Miss Seeton Rocks the Cradle (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 13)

by Hamilton Crane

  As Armorel stamped away in righteous indignation, Mel looked at Liusaidh, and Liusaidh looked at Mel. The faces of both would have made a picture, had anyone been there to capture them . . .

  Such as Miss Seeton, for instance. Who was not there, but who, before long, proved that Mel’s guess had been correct. Within five minutes of Mrs. McScurrie’s departure to the rescue, there came a pattering of feet along the hall towards the drawing-room door, feet which were too light for the angry Armorel, too dithery as they approached the door to be someone who felt sure of what she was doing. “Is that you, Miss S.?” enquired Mel, raising her voice. “Come along in and let’s see what you’ve got!

  “She hates people to look at these weird sketches she does,” she hissed to Lady Glenclachan, “so if you wouldn’t mind not noticing . . . Hi, Miss S. Isn’t that your sketchbook you’ve brought with you? Show! Come on, honey,” as Miss Seeton wavered. “Swap you for a nice cup of tea . . .”

  Miss Seeton hesitated in the doorway, her sketchbook in her hand and an apologetic look on her face. “I’m afraid,” she murmured to Mel, “it’s hardly—that is, I cannot really suppose you will wish to see this. I’m so sorry, but—when it’s so very much like the others . . .”

  The drawing which Mel finally managed to wrest from the apologetic Miss Seeton was, at first sight, another copy of that still life produced after the visit to Wounded Wings. The rock, the black bird—a crow? a raven?—and the crown; the necklace, draped so artistically . . . But closer study showed subtle variations. Certain aspects were, Mel observed as she flipped back through earlier pages of the sketchbook, given a different emphasis from that which they’d been given before. The rock was craggier, more savage-looking, strangely shaped—why did it remind Mel of a sharp-beaked bird?—and there were hills in the background which hadn’t been in the two other versions. This bird seemed far larger, more looming, its claws more grasping as it clutched the necklace, which was still decorated with pearls, though set not in gold, but in a metal that looked pale and sinister, as if the lifeblood had drained out of it . . . And the crown was a crown, no longer a nobleman’s lighter coronet but the recognised emblem of royalty . . .

  Mel gazed again at the still life. It was, she’d been startled to realise, not the second, but the third version Miss Seeton had drawn. She turned a worried look towards the artist, who, now that matters, and her sketchbook, had been taken out of her hands, was blissfully drinking tea and eating a slice of shortbread. Mrs. McScurrie had been so very kind as to say that she had made it especially; might it be, Miss Seeton mused, considered an impertinence if one were to ask for the recipe? Because it was truly delicious, and dear Martha, who was sure a splendid cook, would enjoy it, Miss Seeton was sure.

  But Liusaidh’s reply went right over Mel Forby’s head as she looked and looked again at the still life, and thought about all she’d seen and heard during the past few days . . .

  Liusaidh wondered if Miss Forby might care to join herself and Miss Seeton at luncheon, but Mel politely refused the invitation, claiming with a laugh only Thrudd Banner would have known was forced that she was far too scared of Mrs. McScurrie’s probable wrath to care to risk life and limb. Like many a reporter in a delicate situation, she made her excuses and left. She had a lot to think about.

  By the time she’d walked back to the Pock and Tang, her head was aching, and not only her head. Despite her use of the walking stick, her ankle, released from its plaster a matter of weeks ago, once more clamoured for liniment, bandages, and rest. In her room she had adequate supplies to deal with one problem—and in the bar she knew that Hamish McQueest kept suitable restoratives for the other.

  Hamish was hovering near the reception desk as she came in through the front door, something yellow in his hand and a puzzled expression on his face. “A message for you, Miss Forby,” he greeted her, one hand brushing the curl of his red moustache as he held the other out to her.

  Mel nodded. “Just come, has it? Guess I know who it’s from.” No peace for the wicked. She’d decided to risk the operator’s curiosity, and had phoned her preliminary story down to London from a call box on her way to the castle. The editor probably wanted to moan about someth—“Oh.”

  Mel raised an eyebrow—two eyebrows—as she read what Hamish had scrawled in shaky capitals on the sheet of yellow paper: “Telephone message from Chief Superintendent Delphick, New Scotland Yard. Both blackbirds did the trick. Well done, Miss Essand Forby. Scoop.”

