Miss Seeton, By Appointment (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 6)

by Hampton Charles

  Miss Seeton edged a little closer to the group surrounding Marigold Naseby so as to get a clearer view of her eyes, and what she saw in them troubled her. The poor girl really did look quite faint, but then it was very hot and noisy in the crowded gallery. That wasn’t all, however. She looked not so much distrait, which would be understandable for one not previously used to being so conspicuously the object of attention, but haunted. Ought she to warn Nigel? Suggest that Miss Naseby should withdraw to a quiet room, an unoccupied office perhaps, to enable her to compose herself?

  She turned round to look for Nigel and inadvertently bumped into a tall, aristocratic-looking man who was standing just behind her, deep in conversation with Cedric Benbow, who was wearing a panama hat and a cream-colored raw silk suit with a pale blue ruffled shirt and a darker blue cravat. Miss Seeton had earlier noticed Benbow at the far end of the room, and marveled even from a distance at the transformation the years had wrought in him. She had followed his glamorous career with interest and had seen enough photographs of him to know what he looked like as a celebrity. Suddenly finding herself at his side quite disoriented her, though, and she clutched at his sleeve in agitation.

  “My dear Clive, I’m so sorry—I mean Cedric. That is, Mr. Benbow. I do apologize for interrupting, but that poor child is about to faint, I think. So very vulnerable . . . oh, dear, of course you wouldn’t remember me, would you?”

  Benbow looked down with distaste at the little hand on his sleeve and detached it fastidiously. Then he turned his head and surveyed Miss Seeton. “You have the advantage of me, madam,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t recall the pleasure . . . nor do I have the slightest idea who you’re talking about.”

  “She’s right, you know,” the other man cut in. “She means the Naseby girl. Very green about the gills. I’ll go over.”

  “So kind.” Miss Seeton smiled at him gratefully and watched him plow through the knot of people surrounding Marigold Naseby. Then she turned back to Cedric Benbow, who was surveying her, one hand to his chin. “How very good of your friend,” she said. “I’m afraid I could never have made my way through all those people.”

  “Why did you call me Clive? Should I know you?” There was a touch of South London in the voice now, very different from the supercilious drawl he had used a moment earlier.

  “I’m so sorry, but I was rather worried, you see, and of course when we were all students we always used to call you Clive, but I do realize that—”

  “Emmy! Little Emmy Seeton! Well, I’ll be blowed!” It was pure South London now, and to her delighted astonishment and the great surprise of those nearby, Cedric Benbow seized Miss Seeton and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “It took me a minute to place you; then I remembered the way you always used to lose track of what you were saying. I told you to sign up for one of those postal courses in memory training like Pelmanism, remember the adverts, Let Me Be Your Father? You never did, that’s obvious.” The pimply, eager boy he had once been momentarily grinned out through the cynical eyes of the aging poseur, but then retreated as Cedric Benbow remembered where he was. He also noticed that Marigold Naseby had disappeared and that his friend was returning. The drawl was back in place by the time the other man joined them again.

  “What a lovely surprise. Ah, there you are, dear boy. Emmy, allow me to introduce my old friend Sir Wormelow Tump. Wonky, this lady has known me even longer than you have. We were at art school together.” A quick glance at her left hand, then “This is Miss Emily Seeton.”

  chapter

  ~7~

  SIR SEBASTIAN Prothero strolled down Bond Street in a mood of pleasant expectation, planning to be among the first members of the general public to see the display of Lalique jewelry at the Szabo Gallery. He had toyed with the idea of wangling himself an invitation to the private view. That was the sort of thing Raffles or the Saint would do, but he had somewhat reluctantly decided that there was no sense in asking for trouble by mingling with people, some of whom would almost certainly be involved in the Rytham Hall photography project. Besides, it might be even more amusing to join the rubberneckers outside the gallery watching the invited guests leaving, then drop in at the Ritz five minutes’ walk away for lunch. The exhibition was due to open officially at two in the afternoon. Not all the pieces on show were destined to come into his possession in due course, but it would be pleasing to see what was on offer, as it were.

