Miss Seeton thought she recognised the quotation which the vicar had so aptly produced, for the senior class at her old Hampstead school had once chosen Henry VI as the end-of-term play. She was not, however, able to cap it, so she merely greeted her visitor with a smile.
“Mr. Treeves, how nice to see you. I was just going in for a cup of tea—I do rather feel I’ve earned it for my efforts against the weeds this afternoon. Won’t you join me? Martha,” she added, in the voice of the temptress, “has made a fruitcake . . .”
The Reverend Arthur’s eyes lit up, and he was about to speak when he hesitated, then sighed. “You are most kind, Miss Seeton, and indeed I would have welcomed a cup of tea—the sunshine, and one’s pastoral cares, walking about the village—but in view of my dear sister Molly’s remarks only this morning concerning my, ah, weight, I fear that I must refuse your invitation—with much regret, I do assure you.” He sighed again: Martha’s fruitcakes were renowned throughout Plummergen, but so was Molly, for having (as many thought) eyes in the back of her head. The Reverend Arthur wasn’t exactly scared of his sister, but he was unable to remember a time when he wasn’t being told by her what he should or should not do, and somehow he’d never managed to lose the habit of obedience. But—dear Molly! He smiled. She meant it all for the best: few brothers were cared for so assiduously. He rubbed a thoughtful hand across his tummy and beamed at Miss Seeton.
She was puzzled, though she knew the Reverend Arthur to be a man of some eccentricity. “You needn’t take sugar, if you don’t feel you should,” she pointed out kindly. “Just a cup of tea—and no cake?” Molly, Miss Seeton believed, had a committee right now: the poor vicar would have to go thirsty until his sister returned, unless a neighbour such as herself took pity on him. The slightest suggestion that the Reverend Arthur might ever be let loose in her kitchen was known to be a nightmare to Molly Treeves.
“I won’t tell your sister,” Miss Seeton added as Arthur Treeves glanced over his shoulder at the vicarage gate and sighed yet again. “Just a cup of tea,” she promised, opening her new garden gate. “It won’t take long to make—the kettle’s already filled—and, if you feel you’d rather not risk temptation, I won’t even put out any cake for myself.”
“That is most kind of you, Miss Seeton, but—oh dear, you should not be permitted to make such a heroic sacrifice on my behalf.” The vicar braced himself as he followed her up the front path and around the side of the cottage to the kitchen door. “Indeed, were I more sure of my own strength, you should not even think of it—but, as with all of us, I weaken when faced with temptation . . . yet what is the point, one might ask, of hiding temptation away? How, if it is not plainly seen, may we be sure that we can resist it? Bring out your cake, Miss Seeton, and place the plate beside me—or rather”—for he was an honest man—“within sight of me, anyway.” His eyes met hers, twinkling. “Perhaps,” he suggested—for Martha’s cakes were unarguably delicious—“just out of arm’s reach?”
Miss Seeton twinkled back at him but made no direct reply as she busied herself about the little kitchen. There was a thoughtful silence, broken only by the song of the kettle and the clatter of crockery. The Reverend Arthur was brooding on his own words.
“Temptation,” he said at last as Miss Seeton finished setting things out on the tray. “Matter for a sermon, maybe—how far should one go, what efforts should one make, to render it easy for one to resist? It is the clear duty of us all to resist temptation . . . yet, if we know that temptation exists, do we not display prudence, rather than moral cowardice, in trying to avoid such circumstances as those in which temptation may lurk? And prudence is accounted a true virtue . . . So is it more virtuous,” mused the vicar, courteously opening the door for Miss Seeton as she carried the tray through, “to face up to things—or to turn away for the sake of one’s own conscience? For conscience must be our guide in all things, must it not . . .”
This struck a chord with Miss Seeton, whose own sense of duty and conscience had been troubling her ever since that unfortunate failure to reproduce, for Chief Superintendent Delphick, any likeness of the tomato ketchup man. She, in her turn, sighed as she poured the tea. The vicar took his cup with thanks and, in an absentminded moment, a slice of cake. The two people in Miss Seeton’s little sitting room had a great deal to think about.
chapter
~21~
DELPHICK AND RANGER arrived in good time at Ashford police station, where the desk sergeant welcomed them with a broad smile of relief and escorted them personally through the labyrinthine corridors to the door of Superintendent Brinton’s office. “A pleasure, sir, a real pleasure, believe me,” insisted the sergeant; which left the Scotland Yarders feeling rather surprised.
