Miss Seeton Flies High (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 23)

by Hamilton Crane

  Now he drew close, to look over her shoulder. “I wonder what has you so bothered this time—oh. Yes. Somewhat unexpected, I agree.”

  Certainly it was a face that he saw on the paper; but not a human face. White and woolly, capering wildly at the forefront of a group of its fellows static in wraps of some heavy fabric—canvas, perhaps—a single sheep grinned at him, displaying enormous teeth—no, not teeth, dentures. The entire flock, canvas-wrapped though it was, wore the same over-exuberant smile and shared the same bright-eyed, almost manic, expression. Could they but burst their bonds those sheep, Delphick suspected, would not remain meekly in their field but would run riot through the countryside.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Miss Seeton again. “It doesn’t look in the least like that young man, does it.” This was no question, but an apology. “It—it’s Nigel Colveden, you see.” This made Delphick blink. Miss Seeton hurried to explain. “Such amusing stories of farming life yesterday—how he was nearly stung by a wasp when holding a sheep, and it kicked him—the sheep, not the wasp—and he knows a great deal about them, as you would expect, but I didn’t. For instance, I had no idea that spiders can float on silken threads several thousand feet into the air—ballooning, he called it, which the young ones do in autumn. He said I should watch early in the morning as the sun rises and the air warms, for hedges or trees covered in gossamer, which is a preliminary to the phenomenon, and especially should there be a breeze. It all sounds most interesting.”

  “As interesting as these sheep in false teeth?” Delphick knew Nigel’s sense of humour, and knew also that Miss Seeton, despite her long experience as a teacher, tended to believe the best of people.

  “Oh, I know. One of Nigel’s little jokes, I thought at first just as I am sure you did, but he explained that farmers would sometimes have them fitted to a good breeding ewe rather than cull her when she could no longer graze, until they thought of cutting food into smaller pieces. Which one would have considered no more than common sense.” Miss Seeton, apart from an extracted wisdom tooth, was blessed with excellent teeth. “I believe one minces or mashes adult, as it were, food for toothless human babies—though possibly they lacked the proper equipment for sheep, in earlier days.”

  Delphick, avoiding entanglement in a discussion of ovine masticatory habits, made a mental note that false teeth might, in some way, have played a part in the disappearance of Christy Garth. Perhaps an emergency appointment with an opportunist dental practitioner had ended with the young man’s being fed knock-out drops. Perhaps ...

  Idly, he turned the page to admire Miss Seeton’s previous sketch. He caught his breath—turned the sound into a hasty chuckle. “Traffic Jam,” he said, looking at the sprightly glass jars, all but one labelled Plum and all topped with frill-edged gingham secured with ribbon, crowded along and filling, in both directions, a narrow country lane. She’d obviously seen the same television news item so many others had seen—but how many others would have known-without-knowing, as she seemed to have known, the significance of that unfortunate accident in the kidnap of Christy Garth?

  “A little foolish word-play,” said Miss Seeton. “Some puns are needlessly tortuous, but this seemed so quick and amusing, although one has to feel sorry for the driver and thank goodness it was no worse than concussion. At this time of year, while bees are productive and busy, wasps can be most inconvenient creatures, can they not?”

  Which, Delphick guessed, explained the single jar of honey. “They can indeed.” He leafed further back through the sketchbook, finding no more than routine studies of trees, buildings, a few garden birds, and one lifelike portrait of Martha Bloomer brandishing a carpet beater while Stan propped a patterned rug over a set of wooden steps. “Spring cleaning? In September?”

  Miss Seeton twinkled at him. “Dear Martha will be so glad when I take my little trip into Somerset. I won’t say that she has already packed my case, but once I am out of the way she can dust, and sweep, and move furniture and beat carpets to her heart’s content—except the other way around, of course, for there is no sense in dusting before you disturb everything—and then she will feel the house is ready for the onset of winter, though since the central heating there is far less dust than used to come from Cousin Flora’s open fires. Indeed I would be happy with just spring, though I would never tell her so. Martha, you see, positively enjoys cleaning. She wishes for a carpet shampooer, after my little Premium Bond win, although I myself would much prefer to take a holiday than shampoo a carpet.”

