“Need to recognise a work of art, for one thing,” retorted Miss Nuttel promptly, in her turn unable to resist the chance to snipe. Bunny’s plump face puckered into a scowl. Everyone held their collective breath: was the Hot Cross Bun about to live up to her village nickname?
Then the door burst open, and Mrs. Putts rushed in. Emmy waved from behind her counter, but had no time to say hello before her mother, breathless, announced:
“It’s gone! Somebody’s took it! When we come out of the night shift, there it was—stolen away!”
Mouths dropped open and breaths were drawn in. Everyone knew at once what she meant. Mrs. Putts had worked in the Brettenden biscuit factory for so long, she had been awarded a canteen pass and a clock that struck the quarters as well as the hour.
Emmy, remembering her prized scrapbook, leaped into the startled breach with a horrified squeal. “Why, that’s a wicked thing to do! Humphrey Marsh’s masterpiece, that was—and somebody’s took it. It’s . . . it’s a crime!”
“It’s Croesus,” said Miss Nuttel firmly, throwing back her head and staring Mrs. Blaine straight in the eye. “Said it was a work of art, didn’t I? No argument about it now!”
And Mrs. Blaine, her face puckering once more, uttered an angry little cry, stamped, threw her bag of shopping on the floor, and rushed out of the post office in tears.
chapter
~11~
TWO DAYS LATER, Miss Seeton’s telephone rang. When she went to answer it, she was surprised and pleased to find Amelita Forby on the other end.
“You’re not much of a one for the newspapers, are you, Miss S.? Make an exception today, and go splash out on a copy of the Negative—I’d have sent you one myself, if I’d been mobile. Still will, if they’ve sold out by the time you get to the shops, though I’ve kept your name out of it so they shouldn’t have done.” Mel laughed. “Banner’s not the only one who knows how to write up a scoop, believe me. My editor thinks I’m just the cat’s whiskers, working from my sickbed and all—but it’s thanks to you and the Oracle that I’ve been able to—and the Rangers, of course. Bless every one of you!”
Miss Seeton, though she certainly did not object to the cost of a Daily Negative, recalled that it was the regular paper taken by Martha and Stan, who lived so conveniently near. She would telephone across to ask if they could spare it for a short time, while she read . . . whatever it was that dear Mel thought she should know about. Something in which it seemed her own name had not been mentioned; but then why should there be any mention of her name in the newspapers? Miss Seeton knew—which all her friends must also know—that she lived a very quiet life, retired in a pleasant village where she minded her own business, and rejoiced when others minded theirs. But Mel Forby’s business, as a reporter, was (Miss Seeton sorrowfully acknowledged) to chronicle for those one must suppose were interested (though she could not imagine why they should be) some of the doings of people who might be of interest to them—people in the public eye, so to speak. Which Miss Seeton knew, emphatically, that she was not. In which case, whatever it was that Mel wished her to read about must be something of particular interest to herself, which surely meant something to do with art . . .
And Miss Seeton, pleasantly curious to know what had so excited Mel and her editor that the Daily Negative had run an exclusive article about it, dialled Martha’s number with no thought at all of the Grey Day painting she had, just two days ago, handed to Bob Ranger as a favour (he had said) to Chief Superintendent Delphick. Which she had been delighted to do, of course. So flattering—and such a relief that he (dear Mr. Delphick) had not thought it an impertinence on her part to have painted it in the first place . . . Mel had been bubbling with too much enthusiasm to go into details over the phone; she never supposed (despite having known Miss Seeton for several years) that the little spinster would fail to connect her work with a national newspaper scoop. She had forgotten that in Miss Seeton’s opinion her working arrangements with the police were a private matter, and not newsworthy; but on this occasion it hadn’t so much been work as a favour to one who had, over the years, become a friend. She had touched up the Grey Day painting because she’d been asked to, but, though Mr. Delphick had said something about baiting a trap, one must suppose it to have been his particular sense of humour, of course. One had not cared to seem too curious, or too conceited, as to the real reason behind his unusual request. One was merely thankful that he did not see it—the painting, that was to say—as presumption on her part. It had been intended as a purely personal impression—personal to herself, that was to say, though one sometimes tended to forget, in the inspiration of the moment, that one was running a risk that the other person concerned might (with some justification) object to having so personal a remark made about him. Even though the remark was, as one might say, made without words. Or her. Having so personal a remark made about her . . .
