by Heron Carvic
“I see.” Miss Seeton frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. So you’re looking for someone who’s not strong. In a way—although still, of course, quite dreadful—it does make it more understandable.”
“Why?” rapped Delphick.
“Why? But—but, as Sir Hubert said, because it explains why children.”
“Why children?” echoed the assistant commissioner.
For a moment she was puzzled. “I do see that with someone weak—and perhaps small—trying to . . . well, I suppose you could call it to prove themselves—make themselves important—that they’d have to, presumably, attack someone smaller than themselves, as you said.”
“Thank you, Miss Seeton.” Sir Hubert smiled. “I didn’t. But you have.” It was a slant, a shift in emphasis that might give them a new approach. The Oracle was on to it. This comic little character had more plain horse sense than many. She could certainly outride all those trick cyclists who’d been writing in the papers. They’d given her quite a day one way and another. Pity about the drawing. “We shouldn’t still be talking shop,” he apologized, “and trying to pick your brains, after this morning.”
She looked unhappy. “I’m only sorry that it was no use.”
“Not at all. But I sincerely regret the necessity for asking you to go to a mortuary and view a body. Most unpleasant.”
“Oh,” disclaimed Miss Seeton, “I didn’t mind that. Though, of course,” she added, “it’s not what one would choose. I saw several when I was young—bodies, I mean—though those, naturally, were being cut up.”
“Naturally.” Sir Hubert sounded, was, defeated. It might be Wonderland for the sergeant but, for him, it was Through the Looking Glass. Purely Jabberwocky.
Sergeant Ranger sighed. The words were English, but the results were right off. How did the Oracle always understand her? She’d certainly gummed up old Sir Heavily.
“In hospital?” asked Delphick.
She turned to him gratefully. “Yes. Nowadays one can buy those clever figures, the visible man—woman, too; and I believe there are dogs—but in my day one had to rely on books and though, of course, they were most painstakingly drawn—the bones and muscles, I mean—it wasn’t the same as the real thing. And anatomy is so important. It was very good of the hospital to allow me to attend the dissection classes.”
“And you found that helped?” asked Sir Hubert.
“Well, no,” admitted Miss Seeton. “At least, not as I’d hoped. The muscles and sinews, of course, were all there. But, somehow, they were lifeless. Like the drawings. You see,” she explained, “they weren’t moving.”
In the silence that followed, suppressed temper deepened the color in Gosslin’s face from rose to violet. Delphick studied the carpet. It was up to Sir Hubert: he got to his feet.
“No,” he agreed, “they wouldn’t be.” His voice came out high. He walked to the window and changed key. “One could hardly expect them to be. Moving, I mean. And they certainly shouldn’t be.” He turned back into the room. “Naturally. Unnatural if they were really.” His voice trailed away.
At this distance, at this angle, Miss Seeton’s drawing looked different. “Why did you draw those lines across the face?” he demanded.
Miss Seeton was distressed. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to. I . . .”
Sir Hubert’s gaze remained on the sketch. “Curious, close to, it seemed meaningless; but from here it looks more like a postmark.”
“Good God!” The sergeant leaned forward. There was a crack as his heel came down on the plate beneath his chair. Embarrassment was postponed by a buzz from a box on the assistant commissioner’s desk.
Sir Hubert pressed a switch. “Yes?”
“The car to take Miss Seeton to Charing Cross Station, sir,” the box announced. “And an officer waiting to take her down.”
“Thank you.”
Farewells completed and the door closed behind their visitor, Sergeant Ranger wilted under the combined stares of the three senior men. The assistant commissioner resumed his seat.
“Perhaps, Sergeant, you will be kind enough to enlighten us—to explain your excess of religious fervor.”
“It was the post office, sir. The Lewisham post office.”
“What about it?”
“It was raided, sir. Just recently.”
“And?”
“Well—nothing, sir. It was the coincidence took me by surprise.”
