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

by Hamilton Crane

  “It is such a beautiful day, Inspector, that I believe I will take a little stroll through St. James’s Park. There is plenty of time before the gallery closes, I imagine, and the sunshine is so pleasant . . .”

  But he wasn’t listening to her. He was staring at the neatly sketched head and frowning. Suddenly he smiled.

  “It’s the bloke who pulled the ketchup scam the other day,” he said, and she beamed, proud of having done her duty at last. “It’s a hundred times better than all the PhotoFits put together. Thank you very much, Miss Seeton . . .”

  But, grateful as he was, after Miss Seeton’s departure he took the lift straight to the canteen and drank three large cups of strong black coffee one after the other, and answered all questions absently, with a glazed look on his face.

  chapter

  ~27~

  MISS SEETON HAD thoroughly dismissed from her memory any hint of having been accused of complicity in the ketchup crime, and of having made her last visit to Scotland Yard under arrest. Gentlewomen do not, in Miss Seeton’s eyes, undergo adventures of such a nature, and therefore she herself does not undergo them: particularly as this adventure had been a mistake. The sole reason for her failure to complete her programme of visits to various art galleries had been the rain, which had driven her from the London streets to seek shelter, which had delayed her . . .

  But today she had no need of shelter. The sky was blue, the few clouds dancing above were merry fleeces without a thought of rain, the sun shone, and above the traffic the occasional brave bird might be heard to sing. Miss Seeton emerged from Scotland Yard with a smile on her lips, her umbrella on her arm, and sensible walking shoes on her feet. Her conscience was clear: she had delivered the sketch to Mr. Youngsbury, and the remainder of the day was hers to enjoy. There could be no excuse now to take a taxi. She would walk along to St. James’s Park, watch the ducks, perhaps sit in the sunshine for a while, then stroll through St. James’s to Piccadilly, and thence to the gallery, to resume her interrupted little tour.

  She had no idea of how much time passed before she was hovering outside Fortnum & Mason, still unable to make up her mind whether it would be self-indulgent to treat herself to a round of their most excellent sandwiches and a pot of tea. She had thought about it right the way through the Park, although afterwards crossing the streets her concentration had been needed for the traffic. The decision had been put off, and put off; but now she had to decide. Were the attractions of Burlington House sufficiently strong to outweigh the delights of fine bone china, white damask, and paper-thin, crustless triangles spread with unsalted butter?

  As she gazed thoughtfully across Piccadilly at the Royal Academy, her eye was caught by a slight commotion farther along, near the entrance to the Burlington Arcade: a commotion which reminded her of something, though the traffic island dividing the bus lane from the rest of Piccadilly’s one-way system rendered her view not altogether clear . . . Without thinking, Miss Seeton, still peering between passing cars to make out what was happening, stepped forward to the edge of the pavement.

  The Royal Academy is a fine specimen of architecture, so large that it is best appreciated from the Fortnum’s side of Piccadilly, that busy thoroughfare. People with cameras are forever stepping backwards unexpectedly, to fit a slightly different angle into their viewfinders.

  And it was just such an unexpected backstepper who now blocked Miss Seeton’s path—that abstracted path as her attention remained fixed on the far side of the street.

  “Oh!” gasped Miss Seeton, throwing out her hands to ward off the solid body whose heavy heel missed her toes by less than an inch.

  “Ugh!” exclaimed the photographer as her upflung hands brought her umbrella swinging forward, and its momentum sent it thumping into the base of his spine, knocking him off balance. The camera, a heavy, long-lensed affair, dropped from his grasp on the end of its strap; automatically he tried to catch it, but it tangled in his collar and twisted his jacket to one side. Dishevelled and annoyed, he swung round to face his assailant. “Watch where you’re going, can’t you!”

  “Oh, I do beg your par—” But then Miss Seeton, that stickler for the courtesies, stopped. Suddenly it had come back to her. The face of an angry man—his jacket slipping from his shoulders . . . “Oh, do excuse me,” said Miss Seeton breathlessly and scuttled across the road.

  “Hey!” he shouted after her. “Hey, just a minute—you might have broken—”

  But above the screech of brakes as a bus driver brought his Number 38 to a horrified halt, his protest went unheard.

