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

by Hamilton Crane

  “My sergeant and I,” Delphick said, “would be grateful for your summary of the case. In plain language, please.”

  Juliana’s noble forehead creased in a frown. “Dickie’s sure to correct me if I get it wrong, so—Han Van Meegeren was a Dutch artist, between the wars. Reasonably successful, but he thought he ought to be more appreciated than he was—so he decided to make asses of the critics by, well, creating a masterpiece and having them all claim it rapturously as genuine . . . and he did. And they did—most of them, anyway, though right from the start there were one or two dissenting voices.”

  “Who were ignored,” put in Dickie. “Not surprising, if you think about it—even now, nobody’s absolutely certain how many paintings Vermeer left. Somewhere under forty, though. When Van Meegeren produced Christ and the Disciples at Emmaeus he could be pretty confident it would be given the benefit of the doubt, if he’d got the obvious technical aspects correct—and he had, more or less, so it was. As Juliana told you.”

  Chimes were starting to ring in Delphick’s head as the links in the connective chain were hammered close. Van Meegeren—forgery—Mentley Collier—Miss Seeton’s nightmare sketch—drugs . . . “Go on,” was all he said, but it was enough.

  Juliana and Dickie looked at each other. Juliana smiled modestly. “Dickie’s bound to know the details better than I do—tell Mr. Delphick what happened after the war, Dickie.”

  Dickie nodded. “That’s how he was caught—when he was charged with collaboration, for selling a Vermeer to Hermann Goering. He was imprisoned on a charge of treason, and of course his obvious defence was that he could hardly be sent down for selling a Dutch national treasure to the Nazis when he’d painted it himself—only, he’d done too good a job, and at first they wouldn’t believe him, because he told them he’d faked four or five other Vermeers, as well as a couple of, oh, De Hooghs, I think—and they’d been accepted as the real thing, too. So in the end he offered to paint another Vermeer as proof, in prison—and he actually began it, only then he heard they were changing the charge to forgery. You know, I can’t help feeling that was a bit sneaky . . .”

  Despite their position as upholders of the law, Delphick and Bob found themselves nodding in sympathy as Dickie drew breath, and Juliana took over.

  “They found the poor chap guilty and sent him to prison for a year, but he died—a heart attack, I think—before he began the sentence. I must admit, though of course it’s a real horror story, there’s something about Van Meegeren which does rather appeal to the maverick in me, or”—with a laugh— “the masochist. I’d hate to be taken in as those other dealers were—Goering always excepted, of course.” She looked at Delphick in some curiosity. “I don’t quite see, though, what all this has to do with Miss Seeton—or with my friend Mentley Collier, either,” and she tapped the “self-portrait” with an elegant finger.

  Delphick shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t say, just at present. But what you’ve told us has been most helpful, thank you, and our next step has to be to take these back to Miss Seeton and ask if she’d venture a second opinion on her work. Oh, yes,” he added as Juliana and Dickie exclaimed, “I’m afraid you may both have been misled. Quite by accident, of course—but it wasn’t your friend Collier who did these drawings, it was Miss Seeton. And, taking various matters into consideration, I’d like to know why she did . . .”

  chapter

  ~26~

  THREE MINUTES LATER they were knocking again at the door of Sweetbriars. With relief they heard footsteps approaching.

  The door opened. Martha Bloomer stood there. “Well, if it isn’t you, Mr. Delphick, and young Anne’s hubbie, too, talk about coincidence. I was only thinking of you just now, on account of Miss Emily, you see—”

  “Why?” demanded Delphick. “What’s happened to Miss Seeton? Where is she?”

  “Gone looking for you, so far’s I could make out, but it wasn’t a very good line. She was in a hurry because of the train, she said—”

  “Train? What train? Where?”

  Martha began to look a little anxious. “Brettenden, I suppose, but she didn’t have time to say much—the train was just leaving, it was the one before running late, so she said, and she’d only rung to catch me when she knew I’d be here doing for her. One of my days, today. Most times she puts a note in the kitchen to say don’t bother about dinner, only she left in a bit of a hurry for the bus and forgot—I’d been thinking she’d popped out to the shops when I come in and she wasn’t here, you see.”

