Hands Up, Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 11)

by Hamilton Crane

  Hands Up, Miss Seeton

  A Miss Seeton Mystery

  Hamilton Crane

  Series creator Heron Carvic

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Note from the Publisher

  Preview

  Also Available

  About the Miss Seeton series

  About Heron Carvic and Hamilton Crane

  Copyright

  chapter

  ~1~

  “AND NOW,” CAME the announcer’s voice from the wireless, “it is exactly five minutes to nine, so we’ll hand you over to Felton Butler at the London Weather Centre.”

  Miss Seeton pricked up her ears. Martha Bloomer, busy at the sink, stopped clattering the dishes and paid close attention.

  “Good morning,” said the meteorologist to his nationwide audience. Miss Seeton, as she often found herself doing, murmured her own greeting in reply.

  “And it is a good morning, for most of the country,” the crisp accents of Felton Butler assured his listeners as, with an indulgent smile, Martha spared her employer’s blushes by turning back to the sink. “Sunny and warm,” went on the wireless, “with clear skies and steadily rising temperatures—that’s the overall picture, although in the far north they’re seeing rather more cloudy conditions, and later on in the day the west will have showers, with stronger winds, which are likely to spread eastwards during the early part of the evening . . .”

  Miss Seeton listened carefully to the remainder of the forecast, which discussed the regional variations likely to be experienced throughout the British Isles. The London and South-East areas seemed, according to Felton Butler—and he always sounded so very confident in what he was saying that he inspired confidence in others—to be set to enjoy a fine summer day with a gentle breeze.

  “Which will render my little excursion to London so much more pleasant,” remarked Miss Seeton, switching off before the wireless could give her the Headline News. Miss Seeton did not want her day’s enjoyment dimmed by any thoughts of mayhem or misery, when there was, after all, very little (if anything, indeed) that she could do about them. “Have you noticed, Martha dear, how often Mr. Butler is accurate in his weather predictions? More accurate than most of his colleagues, I should say, and though I am not so foolish as to suppose he works it all out by himself, he does seem to be far more fortunate in what he is given to read by whoever in fact does. Work it out, that is. Not that one can ever be entirely sure, of course, in England, and I shall take it with me, none the less—my umbrella, I mean, though maybe, on reflection, not my best one. One can never be too careful in the tourist season—such crowds—and I would hate it to be broken, or damaged in any way.”

  “I should think not,” said Martha, “upsetting the chief superintendent as it would, him having given it to you, and telling you to keep it for best. You take your second-best, dear, and watch out for them crowds, like you say.”

  Martha, however, was not thinking so much of damage to the umbrella as the likelihood of its theft. Very few (if any) English gentlewomen protected themselves against the vagaries of the English climate with a brolly whose handle was pure gold—hollow, as Miss Seeton was always careful to point out, because of the weight, but twenty-four carat hallmarked gold nonetheless. Miss Seeton was innocently proud of her prize possession, and innocence, in the more worldly wise opinion of Martha Bloomer, wasn’t always a good thing. Yet she hated to disturb Miss Emily’s happiness with undue alarms and was therefore careful how she phrased her warning. “Cluttered and crowded, London’s sure to be,” she agreed, “on a fine day like this, and no place for valuables with visitors about, mark my words.”

  “And in Plummergen as well, I have little doubt,” Miss Seeton reminded her as she finished sweeping crumbs from the table with her neat brass-handled brush, then went to the door to shake out the cloth for the birds. “Visitors, I mean. How pleased everybody seems to be, even though we came only second in the Best Kept Village competition—Mr. Stillman tells me the post office has seen a most gratifying increase in business—or do I mean turnover?” Miss Seeton frowned, her thoughts drifting to pastry. “I suppose the apples will soon be ready for picking . . .”