  It took a few moments to work out what the Oracle, oracular as ever, wanted her to know. Miss Seeton’s sketches, which had led to Babs Ongar at Wounded Wings, had now resulted in the apprehension of the kidnappers of Lady Marguerite MacSporran. Fuller details, such as how, when, and where, Delphick was obviously unwilling to tell a stranger, which explained the cryptic nature of his message. Must have been taking a leaf or two out of Jack Crabbe’s book, Mel decided with a chuckle.

  The chuckle was quickly followed by a decided smirk. Whose bright idea had it been, for heaven’s sake, to dig those photos out of the Negative’s files and charge down to Kent with them? Amelita Forby, that’s who! Okay, the baby would still have ended up safely at home after taking that little Plummergen detour, but the people who took her and then lost their nerve wouldn’t have been nobbled. Delphick was right: this was a scoop. Hers.

  Or—was it? She remembered the expression on Liusaidh MacSporran’s face as she spoke of the distress the family had undergone, spoke without being so insulting to her guest as to blame her for any anguish increased by media pressure . . . And it was old news, anyway, wasn’t it? A fortnight old—time for something new—from Amelita Forby, at any rate. And in the middle of the Silly Season, she doubted if too many reporters were likely to rush all the way from Town to follow up a story two weeks old . . . She hoped. She hoped, for (she was astounded to find herself thinking) the sake of Lord and Lady Glenclachan . . .

  “Must be getting feeble in my old age,” she told herself as she thrust Delphick’s message resolutely into the pocket of her jacket—and felt there the folded shape of Miss Seeton’s most recent sketch, which she had asked if she might, for the moment, keep. Now, if this wasn’t going to make up-to-the-minute headlines, she didn’t know what was.

  She brushed a hand across her forehead. Still aching. She looked at Hamish. “The bar open, is it?”

  “Yes, it is.” He regarded her with some curiosity. “Are you feeling somewhat fragile? No doubt it’s the change in the air pressure. And a drop of what the locals call the creature is the best cure I know for that . . .”

  Since Mel had sworn off Lairigigh, after she had settled herself on her accustomed stool Hamish selected a blended malt which, he assured her, had far less kick and almost as many good qualities as the pure stuff, and which was (with a smile) a bargain, being just three-quarters the price.

  “An argument to appeal to a Scot,” he said, chuckling as he poured.

  Mel returned his smile absently. She was thinking again about the sketch in her pocket: Miss Seeton’s umpteenth version of that enigmatic still life. This time, though—or Mel’s instincts were all wrong—Miss S. seemed to be hinting at some Scottish connection, rather than just producing the same indeterminate view: those hills and crags had an atmosphere about them which was, after the past couple of days, familiar. The artist had seen them in real life, or such was Mel’s guess—from which her next guess followed on in an enormous leap, unjustified to anyone who had never had dealings with Miss Seeton: to the effect that, with Glenfinnan Day just around the corner. Miss Seeton, and the unfortunate Ewen Campbell, had in some way become caught up in . . . Mel could scarcely credit her own conclusion, but . . . in a plot to reinstate the House of Stuart . . .

  chapter

  ~20~

  THE HOUSE OF Stuart—whose supporters Mel herself had witnessed creeping into the bar of the only pub in Glenclachan, where the locals congregated every night, asking for someone whose name was unknown to the newcomer l
andlord, but which as a Jacobite password could hardly be bettered . . .

  Ewen Campbell, fishing for pearls in an area he’d never been known to fish before, where those locals in the conspiracy might reasonably assume they could conspire undiscovered, must nevertheless have discovered them. And had died for that discovery. The Jacobites might have tried to make his death look like an accident, but—as the Pock and Tang’s drinkers had insisted, as Miss Seeton’s few memories coaxed by Mel had confirmed—his death had been deliberate. No victim of an accident crawls to shelter beneath a distant gorse bush when life-giving water is close by, in a pool at the foot of the waterfall from whose height the victim is supposed to have fallen.

  “Unless,” murmured Mel, “he had concussion from the fall—and wasn’t acting rationally—which I refuse to believe. Not knowing Miss S. the way I do . . .”