  “We thought so, too, when we came round earlier to talk to her. After she, it seems, must have been out looking for us—while we were busy over at Murreystone,” he added aside to Bob, who nodded grimly. Delphick turned back to Martha. “Did she explain why she wanted to see me—us?”

  But Martha, who had known Miss Seeton for many years and was seldom surprised by anything she did, said that all she could recall of her employer’s hasty message was something to do with Mr. Delphick, and pictures—oh, and a gallery . . . She hadn’t paid too much attention at the time, thinking it to be no more than one of Miss Emily’s starts, and Mr. Delphick knew what they could be like, if anyone did. But—the look of anxiety was deepening now—he wasn’t really worried about Miss Emily, was he?

  To which the chief superintendent had to reply that he didn’t know whether to be worried or not, but that if Martha could tell him as soon as she heard anything more from Miss Seeton, he would be obliged to her. Superintendent Brinton at Ashford would pass on any messages . . .

  From his room at the George and Dragon, Delphick took his own advice and telephoned Ashford, demanding to speak to Brinton. There came an agonising wait, during which Bob ground his teeth and Delphick muttered. At long last—it felt too long—Brinton’s familiar boom crackled its way across the wires.

  “Chris, have you heard anything from Miss Seeton?” asked Delphick, without bothering to announce who or where he was. “And have you got anything more out of Barkway or Collier?”

  “Oracle, if that’s you, then for goodness’ sake don’t give me heart failure like that. I haven’t heard a sausage from Miss Seeton, which is nice and peaceful and how I’d like it to st—What?”

  Delphick didn’t repeat the oath. “Barkway and Collier, Chris. What about them?”

  “Collier’s keeping his lip buttoned all right—better late than never, I suppose he thinks. As for Barkway, he’s a bright lad, more’s the pity. Parrot’s the word for him. All he’ll say is ‘Where’s my solicitor?’ There’s still no sign of Proctor. A fast train’d do it in an hour, but since Barkway made his first call to the blighter’s clerk . . .”

  Delphick did calculations in his head. “She ought to be there by now, if she was coming to you. Chris, if she shows up, grab her and keep hold of her, will you? But I have the nasty suspicion she may not.”

  “Suits me fine,” Brinton couldn’t help saying, though he sobered quickly. “Why the panic? What’s MissEss getting up to now?”

  “Taking time to consult with the bosses,” Delphick said, sounding anxious. “Barkway’s brief, I mean. And I suspect that Miss Seeton could be among the topics of conversation, because if the word’s been passed to the gang that they’re now short two members—and that she happened to be indirectly responsible for creating that shortage . . .”

  “You’ve lost me,” said Brinton. “Why should—?”

  “Sorry, Chris, no time for that. I’ve got to ring the Yard. If she turns up, tell them—they’ll see that I hear about it. Sergeant Ranger and I are heading back to Town in two minutes flat. We’ll be in touch.”

  Delphick depressed the cradle twice, heard a fresh tone, and dialled Whitehall 1212, as it would always be to him. “Fraud, please—Inspector Borden . . .” He drummed impatient fingers on the table while Bob groped in his trouser pocket to make sure the car keys were ready and waiting.

  “Sir,” he ventured, “shouldn’t we check with Brettenden station for which trains were running late? Th
en at least we’d have some idea of—”

  Delphick cursed, broke the connection, and groped for the directory in the bedside table. “I should have thought of that, Bob. No sense in going off half-cocked.”

  Nine minutes later he was dialling Scotland Yard again. British Rail (Brettenden) had answered the telephone after what seemed like an age, saying gleefully in reply to Delphick’s urgent questions that all trains were subject to delay, and they really couldn’t say when things would be back to normal. Delphick claimed rank and demanded to know more. At last the station-master was dragged to the telephone, to admit that yesterday had apparently been Signalman Chipping’s birthday. Signalman Chipping had visited every pub in Tonbridge before coming on duty. The knock-on effect of Signalman Chipping’s spree had already lasted some hours, and nobody knew how long it would take to clear the backlog.

