by Heron Carvic
“ ‘The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it,/Not to mention the Finns,’ ” bubbled Anne in Bob Ranger’s ear.
Many in the audience were indeed trying to do it. Stertorous breathing whistled and snorted round the hall. To the uninstructed eye the assembly resembled an insubordinate class thumbing their noses at the headmaster. Practices Yoga jotted down Miss Seeton, without sufficient knowledge. Most unwise. Several of the neophytes were beginning to feel peculiar. Miss Nuttel, who had expelled her breath so hard she could regain none, tilted sideways and Mrs. Blaine produced smelling salts.
While the congregation practiced for their first flight of fancy, Miss Seeton’s attention wandered. Those twisted turbans. So very difficult to wear. And even on white hair that shade of red entwined with yellow and puce was not becoming. It must be, one supposed, the Colvedens’ relative since she was sitting with them. Nigel was next to his mother, but turned away. He seemed intent on something else. Oh. No wonder. There was that quite lovely girl who had spoken to her yesterday by the sea.
While Miss Seeton looked around, from his aisle seat Foxon watched her. This was a ruddy odd stint and no mistake. Bring this old trout to this crazy meeting, look after her and keep an eye on her reactions. The chief inspector must’ve lost the north. Of course, old Brimmers was old, but this caper—he must be getting senile, lost his grip. As for reactions—well, she’d made a note or two. He leaned a little, reading them. Didn’t mean a thing; could’ve done better himself. And now she was getting bored and had started doodling. Portrait of the speaker? Might come in useful, he supposed. He watched as with quick deft strokes a goat’s head appeared upon the paper. No, she’d chucked her hand in—who could blame her?—and was drawing farmyard animals. The goat, in three-quarter view, had a wicked eye; it leered. A touch or two and a white wing appeared in the dark hair above the ear. A finger was sketched in against one nostril. The speaker as a billy goat—well, give her best. Caught off guard, he gave a bay of laughter. Within seconds he felt a tap upon his shoulder. A young man wearing a black plastic ring was standing by him.
“Excuse me, sir,” the young man said, “but we don’t want any of that. It disturbs people’s concentration. So if you wouldn’t mind leaving, sir …”
“Well, I would,” said Foxon, and sank lower in his seat.
The young man put his hand upon Foxon’s arm above the elbow; pinched a nerve. The pain brought Foxon gasping to his feet. Another young man, also black-ringed, took his other arm. Between them they walked him up the aisle. Foxon began to struggle. They pulled his jacket down, pinioning his arms: his wallet fell to the floor. A third young man retrieved the case, flicked through it and, holding it out, followed in their wake. Bob half rose and then sat back. Better not interfere. The Oracle would have his hide if he started mixing in it without permission. That was Foxon of the Ashford C.I.D.; he’d recognized him. What did the silly twit want to go sounding off like that for? And come to that, why hadn’t he put up a fight? Pretty good scrapper, Foxon, he remembered. And all these young men springing up from nowhere … Slickly done; hardly a soul had noticed. Professional. The one who’d got Foxon’s wallet would’ve tabbed him—neat job. Foxon’d cop it when he got back to his Div. H.Q. He cast a casual but appraising glance around the hall. Yes—when you came to look, there were quite a few of them. This racket was off, all right; and bent. Good for old Brimstone. But that left Miss Seeton on her own. Should be all right, he supposed; still, better keep an eye out.
In the back room behind the platform a Majordome reported.
“Detective Constable Foxon of the Ashford Division, sir,” he told the man called Duke. “Sitting next to an old geezer with a notebook. Created a disturbance. We ran him out, dusted him down and apologized, but told him he’d have to wait for his friend outside.”
“This geezer with the notebook?”
“Elderly party, female, sir. Looks harmless.”
“Right,” said the man called Duke. He looked a question at his taller companion, who nodded. “But for safety get her notebook when the meeting breaks up. No rough stuff; just something casual. But get it and find out who she is.”
“Will do, sir.” The young man saluted and withdrew.
