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

by Crane,Hamilton

  “Oh,” said Miss Seeton, “of course. Dear Mel,” and gave a relieved sigh. “Poor thing, I wonder how she is?” And as Anne (who suddenly wondered if her adopted aunt really had suffered a summer brainstorm) gently asked her to explain, she told her of Mel Forby’s letter, of the broken ankle, and of how she had tried to draw a get well card and it turned out so strangely at the first attempt—not unlike the picture she had just drawn, indeed . . .

  And Anne, knowing Miss Seeton as she did, resolved that when she was speaking to Bob that night she would do well to mention the sketches Miss Seeton had most recently drawn.

  It was late afternoon when they arrived back at the Belton Arms, pleasantly tired and planning an early supper followed by a restful evening in front of the television. Tonight’s film, to which Anne and Miss Seeton had been looking forward all day, was Queen Christina.

  Anne parked the little car, wondering whether to leave her day’s purchases in it overnight or take them inside for further gloating over her bargains. Some of the larger items she’d acquired during the past few days had been left at the various shops for collection by Bob in a hired van once the holiday was finished: he’d grumbled about it, as she’d known he would, but cheerfully, as she’d also known. She wondered how cheerful he’d be when he saw the umbrella stand . . .

  “But I like it,” she assured Miss Seeton. “It rather grows on you, doesn’t it? It’s unusual—it has character,” and she carried it happily with her as they went into the hotel.

  It was almost an exact repeat of their first arrival. Once again, receptionist Beverley was flirting discreetly with a smiling young man: the smiling young Lord Edgar, who abandoned his lady as soon as they appeared, and hurried to greet them.

  “Miss Seeton—and Mrs. Ranger, of course.” A brief acknowledgement, a smile, then he turned back to Miss Seeton. “I’ve been hoping to catch you. It seems ages since we last spoke. Why haven’t you been up to the Abbey again? I said you could come anytime, and I meant it. It’s absolutely the least I could do on my family’s behalf—the parents will be so wild not to meet you—do say you will. Come tomorrow. Let me send a car!”

  Miss Seeton looked anxiously in Anne’s direction. Would her feelings be hurt? The car was so small—hers and Bob’s—his lordship no doubt had a Rolls-Royce, although he had said, had he not, that the Bremeridges were rather badly off—but surely, not compared to a young couple married for so short a time, and starting out with so few material possessions . . .

  “My goodness, Mrs. Ranger.” Lord Edgar had just noticed what Anne was carrying. “That’s a rather jolly piece. Mind if I ask where you found it? Beverley tells me you’ve both been having fun around the local antique shops—I hope they didn’t diddle you.”

  Miss Seeton smiled at him as Anne replied. So tactful, not to refer to them as junk shops—which was, after all, what one had to admit they were—but then they were noted for their tact. The aristocracy. Perfectly respectable, of course, but he made them sound far more the sort of place he himself might enter, or his family—the shops, although she was telling him about the totter and making him laugh, so at her ease, dear Anne . . .

  “I’ve heard about them,” said Lord Edgar, with a quick look at Beverley. “There’s a gypsy camp about three miles to the south—the chap you met must come from there. Tough nuts, by all accounts.”

  Anne choked at a sudden vision of Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine as gypsies, complete with tambourines and earrings. She hastened to make amends. “His muscular development was rather splendid, certainly, but I suppose if you spend your time carting scrap iron around it’s bound to have a toughening effect. He didn’t talk like a thug, though—in fact, he didn’t talk like a gypsy at all, in some ways. He sounded too much like one to be true, now I think about it—acting the part, you might say. He could well not have been born to it. Perhaps he saw himself as rather too old for rushing off to be a hippie, so being a gypsy was an acceptable compromise.”

  Eddie shook his head. “Dropping out may sound romantic, but I feel it’s running away from your responsibilities . . .” Miss Seeton nodded, and looked pleased as he went on: “They seem to get themselves involved in rather too many punch-ups to be romantic, Mrs. Ranger. The local police haven’t found it, but there are rumours that they’ve set up a still, and make the most fearsome firewater that makes them willing to tackle anyone, at any odds, if they’re in the mood. I don’t want to scare you, but I think you had a narrow escape.”

