Miss Seeton Goes to Bat (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 14)

by Hamilton Crane

  “I thought Very Young Crabbe looked rather fed up when the bus arrived,” said Anne. “The silly chumps! If they’ve spent all lunchtime drinking . . .”

  “Presumably, Potter would consider it hardly cricket to breathalyse such supporters as arrive under their own steam, but I trust Murreystone intends to take no unfair advantage of his good nature.” Delphick’s glance travelled over the cars which were still entering the ground and being parked a convenient distance from the white line of the boundary, to give the occupants a clear view of the field. “Some of the newcomers appear to be a little on the, er, lively side.”

  Brinton muttered something; Foxon secretly rejoiced that he hadn’t worn his smartest clothes, then changed his mind as a perfectly gorgeous girl—blue eyes, long blonde hair, golden skin—walked by, stopped, backtracked, and greeted Miss Seeton with a smile. Annabelle Leigh had come to watch Nigel’s afternoon of glory—if such it was to be, though he had modestly warned her there were heaps better players than himself—and, like Miss Seeton, carried her sketchbook with her. Miss Seeton returned the greeting and introduced her to her companions as an artist friend of young Mr. Colveden.

  Foxon, gallant in disappointment, nevertheless offered Miss Leigh his chair, but she thanked him, glanced at his superior officers as if to emphasise the courtesy of their subordinate, and said she would prefer watching from nearer the pavilion, whither she was now bound.

  “Just a moment, Miss Leigh!” Delphick’s quick warning startled her, and she almost dropped her sketchbook as she halted in her tracks. “No movement, please, in the vicinity of the sight-screens until change of over—it distracts the batsmen.” And Annabelle’s blushing apology was one of the prettiest Foxon had ever seen.

  Nigel’s three overs were done, with a loss to Plummergen of another eight runs, but without a wicket: the sight of Annabelle had inspired—or possibly distracted—him. And PC Potter likewise had allowed Murreystone to score eight off his bowling, for no wicket. Forty-six for two.

  Murreystone were becoming ever more vocal, and one or two car horns sounded. Plummergen faces were downcast. Mr. Jessyp made up his mind. He altered the field, and crossed mental fingers.

  The admiral rolled up his sleeves, took the ball, flexed his physical fingers, ran up, bowled . . .

  Forty-six for three. “Good man!” from Sir George, forgetting umpirical impartiality, above the claps and cheers of Plummergen. Murreystone murmured, and consoled itself with the flasks and bottles brought by its supporters in picnic baskets and carrier bags.

  Fifth man hadn’t expected his innings to start so soon and was still buckling on his pads in the pavilion when his predecessor marched up the steps. There was a pause, during which Plummergen regarded the Buzzard in a new light. Could he perform the miracle it seemed Mr. Stillman was, for once, unable to work?

  Number Five took guard. Twice, to a warning frown from Sir George; but the admiral ignored this feeble attempt at gamesmanship. He bowled again.

  Plummergen sat up. Murreystone scowled. Forty-six for four. Number Five turned to gape at his spread-eagled wicket, observed Sir George’s signalling finger and the glum face of his own umpire, and trudged back to the pavilion.

  A longer pause, while Number Six nerved himself for the Ordeal by Admiral. Plummergen began to cough, loudly and in meaningful tones. Murreystone murmured, more loudly. Number Six strode to the wicket . . .

  “A hat-trick!” All save the ranks of Tuscany cheered as the Buzzard’s third wicket in succession fell. “And off his first three balls—good man!” Delphick said, clapping as loud as anyone.

  “And in the first match he’s ever played for Plummergen, what’s more.” Anne was bouncing with glee. “Didn’t I tell you, Aunt Em, that this was going to be exciting?”

  “Indeed you did, my dear.” Even Miss Seeton, who understood so little of the game, realised that village history had just been made—could hardly help but realise it, from all the commotion, the clapping and cheers, around the field as the admiral tossed the ball in the air with a nonchalant action, turned to face the scoreboard, and bowed as he watched the numbers being changed. Miss Seeton’s pencil flew again across the paper.

  Delphick had heard in the pub something of the admiral’s romantic last-minute membership of the Plummergen eleven, and was curious to know how this newcomer to the village appeared in the eyes of Scotland Yard’s tame art consultant. Miss Seeton, so much shorter than he, so absorbed in her work, was unaware of his interest, and did not notice him leaning quietly to one side to look over her shoulder at the sketchbook on her knee.

