Miss Seeton by Moonlight (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 12)

by Crane,Hamilton

  “One for you, Mother, and the rest for Dad—circulars, bills, that sort of thing.” Nigel returned to the dining room to hand out his booty. “The postmark’s all smudged on yours, so if the phantom blackmailer’s trying to cover his tracks he’s done a good job.”

  He passed Lady Colveden her mystery envelope, then went round to the other side of the table and deposited the rest of the letters neatly under his father’s nose. Sir George grunted his thanks, and carried on reading the newspaper. Nigel returned to his seat, pausing to collect a clean cup from the sideboard, and favouring his mother with a pleading look. As she was too busy opening her letter to pay attention, he helped himself to the remains of the coffee and pointedly stirred in a generous dollop of sugar.

  “Good gracious!” exclaimed Lady Colveden, beginning to read. Nigel looked up. “The poor thing!” His mother came to the bottom of the first page, sighed, and continued reading. “How dreadful . . .”

  Sir George lowered The Times and gazed sideways at his son. Nigel shrugged, and shook his head. Sir George went back to his newspaper.

  “Oh, dear,” said Lady Colveden. “How exciting, though.”

  “Mother!” Nigel could bear the suspense no longer. “If it’s so dreadfully exciting that you’re giving us a running commentary on it, do at least give us a detailed commentary, please. What on earth are you babbling about?”

  Lady Colveden lowered her letter and regarded him with a sorrowful expression in her eyes. “Nigel,” she said, sadly. “As if I ever babble—”

  “You know you do, darling, when you’re all excited about something.” Nigel waved a coffee spoon at her. “And don’t try to pretend there isn’t a gleam in your eye, because it’s perfectly obvious from where I’m sitting.” The Times danced in Sir George’s hands. “See? Even Dad’s noticed—through twelve thicknesses of newspaper, what’s more. If you don’t put us out of our misery, he might even be reduced to asking you himself—and just think what a shock to your system that would be.”

  Lady Colveden stifled a quick giggle, and strove to look serious. “It’s nothing to laugh at, Nigel. This letter is from Alicia Eykyn, and you’ll never guess what she says!”

  “Fire? Flood? Earthquake?” hazarded Nigel. “She’s won a place on the Olympic show-jumping team? No, that wouldn’t merit all the exclamations of horror. She’s burgled Battersea Dogs’ Home!” The young countess was a well-known lover of all that was canine or equine. “Come on, Mother, spill the beans. What’s up?”

  “Raffles,” breathed Lady Colveden, in a thrilling voice.

  Nigel looked at his mother. He looked at The Times. It was lowered enough to permit Sir George to look back at him. Father and son rolled baffled eyes at each other.

  Nigel let out a sudden groan. “Not another attempt to raise funds for something-or-other by offering the hapless peasantry a chance to unlock a time vault if they buy the winning ticket? Look what happened here!”

  “That was hardly Miss Seeton’s fault,” his mother said quickly; and there was a thoughtful silence. Nigel sighed.

  “Then what are we talking about?” he enquired, gently. Lady Colveden took a deep breath.

  “Raffles the Ransomeer,” she announced. “Of course. As you probably knew all along, and I do think it’s—”

  “Mother! Not the Eykyn Emeralds?” And, as Nigel spoke, there came a horrified trembling from The Times. Sir George cleared his throat.

  “The lot?” he enquired. “Bad show. How much?” he added as an afterthought.

  “George, really! That lovely parure—it’s priceless. All the historical associations—worn by every Eykyn bride since goodness-knows-when—”

  “Which is why he’ll have gone for it,” said Nigel. “You have to hand it to the chap, whoever he is—he does know his stuff. But they’ll have got it back by now, won’t they? Alicia wouldn’t risk telling people about it while it was still missing, in case he found out and thought they’d told the police, and they never saw it again.”