  “Borden? Delphick here. Sorry—that was me on the line ten minutes ago, but we, er, got cut off. What do you know about the Van Meegeren art gallery in the Haymarket?”

  “Van Meegeren? Nothing much, sir, in the sense I understand you to mean—they like to keep rather a low profile, in some respects. A leg-pull, of course, the name, but all good fun for the in-crowd—er, you do know what I’m talking about, sir?” he added, cautiously tactful.

  “I’ve just had a ten-minute lecture on Vermeer, thanks. Now I want to know about Van Meegeren the gallery as opposed to Van Meegeren the forger. And fast.”

  “As I said, sir, there doesn’t seem much to know. Some of the paintings are genuine—no Vermeers, of course—but plenty of copies as well. Not forgeries, though. Quite a reputation for honest dealing, they’ve got: yellow price tags instead of red, as I recall, and the name itself is a dead giveaway, in any case. A couple of our lads weaseled into the opening party to give ’em the once-over. They said everyone was nudge-nudge enjoying it as one great unspoken joke.”

  “Unspoken, therefore perhaps not properly understood by everyone—and nobody liking to admit their ignorance for fear of being thought untrendy. Very clever,” Delphick said grudgingly. “There’s a subtle mind behind all this, if I’m not mistaken. Whose?”

  “The owners, sir? That’s what I meant about sometimes keeping a low profile. Nobody seems to know who put up the cash, but nobody seems to care, either. A hint of mystery doesn’t do their publicity any harm—”

  “So everyone’s talking about the place—people go there a lot? It’s busy?” And Miss Seeton, if she popped in as he feared she intended, ought to be safe among a crowd . . .

  “Busy enough, I suppose. I’ve looked in a few times, and there’s usually a couple of people wandering around—”

  “Then they know you. As a copper?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. Probably. I’ve been in this job a few years now, not that I’m exactly a household name like you, sir, but—”

  “Then it’s no use asking you. We don’t want them scared off before we can get there. Borden, I want you to dig out someone who can spend the next hour or so looking like an aesthete and send ’em along to Van Meegeren to watch for signs of trouble. To watch out for Miss Seeton, in fact—”

  “Not the Battling Brolly, sir?” Borden’s voice sounded anguished and pleading. “You don’t mean MissEss!”

  “I’m afraid I do. I suspect she may be on her way to the gallery because she’s rumbled them—quite by accident, of course—as the money-laundering base for that drugs operation I’ve spent the last few months trying to nail. And I don’t want her involved in any more accidents, Borden. You know what she’s like. She’ll rush in all innocence and tut-tut-tut, such debasement of art is hardly ethical, and if we can’t stop them they’ll be stuffing her in a sack and chucking her in the Thames to shut her up.”

  There came an audible groan down the telephone wires, as Borden said weakly, “Someone to be sent to the gallery, sir. Will do. Right away . . .”

  “Have warrants sworn out, and we’ll raid the place when Ranger and I arrive back in Town. Tell your man not to try anything unless he hears the sound of picture frames falling from the walls, or shouts for help, or a small riot. Where Miss Seeton goes, chaos generally goes with her . . . She could be there already, by the way. Nobody knows when her train was due in. If he sees her wandering about, tell him to fasten on her like a porous plaster and stop her doing anything at all—if he can,” he felt obliged to add. “We’ll be with you just as soon as possible. Within the hour, if we’re lucky on the road.”

  Inspector Borden had finally gathered his scattered wits together. “But, sir—I know that where MissEss is concerned the only one who understands the way she works is you, but—the gallery’s legit, sir, from all we know about it. How could anyone launder drug money without us having our suspicions, at least—never mind Miss Seeton finding out by remote control.” He sounded almost aggrieved about it.

  “I had strong suspicions before I spoke to you, but you clinched it with your talk of a two-colour pricing system. I’m willing to bet the yellow labels—forgeries, copies, call them what you will—are very attractively priced, to pull in the less discriminating punter. The sort who’ll buy a picture because of what other people say about it, rather than because he knows the intrinsic value. He pays for it by cheque, the gallery pops the cheque straight in the bank, and everything’s sweetness and light until somebody drops by and says, ‘Where did you find that clever copy of . . .’ of whatever they’d thought it was.