  Miss Seeton, a little shaken by her foolishness but sure duty had demanded it, stood on the traffic island and gazed towards the nearest set of lights, wondering when they would change to red and she might complete her Piccadilly crossing. The man with that scarlet splodge on the back of his jacket was now alone, looking puzzled, staring after the so helpful stranger . . . who was walking eastwards along Piccadilly, trying to melt into the tourist crowds. But the eye of the artist is not easily deceived. Miss Seeton recognised the walk, the carriage, even the clothes of the man she had encountered outside the Van Meegeren Gallery . . .

  A Number 19 bus came trundling down from the lights. Miss Seeton had an awful premonition. She set her teeth, raised her umbrella like a baton, and plunged into the slow-moving vehicle stream with a prayer on her lips. Drivers braked, tyres squealed, horns blared—but Miss Seeton was over the road and on the north side of Piccadilly just as the Number 19 went past . . .

  And the tomato ketchup man put out an arm, swung himself on to the platform—and was gone.

  Miss Seeton let out a little cry of vexation. Take his number! The memorandum page of her diary—open her handbag to look for her pencil—a clatter as her umbrella slipped from her arm and fell to the ground. Bother. She bent to pick it up—the handbag slipped down her arm—she clutched and fumbled as she rose, trying to keep the vanishing Number 19 in view even as she strove to stop everything falling out of her bag—the end of her umbrella waved wildly, in a gesture of beckoning . . .

  “Where to, luv?” came a sudden, throaty voice. A taxi rolled towards Miss Seeton, its flag up. “Whatcher want?”

  And Miss Seeton, busy sorting out herself and her bits and pieces into their habitual order, knew him at once for her champion—the champion of law and order, indeed. With a brisk snap of her handbag, tucking her brolly for convenience under her arm, she opened the door of the cab and climbed in. She took a deep breath.

  “Follow that bus,” said Miss Seeton.

  The driver looked at her. “You having me on?”

  “Indeed I am not. There is a—a person on that bus in whom the police have . . . expressed an interest, and—”

  “You are having me on. Look, luv—”

  Miss Seeton raised her voice, to which years of teaching had given authority in moments of crisis. “As soon as we find an officer of the law, the whole matter may be handed over to him. But, until then, you are wasting time.”

  The driver took one look in the mirror, met her gaze, and without another word dropped his flag. The taxi moved off into the traffic, the Number 19 still just in view.

  After a while the cabbie asked: “Want me to get a bit closer, luv? Then you’ll see if he hops off before a stop.”

  “That is a sensible idea, although he has no idea we are in pursuit, and might reasonably expect the other poor man to be cleaning his jacket, so he is likely to feel confident—the man with the tomato ketchup, I mean.” The driver was about to say something, then didn’t. “But if,” Miss Seeton continued, “it is not too difficult for you to drive rather nearer than at present, please do so.”

  “Hold tight, then.” He jerked the wheel, pressed his foot hard on the accelerator, and darted between two lanes of vehicles so startled that they moved aside to let him pass. “All in the name of the law,” he muttered to himself as drivers shook their fists at him. He chuckled.

  “Never done this in me life, luv,” he to
ld Miss Seeton and cut gleefully in front of a grey Rolls-Royce. “Not with a good reason, anyhow. Hold on—with luck, this time . . .”

  The bus had swept round into Piccadilly Circus, the taxi almost on its tail. “Whatcher want doing now?” the cabbie enquired. “Get any closer, he might see you. Not planning to go after him on foot, are you?”

  Miss Seeton bridled. “You need have no fears that I intend to leave without paying my fare,” she remarked, sitting even more upright on the squashy leather seat, frowning.

  “I didn’t mean that, luv. But you’re hardly the type to go chasing some bloke who for all I know could be twice your size . . .” He eyed Miss Seeton in the mirror again. “Three times, more like.” Then he shrugged. “If he spots us, and there’s no copper handy, then I’d better nobble him for you, luv. I don’t like to think of something nasty happening to any fare of mine, I tell you straight.”

