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

by Hampton Charles

  The second sheet bore a single drawing only: of two elderly men in conversation, in the middle of a crowd suggested with uncanny effect by no more than a couple of scribbles with the charcoal. This sketch was in the manner of a Spy cartoon, the proportions distorted but otherwise conventional enough: the heads greatly enlarged and the bodies dwindling almost to nothing.

  Delphick thought he recognized one of the faces as belonging to somebody famous. Who the devil could it be? Noel Coward? Somerset Maugham? Trevor Howard? No, not Trevor Howard. Howard’s face was battered and cratered like the surface of the moon, certainly, but this chap—for some reason depicted in schoolboy shorts and holding a catapult—was more . . . got it! Benbow! Disfigured, and a far cry from the old smoothie whom he had often seen waffling away on television chat shows, but Cedric Benbow without a doubt.

  Delphick hadn’t a clue who the other one might be. Elegant, aloof, typical establishment figure. Clubman, but Carlton or Athenaeum rather than Garrick or Reform. Delphick peered more closely at the picture. Were this top person’s fingers crossed behind his back? Yes. Now, why on earth should Miss Seeton have dreamed up a gesture like that?

  Delphick turned to the third sheet, which again was given up to a single drawing, to him the most mysterious of the lot. Benbow and his companion again appeared—just their faces this time—among those of a number of other men evidently getting on in years, spectators apparently, or more probably voyeurs. For the picture was dominated by the figure of a nude girl. Head bowed, sorrowful but seemingly resigned, she was turned half away from the onlookers. She held a filmy drapery up to her right shoulder in such a way that it partially concealed her right breast and thighs, and appeared to be oblivious to the presence in the background of the birdman, now further transformed into something more like a lizard, or dragon perhaps, with a huge tail.

  The picture made him feel depressed, and after pondering over it for some time Delphick turned back to the first sheet. The little caricature of Sir George in his riding breeches cheered him up no end. Miss Seeton had him down to a tee. It would be just like the old boy to take a pot at any nightmarish creature out of Hieronymus Bosch that presumed to invade his domain.

  chapter

  ~8~

  “FOR PETE’S sake stop saying over and over again ‘How could you, Harry?’ I’ve already told you I didn’t, and if you don’t believe me, I’m going to put this phone down right now. Okay? Now stop grizzling and listen. It’s possible Kevin might have done the dirty. I don’t like saying it, but he’s not above helping himself to loose change out of my coat pocket, and he’s got a few friends I wouldn’t trust further than I could throw ’em. If Kevin came across those negs in the filing cabinet, and you suddenly in the big time, well . . . I’ve had it out with him, anyway. He denies it, of course, says all sorts of people are in and out, and often on their own long enough to have a good rummage round. And I can’t deny that’s true. Anyway, whether he nicked those pics or didn’t, we’ve busted up. I’m moving out and getting my own place.”

  “That’s all very well for you, but what am I going to do?”

  “Do? Tell this mystery man to piss off, that’s what. Call his bluff. Listen, Wendy, I’m the guy who took those photos, remember? They’re nothing. You can get mags full of pics like that and a hell of a lot stronger at any station bookstall.”

  “Not of Jean Shrimpton or Twiggy you can’t.”

  Not for the first time, Harry Manning reminded himself that during the past few weeks a certain amount of Wendy Smith’s naïveté had worn off. Was it so ridiculous now for her to see herself up there with models whose names were household words? Especially in view of this fantastic possibility that looked like it was coming her way? He ought to try to look at it from the kid’s point of view.

  “Yes, well, I can see how you’d be upset. You’re right, some of the papers might pay a bundle for them. And that could muck up your career. Mind you, the Mode people have put so much into this project already that I can’t see them dropping you at this stage whatever happens. But look, Wendy, if you won’t tell me what this man’s after, how should I know how you ought to handle it? What’s he want? Lolly? Everybody says you should go straight to the fuzz if you’re being blackmailed. Listen, I’ve just thought, Mel knows a pretty big cheese at Scotland Yard. I bet if you tell her about it she could—” He held the receiver away from his ear as a heartrending wail interrupted him.

