“But to kill yourself, sir—bit drastic, surely? Much better to let them pinch the stuff, if he couldn’t bring himself to cooperate with us. I assume he was an intelligent chap, friend of Tump’s and a curator, warden, whatever—seems a terrible waste, to me. Almost criminal.”
“But suicide’s no longer a crime, Bob, even if I agree with you that it’s a waste. However, if that’s the only choice Sir Wormelow’s friend felt he had . . . and freedom of choice is, after all, the liberty we fought two world wars to preserve . . . Still, something useful may well come out of all this. If the gang applied similar methods in their other robberies, at least we now know it’s worth investigating vulnerable members of staff in each place that’s been robbed, to look for possible leads—see if there were any unexpected suicides or dubiously accidental deaths around that time. This is just the sort of angle that might not have been checked as thoroughly as, with hindsight, we can see that it should. We’ve something to thank Sir Wormelow for, at any rate . . .
“And I only hope we’ll still be feeling grateful to him once he’s brought Miss Seeton into the case. Because . . .”
It was later that afternoon when Sir Wormelow, having found Miss Seeton’s telephone number through Directory Enquiries, asked if he might wait upon her the following day and take her out to lunch. Miss Seeton, surprised and delighted, accepted the invitation, and recommended Plummergen’s George and Dragon, conveniently situated and noted for good, wholesome meals.
Miss Seeton was in a slight flutter next morning by the time Sir Wormelow walked up the short path to her front door and rang the bell. She had tried on four of her distinctive cockscomb hats, unable to decide which, if any, she should wear; it wasn’t one of Martha Bloomer’s Days, and she hardly felt she could interrupt her in her work at Rytham Hall just to ask for advice. The light tweed suit and discreet blouse with its gently frilled neck were her best lunching outfit, so there had been no difficulty there: but the hat, now that she had a choice, was more of a problem. In nearby Brettenden there was a shop where Mel Forby, on a recent visit, had found the perfect headpiece. Miss Seeton, not envious but admiring, had resolved to visit “Monica Mary” in the not-too-distant future and treat herself to something a little special. Now, trying on one hat after the other in turn, she was beginning to wish she hadn’t succumbed to the milliner’s skill and saleswomanship with such enthusiasm: it was, she told herself, no doubt an indication of weakness of will—but it had, and she smiled at her reflection in the glass above the hall table, been rather fun.
In the end, she closed her eyes, took her hat pin, and made a jab at the hats as they sat in a row in front of her. Good. She would pack the other three away quickly, before Sir Wormelow arrived; gentlemen had little sympathy for the feminine preoccupation with clothes unless they were married—and sometimes not even then.
“Which Sir Wormelow is not. Married, I mean,” she told her reflection, “and therefore he is unused to it—having to wait for people to make up their minds, that is, which of course I have now done.” She swept the three remaining hats together, and turned towards the stairs. “And as to which umbrella I should take, how fortunate that in this instance there can be no possible doubt . . .”
She paused halfway up the stairs to gaze back at the row of neatly furled umbrellas clipped in their rack beside the hall table. All were serviceable, sedate in colour, sensibly crooked of handle. One, only one, had a handle that was made neither of wood, nor bamboo, nor leather-bound metal. Metal, indeed, this one in particular was: but a metal that gleamed dull and yellow in the indirect light of the hall—dull, and yellow, and golden: because it was made of gold. Hollow, not solid, as Miss Seeton was always quick to point out—the weight, and the expense—but certainly (in response to incredulous query) hallmarked gold. It had been given to her as a memento of a little adventure by the most courteous gentleman with whom she had shared it. The adventure, she meant, not the umbrella. Though there was plenty of room for two underneath, of course—the umbrella, that was to say.
“My very best umbrella,” she said with pride, and took the rest of the stairs two at a time. Really, the difference her reading of Yoga and Younger Every Day had made to her knees—to her life—was most gratifying. Only this morning, she had achieved the pose of the Dancing Serpent for ten minutes: and when one looked back only a matter of months, there had been some doubt when she first began to contemplate stretching her spine in such a manner that she would ever achieve one step, let alone the complete dance. So very relaxing, so soothing, so calming . . .
