And as she drew breath, Delphick, in desperation, broke in: “Which is where, Miss Seeton? What is his address?”
chapter
~22~
MISS SEETON LOOKED blank. “Mentley Collier’s address?” the chief superintendent prompted her. “Where you went with Mr. Nash and Miss Popjoy the other day.”
But Miss Seeton, sounding despondent, had to confess she had forgotten. It had been a farmhouse—sadly neglected, she feared—some local story of fire and an artist’s thwarted ambition, she believed, but she regretted she could remember nothing more . . .
“Although Miss Treeves may know,” she said, brightening. Miss Seeton disliked letting people down: Mr. Delphick, she knew, had been relying on her, just as he had done in London—when once before she had failed him . . . “And Miss Popjoy and Mr. Nash are sure to know,” she said, smiling with relief even as Delphick was trying to work out where exactly the vicar, and his sister, fitted into all this.
At her final words the Oracle in his turn stared. “You mean that Miss Popjoy and Mr. Nash are still in Plummergen?” He tried not to catch Bob’s eye: the strain was beginning to tell, and if either of them burst out laughing or began to tear their hair, Miss Seeton might never recover from the shock. “But of course, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be. My fault, Miss Seeton, for assuming they would have left after giving their statements to Ashford. If they’re staying at the George, we’re bound to bump into them sooner or later, so please don’t worry about it any more.”
She was still looking flustered. “You won’t tell them, will you, that I drew my little likeness of them with their friend? Such a vivid face, almost unforgettable, although he looks less, well, distorted in the picture I did for Mr. Brinton, but that was after the storm had cleared the air, of course, and with a sensitive person thunder can be so very uncomfortable, as poor Martha knows to her cost—and Mr. Collier is obviously a man of variable moods, which would be accounted for by the weather and not just the artistic temperament, even if Mr. Nash did rather naughtily tease Miss Popjoy and insist he was mad—Mr. Collier, I mean, although he certainly did not seem so to me. I hardly know him, of course, which may explain it, yet he did not strike me as the sort of person to shoot a neighbour’s cat, as Mr. Potter told me someone did this morning . . .”
After a pause, during which Delphick thought longingly of cold compresses and Bob tried not to groan aloud, she amended this. “As Mr. Potter told me this morning that someone did, although I don’t remember his telling me when, or where, because he was, after all, merely passing the time of day. He told a most amusing story,” she dutifully recalled, “about a motorist with a homing pigeon who ran out of oil, I think, on the motorway—the man’s car, I mean, not the pigeon, although Mrs. Ongar tells me that in a cold spell one may feed birds a drop of oil, or fat, for the warmth. But in a summer such as this, of course, nothing of that nature would be required, would it? Even the pigeon which I found in my back garden, exhausted by the storm, poor thing, was fed on Chirrup, and nothing else—except fresh water, that is. Mrs. Ongar was most kind to say how well I had cared for the bird—not that I would accept a reward, of course,” she said, turning slightly pink. “I understand that the owners of carrier pigeons pay quite large sums for the best flyers and insure them to win races, but I am glad to know that the poor thing is in good hands now and will soon be returned to its home—in Yorkshire, I believe Mrs. Ongar said.”
Delphick had to know—he couldn’t help it—probably it was nothing to do with the case: but he found himself asking who Mrs. Ongar might be, even though he dreaded the convolutions of Miss Seeton’s reply. There was always the risk of missing, among all the detours and disorder of her speech, a vital hint (which she herself never noticed she’d given) to the case currently under investigation.
He asked; and Miss Seeton expanded on the theme of high winds and weary birds, and the splendid work Mrs. Ongar did at the Wounded Wings Bird Sanctuary. “I believe I shall become a life member,” she said, “for I found what she told me most interesting—and after all, there are always my chickens.”
Bob, who could see the Oracle struggling with his emotions, interposed hastily: “You mentioned something about gingerbread when we came in,” contriving to look starved and neglected, a difficult task for one of his size. With a cry of hospitable horror Miss Seeton hurried off to the kitchen promising tea, and gingerbread, and whatever else she could find to assuage the hunger of her guests.