  His mother nodded. “Sent by registered post, the way he always does. And not a sign anything had been wrong—no false stones, no broken clasps, and Alicia thinks he’s even had it cleaned, because she swears it never shone like that before. Which is why the first thing Bill did was have a man down to check the stones, in case he’d exchanged them.” The second thing the earl had done was double the insurance carried by the heirloom parure, a set of flawless emeralds mounted as matching bracelets, earrings, brooch, necklace, and a tiara which the countess seldom wore because she said it made her head ache. “And everything was just as it ought to be—so I suppose it looked brighter because, well, they were so pleased to have it all safely back.”

  “You’re being sentimental, Mother. Mind you, I can sympathise,” said Nigel, on whom the sight of Lady Eykyn in her full bejewelled glory at a hunt ball last year had worked as dramatically as had Romeo’s first glimpse of young Miss Capulet at her engagement party. “Gosh, yes,” said Nigel, remembering with awe, and the old flutter awoke in his susceptible Galahad heart. “Pretty grim, if they’d never got it all back!”

  “Bill insists on being first in line with the horsewhip, if they ever find out who took it,” said Lady Colveden, referring back to the countess’s elegant scrawl. Lord Eykyn was noted for standing no nonsense from anyone. “Only they won’t catch him, of course. He’s too clever. In fact, now it’s safely over, I think it’s almost romantic, in a way. And so does Alicia—she says it’s rather a compliment that he thought they had something worth going to all that effort to steal.”

  “Pah!” came a furious snort from behind The Times, which was crushed to the table as Sir George harrumphed. “Women’s fuss—bad for business.” As a magistrate, he knew his duty not to let anyone in the Colveden family make a bally hero out of the rascal. “Help old Bill out with the horsewhip,” he added, as his wife looked startled. “Anytime. Chap’s a crook—no two ways about it.”

  “Well, yes, George, but he’s a harmless crook,” his wife hastened to remind him. “I mean, he might steal things, but he never hits people over the head, or vandalises the place, or breaks his word—when he says he’ll send something back, he always does.”

  “Honour among thieves,” murmured Nigel, as the tips of his father’s moustache twitched irritably. “And, talking of effort, Mother—how did he do it this time?”

  “It seems he climbed up to the roof and fastened a rope to one of the chimneys, and—what’s the word—abseiled,” she consulted Lady Eykyn’s letter again, “down to the nearest windowsill, and then he must have walked along all the sills until he came to the morning-room window.” She gave an expressive shudder. “You know how unnervingly high the rooms are—it makes me giddy just looking out, never mind sitting on the sill with a bucket of soapy water, the way the window cleaner does. But he left broken glass all over the carpet, so they know that’s how he got in—Raffles, I mean. And then he fastened another rope to the leg of that Chinese cabinet Bill’s mother used for her Crown Derby dinner service, you remember how very solid it is, and, well, abseiled down to the ground. He left the ropes behind,” she said, as Nigel mouthed an “O” of astonishment. “Panache—isn’t that the word?”

  “It’s a start,” said Nigel, above Sir George’s ever more furious harrumphing. “Incredible is another good one—think how super fit he must be, whoever he is, not to let go or lose his nerve at the vital moment. Though I could probably give him a run for his money pitching bales,” he added, with haymaking in mind. “But—gosh, yes, there really is something about him, isn’t there? I wonder how much longer he’s going to get away with it. You can’t help having a sneaky sort of, well, admiration for the chap . . .”

  Nigel’s opinion of the daring cat burglar dubbed by the press “Raffles the Ransomeer” was shared by most of those who had read of his exploits. While the more sensational publications, such as Anyone’s, featured every detail of his recent reign of crime (five ransoms generally known, and an unspecified numbe
r darkly hinted at), even the more sober pages of such papers as The Times and The Daily Telegraph were now prepared to mention him in the occasional discreet paragraph. Raffles, whoever he was, was News. People spoke of him in shop queues, and exchanged speculation as to his identity, and the likelihood of his capture. The well-known British penchant for the underdog meant that a sizeable proportion of the populace secretly hoped he would never be caught at all.