  He’d timed it beautifully. Quite a little crowd had gathered, wondering no doubt who was the VIP about to emerge and be driven away in the huge limousine drawn up outside, its smartly uniformed chauffeur waiting to open the passenger door. Prothero joined them, and after a very short time was delighted to see Marigold Naseby appear in the doorway in all the glamorous glory that provoked an audible intake of breath on the part of the two young women standing immediately in front of him. What pleased him especially was that she looked deathly pale, and that she was ushered to the car by several agitated-looking people who managed to get in one another’s way. Eventually the girl was safely installed in the car, and it glided away. Great. His phone call had obviously done the trick. She was terrified.

  Hang on, though. Who the hell was that old girl just coming out of the door? It couldn’t be, but it was, by crikey! The frightful woman who’d nearly throttled him and then babbled about sticking plaster. That blasted umbrella and all. Gazing round as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. What was she doing here? Who was she, for heaven’s sake?

  Prothero hastily dodged backward and sideways, turned his back, and pretended to be engrossed in the display of high-class leatherware in the shop next door. Thank the Lord she hadn’t spotted him. At least, he didn’t think she had. Too busy gassing to the young chap with her. All the same, it’d be wise to check up on her. Good, they’d gone off in the opposite direction. No real need to worry, of course. The old trout was so vague and dotty that she’d probably forgotten all about that crazy business outside Rytham Hall in any case.

  “Ar. By that gap down the bottom there. Er, I wouldn’t try that, not if I was you, Sarge. If you don’t mind me saying so,” P. C. Potter added hastily. He had a lively sense of his station and its duties, and the idea of promotion hadn’t for years entered his head, much less the slightest inclination to attempt the exams that towered Everest-like between him and three silver stripes. Mrs. Potter and Amelia Potter agreed that the head of their household was wise to leave well alone career-wise, while their cat, Tibs, offered no opinion.

  Potter therefore invariably treated Ranger—who was a frequent visitor to Plummergen in his capacity as the fiancé of Dr. Wright’s diminutive daughter, Anne—with the respect he considered due his exalted rank. This respect was enhanced by the fact that he, Potter, stood a fraction over five feet eight inches in his socks and the senior man six foot seven, with a frame he was wont to describe in conversation as being like a brick garage, Mrs. Potter having taken strong exception to the word her husband had originally used in place of garage.

  Detective Constable Foxon made no comment. Being from Ashford, he was worldly-wise, and was not impressed by mere sergeants, as such. He had indeed every expectation of becoming one himself within a year or two, and did not for a moment imagine he would stick at that level. He had seen a good deal of Bob Ranger in the past couple of years, and they got along together perfectly well. Nevertheless, he would rather have enjoyed watching the gigantic Scotland Yard man trying to explore a gap whose dimensions would have made even an adventurous nine-year-old boy pause for thought. It was therefore with a passing twinge of regret that he saw Ranger pause, shake his head, and stand up again.

  “Must have been a slender sort of chap to get in there, let alone out again,” he suggested.

  Ranger grinned. “Must have been a very little chap to be laid out by Miss S.,” he said. “Why, she’s even smaller than Anne.”

  “That’s as may be, Sarge,” Potter ventured, “but she’s pulled a few funnier stunts than that in
her time.”

  Ranger was so tall that by raising himself up on his toes he alone among the three was able to look quite easily over the thick hawthorn hedge. This he did for perhaps twenty seconds before responding. Then he addressed himself to Foxon. “You’ve got to admit he’s right,” he said. “Damn funny place to pick for bird-watching, if you ask me. She was sure about the bird-watching, was she? When you spoke to her that same afternoon.”

  Foxon shrugged. “Well, yes, but you know what she’s like. Goes all round the sun to find the moon. She only had his word for it, of course. That and the binoculars. Very well-spoken geezer, once he got his breath back, she said. Good clothes, the sort huntin’, shootin’ ’n’ fishin’ types turn up in at point-to-points. What was left of them, presumably, after she and this hedge were both finished with him.”

