“The very least, I agree.” Delphick had understood the main gist of Miss Seeton’s speech and reasoned that the rest of it could wait, if necessary, until later. He nodded politely to WPc Ware, who was even pinker than before. “You have my compliments, Miss Ware, on your handling of what I am sure was a rather, ahem, delicate situation.” WPc Ware went bright scarlet, and her feet shuffled nervously on the polished floor. Delphick smiled. “On your return to Bottle Street, Miss Ware, you will be the envy of your colleagues, I’m sure. You will be able to tell them that you were in on the very first act of whatever remarkable case Miss Seeton has brought us—for, rest assured, Miss Ware, a remarkable case there is almost bound to be.” Miss Seeton, shaking her head, uttered sounds of protesting denial, but Delphick took no notice. “A remarkable case,” he repeated and, excusing himself briefly to Miss Seeton, led WPc Ware out of earshot.
“Sir,” the wretched young woman began, but he raised a hand to stem the flow of apology he could sense was about to torrent from her shaking lips.
“You don’t have to explain—indeed, if I know my Miss Seeton, you probably couldn’t explain, because she’s got you so confused you’ve no idea where to begin. Am I right?”
The twinkle in his eye emboldened her to risk a feeble chuckle. “That’s about it, sir. Honestly, I had no idea it was MissEss we were dealing with—she never said her name, and we were told not to ask her too many questions because of her being, well, elderly, sir, and waiting for the Yard to take over—and then Mr. Thundridge was so convincing when he accused her of . . . of being one of the gang—”
“So long as she hasn’t been charged with anything, it’s all right. The paperwork for sorting out a wrongful arrest would put years on everyone’s life in the normal course of events, and if the arrested person is Miss Seeton, the course of events, believe me, would be far from normal. One wave of her umbrella, and the files would go completely haywire.”
WPc Ware was quick to assure him that no paperwork was involved, and Delphick thanked her gravely.
“I see your colleague beckoning to you,” he added. “The explanations of my sergeant—who, for his sins, has chosen to adopt Miss Seeton as a favourite aunt—to your chap seem to have come to an end. Shall we join them?”
Ten minutes later, Mr. Thundridge was looking at mug shots with Inspector Youngsbury; Sergeant Wadesmill and WPc Ware were on their way back to Bottle Street wondering what their colleagues would say; and Miss Seeton herself—still with no realisation of the trouble she had inadvertently caused—was in Delphick’s office, drinking tea which tasted just the way she liked it.
“And now, having duly fortified yourself,” Delphick said as she politely refused a second iced bun, “do you think you might be ready to produce your usual statement? There are pencils and paper right here, and—is something wrong, Miss Seeton?” He had noticed the brief flicker of anxiety in her eyes, and the unhappy way her hands danced on her lap.
“I—I’m not sure, Mr. Delphick. Of course, I know it is my clear duty, and I will do my best to help, but this time I rather fear—the blood, you see, although now of course I know it wasn’t. A very clever scheme, so mischievous and so quick—that nice little Miss Ware tells me they use yoghurt sometimes, as well—but this was so very, very red,” Miss Seeton said with a gulp. “So vivid, you see. And when I try to compose my thoughts to think of what happened, all I can see is . . . it sounds foolish, now that one knows it was only tomato ketchup—everything I see is a mass of red, I’m afraid. Which will be, I’m sure,” finished Miss Seeton in regretful accents, “of no help to you and your colleagues at all, will it? Though, naturally, I intend to try my best—only, I wished you to understand before I begin trying that . . . that I rather doubt if, this time, I will justify your faith in me and earn the generous retainer paid me by the police.”
And to Delphick’s secret surprise—for Miss Seeton had often in the past earnestly explained that her little drawings could not possibly be of any interest to the police, to be proved wrong by later events—this time she appeared to have been right. Though he and Bob left her tactfully alone while they repaired to the canteen for something more filling than biscuits and buns, on their return to the office they found Miss Seeton, looking unhappy, sitting at Delphick’s desk with several sheets of paper in front of her. Of which all but one were covered by masses of scarlet, and crimson, and generally sanguine shades.