Poor Mr. Foxon. Miss Seeton was curious. What had happened to him? He’d made a funny noise and then a young man had spoken to him, and then he’d jumped up without a word and gone. Probably something urgent to do with the police. But how, she began to speculate, would she get home? She put her notebook into her bag and closed it. Really, one had done one’s best. Had tried to pay attention. But the whole thing seemed—well, a little childish. In fact, frankly, silly. Naturally one realized, of course, that it was essential for the police to investigate any new movement or religion—if one could call it that—just in case. And how truly considerate it was of them to send someone like oneself, who would be in no way remarkable in such a gathering, nor cause the promoters of the meeting any embarrassment. At all events it was now perfectly clear that there was nothing in this Nuscience that need disturb the authorities. As for Mr. Brinton’s suggestion that she should follow it up and say that she wished to become a member herself … One realized now that it had not, of course, been meant seriously, but was just an example of Mr. Brinton’s what-used-to-be-described-as rather pawky sense of humor. Miss Seeton smiled in belated recognition of the chief inspector’s jest. She concentrated again on the platform. The lecturer was, one supposed, impressive. Tall, and with that profile, with the dark hair with those white side wings, he reminded one a little of an actor. But to advocate that yoga breathing exercise which, one feared, he didn’t quite understand—so very rash. It could do harm. Of course she did not pretend to be an expert, only a beginner, and, of course, had never read those chapters at the end about the mind, in that most helpful book Yoga and Younger Every Day, but one did know enough to know that any exercise done too hard at first and without the proper practice could be injurious. And now he was talking about astronomy, saying that everyone—well, actually he called it one’s soul, or life force, whatever that might mean—came from other planets. Saturn and Venus he’d spoken of, though she couldn’t be quite sure that he hadn’t mentioned others, guarded by monks and nuns of different colors. And that one came from there and could go back to there at will. He said that he’d been back there several times. Back, that was, to whichever one of them it was he favored. But really the whole thing seemed a little muddled. Because if life on these planets was so very satisfactory, so well organized, then one failed to grasp, or failed to grasp entirely, quite why, in that case, people ever left. The planets, she meant.
A young man slid into the seat beside her. “Your friend,” he whispered, “wasn’t very well. He said he’d wait for you outside.”
Miss Seeton thanked him. Poor Mr. Foxon. Then it wasn’t police business after all. Would he be well enough to drive her home? she wondered. If not, he would make some arrangement, she felt sure. She settled back in her seat prepared once more to listen.
One of ’em had slipped into the vacant seat next to Miss Seeton—not so good. Bob turned to Anne and whispered.
The peroration from the platform was drawing to a close.
“I do not,” proclaimed the lecturer, “ask that you should join us, I do not beg of you to join us, I can only implore you to save yourselves, to join us and be free. As Another once offered you salvation so do I now: that we true believers in the Christian Faith and in Nuscience shall have the grace to lead you from this present twilight of man’s retrogression forward to liberation and the redemption of mankind. Amen.”
After a moment of reverent silence the audience broke into tumultuous applause. Miss Seeton thought she would slip out quickly and see how Mr. Foxon was. But the young man in the aisle seat was clapping hard, seemed so enthusiastic, that one didn’t like to say excuse me, or step over him, for fear of being rude. Finally the speaker took his last bow and retired. The audience rose and surged toward the exits. Miss Seeton reach
ed the aisle and joined the stream heading for the main doors at the rear. Someone stumbled against her from behind; caught the strap of her bag in falling. Miss Seeton, pulled off balance, was twisted around and, throwing out her arm to save herself, brought the handle of her umbrella down with a crack on a young man’s nose. He yelped, tears started from his eyes and he let go his hold.
“Oh, dear,” apologized Miss Seeton. “Oh, dear, I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I do hope I haven’t hurt you.” She had no time for more: she was swept on with the crowd. Really, one hadn’t realized that there were so many young people at the meeting. All around her there seemed to be young men. Quite three or four. She was jostled and again she felt a pull upon her bag. It was so very difficult, in such a crush. She would hang her bag upon her other arm for safety. She was shifting her grip upon her umbrella for the changeover, when she was bumped from the other side. Like a spear the umbrella’s ferrule was driven into the young man on her left amidships. He gave a cry of pain, released her bag and doubled up.
“Oh, please, I am so dreadfully sorry. I was pushed,” called out Miss Seeton. Really, with all this jostling there’d be an accident.