  “That is most kind of you,” said Miss Seeton, thinking, as Eros beckoned to them from his pedestal as they passed, that Lord Shaftesbury would have approved this gallantry. “I trust it will not prove necessary, however, and that we encounter a policeman before much longer.”

  “Never around when you want one,” remarked the cabbie, signalling the turn into the Haymarket. “When you don’t, mind, they’re all over the—”

  “Stop!” cried Miss Seeton suddenly. He slammed his foot on the brake. “I mean—no, go on—we must keep the bus in sight—my umbrella,” she babbled, groping on the floor with one hand for her brolly, which had shot from her knees as he braked, while with the other struggling to open the side window.

  “Go on? You’re sure, now?” But the driver, still shuddering from the close shave to his rear bumper, was already responding to the furious hoots of the traffic behind him. “Going on,” he said.

  On the pavement outside the Van Meegeren Gallery, having emerged on foot from Panton Street with the extra officers requested from the Yard, Delphick and Ranger stood making final plans for the proposed raid. Inspector Borden confirmed that the warrants, duly sworn, were in his pocket ready to brandish at the appropriate time. The Oracle opened his mouth to give the command.

  Bob let out a yell and grabbed his superior by the arm. “Look, sir—it can’t be—that taxi, quick!”

  Delphick winced as he turned to stare after the pointing finger. The taxi accelerated down the Haymarket, hurling Miss Seeton back on the seat, out of sight. Delphick continued to stare as he asked: “That taxi, Sergeant Ranger? What about it?”

  “She was signalling for help through the window, sir—she saw us, but they dragged her away—if we don’t go after them right now, heaven knows what they might do to her!” Bob was shaking the chief superintendent as a dog shakes a bone. “Sir, we must hurry! You said they’d try to get rid of her, but this is right under our noses—”

  Delphick wrenched himself free from the frenzied grasp and gave him one quick look. “You’re telling me Miss Seeton is in that taxi?”

  “We’ve only got one chance—she’s relying on us, we’ve already let her down by being late! Come on, sir!”

  Borden was squinting down the street. “Which taxi? Did you get the number? There’s two or three to choose from.”

  “It all happened so fast—one of those just behind that Number nineteen, but—”

  Borden turned to his henchmen. “You heard the sergeant, lads. Get after them! Taxi following the Number nineteen, one elderly woman passenger, probably a man as well—wouldn’t take more than one to keep her quiet, would it?” he added, aside to Delphick. Bob heard him and grew pale. Delphick, too, looked worried.

  “Not more than one, no. Your car’s round in Oxenden Street, isn’t it?”

  “All one way,” said Borden, preparing to run. “We’ll try heading ’em off if they get as far as Pall Mall—leave it to you to chase ’em down the Haymarket, sir,” and he was gone. Bob danced from foot to foot, grinding his teeth.

  “Orange Street, sir—come on!” And bolted southwards, elbowing unwary pedestrians out of his anguished way.

  Delphick sprinted after him, one eye still on what was happening to the taxi—all the taxis—too many taxis, in too heavy a flow of traffic. They might almost try catching up with ’em on foot, he supposed as he panted in Bob’s blundering wake, but what if they did? How many heavies had the Van Meegeren gang thought necessary to silence Miss Seeton? Could he and Bob tackle them alone? Borden and his crew would do their best to reach them, but there were those damned one-way streets to contend with . . .

  Bob pounded along Orange Street ready to massacre anyone double-parked and blocking his route. A traffic warden took three steps backwards at his approach and tumbled into the gutter. She was just hauling herself out as the slipstream from Delphick’s passing tumbled her down again. A gleeful delivery van put paid to her notebook and pencil as she lost her grip on them; she was memorising number plates in fury as the unmarked police car pulled out from the kerb, did a savage U-turn, and hurtled off against the flow of traffic, a huge hand slapping a flashing blue light on the roof.

  Miss Seeton had collected herself once more and leaned forward eagerly on the squashy leather seat, eyes fixed upon the Number 19 ahead. The cabbie remarked:

  “Sorry about the shake-up, luv, but you did rather catch me on the hop. No bones broken?”