As the door closed behind her, Delphick sank back in his chair with a sigh, mopping his brow. “Well done, Bob, and thank you. I don’t know how much more I could have taken—but be a good chap now, will you, and trot along after your Aunt Em to help warm the pot or something. I’d appreciate ten minutes or so before the next onslaught to think over what exactly she’s been saying—just in case . . .”
And when the sitting room door opened again to admit a tray-carrying Bob and a beaming Miss Seeton, Delphick had indeed decided there were one or two matters arising from what she had said that warranted investigation.
“You mentioned, Miss Seeton, that Mentley Collier’s face in the picture you drew for Mr. Brinton looked less distorted—with the implication, therefore, that it isn’t the only picture you’ve drawn of him. Am I right?”
“Why, yes—you are,” said Miss Seeton, and the teapot quivered in her hand. Bob, who was nearer than Delphick, reached across and guided the spout towards his waiting cup. Miss Seeton poured. “How very clever of you to know that, Chief Superintendent, though as a detective one must expect that you would, of course. I feel sure it was because of the storm—I was trying to remember the face of the man in London, you see, because I felt so ashamed at letting you and Inspector Youngsbury down, yet when I had completed my attempt to justify that most generous retainer, all I had managed, it seemed, was to portray the storm, which can be of no real use to you at all, especially with Mr. Collier’s likeness in the middle . . .”
With some stern coaxing on the part of Delphick, she was soon hunting through her portfolio and produced at last the sketch she had drawn that thundery evening after Juliana and Dickie had taken her to meet Mentley Collier. “The storm, I thought,” she said, indicating the strange shapes and images of fantasy which swooped and coiled about the blank-eyed face of the man staring out of the paper. “Quite nightmarish, just as poor Martha sometimes says.”
“Maybe . . .” And Delphick held the sketch beside the one Brinton had given him, comparing the two likenesses of the artist as perceived by Miss Seeton, another artist: but an artist with, on occasion, extraordinary insight. “It takes one to know one,” he murmured, trying to block out the sight of the other characters, the distraction of the weird forms around Collier’s remarkable portrait.
“A moody man, you thought,” he remarked to Miss Seeton, who nodded. He glanced at Bob as he passed the two sketches across for his inspection. Bob’s own glance in return was as eloquent: once again, without knowing it, Miss Seeton might have pointed them in the right direction.
Tea and gingerbread had only taken the edge off their hunger—and in any case, Delphick wished to speak to Dickie and Juliana concerning the exact whereabouts of Mentley Collier.
“If we ask anyone else,” he said as they crossed back to the George and Dragon from Sweetbriars, “the word will be round in ten seconds flat, and I don’t want to let him know we’re interested in him.”
“Moody,” muttered Bob, kicking a stone. “Nightmares and funny-looking shapes—drugs, d’you think, sir?”
“This could be the Sacombe connection,” agreed Delphick. “Miss Seeton may believe the swooping birds and distorted trees signify the mental tumult of an approaching storm, but I beg to differ with her.”
“Yes, sir. And did you get the impression from what she said that he knows about yoga? Not that everyone who knows about it is into drugs, sir,” added Bob hastily, “but he’s got that hippie feel to him—long hair, flowers—I could almost smell the i
ncense, sir.”
“And the smell of incense,” murmured Delphick as they mounted the two low steps to the George’s front door, “can cover a multitude of sins.”
“Mr. Delphick! Hello there, young Bob—or should I be calling you Sergeant, if you’re here on official business?” Charley Mountfitchet hailed the newcomers as he emerged from the swing door at the end of the hall. “You’ve been across the road to chat to Miss Seeton,” he said in a lower voice as he drew near. “Spotted your car outside on the tarmac. Don’t you fret, I’ve checked you in, and you’ve a good dinner ready and waiting—well, almost.” He chuckled. “Truth to tell, I’d thought Miss Popjoy and Mr. Nash likely to stay in tonight, but no, they’re off somewhere, so if the two of you can’t help me out, it’ll go to waste. Nothing fancy, mind”—the George was noted more for good, plain food and plenty of it rather than cordon bleu—“but you’ll enjoy it, I reckon.”
