Remaining where he was for the moment, Prothero cautiously raised his head and surveyed the scene. Fantastic! The foliage of the trees gave him virtually perfect cover, but there were gaps enough for him to see the house clearly, and most of the garden on that side. In fact, things couldn’t have worked out better. About fifty yards away a gaggle of people stood about, but they were all much too intent on what was going on to spare even a casual glance in his direction.
Mind you, one couldn’t really blame them. Dumb popsy she undoubtedly was, but one had to admit old Benbow had chosen well in picking the Naseby piece to be his clotheshorse. And talk about pennies from heaven to compensate for the bad time yesterday evening! Benbow’d taken it into his head to work outside this morning, and thus give yours truly a preview of the goodies to come. Prothero had scarcely dared to hope for such a bonus. He had gone to some trouble during the planning stage to find out what he could about Lalique and the sort of people he had made jewelry for, and the impression left in his mind was very much that his pieces were intended to be appreciated inside, if not a boudoir, at least a luxuriously furnished room.
The idea of outdoor fashion photographs to him suggested a haughty young woman in a dog-tooth tweed classic suit and court shoes, one gloved hand resting lightly on the hood of a gleaming Bentley parked outside the massive portcullis of a Scottish castle. With a wolfhound or some other oversize dog in attendance. Yet here was Benbow prancing about setting the scene for an alfresco study of an altogether different kind. He’d got Marigold Naseby draped over a chaise longue, hardly the sort of thing normally pressed into service as garden furniture, but it looked fine where it was.
From a distance she looked pretty good, too, in a longsleeve gown of what had to be heavy silk, dull gold in color, and with a headdress like an abbreviated turban made of the same material. This covered her ears and part of her forehead, and held most of her hair in place, all except the part that drifted luxuriantly over the collarbone area. The flowing sleeves of the gown terminated in long, closely fitting buttoned cuffs, and running down from the simple collar, almost like that of an open shirt, was another long line of buttons. This gave the gown something of the look of a Catholic prelate’s soutane—except that the buttons ran out above the knee so that it parted to reveal elegantly crossed, silk-sheathed legs and lustrous brown chunky platform shoes.
Best of all from Prothero’s point of view was the fact that Marigold Naseby’s waist was encircled by what looked like a massive silver chain, while she appeared to be wearing at least three huge rings on her fingers. The headdress was either secured or adorned at the front with an elaborate brooch, and . . . in short, provided the stupid creature didn’t chicken out at the last moment, things were looking very good indeed. Right, mustn’t lie there gawping: time to get going.
Prothero inched along the wall until he was hidden from the people in the garden by a decent-size tree. Then he lowered himself carefully to the ground, gained the cover of the shrubbery within seconds, and crept into position within sight of the lavatory window. There he glanced at his watch. Excellent. Ten to eleven. He was absolutely certain nobody could have spotted him.
“Bang on time, sir,” Ranger murmured into his walkie-talkie. We’ve spotted him in the shrubbery. Better close down now until after he picks up the stuff and we nab him. Can’t risk his hearing anything.”
“Right. I’m at the back door now, ready to come out and join you as soon as the balloon goes up. Shutting down. Maintain radio silence. Birdlime One out.”
Brinton fished in his pocket for one of the triple-strength peppermints to which he was hopelessly addicted and popped one into his mouth. It was all going like clockwork. Potter’s message had come as no surprise, but it was good to have his own hunch confirmed. And now they had Chummy literally in their sights, for he had not only spotted him climbing up onto the top of the wall, but himself photographed him as he reclined there, from inside the house, using a telephoto lens.
The car had been immobilized, and its registration number phoned through to headquarters, which would probably have traced its ownership by the time he had the singular pleasure of breathing down Chummy’s neck. Potter and his colleague were mounting guard over the car against the unimaginably remote possibility of Chummy’s giving them the slip at Rytham Hall; and the remaining two men, with their lightweight ladder, had been moved into the track beside the wall, ready to nip over and join the fray in the garden as soon as the moment arrived.