“What on earth’s come over Sergeant Mutford?” demanded Delphick before Brinton had time to utter a syllable of greeting. “He was positively beaming at us, which is quite a change from his normal manner—not that he’s ever rude, you understand, but he’s never been so pleased to see us in his life. Not one murmur about the Met trying to steal all the Kent Constabulary thunder—what has happened to bring about this dramatic change?”
Brinton regarded his friend with a weary gaze. “Three guesses,” he said, “if you need that many. You’re supposed to be a detective, so it shouldn’t be hard.”
Delphick eyed Brinton briefly, then turned to wink at Bob Ranger. “Sergeant, do you recognise, as I believe I do, the look of one who has suffered at the unthinking hands of MissEss, your dear adopted Aunt Em?” he remarked, settling himself cheerfully in the most comfortable chair. “Shall I deduce that Mutford, too, has been in the firing line?”
Brinton nodded glumly. “Don’t ask what she said or did, because I don’t know. Mutford was a nervous wreck after she’d gone—entirely my fault, of course. I shouldn’t have left her alone to draw those sketches while I was busy catching up on all the Sacombe reports—I should have known a drugs murder was nothing like as important as keeping an eye on your—I mean our—favourite artist when she’s starting on one of her little episodes . . .”
“You’re sure?” asked Delphick as Brinton shuddered his shoulders in despair and sighed. The superintendent looked at him through haggard eyes: the question really didn’t need any enlargement. Delphick nodded, smiling faintly. “Better let us see the evidence, then, Chris.”
Without a word Brinton fumbled beneath the blotter on his desk and withdrew the three sketches made earlier that day by Miss Seeton. He passed the first two across for the chief superintendent to examine, and waited.
“So these,” murmured Delphick as he studied the family groups, “are the Standons, who are known to have bilked the George and Dragon, and who might be suspected of a connection with the Sacombe murder because of the coincidence of time—yes, I see. Excellent likenesses, I’d say, though I’ve never met any of them. Bob—take a look. And what’s this?” as Brinton handed him a small sheaf of papers.
“PhotoFits and mug shots, courtesy of the other witnesses—ordinary witnesses—who saw the Standons at the George. Guests and waitresses and so on. Run ’em in tandem with the drawings, and . . .”
“And the Standons would be instantly recognisable, yes. Bob, would you . . . Thanks.” Delphick received the sketches from his sergeant’s eager hand and spread them side by side with the mug shots on Brinton’s desk. “Oh, yes, definitely—but you know as well as I do, Chris, that the mug shots and PhotoFits on their own would have done almost as well. Miss Seeton has produced competent, indeed excellent, likenesses, as I said earlier—but a camera could do as much. What has she produced that a camera couldn’t do—and why does it seem to cause you such concern?”
“I’m circulating copies of this lot,” said Brinton with a wave of the hand to indicate the spread on his desk, “but this, now, I’ve saved just for you and Ranger, because I’d appreciate a translation. I tried asking MissEss, but of course, I couldn’t understand most of her answer. I don’t think she understood it herself, really
.”
“She never does,” Delphick murmured, “not when she’s on what we might call automatic pilot. She becomes a little embarrassed by her abilities, though she’s been told more than once they’re what we pay her for . . .” He fell silent, studying the third picture which Brinton had coaxed from Miss Seeton.
It was a pencil sketch, showing an interior which, as Brinton had previously informed his friend, was certainly not modern in style, though few details were clear. Light and shade, particularly light, were portrayed with few, but skilful, strokes: the room seemed to be at once both small and spacious, uncluttered by too much furniture, and such as there was heavy in appearance, with a definite foreign feel. “The Dutch influence, perhaps,” Delphick said to himself in an absent tone, “though the costume’s not as clearly drawn as they are . . .”
“They” were three heads—two male, one female—which were surrounded by an incongruous swirl of flying birds with strongly muscled wings and bright, black eyes. The eyes of one of the men were equally black, giving an appearance of blankness: but the eyes of the other man, and the woman, gave expression and obvious life to their faces.