  The Buzzard’s acknowledgement of the applause for his hat-trick had clearly caught the artist’s fancy. A beaming, bearded face looked out of the paper, attached to a body obviously about to bend at the waist: a waist across which the folded arm displayed a proud anchor—a tattoo, it seemed to Delphick. It was curious that Miss Seeton had drawn the pavilion and scoreboard behind the admiral, instead of in their proper place: but this, the chief superintendent decided, must be because she wanted to show a flag—the White Ensign, he thought, emblem of the Royal Navy—flying from a flagpole on the roof—a flagpole the pavilion did not possess. And what else seemed to be flying in Miss Seeton’s imagination and not in real life? Small, winged, rounded, striped insects . . .

  Delphick had just made up his mind that these were honey bees when Miss Seeton, having completed one sketch, turned to a fresh sheet ready for her next. Out on the field, the admiral was bowling again, and Number Seven looked apprehensive; but he managed to block the ball, and for the rest of the over no more wickets fell. As the admiral tossed the ball to PC Potter, the pencil darted again across the paper: action sketches, rough and swift but full of life, thought Delphick with interest. The admiral leaning forward, poised on one foot, one hand outflung, fingers spread, the ball just released; the admiral preparing to bowl, his arm swinging up and round for the delivery, a glint in his eye. Was this, the Oracle wondered, the satisfaction of a man who had done a good job well, and planned to do still better—or was there some hidden cause for satisfaction in the smile of Admiral Leighton? It was hard to be sure. The paper was very white and glaring in the hot August sunshine . . .

  Miss Seeton looked up, observed Delphick’s eyes on her, and blushed. Hurriedly, he begged her pardon, and sat back to watch PC Potter’s next over: which was as uneventful as most of his others had been. No wickets, a few runs, restless murmurings from Murreystone . . .

  Miss Seeton dabbed daintily at the back of her neck with a lace-edged handkerchief and blinked at the paper in front of her. On such a day as this, perhaps one should have worn a broad-brimmed hat, or brought a parasol . . .

  “Excuse me,” Miss Seeton murmured to Delphick at her side. “But—the over, you know. I recall that you warned Miss Leigh—and I was wondering—my umbrella—only you told her she should not move, and . . .”

  The field was taking rather longer to rearrange itself than usual. It was therefore with a clear conscience that Delphick was able to assure Miss Seeton no harm would come of his taking the gold umbrella hooked neatly over the back of her deck chair, opening it, and balancing the handle under a convenient canvas seam. It would never do, he reminded her, for one of Scotland Yard’s favourite colleagues to suffer an attack of sunstroke.

  Miss Seeton smiled at him and settled thankfully into the shade. She didn’t want to miss a single movement made by the admiral, who was, one understood, so very clever . . .

  When the admiral took the ball again, his previous sparkling form seemed to have mellowed a little. Now he bowled nothing but off-breaks, and there were no more wickets. There were, however, no more runs. PC Potter, fired by this example, himself bowled a maiden over: no runs.

  Plummergen began to preen itself, Murreystone to mutter. People who had never watched a cricket match in their lives now began to appear, by some mysterious village alchemy, at various points about the boundary, intent on watching: while the admiral bowled his third
over, it seemed that most of Plummergen’s five hundred-odd inhabitants were positioning themselves about the playing field to watch.

  The Buzzard did not disappoint his audience. There was a sneaky Murreystone single—fifty-four for five—and then he produced another chinaman: and another. Fifty-four for six! Plummergen jumped up and down as Len Hosigg at short mid-wicket flung out a hand and caught the ball—might this be the start of another hat-trick?

  Everyone held their breath as the Buzzard prepared to run up again. Suddenly, from the Murreystone clique on the other side of the field came a fanfare of car horns that made him miss his step, and drop the ball. As Murreystone tried to appear innocent, and Plummergen muttered, the admiral, bending towards his dropped ball, looked towards the umpires. “Didn’t reach the crease,” he called. “All right if I just carry on?” Sir George seemed ready to signal yes, but the Murreystone umpire looked set to argue. The two conferred together while everyone waited, and the car horns sounded again: which decided Sir George, who wasn’t normally given to riding roughshod over the opinions of others. But gamesmanship wasn’t the thing at all, and he was dashed if he was going to encourage it, or to allow anyone to benefit from it.