Delphick pounced on the one drawing which was different. It was a sketch of Trafalgar Square, with figures feeding the pigeons in the foreground, and the National Gallery outlined quickly in the distance. “Because I went there first of all, and enjoyed myself so much,” Miss Seeton told him, when he asked her why. “I thought, you see, that if I could go back in time—not that one can in reality, of course, Mr. Dunne, such a very interesting book—not that I understood the mathematics, but some of the . . . the case histories, isn’t that the term? were most illuminating—but it didn’t work,” lamented Miss Seeton. “I am so sorry.”
Delphick also, in one of his more philosophical moments, had struggled with An Experiment with Time and could sympathise with her sentiments, although he knew well that it was not J. W. Dunne’s theories she now regarded as having failed to work. “You mustn’t worry,” he told her, hiding his disappointment. “We can always show you a few mug shots instead, if you’d prefer. I’ll give Inspector Youngsbury a ring, and he’ll send along his files for you, if you wouldn’t mind. Don’t worry about it,” he repeated as the look in her eyes grew even more unhappy. If he didn’t nip her conscience in the bud, he knew she was capable of working herself into an anguish of guilt at having let her constabulary colleagues down. “Don’t forget, there’s always Mr. Thundridge’s statement. I’m sure he got a far better view of the man than you did—and he won’t be the last, I’m positive of that, to meet up with the tomato ketchup crowd. We’ll have a fine selection of pictures to look at before long, just you ask Inspector Youngsbury . . .”
But, as she later said her goodbyes, Miss Seeton still looked downcast at having disappointed her kind friend Mr. Delphick, who had always been so good to her.
And she knew she wouldn’t have the heart to go shopping now for the little presents she had promised herself to buy for Martha, and Stan, and poor Mrs. Maynard.
chapter
~7~
NEXT MORNING, IN Plummergen’s post office, all the talk was of yesterday’s unexpected storm: how, for instance, one of the yews in the churchyard had lost a branch, narrowly missing the respected head of Miss Molly Treeves, the rector’s sister, and scaring the life out of little Miss Armitage. Phyllis Armitage had been co-opted by Molly into the Graveyard Tidying Committee and had been picking her dainty way between the tombstones in Miss Treeves’s wake when the rain came down and, with it, the heavy evergreen bough.
“A fit of hysterics she went into,” recounted Mrs. Spice, with relish, “and Miss Treeves having to slap her round the face, not to mention carry her back soaked to death to the vicarage, before the doctor came.”
“She may have missed getting concussion, but there’s no telling but what she’ll end up with galloping pewmonia,” an eager doomster opined. “Sent her to Dr. Knight’s nursing home, did they? Cost a pretty penny, if they have.”
Mrs. Spice was reluctant to admit she didn’t know, turning the conversation skilfully with: “Not that she was the only one taken unawares. Not a word of such a storm on the wireless, was there? And me with my washing out—”
“Well, and so had we all,” grumbled Mrs. Scillicough, on whom the demands of her notorious triplets grew more burdensome every day. “Broke my washing line, that squall did, brought everything down in the mud and having to be done again. You can’t trust the weather forecast like you used to, can you?”
There came a general chorus of agreement that indeed you couldn’t before Mrs. Skinner said gleefully, “Too bad about your roses, Mrs. Henderson. Quite blown about by the wind, weren’t they? Take a time
to recover, I should think.” Mrs. Skinner had once quarrelled with Mrs. Henderson over who was to arrange the flowers in church that week, and not all the tact of Molly Treeves ever achieved true reconciliation.
“I noticed your sweet peas weren’t looking too healthy after that heavy rain,” retorted Mrs. Henderson, and the two ladies glared at each other while everyone held their breath. Was there to be an out-and-out quarrel, one to enter Plummergen legend and start the sort of feuding on which the village thrived? Mr. Stillman, behind the post office counter, tried desperately to think of some remark to defuse the situation.
The bell over the door tinkled as another customer came in. Everyone turned to see who it might be—and breath was released in joyous sighs. Miss Seeton was always good for a riot of speculation: half of Plummergen harboured serious doubts about her, the other half supported her in her every enterprise. Squabbling together over Miss Seeton was, in village opinion, far more rewarding than any feeble dispute over floral decorations.