What a pity she had lost her mental advantage by so much foolish anxiety over which hat she should wear. Miss Seeton deposited the three rejects on her bed, and again headed for the stairs. She was at the bottom, in the hall, before she began to wonder if the hat pin had made the right choice—the light in her bedroom was different from that coming into the hall, and perhaps one of the others would be a better match, with her suit—or should it be the blouse . . .
And it was at this point, much to Miss Seeton’s secret relief, that the doorbell rang.
chapter
~6~
SIR WORMELOW HAD remembered, from his first visit to that part of Kent, that one took the Dover train from Charing Cross and changed at Ashford for the Brettenden branch line. An asthmatic car, he recalled, lurked in the station forecourt, and if its driver could be distracted from his copy of The Sporting Life, and if the engine could be persuaded to turn over and keep turning, was available to transport visitors the half dozen miles to Plummergen: which were, fortunately for the car, mostly downhill.
His admirable plan to hire Mr. Baxter and his motor was thwarted, however, when on arrival at Brettenden no sight of any waiting car was to be seen. The station call box had been vandalised—nobody seemed to know when the GPO might condescend to repair it—and the station master couldn’t rightly take it upon himself to allow a member of the public into his office to use the telephone. Certainly not. And it was nothing to do with whether he was willing to pay for the call: he wasn’t an official, was he? Nor a member of the Union? Well then, he wasn’t covered by insurance, so if he was to slip on the floor and break his leg there’d be no end of trouble, make no mistake about that.
“Then perhaps,” suggested Sir Wormelow, with one hand in his trouser pocket and the discreet chink of coinage as an encouraging obbligato, “you would be so kind as to telephone a taxi for me? I wish, you see, to travel to Plummergen, which is far too far to walk, you will agree.”
“Matter of six miles, that’s all,” retorted the station master. He was a Holdfast Brother, a member of the Brettenden extremist sect who disapprove of practically everything except mortification of the flesh. They endure teetotalism, cold baths, and a compulsory annual pilgrimage (on foot, and with dried peas in their shoes) to Canterbury, over twenty miles distant on the far side of the county; they are vegetarian, have no sense of humour, and hold fast, with great pride, to the absolute letter of the law.
“Six miles,” repeated Sir Wormelow, aghast, jingling the coins more loudly. “I really don’t think—it is a matter of a luncheon engagement, you see . . .”
“Rich living and sinful drinking, no doubt,” the station master said, with a gleam in his eye. “Overindulgence, and wicked waste. Do your soul as much good as your body, so it would, if you was to walk all the way there—aye, and all the way back, as well.”
Sir Wormelow gulped. He turned very pale, and his eyes begged for help while his tongue refused to grovel to the sanctimonious one. The station master regarded him with a disdainful eye.
“You don’t much look like a man as can manage six miles, I allow, downhill or not. Not,” he added quickly, fearing that any hint of weakness on his part would be exploited by the stranger, “that I hold with such decadence, mind, being strong for the Lord as I am, but there’s a bus goes to Plummergen twice a week—and today’s one of the days. And the stop’s over there,” he admitted, after a pause.
Sir
Wormelow, ever the courtier, thanked him with great relief, then hurried across to the stop, dreading to learn from the timetable that he’d just missed a bus and they only ran every other hour, or something equally inconvenient. He was in luck, however. The timetable told him that a bus to Plummergen would appear in ten minutes; and, righteous as a Holdfast Brother, it did not lie. Twelve minutes later, Sir Wormelow Tump was sitting in the front seat downstairs, receiving a free massage from the springs as the bus rattled its way out of Brettenden.
At about the same time as Sir Wormelow boarded his bus, in Plummergen post office the morning’s shopping routine was well under way. Little Mrs. Hosigg, wife to Sir George’s farm foreman, had popped in, quiet as ever, for some tinned stuff for the baby. Not a word beyond please and thank you, and paying her money from a purse that looked awful empty—and so early in the week, too.