“A subpost office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Considering that subpost offices are raided at the rate of several a day, it would perhaps be even more surprising if it hadn’t been.” Sir Hubert’s eyes fell to the drawing on his desk; lifted to stare at Delphick. He shook his head. “Nonsense, man. Can’t be true. It’s reaching.” He looked back at the sketch. “The implication’s absurd,” he said slowly; then quickened: “And you, Sergeant, should be back on a beat for presuming to imagine a connection.” He pressed a switch and addressed the box. “Find out in each division where we’ve had this latest series of child killings if there was a raid on a subpost office round about that time. Put different men on to phone the divisions. I want the answers at once.”
“Sir?”
“Yes?” he snapped over his shoulder at Delphick.
“Any other incidents?” suggested the superintendent.
“Of course. And any other incidents,” he told the box, “or anything unusual that occurred within, say, a week to ten days of the murder, and let me know immediately.”
A few minutes later the box buzzed again. Without waiting for the assistant commissioner, it started to speak as his finger touched the switch.
“In all cases, sir,” the box sounded excited, “subpost offices were raided within a mile radius of where a child was killed. The first ten days before the murder and the intervals have been getting shorter each time: the Lewisham raid was only five days ago. Brentwood, West Malling, and Richmond report slight increase in thefts from houses and flats in their areas during the same period. Wimbledon and Lewisham still checking and will report back.”
Sir Hubert sighed. “Thank you.” He switched off.
The four men remained at gaze. The intervals had been getting shorter . . . Chief Superintendent Gosslin voiced it:
“The pace is hotting up. Our chum’s getting a taste for it. Can’t hold it like he did. Not so sure about this pinching on the side, though. Doesn’t seem to match.” He looked down at Sir Hubert’s desk and shook his head. “To think we mightn’t’ve got on to it so soon if that daft little baggage hadn’t doodled all over a face.”
The interview with Dr. Knight had solved nothing: no sign of an anxiety neurosis; no sign of rheumatism; no sign of anything wrong with the reflexes, in fact the contrary; no sign of a strained muscle or ligament; no sign of anemia; no sign of the aftereffects of a stroke, nor reason to suspect that there had been one. A collection of negative signs and one lack of reason which told her nothing since reason told her that something was amiss and the reason for anxiety remained.
Miss Seeton walked back through the village considering ways and means. She must, she decided, resign from teaching at once instead of going back for the summer term. She would write to the headmistress tonight. It would be most unfair to Mrs. Benn to have a drawing mistress in control of a class who was unable to control her own hand. She could give a month’s notice on her flat. But if she took the plunge, cut her connections with London, and settled in the village where the only profession she knew had no outlet, supposing that prices went up, as they did, and her income went down, as incomes do, how would she manage? Faced squarely, the answer was obvious. Learn another profession. But what? Could she, for instance, learn to type? Typists were always needed and one didn’t necessarily have to be a secretary: people took in typing at home, like washing in the old days. Would it take very long to learn? she wondered. Though, of course, there would be the capital outlay on a machine. Again, she could do perfectly well without Mart
ha and that would save something and if one could clean one’s own house one could surely clean other people’s and “someone to do the rough”—“obliging ladies” she believed they were called nowadays; how the language changed—were very difficult to find. The board in the post office was never without one or two notices saying DOMESTIC HELP WANTED, but you never saw one that began WANTED DOMESTIC WORK.
She smiled and said, “Good morning.”
There was no reply. The face remained passive though fractionally the girl hesitated in passing and the frightened eyes shifted.
One of those young things in the car when Effie tried to run into the road. So very shy. Ah, yes, the post office, that reminded her, she was nearly out of coffee.
The coffee bought, Miss Seeton stopped to look at the books in the centre display. So colorful, even lurid; though she’d found, on the whole, the less color the more readable. And, yes, here they were, she thought she’d remembered seeing them, Mastery Books. Master Banking in 30 Minutes. Surely not; and one wouldn’t have very much confidence in the bank. Whereas to Master Your Emotions in 30 Minutes seemed unduly long. She scanned the remaining titles. Yes, there was one. Master Typing in 30 Minutes. She feared that it might take her rather longer than that. She carried the little book over to the counter. After all, it wasn’t expensive and it should give one some idea. On her way out, she glanced at the notice board. Yes, there were three DOMESTIC HELP WANTED and—good gracious, what an odd coincidence. Surely very unusual—one WANTED DOMESTIC WORK.