  Anne shrugged. “There’s no point in my being scared now it’s in the past, is there? I suppose I might have worried about it if I’d known at the time, but I didn’t—and,” with a quick look at Miss Seeton, “there are times when ignorance is definitely bliss . . .”

  But it wasn’t just Miss Seeton (whose almost permanent state of bliss was a matter for admiration—and anxiety—among her friends) whose ignorance must be maintained. Bob, thought Anne, might not care for the idea that his wife had been consorting with moonshine-maddened gypsies—except, of course, that her escort had been neither intoxicated nor, on reflection, a true Romany. But she supposed, looking back on her little adventure, that it had been rather silly to accept a lift from a stranger, no matter how romantic the idea of a pony and trap might be. Lord Edgar’s words had woken uneasy echoes of Miss Seeton’s uncomfortable sketch in Anne’s mind. Maybe she’d been watching too many old films, and her wits had gone on holiday as well as herself . . .

  Lord Edgar had turned his attentions back to Miss Seeton in a further attempt to persuade her to visit the Abbey and accept carte blanche to wander where she pleased. Today had been another “public” day, and he’d looked for her, and been disappointed: she must promise to come tomorrow, her niece as well, and bring her sketching equipment. He could assure her of the most marvellous views—the Palladian temple and bridge, the fountain in the middle of the lake, the yew walk, and the trellis garden—she’d love it, he knew. Wouldn’t she say yes?

  And, reminded again of dear Nigel by Lord Edgar’s charm and enthusiasm, Miss Seeton in the end found herself agreeing that before many more days had passed, she would go to Belton Abbey.

  chapter

  ~19~

  WHEN BOB RANG Anne that evening, between (fortunately) dinner and Queen Christina, she barely had time to ask him how he was before he told her.

  “Hopping mad, me and the Oracle both. There’s been another Croesus, at least we think it must be—and it’s not the Ilkley Moor painting that’s gone—and there’s another poor blighter with concussion and a cracked skull. Somebody broke into Bellshire County Museum and walked off with their stuffed polar bear—yes,” as Anne couldn’t help giggling, “it sounds funny, but this is serious, darling. Apart from anything else, it means they’re heading your way instead of staying near London ready to raid Sothenham’s and pinch the Ilkley Moor bait MissEss went to so much trouble to set up. I’m not sure now whether you’re better off staying there, or coming back home, after all.”

  “The chances that they’d recognise us even if we did run into them—which I don’t see why we should—” Anne began, then stopped. She knew as well as Bob that where Miss Seeton was concerned, you had to be prepared for anything. “Do you want us to come back? What does the Oracle say?”

  “Nothing repeatable.” Despite himself, Bob chuckled. “You’d swear he’d taken lessons from Superintendent Brinton at Ashford—the one they call Brimstone, remember?”

  “We have,” Anne reminded her spouse, “had the odd encounter—he came to our wedding, after all; and I lived in Plummergen for several years before I met you. PC Potter tells a good tale, when he gets going.”

  “Then you know what I mean. He’s furious—the Oracle, that is. The poor devil with the cracked skull’s in intensive care, and if he ups and dies on us as well I wouldn’t like to answer for the consequences for Croesus when we finally nobble him—if,” he added glumly, “we ever do. We’ve made no sense out of Aunt Em’s sketches, of course. Why,” and Ann
e could hear the frustration in his voice, “can’t we ever understand what she tries to tell us in time to do something about it? She’s got the answers, she must have. She always has before—and it’s always the same. It never makes sense until it’s almost too late . . .”

  The newspapers next morning all carried stories on the Croesus case, asking questions about what the police were doing, and why they seemed to be having no success in combatting Crime In General. Raffles, it was pointed out, was still at large: it was deplorable that such dangerous men could stalk the countryside as far from capture as if they’d only just begun their campaigns of terror. Delphick cursed aloud, and muttered of irresponsible hacks distorting the truth to boost their circulation: Croesus, or his henchmen, might be ruthless, but Raffles (so far) was not.