  She moved her drink to one side, took the folded sketch out of her pocket, and unfolded it. She set it thoughtfully on the bar in front of her. Hamish, who’d been keeping an eye on her, stopped polishing glasses and moved closer.

  Mel spun the drawing round so that he could study it. “Those hills,” she said. “Remind you of anywhere? Anywhere around here,” she amended. Even for a Jacobite conspiracy, she wasn’t up to hiking halfway across the Highlands—come to think of it, she probably wasn’t hiking anywhere at all this afternoon, or this evening, with her ankle. She’d have to get her scoop by remote control . . .

  Think this through, Forby. Miss S. seems as sure as she ever is about any of her special sketches that the hills in the background of her still life are the same hills where she found Ewen Campbell’s body. So if Hamish, for all he’s a newcomer, recognises them, and confirms what Miss S. thinks . . . then it only goes to prove how very powerful her vision must have been: whatever’s going on around Glenclachan isn’t peanuts. And, whatever it is, it’d been haunting her for days before she even got here, judging by the number of times she seems to have turned out the same drawing over and over again. An ordinary murder—a sordid domestic squabble or a bash on the head from a professional rival—that would never build up in her subconscious to anything like the same extent. She’s been involved in far too many murders over recent years for her vibes to go into overdrive for anything ordinary.

  Which was an adjective you’d hardly apply to a plot to reinstate the Stuart kings . . . “Sorry?”

  But it was not Hamish who’d spoken. Mel had been brooding so hard, she hadn’t noticed the door open and Dougall McLintie come in. He strode up to the bar and asked for a double Lairigigh, looking sideways at Mel to observe her reaction. He caught a glimpse of Miss Seeton’s sketch and leaned closer. Mel, without thinking, casually laid a hand over the blackbird on its rock, leaving only the background hills in general view. Dougall muttered something, picked up his drink, and headed for a corner table.

  Mel uncovered the sketch and looked at Hamish. He’d had ample time to think about it. “Well?”

  “Well, I’d say not, at a first glance—around here, you said, didn’t you? Yet there’s something . . . something that reminds me . . .” With a final tweak at his moustache, he seemed to make up his mind. “Have you ever been to”—his voice held a peculiar emphasis—“Skoon, Miss Forby?”

  Mel frowned. “Spelled like scone? As in the Stone of Scone that somebody pinched from under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey about twenty years ago?”

  “That’s the place.” He regarded her strangely, through narrowed eyes. “So they did. And it’s generally supposed to have been found, and returned to be a sign of England’s domination of the Scots—generally supposed,” he repeated, fixing her with an intense look and nodding sagely. “Maybe they got the real one back—or maybe it’s just a copy in the Abbey, while the real Stone of Destiny is hidden away somewhere, waiting to crown the kings again as they used to be crowned. And what’s in the back of my mind . . . Have you ever been to Perth, Miss Forby?”

  “In Australia?” Mel had a fair idea, though, that Hamish was about to tell her this wasn’t what he’d meant.

  “In Scotland.” Good guess, Forby: Miss S. strikes again! As Mel had felt sure she would . . . “There’s a look,” Hamish said slowly, “of the hills around Perth in that picture, not that I’ve any claim to know them particularly well—but Old Scone and the palace are just outside the city, Miss Forby.” He gazed at her once more. “Which isn’t all that far from where the, er, archduke and his sister are staying . . .”

  Mel felt that, considering how the bar was starting to fill with regulars, Hamish could have dropped his voice a little more, but the landlord’s lack of tact was his problem, not hers. Hers, she realised as soon as she asked him where Perth stood in relation to Glenclachan, was rather more immediate. She had decisions to make, and, though of course she trusted Miss Seeton’s sketch, she wasn’t the Oracle. She might be misinterpreting it. What she needed was some way to check on her suspicions without having to travel miles out of her way, by car (since Hamish had warned there was no railway line) and with a wonky ankle . . .

  “You know a fair bit about history—” she began, but the landlord shook his head.

