by Heron Carvic
Picture Miss Seeton
A Miss Seeton Mystery
Heron Carvic
FARRAGO
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Note from the Publisher
Also Available
Preview
About the Miss Seeton series
About Heron Carvic
Copyright
chapter
~1~
“L’AMOUR EST TUM TUM
De something . . .”
So colorful. Not romantic—no, one couldn’t call it that; if anything perhaps a trifle sordid. Carmen, herself, for instance, no better than she should be. In fact, if one were frank, worse. And the other girl, the young one; it was difficult to feel sorry for her. Her fiancé, quite obsessed with his mother—obviously weak and easily influenced—would have made a most unsatisfactory husband in any case. Still, for him to stab Carmen at the end like that—so unnecessary. Almost contrived. Though, of course, one must not forget that foreigners felt differently about these matters. One read that people abroad did frequently get emotional and kill each other. Probably the heat.
Miss Seeton stepped aside to avoid a pile of crates. She peered at them.
Seville oranges. How interesting. Spain. Such an odd coincidence. One might almost think that one was back in one’s seat at the theatre, with the warm glow of the lights.
“Qui n’a jamais, jamais
Tum tum something.”
Cracked, yes. Off-key, yes, but a warm glow had started up inside Miss Seeton. Her visit to the opera tonight was really in the nature of a celebration. Tomorrow morning she would set out on an adventure. No—no, that was putting it too strongly. Set out upon a new way of life—or at least the beginning of a new way. Which would be, of course, in its way, an adventure. For her.
Where was she now? If she turned right here—gracious, how dark this alleyway looked. Should people park their cars all down one side? With their wheels on the pavement too?—it should take her towards Tottenham Court Road. Or she might even catch her bus in Charing Cross Road.
This walk had been a good idea. She felt quite a spring in her step. Was it her rubber soles? Or could it be—could it be just possibly that THEY were doing her good. Miss Seeton drew in her breath; braced herself. Of course it was ridiculous taking up exercises at her age—but that advertisement had looked so encouraging. Even when the book arrived and one realised the difficulties, it had still appeared to be worth trying. There was no question the tiresome stiffness in her knees did seem to be better. A lot of the positions were—well, embarrassing. Even to oneself. But, after all, if no one knew—and if it helped. Oh . . .
Miss Seeton prepared to hurry by a couple pressed into an adjacent doorway, when the girl spat:
“Merdes-toi, putain. Saligaud! Scélérat, si tu m’muertes . . .” She ended on a gasp as the boy’s arm drove into her side.
Oh, no. Really. Miss Seeton stopped. Even supposing the girl had been rude—and it had certainly sounded so—that was no excuse. A gentleman did not hit . . . She prodded him in the back with her umbrella.
“Young man . . .”
He whirled and leaped. Deflected by the umbrella, he landed beside the prostrate Miss Seeton. Grabbing her by the coat, he jerked her towards him. A blaze of light froze him as the headlights of a car farther down the alley were switched on and an engine started. There was a scuffle of movement and, her coat released, Miss Seeton fell back on her elbows as the boy jumped to his feet and ran. With the help of her umbrella she pushed herself upright. Really! The foreign temperament—so impulsive.
A car door slammed. A man’s voice called, “Stay where you are, Mabel.” The thwack of running footsteps.
“Are you all right, madam? What happened?”
Miss Seeton looked around. A heavy middle-aged man appeared from behind the beam of light, hurried towards her and grasped her arm.
“That man who attacked you—did he hurt you?”
Miss Seeton, a little breathless, considered. “No—no, I don’t think so. It was just the surprise.”
“But you were on the ground,” the man insisted. “He had hold of you.”
“It was all so unexpected. I startled him, you see, and it made him jump. We both fell down. Then he pulled me. I think he was trying to help me up.”
“Then why did he run?”
She appeared puzzled. “Well, there was the girl—such bad manners. But then, of course, he’s not English.”
“The girl? What girl?”