  “Whereupon he goes storming back to the gallery and asks to speak to the manager—who says, ‘So sorry, didn’t realise you didn’t realise the yellow labels were copies,’ and gives him his money back. In used notes—notes which have been paid to suppliers by junkies wanting a fix . . . The cheque’s been cleared, the money’s clean. Which is why the paintings have to be fakes, of course—if they weren’t, nobody would ask for their money back. Hence Van Meegeren’s reputation for shining honesty . . .”

  “It might work, sir,” admitted Borden, after a pause.

  “I’m betting on Miss Seeton that it does work—and that she knows it, too. Which is why I want someone round there to keep his eyes skinned—someone who knows Miss Seeton by sight, for preference.”

  “I’ll say to watch for the brolly, sir,” Borden said. “On a day like this nobody but MissEss is going to cart an umbrella all the way from Kent, are they?”

  “Probably not, Inspector. Which is why I want someone in that gallery before she gets there, because if Barkway—I’ll explain about him later—has told them everything he must have been told by Collier—I’ll explain about him, too—then the Van Meegeren crowd will know what to look out for, as well . . .”

  Miss Seeton, like so many of her generation, is not given to extravagance. Art teachers receive salaries no more generous than any others on the Burnham Scale: their pensions are commensurate with his. Moreover, a child of parents raised according to the Victorian ethic will herself have learned that self-indulgence and laziness are venial sins, to be frowned upon at all times.

  It was with a slight feeling of guilt, therefore, that Miss Seeton, on her eventual arrival at Charing Cross, made for the taxi rank and joined the queue. When at last she climbed into a black cab, she gave the breathless instruction to the driver that he should head for Scotland Yard. The expense, Miss Seeton told herself, was more than justified by the lateness of the train, as well as by the handsome retainer paid her by the police; the time she would save by not taking the Tube was surely a good excuse. Mr. Delphick had wished her to produce a likeness of the tomato ketchup man for Inspector—Youngsbury, was his name?—and she had made so many useless attempts to draw one: and then, following his visit with dear Bob, she had found she could remember the man’s face, after all. It was her obvious duty to show the results of her work to the chief superintendent, and as soon as possible—he had been, not insistent, but certainly encouraging her in her efforts—and when he could not be found, professional etiquette demanded that she must hand the drawing over to his S
cotland Yard colleague. Her colleague, too, she supposed and blushed.

  “I thought, you see, that it must be the correct thing to do,” she explained to Inspector Youngsbury, “when Maureen told me he was no longer in bed. To bring it to you. Chief Superintendent Delphick, that is. One hesitates to criticise the young, but I remembered that it was on your behalf he asked me to do it the other day, and she said the car had gone, too. So I supposed you would be glad to have it, even though we were not properly introduced on that occasion and would excuse the liberty of my bringing it directly to you without going through the correct channels, as I believe Sir George would say. I understand that police officers are as particular about matters of rank and regiment as serving members of the other forces, except that you are not soldiers, of course. And strictly speaking, I know I should have given it to him. Or sailors, or airmen. To Mr. Delphick, I mean. But she seemed to know nothing of where he was, or Sergeant Ranger, either, although I am quite sure they would never have left without paying.”

  Inspector Youngsbury’s head was spinning. Miss Seeton seemed to be telling him that the Oracle, of all people, had picked up some tart down in Kent and not only gone shares in her with young Bob Ranger—and where did the mysterious Sir George come into all this? The imagination boggled—but could well have skipped before she’d had time to collect her fee. Which he knew couldn’t possibly be right, but unless he wrapped a wet towel round his head and concentrated, he’d never make sense of it all . . .

  He took a very deep breath and closed his eyes.

  A click and a rustle made him open them again. What was she getting out of her handbag—incriminating pictures?

  Pictures, certainly—or rather, one picture. The head of a man, sketched in great detail, handed to him with a nod and a smile by Miss Seeton, who snapped her handbag shut and rose to her feet.