Since, without the help of Juliana and Dickie, the visit to Mentley Collier must be delayed, Delphick elected to find out more about the disappearing Standons instead. Charley, flattered to think that Scotland Yard itself had been set on the trail of the cheats, took great pains to serve in person the meal cooked with enthusiasm in the kitchen.
“Now, don’t tell me as you’re to work while you eat your dinner, Mr. Delphick, for I won’t have my good food spoiled and the pair of you with indigestion,” Charley said with a wink. He tapped the side of his nose. “I’ve looked out a bottle of something you’ll find to your liking, I hope—on the house, of course, as an encouragement, you may say. And afterwards, you can ask me anything you want, I’ll not be going anywhere. I want to see them Standons collared as much as either of you.”
When dinner was over, he herded his two guests into the bar and poured three large whiskies, which he carried over to their chosen table. He pulled up a chair and sat down. “Now we can talk business,” he said. “Cheers!”
“Yes, Mr. Mountfitchet, let’s talk about the Standons.” Delphick glanced at Bob. “No need for notes at this stage, but we’ll report back to Ashford tomorrow, so if either of us has a brain wave we must, er, ensure that it is properly remembered.” His eyes flicked to the whisky glasses, each of which held at least a quadruple measure.
Charley chuckled. “Bless me, Mr. Delphick, a drop or two like you’ve had won’t fuddle your wits, I’m sure of that, so never you mind your jokes.” He sighed. “I appreciate you aren’t exactly on duty, but I’d rather thought to see young Bob here saying his piece with the caution, anything-I-say-will-be-taken-down-in-writing—still, if you don’t see the need, you don’t. I’d not tell you how best to go about your job any more than I’d let you tell me how to go about mine.” He drained his glass, set it on the table with a decisive chink, and sat back with folded arms, his eyes bright. “Now then, fire away, gentlemen both, but one at a time, please.”
It was a long time since they’d had a witness so eager to co-operate, and so able to do so. Miss Seeton was always willing, but co-operation involved communication, which was not (even Bob had to admit) her strongest point. Delphick and his sergeant listened with great interest to all that Charley had to say on the topic of the Standons.
“Not that I believe it was their true name, now I come to consider the point,” he told them, “although when they first arrived I took ’em for regular bird-watchers, out and about the countryside and not too much luggage for dressing smart and visiting stately homes and so forth. Seemed a nice family, too, apart from the boys—mind you, the way the old man had ’em on the hop, I’d my doubts about what might not happen to him, some dark night.”
The expressions on the faces of his audience urged him to continue: which he did, after offering another whisky all round and being the only one to accept the offer. Having wetted his whistle, he went on:
“Ah, yes, there’s many a true word spoken in jest, but where there’s money there’s always someone to spend it, and Mr. Standon, old Mr. Standon, he acted careful with the cash, and his daughter and her husband currying regular favour with him, or trying to. Whatever he said, went—of course, I see now as it was an act, but when I first heard the tale of how he’d made the daughter’s husband change his name to hers, I couldn’t help but think there’s many men wouldn’t take kindly to that, inheritance or no—that’s what was in my mind, I do assure you.”
“Understandably so,” said Delphick, who had encountered frequent examples of familial greed resulting in convenient death or disaster. Charley nodded sagely.
“Many men wouldn’t take kindly to it,” he repeated, “and I can’t say as young Mr. Standon ever seemed like he did, for all we know now that he was playing a part. The old man was the one calling the tune—he’ll have arranged the trick, mark my words. The boys, they were too young to do more’n what they were told; and the daughter, she fell in with whatever her father said, anyone could see. But the son-in-law, ah! He never did fool me—untrustworthy, I thought him, and not just in the way that’s already been proved. Hardly ever looked you in the face, he didn’t, and sometimes give the boys a clip round the ear even though he knew the old man didn’t like it . . .