“Hello, Aunt Em,” boomed a loud voice.
The three young men still left around Miss Seeton turned and stared. A beaming giant was bearing down on them. They hung back irresolute. A plain little girl with a humorous face ran forward.
“Aunt Em,” gushed Anne. She threw her arms around Miss Seeton and kissed her. “Call him Bob,” she whispered. “How lovely to see you,” she enthused. “We thought we saw you from the back. We’d just slipped in. We’d never been to any of these meetings, and aren’t they wonderful! We were so surprised to see you here, but then it’s the sort of thing you’ve always found so interesting, isn’t it? The speaker was magnificent, I thought, didn’t you?”
Bob reached them, bent low and kissed Miss Seeton’s cheek. She blushed. “Play up,” he murmured in her ear.
Play? Up? Of course. But play at what? She wondered. She tried. They’d called her Aunt, and so … She smiled. “Dear—er—Bob, and Anne.” She patted the girl’s hand. “What a pleasant surprise. And how are the children?” asked Miss Seeton brightly.
It was Bob’s turn to blush. Anne laughed. It was really very naughty of Miss Seeton to give them more than one before they’d married. Sir George Colveden joined them.
“Hello, sir,” said Bob quickly. “You’ve met my aunt, I think? Aunt Em,” he added by way of explanation. “And Anne of course you know.”
“Course.” Sir George nodded; shook hands. “Good to see you.” His aunt? He’d thought things were getting out of line back here. Couldn’t make a proper recce—all those damn people—and in spite o’ shoving couldn’t get here quicker. Sir George addressed Miss Seeton. “Spotted you when we came in. Wondered if you’d like a lift home?” “How very kind of you, Sir George. So very thoughtful. But it’s quite unnecessary. You see, I came with—”
“Us,” cut in Bob. “Jolly good of you, sir,” he exuberated, “but we’ll run Aunt Em home. You see, with Anne being so tiny we’ve got lots of room.” He thought of them squashed into Anne’s small car and hoped he’d be forgiven.
The three young men who had stood aside, observing, listening, followed them to the main entrance, listening still; observed Foxon’s reaction as he stood by a table at which a girl with a stack of pamphlets, forms and books in front of her was selling copies of Beyond the Beyond and handing out red rubber balloons in the shape of space men. They observed Miss Seeton’s hesitation when she saw Foxon; observed Bob’s bustling of her through the doors. Standing outside, they observed the departure in Anne’s car; observed Sir George leave with his wife and son and Mrs. Trenthorne and, later, observed Foxon, disconsolate, drive off in solitary state at the wheel of a large dark sedan with double driving mirrors and a tall antenna.
chapter
~6~
Superintendent Delphick lounged, Sergeant Ranger sat and Detective Constable Foxon stood in Chief Inspector Brinton’s office.
Brinton glared at his subordinate. “All right, you’ve had time to think up six good reasons why you mucked it up. Let’s have ’em.”
Red in the face, Foxon answered, “No excuse, sir.”
Brinton humphed. “That’s a change. So all right, let’s have it in your own words what happened. And,” he warned as Foxon opened his mouth, “not in the official jargon. None of your ‘I was proceeding’ stuff. Stretch your invention and try and imagine you’re a human being; then tell it.”
Foxon did. Nothing had happened, he reported, until he’d laughed. Even then, nothing that couldn’t’ve been explained away. In fact they had explained it afterward: said they were very sorry, but laughing out loud at one of their meetings was like someone laughing in church, and they couldn’t have that, it upset the congregation—that was what they’d called the audience—insisted they were sure he hadn’t understood and hoped there were no ill feelings. Beautiful manners they’d had, commented Foxon—afterward. Then they’d asked him if he’d mind waiting for his friend outside in the lobby. As for the rest, at the beginning there’d only been this old chap on the platform spouting a lot of hogwash… . He stumbled. “That is, I mean, sir, it was—”
“Hogwash,” agreed Brinton.
Foxon gained confidence. “Well, sir, there he was standing up spouting a lot of tripe and onions and Miss Seeton was taking the odd note. I took a squint but they didn’t seem to mean anything—till she did the drawing. And then suddenly the notes were awfully funny too.”