“They were in that doorway there. She cried out something that sounded rude and he hit her. I’m afraid I interfered. I do think, don’t you,” she continued earnestly, “that the young must learn to behave. Surely? Even abroad?”
The man glanced at the empty doorway, took a step and, leaning on the bonnet of one of the parked cars, saw the huddled body of a girl wedged between the wing of the car and the wall.
“Good God—you’re right! He knocked her out. Just a minute, I’ll prop her up against the door.”
Miss Seeton moved to help. “Perhaps she’s fainted, poor thing. Oh . . .” She gave a shocked cry. As the man shifted the body the girl’s coat fell back and the glare of the headlamp shone on the handle of the knife in her side. “No, wait. Don’t move her yet. We must get a doctor. She—look, she’s been stabbed.”
Stabbed. But of course. Stabbed. That was inevitable somehow. This dazzlement of light—spotlights. The slope of the alley steepened. To keep her balance Miss Seeton leaned against the car. Spotlights. Oranges. Seville. That was it. It had happened before. She’d seen it—watched it happen before.
Someone was speaking to her, urgently. “It’s too late for a doctor. This girl is dead. We must get the police.” The man gazed almost in awe at the little figure, hat askew, coat awry, gloved hands still clasping her umbrella. “You mean you actually saw this happen? What made him do it?”
Miss Seeton straightened. “He has to,” she explained. “It’s the last act.” She shook her head. Suddenly she felt very tired. “But it’s so silly really. And quite—it’s quite unnecessary.”
“Would you like another cup of tea, miss?” The constable at Bow Street Police Station made the suggestion as a conversational gambit to break an awkward silence.
Miss Seeton contemplated the emulsive remains of what appeared to be sweetened tar at the bottom of her cup. “How kind.” Although the room was warm it was true she felt a little cold. “If I might have it very weak—nearly all water—and with no sugar, I should be most grateful.”
“Sure you won’t have something to eat while you’re waiting?”
“No, really, I had a meal before the theatre. But—” She hesitated. “I wonder if you’d be kind enough to ask about my handbag. I’m a little worried; you see, it’s getting late and I have no money on me—also there’s my latchkey.”
The constable turned at the door. “Don’t you worry about that, miss. We’ll see you get home all right. And, as for your bag, the boys have got a description; if it’s there they’ll find it and let you know at once. Anyway, it won’t be long now, the Yard should be here any minute. I’ll go and rustle up your tea.” He closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief. Funny little old trout. You’d think she’d be all of a twit, but she was as calm as you
please. Probably came of teaching kids. Once you’d coped with kids these days you’d copped the lot.
Miss Seeton looked up as the door opened. A grey day on heathland came in briskly, followed by a footballer. No—really, this was too fanciful; she must be tired, next she would be seeing people as shapes with holes in them. A perfectly ordinary, tall, rugged, middle-aged man in tweeds, followed by a perfectly ordinary, though very large, scrubbed young man in a dark suit. It made no difference. She was still left with the impression of a grey sky and heather ruffled in the wind. And the young man’s suit was entirely wasted. He might just as well have been wearing—in fact more appropriately—several yards of striped wool muffler, shorts and those stockings one associated with Alice in Wonderland; except, of course, that footballers’ stockings were shorter and thicker.
The grey day—the older man smiled and spoke:
“Miss Seeton? No, please don’t get up. I’m Superintendent Delphick of Scotland Yard and this is Detective-Sergeant Ranger from the same locality.” He moved to behind the desk and sat down. The sergeant settled on an unobtrusive chair to one side. “Very good of you to agree to wait for us. Sorry if we’ve been rather long, but we both had to be dug out of our respective homes as we were not on duty.”
“I’m so sorry.” Miss Seeton looked distressed. “I’m afraid it was my fault . . .”
The superintendent raised an eyebrow. “Hardly yours, Miss Seeton. Quite the reverse in fact. They sent for us because there may be a tie-up with another case of mine, so it was thought better we should be in on it from the start. We knew the girl, you see.”