“Moody sort of bloke, that young Mr. Standon,” the landlord of the George and Dragon summed up his erstwhile guest: and the two policemen exchanged meaningful glances.
chapter
~23~
IT HAD BEEN a true pleasure, reflected Delphick when he woke up next morning, to deal with such an enthusiastic witness as Charley Mountfitchet; a witness who had, moreover, such a generous spirit—with (and Delphick smiled) spirits. The chief superintendent ignored the midget who was clog-dancing in slippers from his right temple to his left and back: more a soft-shoe shuffle than a raging hangover, and worth every throb. The whisky, which after the end of Charley’s statement it would have been churlish to refuse, had been poured with a lavish hand; the company had been congenial; and the resulting sleep had been restful, refreshing, and dreamless.
Indeed, so refreshed did he feel that he took Miss Seeton’s sketches out of their folder to study them again before heading downstairs for breakfast. She had been reluctant to hand over the drawing made at home, but he had persuaded her without too much trouble: an appeal to her sense of duty always worked, in the end. Despite the nightmare drugs association, he chuckled as he looked at the swooping birdlike forms among the animals and flowers, and remembered her talk of chickens . . .
“Wounded Wings,” he murmured. “Life membership, oh, dear—oh.” The chuckle vanished from his voice. He looked more closely at the pictures. Both had been quickly but clearly drawn: the faces were recognisable, no doubt of that—and so were the birds. “Vultures?” mused Delphick, “and, if I’m not mistaken, pigeons among the nightmare . . . She said something about Yorkshire . . . The setting looks foreign . . .”
Three minutes later he was talking to Babs Ongar of the Wounded Wings Bird Sanctuary; eight minutes after that he was thumping on Bob Ranger’s door, waving the sketches under his sergeant’s startled nose.
“Carrier pigeons,” he said. “They can fly hundreds of miles without difficulty—the one Miss Seeton found was on its way home to Yorkshire, after being released near Dover. Bob, suppose someone used pigeons to carry the pure drug from the Continent to England—from, say, Amsterdam . . .”
Bob drew a deep breath. “Amsterdam’s the centre for the European drug trade—and it’s in the Netherlands, isn’t it, sir? It’s the capital of Holland—it’s Dutch, sir!”
Delphick nodded. “Like the interior Miss Seeton drew—right from the start, Chris Brinton said it had a foreign look. Now, we know drugs are coming in from abroad, but we don’t know what route is used, or what method, except that both have so far been undetectable. Something as small as a pigeon would never be noticed, and, once they arrived, who’d notice a few extra birds around the place? Especially if they were homing in to a house in the countryside . . .”
“Like Gerald Sacombe’s,” supplied Bob. “Although I
don’t believe Mr. Brinton mentioned a cage, or whatever, for any pigeons, sir,” he added. “Er—did he?”
“He didn’t but that doesn’t signify. They could be flying to somewhere nearby but not on the immediate premises—in the country who’d notice a few extra birds flapping about in a wood, for example? If anyone noticed, Sacombe could have told them it was his new hobby . . .
“Mrs. Ongar tells me that birds can be bought as cheaply as twenty pounds each, although there are some really expensive prize specimens. But I somehow don’t think the crowd we’re after will be going in for prizes—not the cup-and-ribbon sort, anyway. Their birds are flying for a far nastier reward—preying on people, like vultures.”
“Bring the pure stuff over from the Continent,” said Bob thoughtfully, “adulterate it to a profitable street level, sell it, and wait for the next flight to arrive—that’ll be the line we ought to follow next, sir. Baskets of pigeons crossing the Channel—where they’ve come from and where they’re going . . .”
“Where they’ve come from has got to be somewhere in this area, Bob. Within easy distance of London but relatively rural—and the known incidents of drug abuse that we can tie into the network are all centred around here.”
“Very roughly, sir,” Sergeant Ranger was moved to point out. Delphick shook his head.
“Not so roughly that we didn’t already suspect this was one of the places to look, and I don’t believe Ashford would have been on the blower to the Yard quite so quickly if they hadn’t thought so, too—even if”—with a grin—“part of our reason for coming here was to make sense of Miss Seeton, who as usual has come up trumps. Mr. Brinton may sometimes wish she was more the traditional, knitting-fluffy-garments spinster with a cat and a thatched cottage and roses round the door, but for my part I’m—”
Hands Up, Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 11) Page 17