  “I can’t tell Mel. And I can’t tell you! I wish I could, but I daren’t. Not till after, anyway, because of, well, just because, that’s why. . . .”

  Long after she had put the telephone down Wendy remained in the corner of the sumptuous sofa in her room at the Dorchester, curled up with a thumb in her mouth and wondering if it was all really worth the hassle. She would have given a lot to be back in their grotty flat, sitting in the kitchen with June and tucking into a biriani from the Moti Mahal takeaway near the tube station. S’pose she did tell the phone man to piss off like Harry said, and the photos got into Men Only? What was so great about Harper’s, Vogue, and the other posh glossies anyway? She bet Playboy paid just as much or even more, and some of those centerfold girls got offered jobs in pictures.

  For a little while life seemed possible again, but then the all-too-familiar lurching sensation in her stomach returned as the vision of Alfie, Uncle George, and the Slicer swam back into her consciousness. Especially the Slicer. She hadn’t met any of these friends of the phone man yet and devoutly hoped she never would, but they were with her every waking hour. She just somehow knew that Alfie was thin, scruffy, and furtive, a bit like that big brother of Wayne at school. The one who used to hang around when the girls were playing netball and stare at their navy blue knickers.

  Uncle George was more like the fruit-and-veg man in the street market, fat and jolly, you’d think at first until you saw his little piggy eyes and his slobbery mouth when he took a nip out of the half bottle of whisky he kept in his pocket. Then there was the creepy way he always tickled your palm when he gave you your change. Yuck.

  As for the Slicer, well, he was straight out of a horror movie. His features weren’t clear in her mind because he wore one of those scary stocking masks that made his nose and lips go all squashy, but he was big and strong, and the open razor he carried glittered blue when the light caught it.

  And oh, Gawd, never mind the papers, if she didn’t do what he said, the phone man would put the Slicer on to her, and he’d get his jollies cutting her up, and if that happened, they wouldn’t even have her back at Woolworth’s, let alone the Playboy Club down Park Lane there. And the phone man would: you could bet your boots on that. He sounded so icy cold, ruthless, and confident. . . .

  • • •

  Sir Sebastian Prothero had recovered from the jolt he had experienced on seeing that mad old biddy coming out of the Szabo Gallery and now felt cool, laid-back, and confident. The first reconnaissance visit to Rytham Hall might have been a pretty fair disaster, but the second had more than made up for it. Before setting out he’d thought about ways and means of getting hold of a post office telephone van for an hour or two but then reminded himself that simplicity had always been the hallmark of his modus operandi. That, presence of mind, and a certain amount of cheek.

  So, no nonsense, straight round to the back door this time, in the white overalls with a couple of screwdrivers in the top pocket and the old telephone handset from the electrical junk shop in Tottenham Court Road tucked under his arm. Pair of headphones sticking out of another pocket. A workaday voice for the benefit of the housekeeper: skilled man, but no toff.

  “Morning! Colveden, Rytham Hall, right? Family all out? Never mind, no need to bother them. Several callers recently been having difficulty getting through, had to get the operator to help them. Quick check of the main phone and, let’s see, two Plan Seven extensions, isn’t it?

  “Three? There they go again, those boneheads in records probably forget their own addresses half the time. Trouble
you to show me all four? Thanks, but better if you don’t mind being there, keep an eye on me, you know? Covers me, too, you see, anybody misses something and decides the phone man must have had sticky fingers. Shouldn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes all told.”

  In fact, just over eight minutes in all had sufficed for him to fiddle in turn with all four of the handsets in the house, nod wisely over them, and cause the master instrument in the hall to ring insistently. Another four minutes to memorize the layout, and then casually, “Right, seems okay now; give us a ring if you have any more trouble. I’ll let you get on with your work now. Just have a glance at the outside wiring, then be on my way. . . . What? Nice of you; thanks all the same, but I had a cup out of my thermos just before I disturbed you. Ta-ra then.”