  “Martha,” Delphick said, “is one in a million, Miss Seeton.” As, in her own invaluable way, was Miss Seeton herself.

  Back at the Yard, the chief superintendent advised Superintendent Kebby of his return and invited him to his office to inspect the sketches produced by Miss Seeton’s pencil. “I told her I’d like this one too,” the Oracle tapped the Traffic Jam cartoon, “because it made me laugh, which it did—but in my opinion it’s something more than the ‘foolish word-play’ she herself called it. She drew it as a direct result of the television news item a day or so before.”

  A twirl of the superintendent’s moustache, a frown as he contemplated the crowded ranks of gingham-topped jars. “The day the second pick-up went wrong,” he said at last. “That woman psychic, Oracle?”

  “Something very like, although I suspect she wouldn’t care for the term herself. She’d think it far too eccentric and other-worldly for the way she sees herself as a typical English spinster—Sergeant Ranger,” as Bob in his silent corner failed to suppress a gurgle of mirth, “please go outside if you mean to choke to death. The superintendent and I need to concentrate, and we don’t wish to be disturbed.”

  “Sorry, sir,” murmured his unrepentant sergeant. Kebby turned and gave him a wink, a wry grin, and a sideways jerk of the head. Bob, glancing towards Delphick and receiving his nod, took this as an invitation to join the picture-fanciers.

  “Traffic Jam,” he said. “Evesham’s to the west of London, of course, and didn’t you say, sir, the family thought young Garth might be heading west?”

  “Yes, and it looks as if your MissEss agrees.” Kebby looked from one of Miss Seeton’s friends to the other. “When she dashes these sketches off like that, that’s when you sit up and take notice, you say?”

  “It is,” Delphick agreed, “which is why I found an excuse to appropriate this one even though it wasn’t my original purpose in going down to Kent. This one—” with a flourish, he produced the Dancing Sheep drawing—“is what she drew after studying the photos of the young man who’s gone missing.”

  “Sheep in strait-jackets,” muttered Superintendent Kebby. “Firmly bandaged, at any rate—and grinning like crazy. Translation, please.”

  “Miss Seeton attributed the false teeth to some humorous stories recently told her by a young farmer friend,” began Delphick. “Studying the photos of Garth, she said he gave the impression of severe discontent at, she assumed, a life wasted and unproductive when his siblings were both useful and happy. No doubt she would, if pressed, argue that the wide smiles produced by the dentures were her attempt to induce a more cheerful frame of mind in the unfortunate youth, and the fact that the smiles belong to sheep is entirely due to Nigel Colveden’s anecdotes.”

  Bob stirred. Delphick shook his head. “Yes, I wondered, too, but apparently it’s not so. Nigel takes farming very seriously and wouldn’t joke about it, Miss Seeton says. A teacher can usually tell if the wool—I beg your pardon—is being pulled over her eyes.”

  “Baa,” said Kebby, and the others grinned. “All right, then. Might this mean Garth is being held in some part of the country that specialises in sheep? Maybe even near Romney Marsh, where your MissEss lives? Good grief, he could be tied up in the cellar of the house next door! You sure you heard nobody yelling for help?”

  “Kent is hardly to the west of anywhere,” Delphick reminded him, “with the obvious exception of France—which, after your thorough record-checking, I think we may regard as no
more than a distraction.”

  “The Traffic Jam business does suggest the westward idea could be worth pursuing.” Kebby tugged at his moustache. “Where in the west do they grow sheep?” Jasper Kebby was a resolutely urban man.