The only civilian outside in the garden, apart from the girl herself, who had any idea what was going on was Cedric Benbow, and Brinton paused for a second, metaphorically raising his hat to the man. Benbow might be a screaming old queen, but he could be coolly workmanlike when he chose. At five to eleven he was going to find something minutely wrong with Marigold’s headdress, lean over her to fuss with it, and whether or not the girl managed to come out with her lines would pretend she had. Then, having with exaggerated tetchiness banished her to the bathroom, he would in her absence throw a temper tantrum he had personally guaranteed would keep his entourage—including Liz—rooted to their places for the following ten or fifteen minutes.
Miss Seeton was a good old soul, too, sitting there quietly in the improvised changing room waiting for the girl to come into the house and then do the necessary. With that featherheaded dolly probably in too much of a state to remember what day it was, let alone the prescribed drill, it would very likely be Miss Seeton who would help her take the jewelry off, and Miss Seeton who’d wrap it up in toilet paper and sling it out of the window for her. She might be a proper old nuisance from time to time, but she’d earned her retainer all right over the last couple of days. And to think the only reason he’d appealed to the Oracle at Scotland Yard in the first place was because he was convinced she’d somehow contrive to gum up the works merely because she happened to live within walking distance of Rytham Hall!
Ah, well, nearly over. It would have been rather nice to count on being there at the end of the day, the whole project successfully completed, Benbow’s gear all packed up, and to be able to watch the Securicor van drive off with the Lalique collection intact. Still, it was quite a consolation to think that instead he’d very likely be sitting in an interview room in Ashford across from Chummy, who would by then have a name, and Brinton would be pointing out to him one by one the errors of his ways.
Chief Inspector Brinton looked at his watch for the umpteenth time and moved to a point near the kitchen door where he had an oblique view of part of the entrance hall. Right, any minute now, and . . . there she was, bang on time. Good girl! And Miss Seeton moving out to help her, reassuring murmurs . . . great!
He helped himself to another peppermint.
chapter
~18~
IN THE musty gloom of the toolshed, Detective Constable Foxon caught Detective Sergeant Ranger’s eye, glanced down at his watch, and then raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Ranger nodded and then resumed his vigil at the small, high window, which he was tall enough to see out of. Foxon had to content himself with peering through a crack that had opened up between two of the wall planks. It was zero hour, and the silence was becoming oppressive.
From their vantage point the two police officers could see both the lavatory window and, since they now knew exactly where to look, Chummy, crouched in concealment in the shrubbery. The window was, like all the others in the house, of the attractive, old-fashioned sash type, the wooden frames painted white. As also in the case of the kitchen farther along, a Vent-axia extractor fan had been built into the wall alongside, but on that balmy summer morning the upper part of the window was lowered to leave an opening about six inches deep, behind which light curtains stirred in the gentle breeze.
Or was it the breeze? No! Something was happening. The window was eased down further two or three inches, the curtains parted briefly, and a clumsily wrapped package sailed out. Both policemen saw the mystery man sprint forward and immediately threw th
emselves into action, Ranger shouting “GO, GO, GO!” which he had noticed was the order favored by officers in command of elite special forces when storming buildings occupied by terrorists. As Birdlime Two, he wanted to give just as impressive a performance in his own way as Chief Inspector Brinton had when handling the walkie-talkie. He had prudently left the toolshed door unlatched, and Foxon was the first to reach it.
Unfortunately Ranger, crowding him from behind, failed to remember to duck his head, which came into collision with one of the four-by-two joists that supported the roof. This caused him to trip over a watering can and fall forward, his outstretched arms catching Foxon behind the knees and bringing him down with a crash. Swearing with heartfelt eloquence, Foxon extracted himself from the tangle and scrambled to his feet, just in time to see the thief scoop up the package and turn to jink back into the cover of the bushes.