Miss Seeton felt cheered. There was a spring in her step as she continued down the Street. There were always answers to one’s problems if one looked for them. There was only one disadvantage, she decided, in leading an uneventful life, the mind tended to become inelastic.
Dr. Knight’s view of Miss Seeton and her uneventful life was summed up in a request to his daughter after his patient had left: “Hasn’t that oversized young man of yours in the police got an unsolved murder lying around somewhere? Failing any hornets’ nest to stir up lately the little Seeton’s found herself a gum tree and chased herself up it. I couldn’t reach her. You might climb up after her, Anne, and see if you can talk her down.”
“Anyone home?”
Miss Seeton opened the kitchen door and looked into the passage. “Oh, how very nice. I’m so sorry, but with the door shut I didn’t hear the door. I was just making coffee, will you have some?”
“I? I’d love some.” Anne Knight was finding her mission a little embarrassing. It was all very well for Dad to say talk her down, or talk her out of it, but how did you go about it? Miss Seeton struck her as far too sensible a person to imagine there was anything wrong when there wasn’t. And if it was to do with a drawing that she couldn’t do—or could only half do, or something—the trouble might lie in the drawing itself. It’d really be best to see it and try to judge from that. But how did you ask to see a drawing you weren’t supposed to know about and then reassure the artist when you didn’t know anything about art anyway?
Anne took the coffee tray from Miss Seeton and carried it into the sitting room. Miss Seeton poured.
Anne stirred her cup. Wade straight in would probably be best. “I—er, that is, Dad . . .” She stopped. Miss Seeton looked inquiring. “Well, you know you saw Dad this morning?” Miss Seeton appeared surprised. “No, please,” Anne went on quickly, “it’s not a breach of medical etiquette. It’s more—well, more doctor’s instructions to the nurse. You see he felt you weren’t quite satisfied or not quite happy about things and so he sent me along to see if I could be of any help.”
“I see. Really how very kind to take so much trouble. But, Miss Knight . . . Oh dear. Should it be Nurse Knight? Or Sister Knight? I’m never very clear about these things.”
Her visitor smiled. “I’d rather it was Anne. It’s something to do with drawing, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes. In a way.” Oh dear. How difficult. “That is, my right arm—or, perhaps, I should say the right side, the side of the drawing, I mean—won’t work. It goes wrong every time. So I do feel there must be something wrong with the right. Right arm, that is.” Miss Seeton thought it over. “Perhaps I haven’t made it quite clear.”
Anne laughed. “Well, no. Not quite. But surely this was all some days ago? You’ve been up to Scotland Yard since then and done a drawing for them. And that one was fine, so it can’t be you who’s wrong.”
“Oh, but that was worse,” Miss Seeton assured her, then paused. Should one discuss . . .? And then how did Miss—did Anne know?
The other read her thoughts. “But everyone knows that Scotland Yard sent down to fetch you. It’s been the talk of the village.”
“Stupid of me,” admitted Miss Seeton. “I hadn’t realized that people might notice.”
“I’m afraid,” Anne told her, “there was so much guessing about it that I rang Bob last night and asked him what was up. Of course he wouldn’t tell me anything, you know what the police are—blotting paper. They soak up information but they never give it out.”
“It was nothing important,” explained Miss Seeton. “Simply that they needed a sort of Identikit drawing, as they hadn’t got a photograph.”
“And I don’t know what you mean,” pursued Anne, “by saying it was worse. Because Bob did let out that they’re all cock-a-hoop over whatever it was you did and that the Oracle—I mean Superintendent Delphick—thinks you’re the greatest thing since Rembrandt and of the two, I gather, he prefers your work.”
“But . . .”
