—shook her head once more, very firmly indeed.
“So kind,” she murmured. “But so unnecessary—to take so much trouble, that is, although it was nobody’s fault but mine, I assure you, and one does so dislike causing it to others. Trouble, I mean. And—”
“No trouble at all, Miss Seeton,” said Brinton hastily, before she could tie herself—or him—in conversational knots. “I told you—an everyday occurrence, this sort of little misunderstanding’ll be. So long as they put it straight back up again, I don’t—”
“Miss Seeton,” said Lady Colveden as her friend blushed still more, and continued to shake her head as she struggled to find the right words. “Are we making a mistake? Are you trying to tell us you ... don’t want the auctioneer to ... to sell the box to someone else?”
Miss Seeton’s blush deepened. Her eyes danced from one side to the other in acute embarrassment. When she spoke, Lady Colveden and the tall superintendent had to lean forward to catch her faltering words.
“... folly, perhaps,” came the murmured explanation, “but my pension—the generosity of the police ... cannot say it would be an undue financial burden ... childish fanta
sies ... romantic notions ... intriguing mystery, as the gentleman said ...”
“Well, well.” Brinton straightened; Lady Colveden found herself smiling. Across the top of Miss Seeton’s bowed head, their eyes met; and Brinton answered Lady Colveden’s kindly smile with one of his own. Who could have guessed that the little art teacher—whose imagination, or lack of it, was a matter for heated debate among those who knew her best—harboured the same dreams of buried treasure that had been dreamed by generations of youngsters? Long John Silver—Blackbeard—pieces of eight, precious stones, Spanish doubloons and gold moidores ...
And those not so young, as well. “I must say,” came the quiet observation from Lady Colveden, as Brinton grinned a shamefaced grin, “I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s inside, myself. Though that’s probably,” recovering, “because he made such a mystery of it—as you yourself said, Miss Seeton. But as to whether it’s really worth almost”—she gulped—“two hundred pounds to find out, goodness only knows, and I do feel ...”
What she felt was helpless, in the face of Miss Seeton’s beseeching look. A lifetime’s attempt at the deliberate quenching of every spark of originality in her artistic endeavours had left Miss Seeton with much in her nature that was but seldom expressed. Only when, despite every effort at suppression, her instincts urged her pencil to run away with her did that spark (which some, though not Miss Seeton, might call genius) burn freely, in those lightning sketches which were so valued by Scotland Yard, and of which Miss Seeton was always a little ashamed. The sketches—swiftly drawn to reveal the hidden truth beneath the outer show—were, to the eye of one who had undergone an orthodox art-school training, the products of an unruly subconscious. They were ... undisciplined, when only genius should—or, indeed, could—hope to produce good work freehand. Miss Seeton’s innate humility could not envisage genius save in others: such free self-expression on her part was ... self-indulgent. One went to the work of others for fulfilment and release. It was—as one had so often been told—presumptuous to suppose that one’s poor scribbles could achieve release with anything remotely approaching the same quality. One admired the great ... and the not-so-great, who still were greater than oneself. Without doubt. In whatever medium they might choose to work—art, music, the theatre, the cinema ...
“... so many times,” confessed Miss Seeton, looking up at last into the faces of her friends, and seeming to find comfort there. “Books, in one’s childhood, and films ... Of course, common sense would suggest there must be nothing of particular value inside, or the—the heirs of the dead gentleman would surely have known, and opened it before entering it in the sale. But ...” She blushed again and clasped her hands about the gold tooling of the brolly’s blue leather. “But—one cannot help wondering ...”
“You’re absolutely right, Miss Seeton,” cried Lady Colveden; and Brinton nodded at her side. “As the auctioneer said, it’s a splendid real-life mystery. And”—she eased her conscience with the final happy thought—“the box is rather an interesting piece in its own right, isn’t it?”
chapter
~ 8 ~
“WHAT A SHAME,” observed Lady Colveden, edging yard by cautious yard out of the car park, “that the rain’s stopped at last, because—My goodness,” she said as a hitherto unnoticed vehicle appeared around a corner. “Now where on earth did that come from?”
Miss Seeton, whose eyesight was excellent, was on the point of telling her when she realised, from her ladyship’s subsequent mutterings, that the remark had been purely rhetorical. And one had always understood that it was unwise to address the man (or, indeed, the woman) at the wheel unless he—or she—had initiated the conversation. Miss Seeton maintained a discreet silence until the Hillman had nosed its way safely through Brettenden’s labyrinthine streets, which were crowded with market stalls, and with shoppers enjoying the first dry hours of daylight for almost a week.
At last they reached the open road to Plummergen.
“Of course, there was plenty of room.” Miss Seeton, the perfect passenger, nodded politely. “But George and Nigel would never have let me forget it if anything had happened to the car.” Lady Colveden changed smoothly into top gear and stepped on the accelerator. “You know how men can be about women drivers, though after what Nigel did to my MG I’m always amazed he has the nerve.” A dented wing, broken lights, and a damaged bumper had been the relatively small price paid by the little red sports car eight years earlier, when it had been commandeered by young Mr. Colveden to play a crucial part in the very first of Miss Seeton’s adventures. Sir George’s judicial ruling that, if Nigel undertook to pay for all future repairs, his mother should give him the MG in exchange for a more appropriate Hillman, had seemed the fairest solution to the insurance dilemma.