United, everyone replied to Miss Seeton’s murmured good morning, then intimated that she might go before them, if she wished to complete her shopping quickly, as they were in no hurry. It did not occur to Miss Seeton to be surprised that an entire shopful of busy ladies could be so willing for her to jump the queue: she was most grateful to them for their kindness and, smiling round, said as much. “If you are all quite sure?” she added but took heart from further nods and beckoning gestures and trotted across to Emmeline Putts at the grocery counter.
“Half a pound of butter, please, Emmy, and a packet of Earl Grey tea . . . and may I buy birdseed here—not for my chickens, that is—or must I go somewhere else?”
“Birdseed’s the other counter,” Emmy confirmed, “but when I’ve got the rest of your order added up, I suppose I don’t mind—what sort were you wanting?”
Miss Seeton blinked. “My usual brand, please. I rather fear I can’t remember—oh, the birdseed. How foolish of me to . . . What did you say? I’m sorry, but really I’m not at all sure—”
“There’s Flutter, or Chirrup—or Quill, of course, and ‘Quill makes parrots perk up proper,’ ” Emmy chanted in a nasal television tone, living proof that good slogans pay dividends. “How about a packet of Quill?”
Miss Seeton frowned. “Perhaps if I might read the label—parrots, you see—no, I think not. At least . . . no, this looks more suited to my requirements, thank you.” While she had been speaking, she was studying the packets which Emmy, sulkily, passed to her across the hardware and general counter. Emmy thought the picture on the Quill label was really pretty and wondered at Mr. Stillman stocking anything else; but she accepted the box of Chirrup from Miss Seeton’s hand, then shook her head at the proffered coins.
“Got to add it to the rest, remember? Back over there,” and she returned to the grocery counter, where she proceeded to tot everything up again before announcing the result in a smug voice, wrapping the odd assortment into a more or less neat brown parcel while Miss Seeton searched for the correct money.
“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Spice as Miss Seeton hurried out of the door. “Birdseed—whatever next! Anyone with sense knows you don’t go feeding wild birds once they’ve started nesting, and she’s not bought herself a budgie to my knowledge, nor anything else in a cage.”
“No more she has,” said Mrs. Skinner, “unless it was done yesterday when she went up to London.” Since Plummergen is regular in its travelling habits, any deviation from the norm is soon noticed. Everyone on Jack Crabbe’s Brettenden bus the previous day had observed Miss Seeton amongst them, smartly dressed; they had watched her head in the direction of the railway station, and made the appropriate deductions with accustomed ease.
“Did anyone see her come back carrying a birdcage? Slip of a thing like her, she’d not have found it easy getting down The Street from the stop, would she?”
Mrs. Spice was thought to have made a good point, which could best be answered, once they arrived (as they could always be relied upon to arrive, scenting gossip as a dog scents a bone) by The Nuts. Miss Erica Nuttel and Mrs. Norah Blaine have lived in Lilikot for a dozen years or more: Lilikot, their plate-glass-windowed home in its prime position almost directly opposite the post office—and the garage, with its bus stop. Nobody leaves or enters or moves around Plummergen without the full knowledge of these ladies: they are as good as a newspaper and cost not a penny.
“The Nuts would know,” was the general opinion. “About time they were here, isn’t it?” And eager glances were cast at Mr. Stillman’s post office clock, and then through his own plate-glass windows in the direction of Lilikot. But there was no sign of anyone across the road, and, with mutterings of disappointment, everyone turned reluctantly back to the shopping they had abandoned in favour of a good gossip.
The doorbell tinkled again. Everyone looked round: Miss Erica Nuttel, vaguely followed by Mrs. Blaine, appeared, with a portentous look about her.
“Morning,” Miss Nuttel greeted the shoppers generally, a gleam in her eye. “Come on, Bunny, no good trying to peer down the road now they know we’ve rumbled them.” Mrs. Blaine stopped craning to see through the half-open door and shut it properly, with a sigh.