  Thrudd Banner, writing in The Blare, was the only journalist to give a remotely balanced view: but he could afford to be generous, because he had a scoop to announce to his readers. Somehow, he had found out about the loss of the Eykyn Emeralds, which he related in full, rejoicing in the almost farcical attempts of the police to capture the man who’d stolen them, and the clever trick he’d played.

  “Makes us look fools,” Delphick said, “and the trouble is, in this instance we are. Raffles is running rings round the police, and I can’t deny it. As for Croesus . . .”

  “Anne says MissEss has been drawing again, sir,” offered Bob, as Delphick ran out of words. “Something to do with Mel Forby, she thought,” and he described, as well as he could, the pony-and-trap sketch which had made Anne uneasy. “Mel’s in on the Croesus business, after all, sir. I know she’s by way of being a friend, but I can’t help wondering—perhaps we ought to ask her if there’s anything she’s, well, not telling us, sir—because she’s a journalist first and foremost, isn’t she?”

  Delphick shook his head. “Not Mel, Bob. She wouldn’t behave like that—besides, resourceful though she is, I don’t see how she can have found anything out that we don’t know, not confined to the house with a broken ankle. Thrudd is another kettle of fish entirely, mind you,” he added, in a thoughtful tone. “Even the Yard didn’t know about the Eykyn Emeralds—but he apparently did. It’s just possible that he’s learned something about Croesus from one of his contacts which he might have mentioned to Mel, though I hope she’d consider herself enough of a friend to pass it on as she’s done in the past, even if he didn’t. We’ve worked together for some years now, on and off, and my faith in human nature would be really shattered if she meant to let us down just for the sake of a story.”

  “She might not mean to, sir. She might know something she doesn’t know she knows, that even Thrudd didn’t know was important when he told her, whatever it was. The way those two always try to outdo each other, he wouldn’t have told her if there was any chance it was something important, sir, would he? You know how they niggle all the time about who has the scoop.”

  “It’s an idea, I grant you, but somehow I don’t see it. Thrudd has Raffles and Mel has Croesus—sharing the stories pretty fairly, I’d say.”

  “But it was Thrudd who first wrote about Croesus, sir,” objected Bob at once. “And if he’d been there when you rang—well, it wouldn’t do any harm to have just a friendly talk with both of them, would it? In the circumstances, I mean, sir. With us being, er, stumped . . .”

  Delphick favoured his sergeant with a sideways look of restrained irritation. “Not while we have Miss Seeton on our side, we aren’t,” he pointed out, reaching for the cardboard portfolio which Bob had brought back from Belton Abbey two days ago. “Now that things seem to be hotting up a little, let’s take another look at her offerings to see if they inspire any brainwaves . . .”

  Delphick spread the three sketches out on his desk, and stared at them with as much concentration as he had already applied, unsuccessfully, several times before. The first showed a row of portraits, hanging on the walls of a panelled room which Bob had told him was very like the Belton gallery, the faces very like the Bremeridges.

  “Anne says the chap who was showing us round turned out to be Lord Edgar Bremeridge,” he reminded Delphick, as the chief superintendent pulled the picture across and held it at an angle. “I hadn’t spotted it while he was doing his stuff, sir, but now I’ve seen this I really can’t think why I didn’t—the resemblance is obvious. They all look just like him, sir, or perhaps I should say he looks just like them, and the room looks just like the room—except that I didn’t notice that cabinet in the corner,” he added. “Not that I’m much of a one for furniture and stuff—I leave all that to Anne, I’m afraid. But I thought the cabinet was in the room the snuffboxes were taken from . . .”

  “Yet Miss Seeton’s shown it as under the protection of the eagle Bremeridge eyes, it appears. Generations of them: I wonder why.”

  “The snuffboxes were heirlooms, sir—great sentimental value and so on. That could be the reason.”

  “It could, yes. There’s certainly a remarkably strong feeling that the Lord Edgar lookalikes are interested in the cabinet, to say the least . . .”