  “The police seem to be no nearer catching him now than they were when he started,” said Lady Colveden, “at least, from what Alicia says. Bill informed them straightaway, of course, and they advised him to play along while they made enquiries, but he worked out such a clever way of tricking them. He kept them hanging on for ages—you know how he does, building up the suspense and making them all the more worried, poor things—and when he eventually got round to asking for the money, he said it must be taken to a building site on one particular Sunday afternoon, and put under an overturned packing case he’d marked with red paint.” She turned back hurriedly to Lady Eykyn’s letter. “Or was it blue? Oh dear, I’m not really—”

  “I shouldn’t think it matters,” broke in Nigel, as she began to scan the bold black writing in search of accuracy. “We get the general idea. What happened then?”

  “I said it was clever,” his mother reminded him, “and if your father twirls fifty moustaches at me I shall still say so. Because it was. The police set a watch on the place, of course, and Bill handed over the money—well, popped it in a plastic bag under the packing case, then went off and joined the watchers, and waited for Raffles—”

  “With his horsewhip?” asked Nigel, grinning. There was a muffled snort from behind Sir George’s moustache, which quivered. Lady Colveden said quickly:

  “Alicia didn’t say. But it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had brought it, because Raffles never showed up—at least, they never caught sight of him.”

  “The Invisible Man,” said Nigel, who enjoyed the cinema when work permitted an outing. “So did they track his footprints in the snow?”

  “Don’t be silly, Nigel, it’s the middle of July,” said his mother at once, before recollecting herself. “I thought you wanted to know what happened? If you keep interrupting me, you’ll never find out.”

  “Sorry,” he murmured, catching his father’s eye. Even Sir George looked interested now. The Times was lying forgotten, one corner in the marmalade. “Go on,” said Nigel, “we’re all agog.”

  “And so you should be,” his mother said sternly. “This is the nearest you’re ever likely to come to a really daring crime . . .” She tailed off at the expression on the faces of her menfolk. She thought of Miss Seeton, and turned pink. “Well, you know what I mean. This is a firsthand account—and before it’s been in the papers, too. He hasn’t used the trick before, as far as I—”

  “Mother!” Nigel waved the coffee spoon again. “Do stop fluffing and come to the point. There’s a farm out there in need of due care and attention, remember.”

  “Sewers,” breathed Lady Colveden, producing the punch line with a thrill in her voice.

  “Sewers?” echoed Nigel. “You mean—the Third Man, not his invisible brother?” And Sir George coughed mightily.

  “No I don’t,” said Nigel’s mother crossly, beginning to pile crockery on a tray. “I mean that Raffles had put the packing case right on top of a manhole cover, and he crept along underground, where of course nobody could see him, and collected poor Bill’s money—they used real notes, just in case it all went wrong, because they did want the emeralds back—and then he crept away again. Unnoticed. And . . .” Lady Colveden’s voice shook. “. . . and . . . leaving a receipt behind.”

  “Gosh,” said Nigel, duly impressed.

  And Sir George, scraping marmalade from his newspaper with a spoon, remarked: “Feller has style, give him his due. Better him than the Croesus crowd, anyhow . . .”

  chapter

  ~4~

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER, the Croesus Gang came up in a far less rarified atmosphere than that of Rytham Hall: Scotland Yard. Thrudd Banner’s Anyone’s article had sounded warning bells, and ever since that journal’s appearance telephone calls had been received at police stations throughout the country from anxious museum curators, owners of art galleries, and others with reason to dread a megalomaniac millionaire’s acquisitive machinations.

  “He must be crazy, if everything Interpol says is missing has really been pinched on his behalf,” said Chief Superintendent Delphick to Detective Sergeant Bob Ranger, throwing aside one of his Art Squad colleague’s anguished reports. “That is, if the chap exists at all, and he’s not merely the figment of a journalist’s fevered imagination.”

  “Thrudd generally gets his facts right,” pointed out Bob in a thoughtful tone. “Granted he’ll have livened it up for the sake of a good story, but I bet there’s an honest-to-goodness Croesus around somewhere, collecting like mad.”

  “And, as I said, judging by this, the man must be mad.” Delphick indicated the Art Squad report with the end of his ballpoint pen. “Nobody in their right mind could possibly bear to live with such a motley mix of artifacts: it isn’t so much the variety of items as the violently differing styles. He’s snatched everything from Renaissance to Rococo, and if it’s all intended for the same room he must be singularly lacking in taste.”