  Ranger looked down at the scuffed Hush Puppies on his own feet and his polyester slacks and short-sleeve shirt from Marks and Spencer. Anne had never breathed a word of criticism of his clothes, but Ranger had eyes in his head and had begun to scrutinize his future father-in-law’s wardrobe and make mental notes.

  “Did you speak to the Nuts, too?”

  “Be more accurate to say they spoke to me. At me. According to them he was a poor old man, old age pensioner very like, harmlessly communing with nature when Miss S. creeps up behind him and launches this savage assault on him with her brolly. Tries to defend himself, which does not a bit of good according to our Bunny and Eric. Miss S. obviously thinks she’s done for him, well satisfied, then she’s taken aback when the presumed corpse shows signs of life. At this point our gallant Nuts belt off to get hold of the long arm of the law here and leave it up to him to referee the second round.”

  Potter nodded sagely. “This old bike o’ mine might not do for the Toor dee France, Sarge, but I didn’t waste much time getting here. Even so, no Miss Seeton, no birdwatcher. No blood, neither,” he added thoughtfully.

  “By then Miss Seeton was drinking coffee with Lady Colveden over there in the Hall. No doubt about that. And I can think of two good reasons why there was no sign of her alleged victim. One, because apart from being all shook up, he was perfectly all right and sensibly decided to put a good distance between himself and Miss Seeton’s umbrella; and two, because he’d been up to no good. Right, Foxon?”

  “Right on.”

  “Did the Nuts offer any sort of theory as to why a retired art teacher on her way to visit Lady Colveden should have wanted to set about this innocent, or why he himself hasn’t seen fit to complain?”

  “Not really. No, I tell a lie. Several. Those two have theories like some people have mice. Why did she attack him? Because she’s a homicidal maniac, because she’s a witch—”

  “Oh, Lord, not that one again!”

  “Hang on, I’ve hardly started yet. Because she’s in league with the Freemasons and this chap had been giving away their secrets, because she has friends at Court who send her secret messages—”

  “They’re off their trolley.”

  Foxon sniffed in scorn. “You’re telling me? Of course they are. Even if they weren’t to start with, living with either of them’d be quite enough to drive the other one round the bend. Nuts by name, nuts by nature. I know that, you know that, Potter here knows that. But I haven’t finished yet. Why didn’t the victim report the attack? Because he did die in the end, she disposed of the corpse, and some picnickers will stumble on it one of these days. Or on the other hand, perhaps he survived but is so terrified of Miss S. that he’s lying low and hoping to goodness she thinks her mission was accomplished and will therefore lay off him in future, or—need I go on?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Still want to find out who he was, though. Imagine your guv’nor Mr. Brinton does, too.”

  P. C. Potter had been listening to this battle of wits between the Titans with some awe, but now timidly intervened. “We got a description, Sarge.”

  Foxon rounded on him. “Which do you favor, Potter, the old age pensioner the Nuts pitied while Miss S. was giving him a knuckle sandwich, or the bird-watcher with the hoity-toity voice and the high-class threads?”

  His irony was wasted on the honest soul. “Well, I reckon we’d do better to go by Miss Seeton, meself. She took him for a bird-watcher ’cos that’s what he told her, see. But like the sarge said, he could have been looking through them glasses to spy out the land, like. On account of these here jools.”

  “Good thinking, Potter,” Foxon said keenly, and Ranger scowled at him.

  “Put a sock in it, Foxon. We’ve put it about in Plummergen that I’m on leave, but we all know I’m really on duty, and I’m as keen as Mr. Brinton is—and you should be—to find out as much as I can about any suspicious characters seen nosing about Rytham Hall. The magazine circus will be here in a couple of days and the sparklers soon after. Go on, Potter. I agree with you, but it’s not much of a description, is it? Miss Seeton’s, I mean. Upper-class voice, well dressed, probably getting on for forty and with wavy hair.” Ranger turned briefly to Foxon. “She told Lady Colveden that as well as you.” Then back to Potter. “Heck of a lot of people fit that description.”