  They passed on to the second drawing, without any idea of the indecision which had preceded its inclusion in Miss Seeton’s portfolio. She had, after all, not drawn it for the benefit of anyone save herself—and it had gone wrong—but it was the police, which meant dear Mr. Delphick, who were paying for her little holiday, and for her services as an artist as well, and as she’d drawn it while on holiday, even though (so far as she could see) it was nothing to do with snuffboxes—or, indeed, with anything else . . .

  “That’s the Abbey in ruins, sir,” prompted Bob, as Delphick sat and stared. “Goodness knows why, because it’s not a ruin at all—Anne said it reminded her of a film set, and I’d agree with her. Like something out of Hollywood in what she calls the golden years—and MissEss as well,” he added, with a grin. ‘They’ve been spending every night glued to the television, apparently, soaking up romantic atmosphere by the ton, though I’m pretty sure neither of them goes in for horror films. Why she’s drawn that wolf and those birds—if that’s what they are—goodness only knows.”

  “Vampire bats, perhaps,” murmured Delphick, “though they may be birds—it’s hard to tell. But with those teeth . . . No doubt about the harpy, however,” and he pointed to the winged woman with the cruel face and grasping talons, hovering among the bats (or birds) near the snarling wolf which had been, in Miss Seeton’s mind, the golden retriever from the lawn of the Belton Arms. “You said the face reminded you of the hotel receptionist? Odd.”

  He turned to the third drawing, a vivid mountain scene. Above the snow line, picking its lonely way with the help of a rope and an ice axe, was a figure of indeterminate gender, muffled against the cold in layers of bulky clothing. There was a deep ravine ahead of the figure, hidden from its view behind a massed bank of snow. “And, echoing your words, Bob—goodness only knows why she’s drawn this,” Delphick said. “In fact, none of these make sense, do they? With hindsight they will, of course—as ever—but at the moment . . .”

  “These are three or four days old, sir,” Bob reminded him. “She’s had time to develop more of a feel for what’s going on since I came away—I told you Anne says she’s come up with that woman in the cart sketch, and how MissEss said it was a bit like the get well card she did for Mel Forby—which was before any of this really started, sir, wasn’t it? She must know something, only she doesn’t know what—and neither do we, but if we could take a proper look at everything she’s drawn, together . . .”

  Delphick nodded, and was about to say something, then frowned. “Anne might well be able to persuade her to let us have the drawings, but I can’t say I’m too happy at the idea of entrusting them to the post. Registered mailbags are the first things a robber with any sense makes for—and I need you here, Bob, not rushing off to Belton now the protection racket looks like breaking.” He sighed. “It must be three, four years since they put a man on the moon, and how many of the technological marvels we
were promised have come about? One day, somebody’s going to make a fortune inventing a machine that transmits documents over distances—I suppose some sort of cross between a photocopier and a telephone would do the trick—and I’d be the first to take advantage of such an invention. As it is . . .”

  He stared at the collection of newspapers, all with their headlines of complaint. “Tell Anne, when you ring her tonight, that we’d appreciate the most detailed description she can manage for anything MissEss has drawn over the past few days. As for myself, I must dig out my little black book and have a word with Mel Forby . . .”

  Anne and Miss Seeton, meanwhile, oblivious to the problems of Delphick and Bob, were once more enjoying a day out: but much closer to home, on this occasion. Lord Edgar had been so pressing in his invitation—Miss Seeton’s conscience had begun to suggest that her modest refusals might be misconstrued as base ingratitude, not to say churlish—there were some tempting descriptions in the guidebook of the beautiful vistas about the Abbey grounds—Anne had hinted that she was a little tired of driving every day . . .

  Fortunately for Miss Seeton’s desire to remain unobtrusive, it was one of the Public days at Belton Abbey. Coachloads of trippers passed through the house, took photographs of the gardens, and (those whose feet were up to it) wandered further afield, admiring the Palladian bridge and the other sights they’d read about in the papers. Those who observed an elderly lady in a neat tweed suit sitting with a sketchbook on her knee, diligently shading in the pillars of the bridge, decided that she must be one of themselves, and went to peer over her shoulder and make such giggling remarks as “Don’t put me in it, will you?” or “Aren’t you clever? I could never do that.” They drifted away with warnings to her not to miss the bus, and left her in peace.