Miss Seeton Draws the Line (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 2)

by Heron Carvic

  The Ashford Division might be satisfied, but Delphick expressed doubts. Miss Palstead was known to have had jewelry. Where was it? The bank cashier had stolen and embezzled a lot of money. Where was it?

  “Blued,” suggested Chief Inspector Brinton. “Why look for trouble when there isn’t any? Especially as for once we’re not up to our necks in hitches and high jinks thanks to your Miss Seeton keeping her brolly out of it.”

  Since it wasn’t his case, Delphick refrained from pressing the matter in view of his friend’s evident pleasure that chummies were once more behaving normally as chummies should, tidying up their dirty little messes as they went along and generally giving the police as little trouble as possible. However, with the prevailing feeling in the division that the child strangling case was over and the killer accounted for, Delphick refused to agree. Brinton himself was prepared to allow that the Oracle could be right on this since the pathologist’s report on the Palstead woman tended to confirm the superintendent’s suspicions. Different wire and more force had been used than in any of the child garrotings to date. Previously there had been no lacerations and in the woman’s case the pressure on the sterno-cleido-they-did-dream-’em-up-mastoid muscles had been more severe, causing deeper contusions. The watch on the Quints and the lookout for their van, therefore, would be kept, but Delphick was afraid that this watch would tend to be perfunctory. Privately he was convinced that Effie Goffer’s murder had been the result of a relaxation of care on the part of her guards when the detention of young Hosigg had momentarily been considered to be the end of the case. He had therefore decided that he and the sergeant would, so far as was possible, keep a vigil of their own.

  He was surprised that the Quints had stayed. By now he had become convinced in his own mind of their guilt in spite of their alibi for the post-office affair and the lack of any concrete evidence against them. In view of this, after the fiasco of their recent attempts at burglary owing to Miss Seeton’s interference and the consequent presence of the police in the village, he would have expected them to get out and try elsewhere. Perhaps they were planning a last effort to recoup their losses and pay their expenses. But at least he felt there should be no further threat to life at the moment. Had there been he was certain it would have shown in Miss Seeton’s sketches at the school. Those had covered all the children. All . . .?No, not all, Delphick suddenly realized. The deaf-and-dumb child, through not attending school, had been missed out. It seemed unlikely that there was any danger there. If either of the Quints had wished to get rid of him they’d had plenty of opportunity in the past. And Doris in any case seemed ready enough to leap to her brother’s defense. Still—best be safe. After all. Miss Seeton had seen the boy and a rough sketch from memory would tell him all he needed. He’d go over to Sweetbriars at once, he decided. It was a godsend Miss Seeton rarely made difficulties when asked for a drawing. As a professional artist all her life to be asked for a drawing was a normal request.

  Miss Seeton was in her garden. At last she had found time to get down to the grass in the beds. Such a relief that everything was settled now. Though naturally very tragic. She dug her fork into the earth. Oh dear—there were so many different kinds. One had always thought of grass as grass. But, no. There was this ordinary kind; she shook it to free the earth, which scattered over her skirt. And then there was that business at the bank. And this tufted kind. So very difficult, she tugged, to get out. Really very improper. Somehow, with people in a position of trust, like a cashier . . . And this dreadful thing that people called couch, though Mr. Green-finger called it something quite different, which you couldn’t get out at all. Now, where was she? Ah, yes. Trust. It seemed so much worse. Quite shocking. There was a rumble as Stan Bloomer passed her with the garden roller. So very heavy. He’d stationed it near the French window for a day or two while the ground was right for rolling, and at first she’d been quite nervous lest it might roll down the slope of the lawn on top of her while she was weeding. But he’d put a triangular piece of wood—what had he called it? Of course; a chuck. Or was it chock? It was so difficult, sometimes, to understand quite what Stan was saying. When he spoke at all, that was. Mostly he just beamed at one and said, “Ah.” Unless, of course, one knew exactly what he intended to say. And it did. Stop it rolling down, she meant.

  A shadow fell across the bed. Miss Seeton looked up, then smiled.

  “Oh, Superintendent, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. And with the roller, I thought it was Stan.” She began to rise.