  All most satisfactory. Might have been tricky if it had been a case of going in there and lifting the jewelry. Impossible, really, for one man who worked alone because he believed if you wanted a job well done you should do it yourself. All right, this time he wasn’t strictly working alone. Because that empty-headed little dollybird was going to drop tens of thousands of pounds worth of goodies out of the bathroom window, wasn’t she? Because she knew what was good for her. Because she believed in bogeymen like Uncle George, Alfie, and the Slicer. Prothero thought the Slicer was definitely one of his better inventions, made up on the spur of the moment on his way back to his flat after acquiring those boring cheesecake photos.

  Still, commonplace little tart though she might be, this girl who called herself Marigold Naseby was the best accomplice he was ever likely to have, and within a few days several priceless Lalique masterpieces would be in his possession. Then Phase Two would begin.

  The chain-smoking Amsterdam jeweler who was his regular fence and knew him only as Henry had taught Prothero a lot. He knew quite well that museum pieces like the ones he was about to acquire were for all intents and purposes unsalable. They were nevertheless definitely negotiable, and Prothero looked forward very much to his forthcoming anonymous battle of wits with the insurance people. He could take his time; he didn’t need the money particularly—he was just enjoying the awareness that he was smarter than the police. He’d made monkeys of several provincial forces already since deciding to become a gentleman burglar, and was in no doubt that he could do the same with the flatfoots of Kent.

  “Chummy’s getting too big for his boots,” Chief Inspector Brinton said with grim satisfaction to Bob Ranger after the housekeeper at Rytham Hall had left the room, beetroot red with embarrassment. “That was a very bright idea of Potter’s, to show her Miss Seeton’s birdman. Saucy sod! Checking the phones, was he? I’ll show him personally where he can put his screwdriver when I catch him.”

  “It’s funny in a way, sir. Miss Seeton always refers to the work she does for us as ‘drawing Identikit pictures,’ whereas we’ve hardly ever actually asked her to. She has for all intents and purposes produced them from time to time, but we’ve never used them in the conventional way. And we certainly couldn’t do it with this.” Ranger pulled a face at the single sketch they had shown the housekeeper, to the poor woman’s great consternation. It was the one depicting the grotesque bird perched on the hedge.

  “Show it on the TV, you mean, print it in the papers, put up posters—HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? No, you’re right. The media’d fall about laughing, even though the housekeeper recognized his ugly mug right off. I can hear them telling us to try the zoo.” He scowled, then brightened. “Get one of your regular police artists to adapt it, perhaps? You know, turn it into a normal sort of human phiz but keep the likeness?”

  “Might be worth trying, I suppose, sir. But then on the other hand it could be both premature and counterproductive to go in for mass publicity. Chap hasn’t committed any crime so far as we know—not yet, at least. He was seen looking through a hedge by the side of the public highway: tens of thousands of people do that every day. And it wasn’t as if he broke in here. The housekeeper let him in and showed him round. And she stressed that he’d wanted her as a witness to make sure he didn’t nick anything. Put his likeness in the paper, identify him by name, and he could have us in a very awkward spot, wrongful arrest, police harassment, defamation of character, you name it.”

  “All right, all right, Ranger, don’t rub it in, man. Of course, the Yard can’t say for sure that he hasn’t got any form, but they’ve had a good look through a hell of a lot of mug shots and haven’t come up with any known villain who looks remotely like this beauty. So what about you coming up with something we can do instead of pointing out all the things we can’t?”

  “It’s Tump all right,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fenn said. “With Cedric Benbow. Well, I’ll be . . . needn’t have gone to all that trouble to get her invited to Buckingham Palace, need I?”

  Sir Hubert Everleigh regarded him blandly over the top of his glasses. “I must say you’re easily pleased, old boy. Got all you want, have you? Trot over to Curzon Street— ‘Here you are, my dear old MI5 chaps—open-and-shut case. Feller’s obviously got a guilty secret: look at the way he keeps his fingers crossed.’ I’d rather you than me.”