  “Wales,” said Delphick at once. He, too, had been checking facts, though in the office encyclopaedia rather than at air- and sea-ports. “Shropshire, Herefordshire ...” He saw Kebby stiffen. “Yes, the Traffic Jam, where the ransom pickup went wrong. Worcestershire is the adjoining county, and Evesham is in Worcestershire—there could well be a connection. But we should not forget to add Wiltshire, Dorset ... and Somerset, to the list of westerly sheep-farming areas.” He glanced at Bob. “Miss Seeton tells me she plans a short break in Somerset before long.”

  “Yes, sir. She’s been roped in as scenery designer for the Christmas play,” he explained to Superintendent Kebby, who had looked startled at the coincidence. “She prefers to be as accurate as she can, sir, and—”

  “Accurate?” Kebby’s eyes flashed. “A field of sheep wearing false teeth and bandages, and you tell me the woman likes to be accurate?”

  Bob hesitated. Delphick came to his rescue. “It is when Miss Seeton is ... less than accurate that her drawings are of such importance. Wasn’t that why you asked me to consult her in the first place?”

  Again the handlebar moustache was tugged before Kebby grinned. “It’s a fair cop. And that Traffic Jam doodle’s a hoot. She could make her fortune designing saucy seaside postcards. So, what’s your interpretation of our woolly friends in dentures?”

  “False teeth,” amended the Oracle, after a pause. “Could the inference be that the disappearance itself is false? A kidnap faked by Garth to extract money from his brother and sister when, perhaps, his parents had already refused to give him an increased allowance? You said both the parents were away, and that’s the reason the daughter—Letty? thank you—left it rather longer, perhaps, than the kidnappers would have liked to discover the original ransom demand. Was anything said about money, apart from the obvious, when you spoke to the brother and sister?”

  Kebby was frowning. “Now you come to mention it, I’m not sure the subject came under discussion at all. They were upset, worried—more concerned for their brother’s safety than about giving us the gory details of his spendthrift habits.”

  Delphick nodded. “This is your case, Superintendent Kebby, but since you have asked for my—for Miss Seeton’s—help, I would strongly suggest that you take the advice hinted at in her sketches as a starting-point for further investigation. Discreet enquiries in westerly areas noted for their sheep. You can find an excuse, I’m sure—something to do with drugs, perhaps, which may turn out to be less of a cover story than you might suppose. Garth’s habit is hardly a secret.”

  “Starting in Evesham,” said Kebby. “I’ll talk to someone in charge down there. No use complete strangers turning up to ask questions—the locals would clam up the moment they set eyes on anyone from the Smoke.”

  “You could take an interpreter with you,” Delphick pointed out. “And strings of glass beads to placate the natives.” Bob choked.

  Kebby looked aggrieved. “I’m not a smocks-and-gumboots chap any more than the rest of my team. We’d stand out like snowflakes in a coal mine. You want someone undercover, they’ve got to look the part.”

  Delphick sobered. “Of course. I apologise. By all means telephone Evesham—but I remain intrigued by the puzzle of those strait-jacketed sheep. If, in the course of further investigation, word should reach the Yard of unorthodox behaviour on the part of any sheep, no matter the size of the flock, in any western part of the country, perhaps you could let me know.” He coughed. “It might just help to narrow the area of search.”

  “Or,” said Jasper Kebby glumly, “it might not.”

  Chapter Five

  In the directors’ office of a factory on the outskirts of Glastonbury, at the end of the working day, four people met in formal conference. The surviving shareholders of Callender’s Coats still had a problem, and very different opinions as to how it should be resolved.

  Crispin, the more organised of the two brothers, glanced at the pencilled notes for which he had no real need. It had all been discussed before, more than once, on the telephone and face to face: but this was the first time there had been a serious meeting of Guy Callender’s children in which decisions had to be made.

  “With luck,” he began, “it shouldn’t take much longer for the grant of probate to go through. Everything was left in equal shares between us. Rather than owning ten per cent each as we do now, it will soon be twenty-five per cent. This means the four of us will be outright owners of the company, the factory—and the field. We can’t keep dithering. We have to make up our minds about Janner and his sheep.”

  “We want to expand.” growled Bill. “We want him gone. We need that field.”