  “Good heavens, no. I was an engineer, before I had to retire,” and he rubbed the base of his spine again. “I’m a great believer in self-preservation, you see, which is why—well, with so many people round here going on and on about the Sacred Cause . . . but I’m no expert, Miss Forby. If it’s information about the Jacobites you want, you couldn’t do better than consult old Philly Beigg.” And he explained something of Philomena’s reputation to a more-than-interested Mel, who resolved to talk to the historian before too long but, on learning where she lived, decided it would be wise to rest her ankle for a while before going to find her.

  Or so she told Hamish: partly for his benefit, partly to satisfy the curiosity of any of the Jacobite clientele who might be listening. Let them think she wasn’t going after her scoop today. They’d be wrong.

  Because she was going to sit on this stool, saving her ankle for the important task she was going to impose on it: to follow, when he left the Pock and Tang in company with the conspirators, the next person who came into the bar asking for John Stuart Fraser . . .

  Fleet Street breeds considerable cunning. Mel, loudly bemoaning her ankle, asked if Shona could be persuaded to make sandwiches, or the Scottish equivalent of a ploughman’s lunch. She had no intention of moving from the bar to waste valuable snooping time on mere food, served too slowly in the dining room: she’d take a bet that this would be the one occasion when the Fraser-hunter (if any came) didn’t stay and drink with his new friends until closing time, but, as soon as he’d made contact after the exchange of passwords, went straight out again.

  And, when and where he went, Amelita Forby was going to be as close behind him as she could manage . . .

  She just hoped she’d made the right choice; she frowned, rubbing her forehead. Hamish looked at her. “That storm’s still on its way, Miss Forby, make no doubt about it. We’ll have some remarkable pyrotechnics before long . . .”

  Though she restrained her drinking as much as possible, orange juice takes up more room than whisky: not for nothing are spirits colloquially known as “shorts.” Mel waited for a commendably long time, but there came a moment when even she could wait no longer. She slipped out to the cloakroom.

  Her return was much sooner than any of the drinkers had expected. “. . . keechin,” she heard someone say, as she came back into the bar. “Wheesht! Mind the white sheet, eh?”

  Somebody else choked over a mouthful of whisky, and Mel thought she overheard a muttered reference to jute. Dundee, she reminded herself as she hopped back up on her stool, was in Scotland. Vague memories of school geography, combined with what she’d read in the travel pages of the Daily Negative, made her think of ropes, and sacking, and hessian mats. Which latter (she supposed) somebody had thoughts of using in the decoration of their kitchen, although where the white sheet came into it, she ha
d no idea. Unless, of course, it was the curtains, or the tablecloth. Did people make tablecloths out of jute?

  “Do cats eat bats?” Mel murmured, unable to answer any of the questions she’d asked, and settled herself to listen, watch, and wait once more in the bar of the Pock and Tang.

  The promised storm, when it came, was every bit as spectacular as Miss Seeton had been led to suppose. Grey-green clouds surged out of the north, collided with the sweeter, calmer air from the south, and became trapped in the glen, piling layer upon layer until they turned from grey to charcoal, from charcoal to midnight black. “And it’s not four in the afternoon yet,” said Liusaidh, cuddling Marguerite as she held her before an open window to see what would happen. She was not too young, this longed-for Glenclachan heiress, to witness for herself (her father insisted) the climate which had nourished and tormented and inspired generations of MacSporrans. Liusaidh agreed, but insisted in her turn that it should be, while she was still so very young, from indoors.

  “She’s safe enough, now the kidnappers are caught,” said Ranald, who had been in an exhilarated mood since Delphick’s telephone call. One or two celebratory drams had been drunk to wet the baby’s head and welcome her home, but Liusaidh, though smiling secretly for her husband’s enthusiasm, stayed firm. If Ranald wanted to rush out in a thunderstorm and risk death by lightning, if not by double pneumonia, he was at liberty to do so, but she, and Marguerite, and Miss Seeton had more sense, and would watch the storm from within the stout-walled safety of MacSporran Castle.

  And it had been worth watching. As solid shafts of rain leached blackness from the sky, vivid spears and forks and sheets of lightning tinted the growing grey with colours not seen on any earthly palette. “Psychedelic,” cried Ranald, who had decided against going outside when he saw just how heavy the downpour was. “Is that not the word for such a sight, Miss Seeton?”