“It’s too peculiar, though, Eric, you must agree. Such distinguished-looking people—even if”—with a sniff—“she was wearing rather too much scent for my liking—and then a brocade waistcoat is really rather too much at this hour of the day, isn’t it? A pound of sugar—molasses, of course—please, Emmy, and two lemons. I am making one last batch of strawberry jam.”
“Waxed paper,” Miss Nuttel reminded her, then pulled herself up with a feigned start. “Jumped the queue, haven’t we? Sorry—thinking of something else.”
“Yes,” chimed in Bunny, “we’ve been puzzling about them all the way up The Street. We went to the church to look at the tree that blew down yesterday,” which solved the mystery of why nobody had seen them on Lilikot’s path a few minutes ago. “Too dangerous, yews. I’m glad we don’t have one.”
“Poisonous berries, for one thing,” said Miss Nuttel. “Leaves, too—might keep goats one day, and where should we be then?”
“Our own milk and cheese, too healthy for words!” cried Bunny, her blackcurrant eyes sparkling. Sparkling with the delight that comes from thwarting the expectations of one’s audience by changing the subject and making them wait. It was a favourite Nutty conversational trick: but Plummergen, after thirteen years’ knowledge of the ways of The Nuts, knows how to handle them. As the goat motif had been introduced to tantalise, so would it tantalise The Nuts, far more than their audience, if goats now became the major topic of conversation in preference to the briefly mentioned puzzle encountered by Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine on their journey up The Street, that puzzle which was clearly the object of the entire exercise.
“Now, if it’s goats you’re wanting”—Mrs. Henderson set the ball rolling—“I’d be pleased to put you in touch with my son-in-law’s cousin over Murreystone way, Miss Nuttel. Not such a bad youngster, for someone as can’t help where he was born” —a reference to the age-old rivalry between Plummergen and its smaller neighbour. “He’s got a few goats, I’m told—breeds ’em for pet food, mostly, but doubtless he’d be only too pleased to oblige, seeing as you’re known to the family, in a manner of speaking.”
Miss Nuttel was still trying to work out whether or not to feel insulted when someone else said, “Ah, but you need to take care with goats, and that’s the truth. Treacherous, they can be, if you’re not used to—”
Mrs. Spice broke in: “Pet food, ah, very profitable, and I’m sure he’d only sell to people as had pets needed feeding—am I right, Mrs. Henderson?” Before Mrs. Henderson had time to agree, Mrs. Spice hurried on, “Which is what makes it all a bit odd, to my way of thinking—for Miss Seeton to be in here, not ten minutes ago, buying birdseed, when everyone knows she’s got neither budgie nor canary.” She smirked round at the cluster of speculating shoppers. “A bit odd,” sh
e repeated, prompting someone to reply.
As everyone had expected, it was one of The Nuts who rushed into speech: after all, they had harboured grave doubts concerning Miss Seeton since her first days in the village and rarely refrained from voicing these doubts when the opportunity arose.
The voicer on this occasion was bright-eyed Bunny. “And that’s not the only thing that’s odd! Is it, Eric? We were coming back from the church—too sad, to see those gravestones smashed by that great branch—when we saw two of the most remarkable people just outside the George and Dragon. Didn’t we, Eric? A man and a woman, and she was positively drenched in perfume, and her clothes were of the finest cut, anyone could see that.” The look she cast in Miss Nuttel’s direction suggested there might have been some dispute about this. “And he was too dashing for words, a most distinguished-looking man. Both of them, so well-turned-out, if a trifle on the outré side—you know, it would never surprise me,” breathed Bunny in delight, “if they weren’t royalty, of sorts. After all . . .”
There came a chorus of sighing agreement, as everyone thought of the minor Russian royalty leasing one of Plummergen’s larger houses, a high-walled haven of peace and solitude, for six months. Solitude which meant that any visitors would tactfully make their stay elsewhere . . .
“More reporters, probably,” remarked Miss Nuttel as Bunny scowled. Plummergen has experienced more invasions (from Fleet Street) in the seven years since Miss Seeton first came to live there than during the entire period of the Viking troubles. Amateur snoops as The Nuts are, they heartily resent the professionals: especially since most of these are sympathetic to Miss Seeton’s cause, and several are positive allies.
Hands Up, Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 11) Page 5