Miss Seeton, waiting for someone to answer the phone in Martha’s house, daydreamed back to the first occasion when she had met Mel Forby. Such interesting bones—the eyes and colouring, so unusual—irresistible to an artist. She had sketched the young reporter’s face in a manner which, she had been careful to insist, was intended as purely personal—and Mel had replied that she (Mel) had always considered her (Mel’s) face personal to herself, which naturally she would. Yet—so very fortunate—she (Mel) hadn’t thought her (Miss Seeton) ill-mannered after all, which had been a relief, as it might have turned out rather different. So embarrassing. She really must try to stop herself dashing off her little cartoon impressions of people. One day she would encounter someone less understanding than dear Mel, or Chief Superintendent Delphick . . .
“They must be out,” she told herself, realising suddenly just how long she’d been standing with the telephone in her hand. “Now, I wonder—”
“Hello?” came a breathless voice: Martha’s. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but I’d locked the door and all when I just heard the ringing. Who is it?”
Miss Seeton announced herself, and Martha laughed. “It was you I was coming to see, dear. Fancy me running back to answer the phone, when if I’d been a minute later you’d have seen me anyway! What were you wanting?”
Five minutes later, Miss Seeton was studying Mel Forby’s piece in the Daily Negative. No wonder she had been so gratified with the results of her hard work—such large type, and so very eye-catching, which of course was what it was supposed to do. Catch the eye. Might that be why, wondered Miss Seeton, they were called headlines? Because that was, after all, where one found the eyes . . .
Bromley Bride Finds Winter Wonderland, proclaimed two rows of bold black print, above a photograph of—
“Good gracious,” breathed Miss Seeton. “Surely that’s—no, I must be mistaken—but it does look very like . . .”
“It is,” Martha told her. “That’s why I was coming over to see you—know that picture anywhere, I would, never mind the one they say’s found it in her attic. Take a good look at the other photo . . .”
It was Anne. Anne Ranger, formerly Knight, spinster of the parish of Plummergen, friend to Miss Emily Seeton, wife to Miss Seeton’s adopted nephew Bob. The Rangers. So this was what Mel had been talking about!
Miss Seeton eagerly scanned the paragraphs below Amelita Forby’s byline. Really, it sounded a most remarkable story: so romantic. A dusty attic, a cobwebbed shape, a chance decision to send the painting to auction because it didn’t match the young couple’s colour scheme . . .
Mel had written it with great care. All the emphasis was on Anne; Bob was mentioned, but only briefly, and with no hint of what he did for a living. The photographs showed lucky young Mrs. Ranger in a fairly blurred fashion, but the reproduction of Ilkley Moor on a December Day was as crisp and clear as the printing department could make it—Mel had seen to that, nagging her editor down the wires until, for the sake of his ulcer, he’d promised hand on heart to stand over them while they worked on it.
As Miss Seeton read, she rememb
ered. Good gracious. So the chief superintendent had really meant what he’d said—and how very gratifying, to have such public recognition for one’s work—not that one would have chosen, perhaps, such a title for the painting. Miss Seeton knew nothing of Ilkley Moor except that it was in Yorkshire—and there was a song, of course, On Ilkley Moor Baht ’At. One verse after another until the worms, although why people who lived in the north of England should pronounce “without a hat” in such fashion was beyond Miss Seeton, who had taught art, not linguistics. And why, of all places, Ilkley Moor?
Mel Forby, who came from Liverpool and had a sense of humour, could have told Miss Seeton, if she’d asked; it was pandering to the good old “anything-north-of-Watford-and-it’s-the-sticks” attitude of most of the Negative’s readership. But Mel wasn’t there, and Martha Bloomer was.