  “Thank you, no, a trifle dusty, that is all, and fortunately my umbrella is also undamaged, although of course that is of small importance compared to the need for maintaining our watch on that bus until Chief Superintendent Delphick comes, as I trust he will.” She sighed. “I do hope that he understood what I was trying to tell him, for there was really no time to lose if we wanted to keep the bus in sight, and it was somewhat hurried, was it not? My message, I mean, not the bus, for he has no idea that we are following him, and in any case I doubt if he could persuade the driver to go faster in such a heavy flow of traffic. Or, indeed, if anyone could, since I am sure it must be inadvisable to distract the driver of a vehicle when it is in motion. Yet if anyone were to leave it now—the bus, I mean—unobserved . . .”

  The cabbie said that, speaking for himself, he hadn’t observed anyone getting off, though of course there’d been a tidy bit to think about all at once, what with her sent flying when he jammed on the brakes, and so on; but yes, she’d got the right idea, not much chance of anybody going fast in traffic like this, so if they could only keep close behind the bus, he supposed the bloke she was after stood no chance of getting away, with her being so sure he didn’t even know she was after him in the first place . . .

  And Miss Seeton instructed him to drive on.

  “Get on with it, Bob,” urged Delphick as the police car lurched at last into the Haymarket leaving the one-way traffic in Orange Street breathless behind it. “Get weaving, for heaven’s sake!”

  Bob proceeded to do just that. Vehicles heading south from Piccadilly Circus screeched to an astonished halt at the emergence of the police car from a street they were only permitted to enter; Bob seized his chance, darting into the gap and twisting the steering wheel to force a way through the metallic ranks which recognised his coming and moved aside as far as they were able.

  Which was not far enough. The Number 19 bus had passed Charles II Street on the right, Suffolk Place on the left, and was fast approaching New Zealand House on the corner of Pall Mall. All three taxis followed close in its wake—and any one of them could have turned off at any moment.

  “Go faster, Bob!” said Delphick, straining to catch any glimpse of untoward activity inside the distant black cabs: flailing arms, a brandished umbrella, perhaps the smashing of a window, the desperate opening of a door. “Faster!”

  Miss Seeton, peering forward, did not notice the faraway flash of the blue light; the cabbie did. “Looks like your friends’ve got the message okay,” he said, glancing back in his mirror. “Let’s hope they catch us up before Trafalgar Square—gets even busier there.”

  “Mr. Delphick,” Miss Seeton said,
“will do his best, I’m sure, and I confess it will be a relief to me to—oh, dear, the lights are changing! Oh, no!” For the Number 19 had been too close to the amber to stop, and lumbered round the corner and into Pall Mall East just as the signal went red. Miss Seeton, staunch upholder of the law, realised she was beaten.

  The blue light came swooping at a great rate, its siren wailing; vehicles moved out of the way at its approach, and the cabbie uttered a sigh of relief. “You can tell ’em the tale now, luv,” he said as he pulled over to let Bob drive up beside him. “Want me to—hey!”

  As Bob drove, Delphick had been examining the passengers in each taxi they passed. A courting couple, oblivious even to the siren, whose activities warranted a red light rather than a blue; a briefcase-toting businessman—unless she’d been wrestled to the floor and rendered unconscious, no sign yet of MissEss. “That taxi—it must be!” he told Bob, and prepared to leap from the car as it slowed.

  It slowed. He leaped: flinging open the door and covering the few yards to Miss Seeton’s taxi with giant strides. Bob was just behind him, rushing round from the driver’s side to grapple with the cabbie while Delphick wrenched the the taxi door almost off its hinges as he saw Miss Seeton’s frantic gestures for help.

  “Miss Seeton, are you all right?” Then he blinked; she was alone. “What’s happened? Where did he go?”

  “Why, on the bus, of course,” she replied, waving her hands in the same frantic gesture, “as I was trying to tell you—and although, naturally, I am pleased to see you both, would it not be more sensible—not that I would presume to teach you how to do your job, as you know, but suppose he should escape again? Which would be such a waste of all our efforts, I cannot help but feel. You see, when the lights changed . . .”

  She waved her hands again, and the gesture seemed just as frantic as before. Her eyes were anxious. “The Number nineteen,” she said, “and now the lights are green again, perhaps you will be able to follow it? It would be such a pity, one cannot help thinking, not to do so.”