Delphick sat up. “Great Scot, I know these people! Not all of them”—as both Brinton and Bob Ranger exclaimed— “but these two, certainly. I met them last year, when I went out to Greece when Miss Seeton had all that bother on the cruise ship. Jennifer—no, Juliana Popjoy . . . and Dickie Something.”
“Nash,” supplied Brinton. “Staying in Plummergen at the George and Dragon. The landlord had his suspicions of them, but with Miss Seeton to vouch for ’em, the suspicion didn’t last long . . . Now, if I had a hotel, and MissEss recommended the guests, I’d say fifty to one there was something strange about ’em, believe me I would.”
Delphick smiled but said nothing. He was still concentrating on the three faces. “Van Dyck,” he said at last, “I think . . . Wasn’t he the chap who painted that portrait of Charles the Second looking left, right, and straight ahead? And wasn’t he Dutch?”
Brinton shook his head in a silent admission of ignorance; Bob rubbed the tip of his nose and murmured that it seemed to ring a bell with him, though he wouldn’t care to swear to it. Delphick nodded.
“The more I think about it, the more likely it seems she somehow believes there’s a foreign connection with the case. Whatever,” he added dryly, “the case might be. I can’t just at the moment recall anything to do with spies or national security that should concern her . . .”
Brinton looked blank. So did Bob. Delphick chuckled. “The Third Man,” he explained. “But it isn’t very likely—it would be too obscure, even for MissEss. We shall have to take a more serious look at what it might all mean—”
“That’s what you’re here for,” Brinton reminded him with a nod in Bob’s direction. “And young Ranger, too, of course. Any idea what your dear Aunt Em’s trying to tell us, laddie? Take it nice and slow . . .”
Bob gazed dutifully at the Dutch interior with the three heads and the flying birds and rubbed the tip of his nose again. “Sorry, sir, the only thing that comes to mind is to ask about the other chap—the one who wasn’t on the cruise, I mean.” Adding, as Delphick stirred, “That is, I could be jumping to conclusions, sir, but as you recognised the other two, it seemed a fair assumption that he wasn’t—sir.”
“Very fair, Sergeant,” Delphick assured him. “I’ve no doubt I should have thought of it myself in time, but you’ve beaten me to it—who exactly is this man, Chris? I’m sure he wasn’t on the Eurydice last year—or, if he was, he had nothing to do with—oh. I do hope she hasn’t muddled what happened the other day in London with your little affair of the vanishing Standons—or the stabbing of Gerald Sacombe, or both, or whatever it is. But I rather think this third face may be that of the man who stole that tourist’s wallet by the tomato ketchup trick—she promised she’d try to draw him as soon as she calmed down after all the upset—”
Brinton, who had heard the story already, snorted a very meaningful snort. Bob cleared his throat defensively. The Oracle chuckled again.
“There’s only one way to find out, which is to ask her—unless by some chance she said anything to you, Chris, about who he was. And I gather from your expression she didn’t.”
“She may have done. You know what she’s like—I could hardly make sense of one word in three, I told you before.” The superintendent rolled his eyes. “Me and Mutford—she’s got us both thinking about early retirement . . .”
Delphick, studiously casual, picked up Miss Seeton’s sketch. “I’ll need this, of course, for her to identify the man, if she’s able to,” he said, and Bob hid a smile. Trust the Oracle not to miss a trick. He’d been saving MissEss’s artistic efforts right from the start, never mind that the assistant commissioner himself always tried to pinch ’em for his private collection. The Oracle’s regular answer to Sir Heavily’s by-the-way-what-happened-to-the-drawing questions was to say that it was in a safe place—so safe, indeed, that even Bob didn’t know where that might be.
“I’ll give you a receipt for this,” Delphick was saying, as if he might have caught a whiff of his sergeant’s amusement and decided to become absolutely professional. “And if you wanted to take a photocopy before Ranger and I leave for Plummergen . . .”
Brinton grunted. “I’ll fix something up—but we’ve got a few more matters to chew over before you go swanning off for tea and biscuits with Miss Seeton. This whole drugs business, for one thing, never mind Sacombe’s murder—and a nastier mess . . . set of prints here somewhere . . .”