  Bob, who wasn’t even sure whether there were three esses in Renaissance or only two, tried to look knowing. “Perhaps he has a very large house, sir, with enormous rooms.” There was a hint of envy in his voice: he hadn’t been married very long, and the home he shared with Anne suited her tiny frame far better than his six foot seven. Maybe one day . . .

  “Or perhaps”—he dragged his thoughts with difficulty away from wedded bliss—“he’s planning to sell the stuff to the highest bidder, sir, instead of hanging on to it—or he might even be having it stolen to order for other people. Perhaps he’s more a—a criminal mastermind, sir, than a mad millionaire wanting to build himself a palace.”

  “At least we know one thing about him,” said Delphick in a resolute tone. “He may be as mad as a whole husk of hares in March, but he’s nothing to do with us, thank goodness. Terling and his Art Squad chums may chase after fifty-foot-long cast-iron spiral staircases if they like—this office deals with more serious crimes than the pilfering of architectural fittings, of historical interest or not.”

  “They coshed the night watchman pretty hard,” said Bob, who had first drawn his superior’s notice to today’s story in the popular press. Senior police officers will never admit to reading The Blare: they rely on their subordinates to keep them informed of anything it may contain of likely interest. “And next time they might damage someone even m—”

  “I repeat, Sergeant Ranger, that this Croesus Gang has nothing whatsoever to do with us,” Delphick broke in, fixing Bob with a bleak and minatory eye. “Inspector Terling was no doubt suffering from a moment’s mental aberration when he sent his report along to me . . .”

  There was a long, thoughtful silence. Bob retrieved his newspaper from Delphick’s out tray, and went back to his own desk. Absently, he opened the paper and gazed at the headline which had caught his attention.

  “Spiral Stair-Case Stolen: Croesus Suspected,” he read, emphasising the alliteration as he did so. “You know, sir, there’s something about all these esses. I can’t help thinking of—”

  “No, Bob,” Delphick said, dangerously quiet. “There’s no need for you to think, believe me—or at least not about what my instincts warn me you’re hinting at.”

  “Don’t you mean about whom, sir?” burst from Bob before he could stop himself, and Delphick’s eyes narrowed. Ranger suppressed an instinctive grin, shot his superior an apologetic look, and folded away his copy of The Blare. He found his shorthand notebook, opened it, and with a sigh settled to transcribing the concluding pages of an interview held on the previous day with a lady of dubious reputation who might just be the key wi
tness in a nightclub protection racket.

  Delphick regarded the exaggeratedly bowed shoulders of his mischievous sergeant with an amusement he struggled to suppress. He picked up his ballpoint pen and, before pulling the next pile of reports across his desk, doodled for a moment on the blotter . . .

  And uttered a groan, when he realised what he’d drawn.

  An umbrella.

  MissEss.

  “Bob, you are a confounded nuisance,” Delphick informed his startled sergeant, as he ripped the sheet of blotting paper from its four leather corners and proceeded to tear it into strips. “Some malign influence,” continued the chief superintendent, still tearing, setting strip upon strip with a determined hand as he did so, “has encouraged you to taunt me with thoughts of a certain inhabitant of a certain village in a certain county to the south-east of London . . .”

  “Sorry, sir.” Bob blinked as Delphick began to tear the strips at right angles, dropping the resulting shreds of confetti with a muffled groan into the wastepaper basket he hooked towards himself with an anguished foot. As the last pink particles spiralled into the bin, Delphick dusted his hands together, and smiled a thin smile.

  “Back to work, Sergeant Ranger! And not another hint, reminder, or direct mention of Miss Seeton is to be heard in this room until the Croesus Gang has been caught—through the exclusive efforts of Inspector Terling and his men, do you understand?”

  “Perfectly, sir,” said Bob; and his shoulders shook.

  Delphick pushed the wastepaper basket back where it had come from. It fell over. He cursed.

  “You can’t blame her for that, sir,” said irrepressible Bob, as the metal bin rolled across the floor scattering a rosy trail in its wake. Delphick glared at him.