“No more than a couple of kids themselves, they are, and the last to be affording kiddies of their own,” opined young Mrs. Newport, with a sniff. Mrs. Newport was twenty-two; Lily Hosigg’s age was uncertain, though generally supposed to be in the late teens.
“He keeps her short, I reckon,” said Mrs. Spice. “Everyone knows Sir George pays well—but there she was, rootling around in that purse for the last penny.”
“Drinks it away, probably,” suggested Mrs. Skinner. “Her all alone at home with the baby, and him off at the pub—it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Everyone thought about it: with some delight. The young Hosiggs had always kept themselves very much to themselves—and were, moreover, known to be staunch supporters of Miss Seeton, which was enough to damn them in many village eyes.
“That marriage won’t last,” said Mrs. Newport, from her rich knowledge of the marital state. “He’ll be knocking her and the babby about when the drink’s in him, most like.”
And, even as Lily Hosigg congratulated herself on having saved all but the last two pound fifty she needed for the smart new working jacket she’d decided Len should have for his birthday, her home life was dissected down to the ultimate detail; with the overall conclusion that any day now she’d be leaving for good, because a body could only take so much, and it was a crying shame . . .
But speculation did not sparkle as brightly as usual. Though the post office contained a crowd of its regular customers—who from time to time remembered why they were supposed to be there, popping over to the counter to purchase something and keep Mr. Stillman happy—a seasoned observer, as Mr. Stillman reluctantly acknowledged himself to be, would have sensed some sluggishness in the speed at which the busy tongues wagged. The postmaster wondered at the reason for this lack of enthusiasm; there was something—someone—missing. He might almost say it was peaceful . . .
And, just as he was debating with himself whether such a word could ever, in all honesty, be applied to Plummergen, the bell above the shop door tinkled.
Every head turned. Every eye stared. Every tongue was stilled. A stranger stood on the threshold.
“Excuse me,” murmured Sir Wormelow, hesitating for only a moment before threading his way through the assembled huddle of Plummergen ladies towards Mr. Stillman, behind his counter. With all the unease of a confirmed bachelor, Tump preferred to trust his own sex rather than the distaff side when directions were being sought. “I should be most grateful if you could remind me where, er, Sweetbriars is. It is some time since I was last here, you see.”
“Sweetbriars, sir? You’ll be visiting Miss Seeton,” Mr. Stillman said, delighted that one of his favourite customers was to have so distinguished a caller, although puzzled—as was the rest of Sir Wormelow’s audience—that anyone should need directions in a village with five hundred inhabitants and one main street. “You can’t miss it, sir—if you just step over here a moment . . .”
Mr. Stillman escorted Sir Wormelow back to the door, ushered him outside, and indicated the correct way with great care. The Street runs south in a gentle curve, and ends in a sudden narrowing to form the bridge over the Royal Military Canal: Sweetbriars stands on the corner of that narrowing, its back garden bounded by a mellow brick wall, its front by a smart wrought-iron fence. “You can’t miss it, sir,” repeated Mr. Stillman; and, like the Holdfast Brethren, he spoke the truth. Sir Wormelow thanked him, and headed in a southerly direction at a dignified pace.
The postmaster was hardly back behind his counter before the tongues, busy as ever, began to wag once more.
“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Skinner. “And who d’you reckon as he was, popping out of nowhere like that? Sounded a regular gent, for all he was dressed so scruffy.”
“No more scruffier than Sir George, most times,” pointed out Mrs. Henderson (automatically in dispute) with some justification: Sir Wormelow, without any conscious thought, had selected for his day in the country the traditional attire of his class—good (if elderly) tweeds, a soft shirt, a tie knobbly woven. Any farmer would have worn the same, even when planning to call upon a lady; knight, baronet, or plain esquire, it would make no difference.
“Sir George lives here,” said Mrs. Skinner, indisputably. “We know him. But him—pretending to be a gamekeeper, most like, excepting he didn’t have no gun.”