  “Never you mind the apples being ready, it’s you that’s got to be ready, if you’re not to miss your bus,” Martha scolded her employer gently, seizing the tablecloth from her dreaming hands and briskly folding it into a rectangle. “Done all your yoga for this morning, have you?” Miss Seeton gave her a grateful smile and nodded. Dear Martha, always so concerned for one’s welfare. “Checked the time of the train for the cheap day return ticket?” Miss Seeton’s smile grew wider, and she nodded again. “Shopping list?” enquired Mrs. Bloomer, unable to believe that anyone would voluntarily plan a day out in London without visiting Oxford Street or Kensington. Miss Seeton shook her head, still smiling.

  “All I intend to do is visit the galleries and take tea in the Corner House,” she said. “Perhaps a little visit to Harrods, for art supplies—though I cannot recall there is anything in particular that I need, and then, of course, I would have to carry whatever I purchased home on the train, and before that the Underground, which is always so crowded, and although a taxi would not be ruinously expensive, there is always the trouble of hailing it when one is burdened by awkward bundles. No,” mused Miss Seeton, “today I have no real need of a shopping list . . .”

  “Time to be on your way,” said Martha with a look at the kitchen clock and a gentle push in the small of her employer’s back. “Jack Crabbe won’t hold his bus for anyone, remember, so you’d best get a move on—but don’t you fret about nothing. By tonight this place’ll be clean and tidy as you wish, and supper laid, if a cold spread’ll be enough, not knowing what time you’ve planned to get back. Don’t you dally any longer, now.” And Martha continued to direct Miss Seeton towards the hall table, on which her handbag and hat lay waiting, and the front door beyond. Fastened to the wall beside the table was a row of clips, in each of which an umbrella neatly nestled. Once Miss Seeton had adjusted her distinctive headpiece, it was the work of a moment only to select one of her second-best brollies and hang it by its sensible crook handle over one arm. With her handbag over the other arm, she was ready to depart.

  “I can hardly believe I need a hat today,” she murmured, gazing up at the cloudless sky. “Mr. Butler sounded so very sure that the weather would stay fine . . .”

  “He could be right—but even if he’s wrong, you’ll be near shelter of one sort or another most of the time, won’t you, with shops”—Martha was still unconvinced—“and these blessed galleries of yours, if go to them you must. But you have a lovely day out, dear, doing whatever you feel like, and don’t come back until you’re good and ready.”

  She watched the brisk little tweeded figure trot happily down the front path of Sweetbriars and cleared her throat pointedly as Miss Seet
on paused by the gate to admire the new fence which Daniel Eggleden, blacksmith to Miss Seeton’s Kentish village of Plummergen, had worked in traditional arrowhead pattern to replace the wooden palings burned to ashes last month by an arsonist who had hoped to dispose of the fence, the house, and their owner all together in one nocturnal attack. Miss Seeton’s guardian angel having been on night duty at the time, the arsonist was thwarted, while Miss Seeton escaped with nothing worse than a headache. She had planned to replace the palings in any case, as her contribution to the Best Kept Village competition, and first thing next morning popped across The Street, as Plummergen’s main thoroughfare is known, to slip a note through the door of the smithy. Dan Eggleden was a quick, reliable, and skilful worker, and Miss Seeton was delighted with the result of his labours. The gate swung merrily on its hinges, and its pattern complemented so well the entire fence—

  “You hurry up, Miss Emily, or you’ll miss the bus,” came the warning voice of Martha Bloomer, and Miss Seeton gave a little guilty start. She turned back once to wave goodbye to the kind friend who so sternly kept her under control, then sighed briefly with pleasure, patted the garden gate shut behind her, and hurried diagonally across The Street in the direction of Crabbe’s Garage.