“That poor girl who was killed.”
“Not so poor as all that.” His tone was dry. “She was a known prostitute.”
“Oh, dear,” Miss Seeton exclaimed. “A very hard life; such late hours—and then, of course, the weather. And so unrewarding one would imagine.”
“Not necessarily. Like every other walk in life it depends on how far you rise in your profession.”
Sergeant Ranger nearly dropped his pen. The Oracle was going it a bit, wasn’t he? You didn’t come straight out with words like prostitute and then a discussion on fees to somebody like this Miss Seeton. You wrapped it up. He tried wrapping it up. She was an—er—prostitute. The ‘er’ didn’t really make it any better and ‘um’ actually made it worse. Perhaps The Oracle was right. Anyway the old girl hadn’t turned a hair.
“I wouldn’t waste too much sympathy on her,” Superintendent Delphick continued. “She was a vicious little piece from all accounts. Yes?” in answer to a knock on the door.
The constable came in balancing a cup and saucer. “The lady’s tea, sir.” He put it on the desk beside her.
The sergeant was moved to protest. “Good Lord, what’s that? Drain water?”
“Very weak, as requested. No sugar,” he announced.
“Thank you,” said Miss Seeton. “You see I don’t really care for . . .”
“Burnt molasses any more than I do,” agreed the superintendent. “You might bring me a cup of the same, if you can manage it, and some stewed treacle for the sergeant.”
“Right away, sir.” The constable left.
Miss Seeton sipped. Much better. Rather comforting.
“Now,” he picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and scanned it as he spoke, “in your statement, you say that your assailant was a foreigner. Is that right?” The sergeant looked up from his notes. Now they were getting some place. He underlined the symbol for foreigner. “You don’t know his nationality, merely that he was definitely not English.” Miss Seeton nodded. “Now, can you make any guess—from anything he said, for instance?”
“No . . .” She thought. “. . . No. You see, he never spoke.” She ended on a note of faint surprise.
“But you still maintain he was not English. What makes you so certain of that? No, no,” he added hastily, as he saw her troubled expression, “I’m not doubting your conclusions. What I want to get at are your reasons for drawing those conclusions. To put myself, as far as possible, in your place. To see and feel what you saw and felt at the time.”
Miss Seeton’s face cleared. “Well, it was really the girl, you see. She spoke to him—or rather snapped at him in what sounded like French, though I can’t be sure. I didn’t recognise the actual words but, of course, she was speaking quickly and my French isn’t very good. And then he hit her—or that’s what it looked like at the time. You see, if he’d been English, he wouldn’t have understood her, would he?”
The sergeant studied his underlined ‘foreigner’. He added a question mark. He added two more. They didn’t express his feelings. He added three exclamation marks and felt better.
“You’re probably right,” the superintendent agreed. “The girl, though she could speak English, was in fact French by birth. So if you heard her speaking in French, the likelihood is that any previous conversation was in the same language.”
The sergeant surreptitiously crossed out all but the smallest of the queries after ‘foreigner’.
“You also say,” Superintendent Delphick went on, “that you can’t give an exact description of the man, though you would recognise him again if you saw him. Is that correct?”
“Well, yes. It’s difficult,” Miss Seeton explained, “it was all so quick—and rather dark. And then, of course, I wasn’t expecting . . . All I remember is long hair and his expression. An impression really.”
Sergeant Ranger regarded his pothooks. That should help. An all-stations call for a long-haired expression should get them places. But fast.
“An impression—quite.” The superintendent smiled. “Doubt anyone could do better in the circumstances. What I’m getting at is that that impression is photographed in your mind; and we’ve got to try and find some means of developing the photograph for our own use. I see from this,” he tapped the paper, “that you teach drawing.”
“But only at a very small school,” she affirmed. “In Hampstead. And not on the regular staff; merely attached. I also teach at the Polytechnic—night classes, you know. And a few private pupils that I . . .” Her voice trailed off, “I’m so sorry. I’m wandering from the point.”