  “Ar, very like, but Martha Bloomer told me this morning as how Miss Seeton’s been at her sketching pad. Must have been after she got back from London yesterday evening. Young Nigel Colveden took her to see some exhibition. Seems to me as how she might have done one of them pictures of hers, what she does without thinking. Of this here chap in this here hedge.”

  Ranger smote himself on the forehead. “Good grief, it never even entered my head to ask her to draw—”

  “An’ what I reckon is,” Potter continued remorselessly, for if it took him a while to get warmed up, it took him just as long to simmer down again, “that if we was to proceed to Sweetbriars now in a horderly fashion and ask the good lady to be good enough to let us have a look at them sketches, we might find what they call a speakin’ likeness of this here chap.” His two colleagues looked at him with unwonted respect.

  “An’ what’s more,” Potter added to clinch matters before finally subsiding, “I reckon we’ll get a cup of tea and a bit of Martha’s fruitcake.”

  Recognizing that the village constable had surpassed himself, Ranger nodded, Foxon nodded, and the three of them set off.

  “Yes, I’ve got the photocopies in front of me now,” Delphick said. “I’m more than grateful to you for sending them up by car, Chris. Extraordinary, aren’t they? But then, her sketches always are. I wonder why she represented the fellow as a bird.” The line from Ashford wasn’t very good, and he strained to hear Brinton’s reply.

  “Because he said he was a bird-watcher? Yes, I follow your reasoning, but in my experience the lady’s subconscious mind works in subtler and more mysterious ways than that. What we’ve got here isn’t the kind of bird that frequents the hedgerows of Kent. It’s more like the sort that hovers over exhausted explorers in the middle of nowhere. What? No, the face doesn’t immediately ring a bell with our Rogues Gallery chaps, but they’re working on it. Look, Chris, this is a bad line, and I’ve got a queue of people banging on my door. I’ll get back to you. Thanks again.”

  It wasn’t strictly true that anyone was waiting to see him. In fact, it wasn’t true at all. Delphick simply wanted to brood in peace over the photocopies of the sketches Miss Seeton had handed over to Messrs. Ranger, Foxon, and Potter. No doubt with the usual embarrassed protestations that they were just ridiculous doodles, of no conceivable interest to anyone.

  Delphick smiled at the thought. There would of course have been no question of her refusing: Miss Seeton had—or gave the impression of having—only a very imperfect understanding of the nature of the services she rendered to Scotland Yard, but was clearly honored to be in their employ even if the computer did insist on addressing her payslips to ‘Miss Ess.’ Not in Delphick’s view that she was paid anything like enough: just a small monthly retainer and expenses when appro
priate.

  On the face of it, Miss Seeton’s modesty about her technical skills was quite justified. She knew her history of art inside out, could draw and paint competently, and had, Delphick knew, been a successful, even inspiring teacher for many years. He had, however, seen a good many of her own informal sketches and more carefully executed paintings and found them generally pleasing, but hardly ever more than that. It was only when she was on automatic pilot, as it were, that she produced the weird works of genius she referred to dismissively as doodles or caricatures, the sketches that made Delphick stand in awe of the depth and power of her imagination, and sometimes argue to Sir Hubert Everleigh that she must be a true clairvoyant.

  He wished he had the originals of the three now in front of him rather than photocopies. Fortunately, however, Miss Seeton had on this occasion used the clean, bold lines of the cartoonist rather than going in for any subtlety of shading, and the copies were entirely satisfactory for his immediate purpose. Delphick looked for a few seconds at each in turn, then began again, taking much longer the second time.

  The first sheet had three drawings on it, all involving the mysterious bird-watcher. At the top of the sheet he was flying over a recognizable Rytham Hall, beside which stood a tiny but vividly convincing Sir George Colveden aiming a shotgun at him. The bottom left-hand corner showed the birdman at rest, perched brooding on top of a hedge from the bottom of which two human legs protruded. The biggest drawing occupied the center of the page, and was the most disturbing, for it vividly suggested that the creature was attacking the artist. It was a vulture-like bird; it was also a man, and a credible man at that, even with the nose grotesquely elongated into a beak and the fingers transfigured into talons.