  The geography of Plummergen is simple. The Street runs in a gentle curve almost due north and south, with few side roads to distract from its grass-verged width. At the south end it narrows sharply into a lane, which is carried by a bridge over the Royal Military Canal. Down one side of the lane is a row of cottages: in one of these live Martha Bloomer and her husband, Stan, both of whom work for Miss Seeton to a greater or lesser extent: Martha twice a week as cleaner-cum-general-factotum; Stan, in moments spared from his official employment as farm labourer, in Miss Seeton’s garden. The wall of this garden runs down the side of the lane opposite the cottages, while Sweetbriars itself faces northwards up The Street. There is a side door set in that mellow brick wall, a door to which Martha and Stan hold a spare key—a door Miss Seeton does not always remember to lock. For the sake of the chickens and their eggs, she does her best not to forget but, as regards her personal security sees no real need . . .

  For Miss Seeton, despite all evidence to the contrary—evidence which she appears unable to assimilate—remains convinced that there is nothing remarkable about her. Chief Superintendent Delphick of Scotland Yard, for one, stoutly disagrees with this conviction, yet Miss Seeton maintains that she is no more than one among many such, a retired art teacher, a spinster gentlewoman living peacefully in the depths of the English countryside, where nothing untoward ever happens. Why, Miss Seeton might well argue, should such a person require locks, and bolts, and burglar alarms?

  Chief Superintendent Delphick knew the answer to this so well that he had some time back insisted on the installation of the latest alarm system in Sweetbriars, for his own if not Miss Seeton’s peace of mind. Yet of such little concern to Miss Seeton was this system that, when it was recently shorted by a bolt of lightning, she took no steps to have it put right, thinking it to be more bother than it was worth. The quiet, conventional life of Plummergen was hardly, to Miss Seeton’s mind, the equal for criminal occurrences of such places as, well, Chicago, or even (with a sigh) London.

  But to London, this morning, Miss Seeton planned to go. Her little trip was the treat with which she had rewarded herself in celebration of the end of the school term, for, although officially retired, she had been helping out as a supply teacher at the village school during the absence of Miss Maynard, who was at her sick mother’s bedside. Mrs. Maynard’s operation had not been the success for which everyone had hoped, and her convalescence was taking longer than expected. Miss Seeton had been teaching now for several weeks, and, although fond of the children, found them rather more tiring than in her Hampstead days. She sighed again. Her age, she supposed, although on the whole she enjoyed remarkably good health. The yoga exercises which she had taken up some years ago, for the benefit of her knees, were every bit as good as that inspirational book, Yoga and Younger Every Day, had originally claimed . . .

  Having come thus far in her musings, Miss Seeton arrived at Crabbe’s Garage, which is situated on the eastern side of The Street and about halfway up it, just past Mr. Stillman’s post office. From Crabbe’s Garage, twice a week, a bus runs into Brettenden, the nearest town, with a main line railway station running into London’s Charing Cross. Miss Seeton was in good time to catch today’s bus and settled herself in her seat with a pleased smile and a murmured greeting to the driver, young Jack Crabbe, and to her fellow passengers. Most of them, she guessed, would be travelling no farther than Brettenden, which was normally an excellent shopping centre supplying almost every want—but there were times, Miss Seeton acknowledged, when her beloved adopted county could not supply her wants, and today was one. She knew herself to be only a competent artist, but this did not stop her admiring true genius in others: she longed to view great paintings and to enjoy the mental escape they would afford her, for a little while. And perhaps (with a secret smile) she might, after all, visit some of the shops for which London was renowned. She would hunt out a little gift for Martha, who was so good to her—and for Stan as well—and possibly something for poor Mrs. Maynard, not that Miss Seeton had ever met her, but her daughter always spoke of her in such terms that Miss Seeton felt she knew her . . .

  A simple programme, Miss Seeton thought. Nothing too strenuous or exciting, nothing to do more than gently ripple the quiet tenor of her normal days . . .

  Miss Seeton would have been greatly astonished if it had been explained to her that, before many hours had passed, she would find herself at New Scotland Yard.