“Dear Nigel,” said Miss Seeton, “is equal to anything.” Then she blushed: perhaps this had been tactless? “Oh, dear—what I meant was ...”
“Don’t worry, I know what you mean, and I agree. On the whole, he is.” Nigel’s mother slowed for a bend. “Which is what I meant about being a pity the rain’s stopped, because now they’ll all be out of doors, trying to catch up, and there’ll be nobody handy to help open your box. Nigel’s so good with the insides of tractors—spanners and wrenches and things. A couple of rusty padlocks shouldn’t present much of a problem—oh. Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Seeton.” An embarrassed laugh. “I’m afraid I was rather taking it for granted that you’d want some help getting it open—it was presumptuous of me. I do beg your pardon. You’ll want to make your own arrangements, of course.”
“Oh, no, indeed.” And then Miss Seeton blushed all the more, partly from dismay that her emphatic denial might have seemed discourteous, and partly with the subsequent effort of explanation. “Indeed not, I assure you. I have been thinking, you see. And there is really only Stan, who will be as busy as everyone else, now the rain has stopped for a while. I would be only too delighted for dear Nigel—if he could spare the time, that is. For I had rather hoped that—as one might argue that there is a degree of ... of family connection in the mystery, as you were with me when I bought it—if it is not too foolish a concept ...”
“Not foolish at all.” Lady Colveden’s laugh this time was kindly. “You know I’ve been longing to see what’s in that box ever since the auctioneer started puffing it—and certainly since he knocked it down to you. I’d have been most disappointed if you hadn’t let me watch when it was finally opened.”
Miss Seeton was silent for some moments before remarking that whether or not the chest contained anything of particular interest, it was, undoubtedly, a handsome piece of ... would her ladyship call it furniture?
“I don’t see why not.” Lady Colveden changed gear again as she slowed for the approach to the village. “We have a huge wooden box on the upstairs landing we use for blankets—it’s lined with cedar, and smells wonderful, quite apart from keeping moths away—and if you don’t mind the knobbly carvings it makes a marvellous window seat. Nigel and Julia used to clamber all over it when they were young, and Janie will sit there for ages when it’s raining, looking out at the garden. We give her something to sit on, mind you.” Janie’s grandmother chuckled. “She isn’t as well padded as Julia at the same age—and we wouldn’t dream of encouraging her to lift up the lid and take out a blanket by herself. It’s so very heavy—quite heavy enough to count as furniture, and I’m sure yours will be the same. It looked like it, from the job they had carrying it out to the car.”
“‘The baron’s retainers,’” murmured Miss Seeton, “‘were blithe and gay, And keeping their Christmas holiday.’”
Her ladyship did no more than blink: after seven years, she had grown accustomed to the sometimes oblique thought processes of her friend. “‘The Mistletoe Bough,’” she said at once. “Well, yes, though I hope Janie’s bright enough not to shut herself inside and starve to death. It always makes me cross that the silly girl didn’t shout louder for help, especially on her wedding day, when she ought
to have known they’d notice she was missing. There was no need at all to suffocate, if she’d only used a little common sense—not that Janie isn’t a sensible child, because she is. No, what bothers me more is that awful Grimm’s fairy tale about whoever-it-was and the cruel stepmother letting the lid of the apple-chest chop her head off when she looked inside—ugh.” Slowing the car in obedience to the speed limit, her ladyship shuddered. “Really, when you think, it’s astonishing that most children in England haven’t grown up completely unbalanced, with some of the bedtime stories they’ve had read to them—yet they don’t seem to have done Nigel and Julia any harm, though I admit I’m prejudiced.”
“You have every right,” said Miss Seeton warmly, “to be proud of dear Nigel and his sister. They are as much of a credit to their mother as dear little Janie is to hers.”
Discreetly pink with pleasure, Lady Colveden hurried to steer the conversation away from herself. “Well, if Nigel’s going to be on the receiving end of compliments, he’d better start earning them. Would you like to come back with me for tea? My son has an inbuilt clock where meals are concerned. We’ll be spared having to wade through oceans of mud looking for him in whichever field he’s ploughing, and once he knows what we want he’ll fetch the right tools in no time.”
As she spoke, the car was slowing for the right-angled bend where The Street, dividing, narrows to cross the bridge straight ahead, or turns abruptly into Marsh Road—the bend that is overlooked, on one side, by Sweetbriars. Miss Seeton cast a wistful eye in the direction of her dear cottage.
“Tea,” she ventured, “would be delightful, of course.” She hesitated. “Yet I would hate to put you to any trouble. Or Nigel, if he’s busy. It may well take some while for him to decide how best to open it, and when so much time has been lost over the past weeks ...”
Her ladyship had to acknowledge the truth of this. With sunset barely past four o’clock so early in the year, every minute of daylight counted in a farming community.
Sold to Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 19) Page 6