At that moment Chief Inspector Brinton burst out of the kitchen door. “YOU! STOP! POLICE!” he bellowed. The man did in fact hesitate, because at the same time two other policemen came crashing through the bushes toward him. Foxon sighed with relief: it looked as if in spite of that blundering oaf Ranger’s efforts they had him cornered after all. Oh, perhaps not quite yet: the crafty sod had seen just one way out of the police ambush—by darting toward the kitchen door Brinton had just emerged from, just as a second package came sailing out through the lavatory window. You had to hand it to the chap; he caught it with his free hand on the run like a rugger forward and disappeared into the house.
Brinton skidded round, shaking his head from side to side like a frustrated bull. “Round to the front, Foxon! Get some help on the way!” he shouted, then waved wildly at the policemen in the shrubbery. “You two—in here!”
“There seems to be a great deal of commotion in the house, dear,” Miss Seeton said to Wendy, who was well aware of the fact and was cowering behind a rack of gowns in the changing room. Miss Seeton had taken her there in order to attend to the matter of the jewelry, and there Wendy had every intention of remaining for the foreseeable future. “And indeed outside, too. I think I will just go and see what is happening.” Miss Seeton went to the door, paused briefly in thought, and then retrieved her umbrella, which she had deposited near the fireplace, before leaving the room.
Wendy remained where she was for a while, but then it began to sink in that for the first time in what seemed like ages she was no longer burdened by the need to follow anybody’s instructions. Not the terrifying telephone man’s, nor any of the confusing things Cedric Benbow and various coppers had been telling her what and what not to do. That Miss Seeton was a nice enough old girl, but she was totally gaga and you couldn’t work out what she was on about most of the time, so it was a relief to see the back of her for a while. That just left old Cedric, and with all this rumpus going on he’d hardly expect her back out there in the garden yet. In any case, what with all the yelling, and the fuzz in their dirty great boots thundering up and down the corridor you couldn’t hardly hear yourself think. All the same, it sounded sort of interesting, and it might be . . .
Wendy was young, healthy, and feeling very much better. Natural curiosity vied with the all-too-vivid memory of her earlier dread. Natural curiosity soon prevailed. She went to the door, listened, opened it the merest crack, and then wide enough to enable her to peep out into the spacious entrance hall. The scene that met her eyes was, she decided at once, better than TV. So much so that she opened the door wide, fetched a chair, and stood on it in the doorway to get a better view. Even without the jewelry, in her opulent gown and headdress she looked distinctly Wagnerian.
Halfway down the great staircase a purple-faced Sir George Colveden was bravely standing his ground in spite of the fact that Sir Sebastian Prothero was posed two steps above him, menacing him with his own shotgun. The two toilet tissue-wrapped packages he had purloined were reposing a little farther up the staircase. At its foot, what seemed like an enormous number of people were milling about, which added to the operatic effect.
With their backs more or less to Wendy were Chief Inspector Brinton, a still slightly dazed Bob Ranger, the two policemen he had summoned to follow him back into the house, and Nigel Colveden with Smithers the Securicor man, both having emerged from the music room to which they had been banished in order to place the library at Brinton’s disposal. At stage right, so to speak, were those who had come in through the open front door. Detective Constable Foxon was in front, attended by a goggle-eyed Sir Wormelow Tump and a much more composed Ferencz Szabo. Wendy hardly knew who was what, but she certainly recognized Mel Forby well to the fore, and wondered where on earth she’d sprung from.
Cedric Benbow was struggling to get closer to the action, but was being restrained by his factotum and the rest of his professional retinue, who were being treated to a stream of ripe South London invective for their pains. Lady Colveden, who had also been of the party in the garden, was standing a little to one side, a hand to her mouth in horror as she gazed transfixed at her embattled husband. She almost alone among the company seemed to be bereft of speech.
For it must not be supposed that the drama of the scene lacked appropriate dialogue. On the contrary, there was an excess of it. Sir George was shouting at Prothero, who was not bothering to answer, being understandably deep in thought. Benbow, we have already noted, was shouting at his numerous assistants. And Brinton was shouting by turns at Ranger, Foxon, Sir George, and Prothero.