  Delphick stayed her. “No, at least let me help. You haven’t much more to do.” He squatted on his heels, took a trowel and together they finished weeding the bed in a companionable silence.

  The weeds disposed of and the tools cleaned and oiled, they retired to the sitting room, where the superintendent asked her if she would mind attempting a memory sketch of the deaf-and-dumb child.

  Miss Seeton was penitent. “I’m so sorry. How very remiss of me. I knew, of course, that you wanted pictures of all the children here when I went to the school. I should have remembered him. Particularly as I do feel that he should have been sent to a proper school for that kind of thing.” She went to her writing desk and began to sort out paper and pencils.

  “A slight impression is all I need,” Delphick assured her.

  Miss Seeton remained for a few moments, pencil poised, thoughtful, surprised. “You know, I realize it was very careless on my part, but it’s only just occurred to me: somehow I’ve never thought of him as a child.” She set to work.

  Delphick waited. Suddenly Miss Seeton dropped her pencil and stood up. “Please.” She moved away, her hands agitated. “I’m not happy about this. I don’t want to go on with it, I mean. I can’t, that is.” She turned to Delphick in appeal. “I’m not happy about it,” she repeated a little desperately. “Please.”

  chapter

  ~10~

  DELPHICK PACED THE living room in the family’s half of the nursing home. Mrs. Knight had apologized that her husband was delayed but something had cropped up: one of the doctors from the Brettenden clinic had brought a case over for consultation which was unusual on a Saturday morning. But Dr. Knight shouldn’t be very long. She had offered coffee. Delphick had thanked her but refused and after a look at his face she had thought it better to leave him to his own devices.

  The superintendent stopped at the table on which he had placed a folder containing three of Miss Seeton’s sketches. He laid them out and remained there pondering on the most recent of them. Wondering. Puzzling. This was one of those vital line drawings that Mel Forby called “really something.” Or rather the completed half was vital. No—that was wrong, he recognized. There was vitality, there was threat, something repulsive in the blank, untouched whiteness where the other half of the face should be. Down the page ran a straight thick line. On one side there glowed the rather pretty, boyish face—but somehow not attractive, not young. The other half . . . Not the blurred death mask he might have expected. Here there was no other half. It was as if someone had drawn a line through a completed portrait—a portrait so vivid as to be almost a living face—slashed one half of that face away and stuck it on a plain sheet of paper.

  The result was curious. Monstrous and pathetic in one. He remembered Miss Seeton’s distress over the drawing; her abrupt refusal to finish it. Although she hadn’t realized it, it was, he thought, finished. Everything he needed to know was here in front of him he was sure, if only he could read it. A flicker in his mind: there was something else. What was it? Delphick searched his memory. He studied the two other sketches: that of the dead boy at Lewisham and the one of Effie Goffer. Of course—that was it. The other side. In both the previous ones it was the right side that was blurred. In this the left was blank. Right? Left? Delphick struggled with it; tried to place himself in the drawings. The right side then became one’s left, which by convention stood for heart—for living. The left, the subject’s right . . . He cast his mind back to the course he had take
n in forensic medicine. Yes, the right side held, if he remembered, one of the carotid arteries. This supplied the brain. Could it then stand for brain? In the portraits of the two dead children the living side was shrouded. Here, though life was clear, the brain was missing. Allusion? Illusion? Delphick tried to be dispassionate, to rid himself of the hypnotic power the drawing held; to analyze. Was he being too fanciful? Or was there after all significance in this?

  The door opened and Dr. Knight hurried in. “Sorry to’ve kept you. Fool of a woman’s got wind and thinks she’s pregnant. Why call me in? I’m not a gynecologist. Fontiss was certain of his diagnosis but thought it might be due to nervous causes. She’s got a cause to be nervous. Husband’s in the army, been abroad a year. Her trouble’s conscience mixed with indigestion. I can’t help her. Fontiss had already told her she needs a tablet not a midwife. Good man, Fontiss—sound. Now what’s your trouble?” He joined Delphick at the table; noted the drawings. “The little Seeton been up to her tricks again? Or d’you need another lecture on our old friend, the split mind?”