“That’s your picture,” said Martha, as if Miss Seeton hadn’t known. “You painted that, I’d swear to it. So why’s that reporter woman said as it was painted by someone called Crockerton? Changed your name, have you? You’ve never gone and— No, course you haven’t.” Miss Seeton and matrimony just didn’t go together. It was unthinkable.
Miss Seeton, only half-hearing Martha’s complaint, took a closer look at the caption beneath the photograph of her—yes, definitely her—painting. “The newly discovered work by nineteenth-century landscape artist Sibyl Crockerton, RA, renowned for her then bold mixing of watercolour and pastel techniques, is sure to attract great interest when it comes up for auction,” Mel had written. Making the masterpiece the work of a woman was partly her little joke, partly a muted compliment to Miss Seeton. She had enjoyed herself hugely inventing a history for Sibyl: a tale of jealousy, obstacles overcome, eventual recognition of genius triumphant, and (Mel revelled in this bit) early death from consumption, followed by oblivion “from which she is only now beginning to emerge. But collectors are starting to pay high prices for Crockertons when, all too rarely, they appear on the open market. Fine art auctioneers Sothenham and Sons quote prices in the region of £50,000 . . .”
“Good gracious,” said Miss Seeton faintly.
Just then, the telephone rang.
Response to Mel’s article had been all that Delphick wished. Anne Ranger was interviewed, herself and the little house in Bromley photographed, and the point clearly made that, as the Rangers were uneasy about keeping this valuable item at home, it had been handed over to Sothenhams. There it would be displayed for all to admire until the auction—the date of which was given. Young Mrs. Ranger was quoted as saying she could hardly wait. “Not just the money, but the romance of it all,” wrote Mel gleefully.
“I knew we could rely on Mel. She’s done us proud,” said Delphick, re-reading the page with relish. “If Croesus can resist all that, he’s not the man I thought he was.”
“I suppose so, sir.” Bob looked again at the picture of his wife, and their home, and wondered what sort of monster might have been unleashed. “Anne’s doing her best, sir, but she’s no actress. This has all been a bit more, well, overwhelming than we expected—they’ve even tried to talk to her at work, and the doctors don’t like it. Medical receptionists’re meant to be efficient and self-effacing—which nobody can manage when there’s a crowd of reporters camped on the front doorstep. And I think she’s a bit worried now they might put two and two together, sir—about Plummergen, and me being a copper—and Miss Seeton, of course.”
“You started to say something of the sort once before, but didn’t get very far. Let’s hear it all this time, Bob.” Delphick regarded his subordinate with amusement. “You’re afraid I’ve set in motion something I can no longer cope with, and that Anne and MissEss will be swept away in the flood and no one will be able to rescue them?”
“Something like that, yes, sir, I suppose.” Bob looked unhappy at criticising his superior, but the set of his jaw was firm. “Things tend to, well, to happen to Miss Seeton, you see—”
“Then you,” Delphick interrupted him, “see this,” and produced from his breast pocket a folded white envelope. “Go on, take a good look—and then dare to hint that the Oracle is losing his grip. Rank insubordination, Sergeant Ranger, that’s what I’d call it if I didn’t know you better—as it is, I’ll settle for plain heresy.” And, as Bob took the envelope and began to examine its contents, Delphick sat watching him, smiling to himself.
After a few minutes, Bob said, “Sorry, sir. For getting steamed up and, well, not thinking it right through in the first place—and for not realising you’d have been bound to even if I didn’t. Think it through, I mean,” and he turned red. He was starting to sound as muddled as MissEss—but what could you expect, once she was involved in a case? You just knew everything would go all wobbly—even you . . .
“Apology accepted, Sergeant Ranger. And, on your part—holiday accepted?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bob, a broad grin of relief spreading across his face. “It’s so obvious, now, but—”
“But that’s why I’m a chief superintendent, and you have some way yet to go. You need foresight, Bob, and inspiration—and,” Delphick added, “the ability to kill two birds with one stone. We’ll be keeping your wife and your dear Aunt Em out of harm’s way, just in case—and we’ll be keeping Faulkbourne and the rest of the Belton crowd happy, at the same time. It’s a comfortable pub, my spies tell me, in attractive surroundings. Just the place for a maiden aunt on holiday with her devoted family—and with a fair number of rubberneckers longing to see the crib Raffles cracked so easily and, dammit, with such panache.” He shook his head. “This chap—he’s different. I can see why they make a fuss of the blighter, crook though he is—a crook with class, real class, is pretty rare these days. If we ever succeed in nobbling him, his doting public might surprise us by the force of their outcry.”