He delved into a heap of files and folders at one side of his desk and withdrew a sheaf of black-and-white photographs which he handed to Delphick. “You’ve been warned,” he said, plunging back into the heap for the pad of lined paper on which he’d been writing when his London colleagues arrived. “Report summary,” he said; and the three men abandoned, for the moment, the topic of Miss Seeton and set to work instead on the Sacombe case.
As the unmarked police car swept down The Street, Delphick said: “Since we’re expected at the George, we won’t bother checking in just yet—I’d like to try catching Miss Seeton before the tom-toms get going properly. This car may be, in theory, unnoticeable, but you, Bob, most definitely are not. The moment you’re—we’re—spotted anywhere in Plummergen, whether it’s in the hotel car park or simply driving along the main road, the gossips will have a field day. But perhaps, just perhaps, if we can conclude our business with Miss Seeton in good time, the poor woman will be allowed a little relief from the constant speculation in which this village permanently seems to indulge.”
“I doubt it, sir,” replied Bob, six-foot-seven adopted villager, with a rueful grin. “I’ll bet they’ve been having a field day from the moment Charley Mountfitchet took our booking, unfortunately. But at least MissEss never notices any of the, er, commotion—”
“We might go so far as to say that she causes it, Sergeant Ranger. An innocent commotion, I grant you, but caused by your Aunt Em none the less. Let us hope”—as Bob drove off the road into the George’s car park—“the warnings of Superintendent Brinton are not about to be fulfilled . . .”
Miss Seeton was delighted to see her guests when they came knocking at her front door two minutes after Bob had parked the car at the hotel just across the road. She spoke of gingerbread with a twinkle in her eye and murmured that her kettle had boiled not ten minutes ago.
“Unless, of course, you wished to discuss the matter of my little adventure in London the other day,” she added, the welcome fading from her eyes to be replaced by an anxious look. “Oh, dear, Chief Superintendent, I have tried so hard, and the vicar spoke such stirring words, but I regret that I still find it impossible to recall the face of that man who played such a—a despicable trick . . .”
“Don’t think I’m doubting your word, Miss Seeton,” said Delphick gently, “but are you absolutely sure you can’t remember what he looked like? This drawing you did for Superintendent
Brinton—I recognise Mr. Nash and Miss Popjoy, of course, but this other man, the stranger: might he be . . . ?”
Miss Seeton blinked at the drawing as Delphick held it out to her, then regarded him with a worried crease between her brows. “Oh, dear, yes, I do remember,” and above his excited exclamation continued, in some embarrassment: “Miss Popjoy and Mr. Nash might have thought it a . . . an impertinence on my part, you see, his being a friend—not of mine, that is, for we only met for the first time the other afternoon, and he is such a talented artist I doubt if he would care to have his name coupled with mine—yet his knees, you know, for so comparatively young a man, click and creak far more than I believe mine do, though of course we did not discuss how long he has been practising, which could explain it. He called me,” she said with a blush, “an adept—which I took as a compliment, although the book makes it very plain that there should be no spirit of vanity or competition in these matters—and I hardly felt it correct,” she went on, “to, well, to poke fun, though that is not exactly what I mean, but one should perhaps not be too quick with one who might be considered a—a professional acquaintance rather than a friend, who might excuse the liberty. And Mr. Brinton never asked me who he was, so I thought that he must already know—because of Miss Popjoy and Mr. Nash, who had been looking at photographs with Maureen, you see.”
Delphick didn’t, but life was too short, he decided, to ask for the full translation: he’d make do with the digest, and fill in the gaps by guesswork inspired by what Brinton had already told him. “This man is known to you as a friend of Miss Popjoy and Mr. Nash, but he is not the man in London? Then”—as she nodded—“who, and where, is he?”
“Mentley Collier,” she said at once. “Miss Treeves was a great help—so fortunate that the vicar’s car is reliable—a Morris Minor, I believe, and, of course, he has done his best to discourage the emphasis placed by some parishioners on the foolish feud between the villages, with his pastoral duties spreading far beyond our own boundaries—and after the Best Kept Competition one would have hoped . . . yet they may, perhaps, grow out of it, and certainly Mr. Collier said he had noticed nothing, though, of course, he lives in rather an isolated spot—”
Hands Up, Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 11) Page 16