Then Ferencz Szabo came into his own: or, to put it more accurately, Frank Taylor did. A nostalgic gleam came into his eye, his chest swelled mightily as he sucked in a vast quantity of air, and the voice that had once been envied by no less a personage than his wartime company sergeant major roared out, effortlessly drowning all others: “BELT UP, YOU ’ORRIBLE SHOWER! OR I’LL ’AVE YER GUTS FER GARTERS!”
A stunned silence fell, into which the reincarnated Frank Taylor spoke again, this time in the crisp, authoritative tones of the regular army officer. “You there! Yes, you, the bloody fool on the stairs! What the devil do you think you’re playing at? Lower that damned shotgun immediately!” All eyes, even Prothero’s, were, at least for a few seconds, on the exquisitely dressed figure and the bland face from which issued such incongruous sounds. All except those of Miss Seeton, whose umbrella handle rose up delicately from within the huddle of people at the foot of the stairs, silently hooked one of the two packages behind Prothero, and pulled it through the banisters so that it fell into her hands.
“You know, I don’t believe you were telling the truth when you told me you were a bird-watcher,” Miss Seeton remarked in a clear voice that in its way had almost as great an effect as Ferencz Szabo’s military impersonations. “And to think that I felt quite sorry for you when you scratched yourself and fell into the canal!”
Prothero had whirled round at the first sound of her voice, though keeping the shotgun aimed at Sir George. He glanced quickly behind him and then, when it registered with him that one of the packages had disappeared, glanced again. Snarling wordlessly, he reached behind him for the remaining one and caught hold of it in such a way that he was left holding a length of toilet paper while the contents bumped slowly down the staircase in front of him.
The sight of the shrunken head from the royal collection and the little face gazing up at him disapprovingly quite unmanned Prothero. The barrels of the shotgun wavered and drooped, and with what would in most circumstances have been a suicidal lunge Sir George was able to retrieve his property and cradle it protectively to his chest. To make assurance doubly sure Miss Seeton applied her umbrella handle again, this time to Prothero’s right ankle, and brought him down neatly into Bob Ranger’s welcoming arms. Bob forced him to the floor face-downward and sat on him.
“Got you this time, you cocky bugger,” he remarked then, laboring the point rather, since he weighed two hundred and twenty-four pounds.
“Be careful!” Sir Wormelow yelped, leaping forward. “That’s Her Majesty’s head down there!
” He retrieved the horrid curio and began to examine it with tender care, casting occasional reproachful looks at Miss Seeton in the meantime.
Brinton felt it was high time he asserted his authority. “May I have your attention, please, ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed. “I am a police officer, and—”
“And a fat lot of good you were, Brinton, when it came to the point,” Sir George grumbled, advancing toward Szabo. “No offense intended, old man, but it took this splendid chap here to divert the bounder’s attention.” He had at least by then broken the shotgun open, and he was carrying it comfortably in the crook of his arm. With his free hand he seized Szabo’s and pumped it vigorously. “Congratulations, sir! Damn good thinking! And my sincere thanks. Mind my asking your regiment?”
Ex-sergeant (acting) Frank Taylor grinned at him before disappearing again into Ferencz Szabo. “Royal Army Service Corps, General. Leading impressionist in the concert party on Saturday nights.” Then, in an impeccable rendering of Sir George’s own fruity tones, “Confounded cheek, threatenin’ you like that, what? Serve the blighter right if we were to take his trousers away.”
The long summer afternoon had begun to soften and gild itself with the approach of evening when Bob Ranger advanced across the lawn toward where Miss Seeton was sitting in a canvas-backed chair, the charcoal flying over the surface of her sketch pad. She smiled at him in gentle welcome, but her drawing materials were tucked well away by the time he reached her.
Miss Seeton, By Appointment (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 6) Page 15