  Under arrest.

  chapter

  ~2~

  MISS SEETON’S TRAIN arrived at Charing Cross station only two minutes later than it was officially due, which she saw as a most praiseworthy attempt at keeping to the timetable. So complicated, with all those connections, and printed in such small figures, with arrows crossing and recrossing the columns—it was, she thought, amazing that any train ever reached anywhere on time. As she headed along the platform towards the ticket barrier, she noticed, climbing down from his cab, the driver. She smiled at him.

  “Good morning,” she called. “Such a very pleasant trip, thank you, and not the least bit bumpy—almost soothing, quite musical, in fact. Diddly dum,” said Miss Seeton, and the driver, who had been about to return her smile, looked startled. “Diddly dee,” she went on, “diddly dum, diddly dee,” and with her umbrella beat out the rhythm of imaginary wheels passing over the joins in imaginary rails. “Scherzando,” said Miss Seeton, who was fond of music while knowing little about it. “Or do I mean rubato?”

  “Espresso, most like,” suggested the driver with a weak grin and a nod in the direction of the coffee bar. “Up for the day, are you, ducks? Enjoy yourself, then,” and was gone before she could unsettle him still further.

  Miss Seeton had every intention of enjoying herself. It had been her original plan to spend all day at one gallery or another, studying the pictures, until it was time to come home. But Martha, with her talk of shops, had jogged Miss Seeton’s conscience, which was always tender. Memories of her day out in Town would be twice as sweet if they came now to include the pleasure of buying, and later giving, little tokens of affection and gratitude. She owed Martha and Stan so much, and they had made her so welcome—after half-a-dozen years Miss Seeton had not ceased to marvel at this. Martha, that expatriate cockney, would surely appreciate the meaning of the green-and-gold bag in which her present, gift-wrapped as Miss Seeton would insist, was handed to her, fresh from the celebrated Knightsbridge store.

  By missing out her intended trip to the Marlborough Fine Art Galleries, and continuing down Piccadilly from the Royal Academy to Green Park Tube, Miss Seeton felt sure she could squeeze in an hour or so wandering around Harrods, hunting for presents. Better to miss out one place completely than to rush round the others, spoiling her enjoym
ent. She would take just as much time as she had originally planned at the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, and come back another day for the Marlborough pictures.

  “Feed the pigeons, miss? Shilling a bag.” Miss Seeton, functioning on automatic pilot, now emerged from her happy daydream to find herself safely over the Strand and in the middle of Trafalgar Square, heading north. Through the mass of circling birds, over the tops of the Landseer lions’ heads, she could see the beckoning portals of the National Gallery. “Go on, duck, make an old man happy,” insisted the little man in the flat tweed cap, holding out a paper bag. “Make the pigeons happy, too. A bob’s worth of happiness, guaranteed, and cheap at the price. Would I lie to you?”

  “I’m sure you would not,” Miss Seeton replied with one of her kindest smiles. Really, the pigeons in their wheeling flight did look so charming—not exactly graceful, but vigorous, streamlined, a pleasure to watch—yet exhausting to watch, as well. What a great deal of energy they must expend in their perpetual motion! “A shilling, you say? Five new pence? Then I will take,” decided Miss Seeton, “two bags, please.” And she handed over four sixpences, as she still could not help thinking of them (two-and-a-half new pence now, she reflected rather sadly) and received in exchange two of the paper bags.

  The little man tipped his cap, winked once in farewell, and turned his attentions to a small crowd of bystanders who wore cameras round their necks and were obviously all set to take one another’s photographs. The tourist season was well under way. “Feed the pigeons, ladies and gents? Bob a bag, to you that’s five new pence . . .”

  Miss Seeton smiled and moved away. She did not wish to spoil his—pitch, was it? Strange, when there was no blade of grass anywhere in sight. Football pitch, cricket field, tennis court—all of them green, not grey with concrete and stone. But why pitch in any case? Why not, for instance, court? Why would one not say that the little man was courting his customers? It would make just as much sense as . . .