  “It’s good grazing land,” objected Valentine, as she had repeatedly told her siblings over the past few days. “It’s not right to cover good grazing land with concrete.”

  “We can’t find anywhere else,” said Bill, “if we want to expand the way Dad wanted.”

  Everyone looked towards Octavia. “You said,” said Crispin, “you’d looked further into this Act of Parliament about farm tenancies.” She nodded. “Let’s have it, then.”

  Octavia Callender prided herself on the image she had built up. Today her flowing locks were capped by a pull-on knitted cloche in shades of gold, green, and brown, to match her caftan. In the same free spirit that saw her wear no wristwatch, she took pains to carry no handbag. Lengths of psychedelic cloth had been torn by Valentine into narrow strips and woven into fabric that, cut to size and brightly stitched, made a remarkable, unique and bulky tote bag, into which the owner now delved to retrieve her notebook and pencil.

  She looked at Crispin, whose own pencil was poised to make additional notes. This was no time for doodling: he was all businessman now. Octavia hid a smile, winked at the other two, and solemnly cleared her throat before declaiming from the open page: “The Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1976. Of course,” she went on in her normal voice, “until it’s passed it’s a Bill, rather than an Act, but all the discussions I’ve been able to find in newspapers and so forth show pretty clearly what will happen once it becomes law, some time next year. What it boils down to is that if someone who’s been renting a piece of land dies, then any close relative who’s worked on that piece of land for the previous five years, and regards it as his—or her—main source of income, will be able to take over tenancy of the land under the same terms and conditions as before.”

  “Then the sooner we get Janner out, the better,” said Bill.

  “The sooner,” insisted Valentine, “we sort out a new rental agreement, the better. With the extra money—any tribunal would have to agree the rent’s been set far too low for far too long—anyway, if Janner pays us more we might then be able to afford somewhere for the new factory that isn’t top-grade farming land.”

  “We certainly could do with some cash,” conceded Bill. “The insurance people are dragging their feet and everything else will be tied up in the business.” It was the first hint he had given that he might be prepared to negotiate.

  “Coming to a new agreement would take time.” Octavia consulted her notes. “If there’s an argument, and it goes to arbitration—which you can bet it will—it might take two, three years. Or longer. Could we afford to delay expansion by another couple of years?”

  “No,” chorused Bill and Crispin. Bill was forceful, Crispin a little hesitant in his reply, but both were agreed that waiting was out of the question.

  Valentine looked unhappy, Octavia resigned. Once more she consulted her notes. “In Farmers Weekly a while back, in discussions about a ploughing tenancy, they mentioned that under the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1948, if you let land for grazing only, for a period of 364 days at a time, because it isn’t a full year it doesn’t seem to coun
t as a permanent agreement. Boiled down again, of course, and we’d have to take legal advice—”

  “Lawyers cost money,” interposed Crispin.

  “Money we haven’t got,” Bill reminded everyone. “Until the insurance pays out—”

  “Perhaps,” broke in Octavia, “without increasing the rent, we might try to renegotiate Janner’s tenancy on a 364-day period so that Young Jan couldn’t end up with squatter’s rights, or whatever you want to call it—”

  “And they won’t agree to that,” snapped Bill. “Why should they?”

  Val continued to look unhappy. “What about Susan?” she asked her sister. “You said his or her main source of income and that’s what it must be for Susan, I mean Brenda, as well as for Jan. Does that mean she’d have as good a—a squatter’s claim as his?”

  “Her main source of income—oh, yes. Does she work on the land? No, she doesn’t.” Octavia was brisk. “All the poor girl does, now she’s gone off her head, is wander about the place looking for Arthurian symbols and ley lines, and dance about in long white robes claiming direct descent from the Lady of the Lake.”

  “Takes one to know one,” said Valentine, with her first smile of the meeting. “You’re not exactly in plain clothes yourself, Tavy.”

  “Sell the books, look the part,” returned her sister, with a hint of irritation. “If it comes to that, you aren’t exactly subfusc yourself.”