“But you’re not. That is the point. The point being that you are an artist. What I want you to do if you will,” he leaned across the desk, “is to take this paper and pencil, sit quietly, concentrate on that impression in your mind, then see if you can get it down on paper. Don’t worry if you can’t. It’s just a shot in the dark that might possibly come off. Take your time. It’ll give me a chance to catch up on these statements. Come in,” he called as he gathered up the papers and settled back in his chair.
The constable entered with a tray and placed two cups of tea on the desk. “One strong with, one weak without, sir.” The superintendent nodded and the constable departed.
A shot in the dark. In the dark. Miss Seeton closed her eyes and concentrated. In the dark . . .
The superintendent skimmed through the longest of the statements. “Mrs. Mabel Dorothea Walters, 14 Lime Avenue, Barnet, Herts. ‘I have never been so shocked . . . da-da . . . My nerves . . . di-da . . . I was shattered . . . di-da . . . In all my life . . . di-di-da . . . I really feel I must . . . di-da-diddy.’” Useless, except to the woman’s psychiatrist. He added a footnote: Stayed in car. Saw nothing. Suggest not called inquest. See coroner. He started on the next: “Edward Cyril Walters, 14 Lime etc . . . On leaving the Cambridge Theatre etc . . . switched on lights and engine . . . figures on ground . . . he ran . . . I ran . . . I found . . . I tried . . . she said . . . I said . . . She said ‘He had to do it.’ And something about it being his last act ‘but not necessary’.” He frowned and ringed the last two sentences. He made another note: Straightforward, factual, but saw nothing. Useless, except as confirmation of witness Seeton.
Sergeant Ranger drank his tea. H’m, not bad. At least it had some taste. Better than that hog-wash the super went for. What did The Oracle think he was doing, sitting there br
owsing over all that bumph. At this rate they’d be at it all night and no forrader. He ought to be questioning the old girl; force a description out of her, not start art classes. Anyway, she’d gone to sleep. Tired, poor old thing, and no wonder. But it was no good them both sitting on their fannies while she had a kip. He got up and took his empty cup to a desk against the wall. Coming back, he stopped behind Miss Seeton and looked over her shoulder.
In the dark . . .
Be damned—she was having a go. No, she wasn’t, she was doodling. Just some straight lines . . . and then a lot more lines scrubbed in, in a sort of mess. He looked up and caught the superintendent’s eye fixed on him, daring him to move—almost to breathe.
In the dark . . .
Stripes . . . Hell, no, they weren’t, they were bars. An eye . . . two eyes, staring among all those lines. No, he could see now: two eyes glaring in the dark. But, why behind bars? What were those squiggles? . . . Hair—long hair . . . “Good God!” he exploded. “Caesar!”
Miss Seeton jumped. “Oh, no. More hair—and then, of course, no wreath.”
The superintendent caught the drawing as it fell, glanced at it, pushed the telephone towards the sergeant: “Check that we’ve got Lebel’s photograph on file,” turned back. “Nice work.” He beamed at her. “I had a feeling you’d come up with it. Nice work, indeed. Saves a lot of fuss and fluster.”
She looked pleased. “You do recognize him, then?”
“Yes, unquestionably César Lebel. Tell me,” he studied the drawing, “why the bars?”
“Oh, dear.” She bit her lip. “I’m so sorry, that was quite unintentional. It is the sort of thing I’m always trying to stop. In my pupils, I mean—and, naturally, in myself. I do maintain one should draw only what is there; particularly when you’re learning—and so it must apply to teaching too. Until you have learnt. And then, of course, it doesn’t matter, does it? I mean it’s always permissible to break a rule, provided one understands what that rule is. But I do find it difficult at times to differentiate between what is really there and what one thinks one sees. Especially when working from memory. Somehow”—she hesitated—“I seem to remember that young man as a—a caged animal.”