  “I have an idea it’s the latter,” replied Delphick. He indicated the table. “Though Miss Seeton as you can see—and guessed—comes into it. She ’s sent me another riddle; and this one I can’t solve.”

  “You think I can?” The doctor’s eyebrows quirked. “Well, I prescribed another dose of murder for her and from what I’ve heard she’s been taking it by the pint.” He looked down. “What’ve you got here? And what’s your problem?” He was silent for a space. “Don’t like ’em y’know. Very unpleasant. Her work, I suppose? This,” he pointed to the Effie Goffer portrait, “must be the one she came to me about. Never saw it, but Anne told me. The Seeton said she’d been trying to draw the Goffer brat, but couldn’t. Thought she’d had a stroke. Rubbish. Never met anyone fitter. Beats me how she does it at her age.”

  Delphick gave a fleeting grin. “Yoga exercises.”

  Dr. Knight looked up. “Oh, that’s her secret, is it? No wonder then. Sensible little woman.” He bent over the table again. “Now this one,” he pointed to the last of the sketches, “this I consider most unpleasant.” He continued to study it. “Most unpleasant,” he repeated. “What’s she drawn the line for?” he asked suddenly. “Why didn’t she finish it?”

  Delphick moved to an armchair and sat down. “She was upset—and said she wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.” He frowned. “I have a feeling she did—without knowing it. I think it’s complete as it stands.”

  “Do you?” Dr. Knight hooked a chair forward with his foot and sat. He looked at Delphick over the table. “Then I should say your mind could bear investigation. You trying to indulge in some extrasensory piffle? Or suggesting she does?”

  “Is that so impossible?”

  Dr. Knight glowered. “Hogwash. But then I’m only a poor nerve specialist. Who is this anyway?”

  Delphick described Miss Seeton’s drawings of the school children; told the doctor something of his suspicions and his reasons for them. And finally his request for the last sketch when he realized that this one child had been missed.

  “Child?” rapped the doctor. “That’s not a child.” He tapped the sketch. “This is a case of dwarfism, Lorain-Levy type, I should say.” Marking the superintendent’s blank expression, he added impatiently, “Someone of childish stature and proportions. That’s if this picture’s accurate or has any meaning at all. Late teens, from the look of him.”

  Delphick puzzled. “I’d noticed the half that was there was a good likeness but that she’d missed the childish quality.”

  “No, not missed,” declared the doctor. “If this is correct it’s not there. Should say you’d let yourself be fooled by the young man’s coloring and expression. Artists if they know their job go deeper than that. You’d get the same thing in a good black-and-white photograph. Look, man,” his finger traced the points, “look at that eye; the setting’s starting to hollow; the mouth—you don’t get that firmness in a child’s; or the beginning of a groove at the corner of the lip. Look at the jaw: have you ever seen that hardening of the line, that jut at the angle, in a child? But,” his finger went lower, “the neck’s your proof. A child’s neck can be thin or fat, but it’s unformed. And this—” the finger tracked a line, “if the other half of that was there you’d have an Adam’s apple.”

  Once it had been pointed out Delphick could see it: the older face lurking beneath the childish front. And once seen he could see it no other way. Suddenly he remembered Miss Seeton’s “You know, Superintendent . . . I’ve never thought of him as a child.” He began to calculate. “Tell me, doctor, if that’s the boy’s age group, with such a handicap—and being deaf and consequently dumb, from birth—could puberty come into it? Might adolescence affect such a boy badly, make him break out like this? What I’m getting at is, could killing children be a form of compensation? Killing people his own size in order to prove himself. Does that make sense?”

  “Puberty? No.” Dr. Knight dismissed it. “With the Lorain-Levys, you’ll get a state of sexual infantilism. But the intelligence would be perfectly normal. Mind you, I’m no authority. I’m not an alienist nor a specialist on human physiology, but certainly reduced activity of the eosinophile cells wouldn’t in itself affect the brain. And the deafness has nothing to do with it—pure accident of birth. What’s his speech like? Know where he was trained?”

  Delphick thought. “So far as I know he can’t talk at all. I imagine he’s never had any training. I should say his sister’s always kept him with her.”