  “Ah. Yes, see what you mean. Rather convenient that she’s going to get a second look at him next week. Better wait and see if she comes up with anything else, perhaps. Extraordinary, though, that she should have bumped into him like that.”

  “Not really. That picture’s one of three. More than three, actually; three sheets, I mean. Produced by Miss Seeton when she got home from the Szabo Gallery in Bond Street. According to the Oracle she’d been to a private view there. I fancy I saw something about it in the Evening Standard myself.”

  “I wonder how Cedric Benbow and Wormelow Tump came to be there?”

  “That’s easily explained. Delphick told me all about it. It was one of those, what d’you call ’ems, media events. Apparently old Benbow’s been hired by one of those glossy magazines women read under the hair dryer. You know, horoscopes, articles about Tuscany, adverts for fur coats and corsets—only my wife says they don’t call them corsets nowadays. Benbow’s going to take pictures of a lot of damn ridiculous clothes, fin de siècle look or something, and they’re making a big thing of it. Borrowed a collection of priceless period jewelry from the Continent to go with ’em—the frocks, I mean. And the magazine got together with the Szabo Gallery people; share the expenses no doubt. Joint sponsors, special exhibition of the jewelry, very rarely on display, I gather. Couple of pounds to get in. Stuff like that’s very much in Wormelow Tump’s line, of course; hence they have him along there. Seal of approval, you see.”

  “Yes. Hardly Miss Seeton’s style, though, I should have thought.”

  “Not ordinarily, no. But Benbow’s going to take his pictures next week in Plummergen of all places, where Miss Seeton lives. Old George Colveden’s giving the magazine the run of Rytham Hall. Cut a long story short, Colveden’s a Justice of the Peace, golfing crony of the chief constable down there—what’s his name?—Rupert something. Bit twitchy about having all this fancy jewelry on his premises, so Rupert—Rupert? No, Robin, perhaps—anyway, the Chief Constable passed the word down the line for an eye to be kept on the place.”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you mean, yes? Haven’t I made myself clear?”

  “Not entirely, Sir Hubert.” Following the ticking off to which he had been subjected when last in the assistant commissioner’s office, the Special Branch man was treading delicately. “I mean, I don’t quite see why the Oracle and Miss Seeton are involved.”

  “Delphick’s involved because the fellow in charge at Ashford rang to ask his advice. Delphick’s sergeant’s engaged to the doctor’s daughter in Plummergen, so he’s well-known about the place, and the Oracle agreed to shunt him down there while the photography’s going on. And Miss Seeton went to this private view because Colveden’s son took her. Wait a minute: I’ve just realized your man Tump’s in another one of her pictures.”

  Sir Hubert rooted through
the papers on his desk, found Miss Seeton’s drawing of the nude girl and the elderly voyeurs, and handed it over. Fenn contemplated it for a while in silence and then emitted a low whistle. “I say, bit near the knuckle for a retired spinster, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be an ass, she’s the most matter-of-fact person in the world about nudity. She was attending life classes at art college long before you even started swapping dirty jokes at prep school. Doesn’t stop her being a perfect lady. What do you make of it?”

  “Well, it’s an extraordinary picture by any reckoning. But it doesn’t throw any more light on Tump, I’m sure you’d agree. Just his face; same sort of expression as the others gawking at her. Have we any idea who the girl is?”

  “Yes, she’s Cedric Benbow’s model. Chose her himself it seems. Some sort of competition; thousands of girls applied. She was at the Szabo Gallery do as well. Not starkers, though, I need hardly add. That was just the way Miss Seeton saw her.”

  “Good likeness, though?”

  “I think we can take that for granted. Pretty child, don’t you think? Can’t help feeling sorry for her somehow, can you?”

  chapter

  ~9~

  “OH, DO stop fussing, George,” Meg Colveden said at last, with what was for her a rare show of exasperation. Her husband was sufficiently taken aback to lower his newspaper and look at her with raised eyebrows. “Nigel has everything under control, and after all, it was you who agreed to all this in the first place.”