  “Carry on,” he instructed; and there came not a syllable of disagreement from the other umpire.

  But the interruption had rather thrown Admiral Leighton off his stride. No-ball. He threw an apologetic glance towards Mr. Jessyp, tugged ruefully at his beard, scowled in the direction of Murreystone, and sent down three unplayable balls, though without taking a wicket. PC Potter bowled the next over: two runs more, no wicket, though the batsmen were beginning to look nervous. The admiral bowled another maiden—Potter then gave away four runs, but to his astonishment took a wicket; and the admiral, calculating the likely strength of the Murreystone tail from the next man’s apparent unease, suggested to Mr. Jessyp that Mr. Stillman might like to go on again, for a share in the fun. The captain agreed.

  The tail-end batsmen weren’t the complete rabbits everyone had expected—sheer frustration made them hit harder, and last longer, than any of them had ever done before—but were nevertheless no great challenge. Alternating overs, Mr. Stillman and the admiral, PC Potter and Nigel, dismissed the rest of Murreystone for a grand total of seventy-eight runs, one of their lowest scores in years. Nigel’s leg-break, to his delight, accounted for one of these final wickets: he hoped that Annabelle had been watching. But the undoubted hero of the Plummergen hour was Admiral Leighton, whose back was slapped in congratulation all the way back from the bowling crease to the pavilion.

  Tea, served by the Plummergen ladies, took half an hour. Delphick, being advised that Martha Bloomer’s fruitcake was for players only, shamelessly pulled rank and persuaded Bob to surrender his slice, reminding him that Anne was worried about his weight. With Mrs. Knight watching, poor Bob had little choice but to comply with his superior’s demands.

  Help, however, was at hand. Nigel, keeping an eye open for Annabelle, observed the entire episode; and, as he came to realise that his lady was reluctant to make her appearance among so many strangers, reverted to his vice captain’s persona, grabbed an extra plate and a second slice of fruitcake, and hurried across the tearoom to join his friends, handing Bob, with a grin, what he insisted would help to keep his strength up.

  “We don’t expect a century, but we do expect fireworks,“ he said, as Bob tried to hide behind him from his mother-in-law’s eagle eye. “Brilliant strokes, of course—the odd six, if you feel you can manage it, though a few fours would do. We’ve seventy-nine runs to make to win, remember.”

  Bob, swallowing surreptitious crumbs, tried to protest that he wasn’t the firework type. Delphick kindly thumped him on the back. “Your favourite adopted aunt, remember,” he told his red-faced and wheezing subordinate, “has been commissioned to portray the highlights of this match for the benefits of the Plummergen Pavilion Fund. I should imagine the sight of her nephew in action must inspire her to great things, and Anne—should modesty prevent your own participation—will bid vast sums at the auction in order to gain possession of the prize.”

  Then he noticed Nigel’s expression and chuckled. “Your Miss Leigh, I gather, is of course also an artist. Might one hope for two prize pictures, instead of one, in two distinct artistic styles? If the pair of you,” he said wickedly, “feel too bashful to place your own bids, but prefer to be sure of procuring the odd heirloom to hand on to your grandchildren, I would be only too happy to oblige . . .”

  At which remark, the number of blushing male faces turned towards him promptly doubled.

  chapter

  ∼ 22 ∼

  DELPHICK CHATTED WITH his two young friends until the end of tea, when everyone trooped back outside. Charley Mountfitchet and Mr. Jessyp were the traditional Plummergen openers; they could expect to push the score up to the high teens or early twenties before one or other of them fell—the one usually being Charley, who once, in his youthful prime, had made the mistake of carrying his bat and making fifty-two runs, winning the match almost single-handed—and discovering, after he was clapped back to the pavilion, that his teammates had drunk all the cider. Whereupon he vowed never again to run such a risk, saying that twenty would in any future game be the highest he was prepared to reach.