“He’s got style, sir, no doubt about it. Everyone says so. There’ll be dozens—hundreds—of people at Belton to take a good look. MissEss and Anne’ll be more or less invisible, won’t they? Safety in numbers. Not that I really think they’re not going to be safe, sir, but when Miss Seeton’s around, well, you know how it is.”
“I certainly do. Which is why you’ll be with them for a day or two, while they merge into the background. Something you,” Delphick said with a chuckle, “will never be able to do unless you find a time machine and revert to your extreme youth. You’d have won the Bonniest Baby prize every time, I feel sure.”
Bob turned scarlet. Delphick blinked. “Good lord! Bob—don’t tell me—” He broke off, choking. Bob blushed all the more, and mumbled into his boots. The Oracle smothered an outright laugh, and enquired in a quivering voice:
“Might one ask, er, how many times?”
“Three in a row, sir,” confessed the unhappy winner, his blushes monumental. “It was all my mother’s doing. My dad didn’t approve of baby shows, but she—well, she was . . . was proud of us both, sir, me and my brother, and . . .”
“And I’m sure she still is. One son a promising young detective with a delightful wife, the other, as I recall, a wine merchant. Not to mention the daughter who has made you an uncle, as well—while you, in your turn, have increased the merry throng by the addition of an unexpected maiden aunt—in short, an utterly splendid family, Bob. I won’t ask why she didn’t submit your sister to the same, er, exhibition”—Bob turned purple, and coughed unintelligibly—“and I won’t, I promise, breathe a word to Anne about it all. I’ll bet you’ve never told her your guilty secret, have you? I thought not,” as Bob mumbled again. “Besides,” the chief superintendent added, “I probably couldn’t reach her by phone in any case. I confidently expect that, right now, the line is engaged while she explains to her dear Aunt Em that the car will be coming to pick her up right after lunch this afternoon . . .”
chapter
~12~
THEIR FIRST VIEW of the Belton Arms showed a hotel at least twice the size of Plummergen’s George and Dragon. There was a sizeable car park, thickly gravelled, surrounded
by flower beds which were some gardener’s obvious pride and joy; there were benches set out under trees here and there about the spacious lawns; and, discreetly screened by a holly hedge, a small play area for children, comprising a sand pit, slide, and assorted sizes of motor tyres painted in bright colours, arranged in tunnels and hoops.
“Eat your heart out, Charley Mountfitchet,” murmured Anne as Bob swung the car into a suitable space. “The Oracle was right: this place looks busy. We’ll be swallowed up among the throng—which is probably just as well.” She glanced quickly at Miss Seeton, then away. “A nice friendly crowd of tourists, with us trailing along and nobody paying us any attention—we hope,” she added, in a lower tone.
“It looks,” said Miss Seeton doubtfully, “although one of course feels reluctant to make comparisons, which can be so odious—but I agree with you, Anne dear, that Mr. Mountfitchet’s hotel is considerably, well, smaller. And, one must suppose, cheaper. And one cannot help wondering—”
“It’s a merit award,” said Bob, at exactly the same time that Anne said:
“Another part of the country, Aunt Em. It’s just not possible to make any comparison, because the cost of living is so very different. So don’t you worry about it—we’re not going to. Are we, darling?”
“Oh! No. Of course we aren’t,” said Bob quickly, after a brisk prod from his spouse reminded him that he was meant to be keeping Miss Seeton happy. “Shall I take the luggage in with us, or had we better check in first?”
Anne thought it better to check in; just in case, by some mischance, their booking had been lost. There was no reason why he should have to carry the bags there and back unnecessarily, although (she added with a chuckle) the exercise might not do him any harm.
Miss Seeton by Moonlight (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 12) Page 9