“No buts about it. It’s a fact. Something you did’s given them some clue and they’re all happy as beagles chasing after it.”
Miss Seeton spread her hands. “I . . . I just don’t understand.”
“D’you mean they didn’t tell you?” Twenty-five years of experience exploded. “Men. They’re quite impossible. Tell me,” Anne put down her cup, “what exactly was it that started you worrying?”
“You see, I was trying to draw Effie Goffer. Martha had told me that Mrs. Goffer had asked for a portrait.” She smiled. “Well, I believe Mrs. Goffer’s exact words were that she couldn’t see that it would do any harm really. But that’s the trouble. It has. I thought eventually the best thing to do would be something fairy tale, with just a touch of Effie here and there. I tried three times, and each time it came out the same, only quite dreadful.”
“May I look at it?” Miss Seeton wavered. “There’s only one way to lay a ghost,” urged Anne, “and that’s to face it. Whatever you did in London seems to’ve been just what the doctor ordered, so let’s see what a mere nurse can do with this one.” Her hostess still hesitated. “Come on, bring forth your dead and we’ll give them a decent burial.”
Reluctantly Miss Seeton went to her writing desk, opened the bottom drawer, and took out a bulky portfolio. They laid it on the floor, untied the tapes, and squatted down beside it to examine the contents.
“I think I pushed them in somewhere near the bottom because they were horrid,” said Miss Seeton. “But somehow I didn’t like to destroy them—at least, not until I understood what was wrong.”
Anne, who was turning over the accumulation, suddenly gave a crow of delight. “When did you do this? It’s heaven.” Miss Seeton’s face was pink: “this” was a cartoon of Sergeant Ranger, pop-eyed and wondering, in football rig, with striped stockings and a striped muffler streaming behind him in the wind as he ran even faster while the Red Queen, with Miss Seeton’s face, one hand clutching his, the other her umbrella, ran before. “May I buy it? Please? It’s terribly funny, but terribly like him too. Poor Bob, he does so often look like that.”
Pinkness became pleasure. “You certainly can’t buy it. But if you want it I’d be very happy to give it to you.”
Impulsively Anne leaned forward and kissed her. “You’re a darling.”
Miss Seeton’s flush deepened. “Fiddlesticks. And in any case your father was very kind to me this morning and then refused to let me pay, which was wrong
of him and most embarrassing.”
“He couldn’t anyway,” laughed Anne. “He doesn’t take private patients any more, he works with the doctors at the Brettenden clinic, otherwise we only take emergencies. Come on,” she started on the drawings again, “we haven’t got to your weirdies yet. Oh!” She pulled out one of the sketches of Effie Goffer. From underneath Miss Seeton retrieved the other two. Oh . . . Anne wished she hadn’t said, “Bring forth your dead.” Because that was what they were. Obviously. Three portraits of death.
A knock sounded: Miss Seeton rose. Opening the front door, she studied the caller, enrapt. What interesting bones. Most unusual. And beautiful coloring. Beautifully applied. Except, of course, the eyes. “Yes?”
“Seeton?”
Miss Seeton blinked. “Why, yes. That is, I . . .”
“Good.” Mel Forby stepped forward. Miss Seeton backed.
“Who is it?” called Anne.
Miss Seeton turned to the waiting room. “Oh, Anne, don’t bother with those, I’ll see to them.” Forgetting her visitor for a moment, she ran into the room, dropped to the floor and began to collect the drawings.
From the doorway Mel Forby watched them. It came back: the Seeton battle-ax took art classes. These must be a couple of the suckers: a dried-up spinster—green fields, blue skies, and maybe-cow off center—and a little—Anne reached for a sheet of cartridge paper—pardon her, a grown but tiny girl.
“Don’t mind me. I’ll wait.” She looked around. Plenty of furniture, for God’s sake. Still better get on terms—make like the natives. Though in this skirt . . . Gingerly she lowered herself to the floor. “Just make like I’m not here, but when teacher comes back I’d like a word if that’s okay by you.”