“No need to go into that,” said Brinton. “We’ve got her notebook here.”
“Hang on.” Delphick sat forward. “This drawing—I’ve seen it, of course, but tell me, how exactly did she do it?”
Foxon turned, surprised. “Funny you should mention that, sir. She didn’t, if you know what I mean.” Delphick nodded encouragement. “What I mean is, the old buffer on the platform had got ’em all started on some breathing caper and—well, she seemed to get bored and started looking around. Then suddenly, before you could blink, she was doodling. Not seeming to pay attention, if you know what I mean; rather like those cartoonists you get sometimes on piers. Didn’t mean a thing to me at first—just a goat. Then”—he sketched two quick strokes in the air—“then all of a sudden it was the old guy speaking, and what with that and what she’d written—well, I’m afraid it was too much for me, sir.”
Delphick nodded again with satisfaction. Brinton grunted, reviewed Miss Seeton’s sketch, which lay upon his desk, and acknowledged, “Probably’d have been too much for me.”
“Then,” resumed Foxon, “one of these types touched me on the shoulder and told me to scarper. I said I wouldn’t. He caught my arm just above here”—he indicated—“and pressed. I don’t know exactly what he did—must’ve been a nerve, I suppose. The world blew up and I couldn’t even speak. Then two of ’em frog-marched me out. I did try to have a whack at them but they pulled the old jacket trick; there was nothing to do except yell murder, which”—he looked at his chief with apology—“I didn’t think you’d want, sir.”
“Didn’t,” conceded Brinton. He stared at Foxon a moment. “So all right, for pity’s sake sit down, boy. If you go on thinking you’re on the mat and go on shuffling your feet you’ll wear the damn thing out.” He eyed with disfavor the hessian cord which did duty for a carpet. Thankfully Foxon subsided onto an upright chair against the wall.
Delphick leaned over and took Miss Seeton’s notebook off the desk. He studied the drawing. “Is this a good likeness of the lecturer?”
“Well—no,” admitted Foxon. “Not like, sir, but it’s him all right and the way he looked, dead to a T—’cept that she made him funny,” he added as an afterthought.
Delphick produced a photograph, a copy of a studio portrait, and made comparison. “Certainly the likeness doesn’t show. I wonder if there could be some other meaning behind this goat business?”
“No.�
� Brinton was positive. “The old girl saw him as a silly goat—which from all accounts he is—and so all right, she put down what she saw.”
Put down what she saw… . Delphick mused. A newspaperwoman, Mel Forby, had once pointed out to him that in the ordinary way, as an artist, Miss Seeton was painstaking, accurate and bad, but when she sometimes, unconsciously, allowed her hand to rule her head she could be brilliant. Brilliant in intuition as well as draftsmanship. He shelved it for the moment and addressed his sergeant.
“What did you make of it, Bob, from what you saw?”
“Not a lot, sir; except to agree with Foxon, they’re professionals. The way they jacketed him and knocked his wallet out, and then the one behind picked it up and had a quick flip through before he gave it back, was slick—as neat a job as you’d want to see. The way they did the whole thing was professional, sir. I’d say very few people noticed he’d gone, and I’d swear nobody’d noticed they’d chucked him out. But there were a lot of them about—the young toughs—dotted round the hall. Oh, yes,” he remembered, “and they all wore black bands, third finger of the right hand, and—well, that’s really all, sir.”
“All?” echoed Delphick innocently. “I understood you went in for amateur dramatics at the end.”
Bob crimsoned. “Well, sir, it was all getting a bit—er—off, sir. I didn’t like it when one of the hoodlums took the seat next to Miss Seeton, but afterward they started crowding her and it didn’t look so good. It was a bit difficult looking over the tops of people, but as far as I could see she turned round and bashed one of them in the face with her umbrella, then upped and gave another one of them a jab in the—well, she got him nicely, sir. With her umbrella, of course,” he clarified hastily. “And one way and another it seemed time for butting in.”
Delphick, who had heard the story from Sir George, kept his face straight. “And so you adopted her as family. Or is she, after all, your dear Aunt Em, and you’ve been holding out on me?”