“He might,” suggested Mrs. Spice, “have left it outside—being as he brought it with him for disguise, only he forgot it, which is why we never seen it.” She paused, on the off chance that Ms. Stillman would confirm or deny this hypothesis; but the postmaster had long ago been abandoned as a source of possible gossip by everyone who took their gossip seriously. The village knew it was up to others with more community spirit to show the way.
“So it must’ve bin there waiting for him,” breathed Emmy Putts, with a delighted shudder and her eyes round with the horror of it all. “Waiting till he gets to Sweetbriars, and then . . .”
There was a thrilling pause, as everyone considered the likelihood of Miss Seeton’s future involvement in a running gun battle up and down the Street. Such was her reputation among a certain element of Plummergen’s populace that the idea seemed not the least bit incongruous. A solitary voice murmured that it might not be such a bad thing if PC Potter knew what could soon be happening, but went unheeded in the welter of wild surmise; and, after due consideration, everyone came to acknowledge the probable correctness of Emmy’s suggestion—grudgingly, however, because (while hoping it was true) they wished they had thought of it for themselves.
The next matter to be considered was the stranger’s mode of travel. Assassins, everyone agreed, tried to remain as anonymous as possible, so it was unlikely he’d come in anything too flash. A Land Rover, said Mrs. Spice, would have been most like a farmer (or gamekeeper); but nobody could recall having noticed any strange vehicles pull up outside at the appropriate time. A few optimists spared a moment for Mr. Stillman to say what he’d seen when he stepped out of the shop, but Mr. Stillman had had enough. With a quick word of excuse, he left the grocery counter, motioning to Emmy to take over, and went to lock himself away in peace, behind the post office grille.
It was then proposed by Mrs. Skinner that the man must’ve left the car—oh well, Land Rover, if Mrs. Henderson wanted to be pernickety, but car would do so far’s she was concerned—somewhere out of sight, with the gun hidden in the boot. Most people were willing to accept this, except Mrs. Henderson, who gleefully recalled that the Brettenden bus had arrived just before the stranger, which meant it was far more likely that he’d used public transport. In which case, he’d hardly have been carrying a gun, would he? Somebody would’ve noticed, and questions been asked.
“The bus,” said Mrs. Spice quickly, before Mrs. Skinner could say anything else. “I was wondering . . .” And her eye swept round the shop, which, though filled with a host of Plummergen ladies, still seemed to be lacking some vital element. Enjoyable though all the foregoing discussion had been, the basic inspiration was missing . . .
And then the bell above the shop door tinkled. Every head turned; every eye stared; every tongue was st
illed, as two figures crossed the post office threshold. One was tall and equine, one dumpy and pouting; the missing element was missing no longer. Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine had come: The Nuts were here at last.
Though they entered at the same time, they were not, it seemed, together; or at least not in the usual sense. Erica Nuttel tossed her head and whinnied a brief greeting to the shop at large; Norah Blaine darted button-black eyes about the assembled crowd, mumbled something, and trotted straight to the grocery counter.
“Six lemons, please, Emmy,” she said. “And three large grapefruit—I’m trying a different flavour of marmalade. Bitter.” Saying which, she shot a dark look at Miss Nuttel: who was hovering by the circular book stand, and now gave it a pointed twirl.
“Late today, Mrs. Blaine,” remarked Emmy, as she bustled to sort out the fruit. “We was just thinking you’d gone into Brettenden on the bus, instead—”
“Missed it,” Miss Nuttel snapped, while Mrs. Blaine’s lip trembled. “Timetables don’t wait, though.”
“Usually reliable, the bus,” agreed Mrs. Spice. “Comes all the way from town—and all sorts on it, too. Nothing personal, of course, Miss Nuttel.”
“The bus,” Mrs. Blaine announced before Miss Nuttel could open her mouth, “isn’t what it was, any more than Brettenden is. Too uncomfortable, with so many strangers—one can’t feel altogether safe—thank you, Emmy. On the bus, I mean, not in the town, although one does see some very odd people there—and some very odd things, as well.”
Miss Seeton by Moonlight (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 12) Page 5