  The Plummergen innings opened. Miss Seeton, shaded by her umbrella from the sun, sat with her pencil poised, watching and waiting for something to happen. She did not have long to wait. Mr. Jessyp was clean-bowled for seven; and Bob Ranger, coming in at number three, took the schoolmaster’s place. Charley, startled by his partner’s early dismissal, was caught off the final ball of the over by the Murreystone slip, running backwards with his arms upflung: twenty-three for two. Out now came the fourth man: Nigel Colveden. And everyone settled down to enjoy themselves.

  Everyone from Plummergen, that is. Murreystone knew what to expect from Mr. Colveden, and were reluctant to settle. There was a restless air about the visitors, as if a too-tight lid had been slapped on a pot of bubbling pasta, which might at any moment erupt.

  Bob, who’d said all along he’d have a go at hitting but didn’t claim to be a batsman, had already made three runs and was relieved there would be no duck marked on his scoresheet. He was even more relieved to see Nigel appear at the other crease. Now he could relax and do as he’d been told when he and Nigel—with considerable help from Delphick—had discussed tactics at tea: try to stick to singles so that the better batsman—here Nigel’s natural modesty had been subsumed into his vice captain’s persona—could face the bowling as often as possible.

  This plan worked well, for the next half-dozen overs. Mr. Colveden made twenty-seven, including two sixes; Sergeant Ranger made another nine—seven singles and a daring two. Perhaps he was getting the hang of it at last. Miss Seeton’s pencil captured his look of pleasure as those mighty shoulders powered the ball between two fielders. Anne, watching on the boundary, was pink with excitement.

  Bob, too, was growing excited: and excitement made him careless. Towards the end of the partnership’s seventh over he hit out harder than he’d intended. Crack! of leather on willow, and the ball flew away. Bob realised he might make another two, if he ran fast. For all his size, he felt he might risk it. “Yes!” he cried, and pounded down the pitch with a broad grin on his face.

  He and Nigel crossed, and reached their respective wickets safely. Nigel drew breath—turned to prepare himself to receive the first ball of the next over—saw Bob, to his dismay, already halfway back—knew himself far better able to manoeuvre at speed than his enormous friend—set off on a frantic sprint over those vital twenty-two yards . . .

  “Oh, no!” Delphick groaned; Anne squeaked; Foxon cursed his colleague’s clumsiness. “Bob, you idiot!”

  Scarlet-faced, Bob dropped his bat and gestured in helpless apology as the Murreystone bowler caught the fielded ball and dashed it in triumph squarely on the bails. Nigel set his teeth, shrugged, and walked back to the pavilion as his father
raised a sorrowful, the Murreystone umpire a joyful, finger.

  “Silly juggins,” said Dr. Knight of his son-in-law, as he sat over the score sheet in the pavilion. And against “Colveden” he wrote, sadly but firmly, “run out.”

  Number Five was Len Hosigg, a silent, steady young man who normally took great pride in his stonewalling partnership with Nigel, leaving him to score all the runs while he blocked every ball at the other end; but Len hadn’t expected to be going out to bat so early in the game, and certainly not with somebody other than Nigel as his partner. Nigel grabbed him as he was treading thoughtfully down the pavilion steps.

  “Look, Len, Bob’s not afraid to hit out, so let him try to go on making runs, and you just, er, act as if he’s me. And—and don’t worry!”

  But Len looked decidedly worried as he headed for the crease and for partnership with the man who’d run out the son of his employer. Not a stranger, no, not with him having married the doctor’s daughter: but not someone whose play poor Len knew anything about. He’d try to do as Nigel had instructed him, of course, but . . .

  Suddenly, from the opposite side of the field came a commotion which halted him in his tracks. There was a series of whoops and yells from the Murreystoners, and . . .

  “Stop that man!” The major-general’s command came in the old parade-ground voice as the figure erupted from among the Murreystone supporters to hurtle, pink and panting, between the startled fielders. Very pink—flesh pink, with the occasional hirsute shadowing . . .

  “Good Gad! A streaker!” From the verandah steps came the booming voice of the admiral. “You! You there—stop!”

  Consternation among the Plummergenites by the pavilion, amusement among the Murreystone ranks both on and off the field. The young man with no clothes on was moving so fast, weaving and dodging, that nobody seemed able to pull themselves together to grab him, and indeed appeared to be making little effort to do so. His friends urged him on with ribald shouts and yodelled view-halloos. Car horns tootled. There were whistles and catcalls.