  “Oh.” Dr. Knight weighed the information. “Then that’s a different story. Your idea—though medical poppycock—might make horse sense. Trouble with deformities is learning to live with ’em. If your young man is being tied to his sister’s apron strings—she’s married, isn’t she, and he lives with ’em?—then he could be getting a bit above himself now he’s growing up. Fatal, making people dependent on you. Take mothers with only sons: keep them dependent and they’ll kick you in the teeth, or somewhere else, eventually. This sister business sounds the same. If she’s kept him as a puppet all his life he might well be feeling his oats by now. Decide to strike out on his own and show them a thing or two. What you’re suggesting’s a paranoia induced by an original handicap, in this case deafness, aggravated by the conditions of a moronic upbringing until it’s become a psychosis. H’m. Difficult to blame him. The fault of course would lie with the girl. Sorry I’m not more helpful,” he pushed two of the drawings back into the folder and stood up with the last of them in his hand, “but with these sort of questions there’s no yes or no. However,” he faced Delphick, “if you want my opinion—off the record and without prejudice—from what you’ve told me I should say, yes, you’re probably right.” He gave the sketch a last glance before slipping it in with the others. “Most unpleasant.” He handed the folder to Delphick. The telephone buzzed. The doctor picked up the extension, listened, then passed over the receiver. “Young Bob. For you.”

  Delphick listened to his sergeant’s report without comment; said, “Right.” and put the receiver back. He looked dazed.

  “More trouble?” asked the doctor.

  The superintendent put his hand to his forehead and smacked it. It didn’t really help but it expressed his feelings. “Bob’ll be here in a few minutes with the car. Ashford’ve just come through with some story: they say Miss Seeton’s revived a corpse and gone driving with it.”

  “Never a dull moment,” remarked Dr. Knight. “Who’s the corpse?”

  “A bank cashier who absconded with funds, killed his mistress in Ashford, and some charred remains found in his burned-out car were identified as his the other day. It struck me as fishy at the time—too opportune, with all the cash and her jewelry still on the missing list. But how the devil,” Delphick went into the hall, “has Miss Seeton got in on it? There’s no connection.” He paused in buttoning his coat. “I suppose she might have seen him. He worked in Brettenden. But how’s she met up with him n
ow? If he’s alive, surely he wouldn’t be hanging around in Brettenden of all places. Anyway they’ve given us an address to start on.”

  The doctor followed him to the doors. “Worried about her, aren’t you?”

  Delphick turned on him almost savagely. “Well, wouldn’t you be? If it is him, he’s killed twice already. If she can identify him that’s the end of her.”

  Dr. Knight held one of the swing doors open. “See your point, but don’t give up. She’s indestructible, that one. She’ll probably greet you with ‘Good gracious. Superintendent, how fortunate.’ ”

  Delphick relaxed and laughed. He went out and down the steps as Bob arrived.

  The check for the sketches at the school reached her addressed as before to “MissEss.” So very generous of the police. And, of course, most helpful. One would not like to feel that the superintendent was doing it out of kindness. However, when one considered, he did always seem quite insistent, even firm, about what he wanted. Though with regard to that last one . . . She was very sorry not to have been of use. And more sorry to have behaved rather stupidly. Really, at one’s age, to allow oneself to become emotional. Miss Seeton pursed her lips in distaste. Well, it was best forgotten. She must remember to go to the bank. In some ways, now, one was bound to acknowledge that it was pleasanter. Though still, of course, quite deplorable. But, then again, one must admit that the poor man had paid for his folly. Such a dreadful way to die. But there was no denying that it was pleasanter. To go to the bank, that was. Though when one thought of that woman that he’d kept in Ashford and then killed . . . Much better not to think of it. She had some shopping to do in Brettenden and she could deposit the check at the same time and save postage. Because that nice Mr. Jestin—such a good idea, having those plaques on the counter telling one the cashier’s name—though still very young, surely, to have been promoted to chief cashier, was, one felt, quite reliable. And also very pleasant. And greeted one by name with “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” as the case might be. And certainly never made one feel that one was wasting his time.