Advantage Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 7)

by Hampton Charles

  “Nigel always looks like Alfred E. Neumann when he’s in love,” Thrudd pointed out, “which is most of the time. As for Trish, not everybody reads the sports pages, you know, and she isn’t exactly in the Margaret Court or Billie Jean King league. The important thing is, have you dug up anything else on these allegations about her old man?”

  “Not so far,” Mel admitted. “Miss S. more or less repeated them cheerfully enough when I went to see her, but you know how she keeps going off on a tangent. I hardly like to waylay the vicar and ask him. I mean, for heaven’s sake, Thrudd, he might be involved himself. Unmarried middle-aged clergymen are forever getting into the Sunday papers.”

  “Yes, but choirboys are their downfall as a rule,” Thrudd said with a great air of well-informed authority. “Can’t see the vicar of Plummergen snuggling up to Mr. Justice Thumper, somehow.” He looked at his watch. “Look, it’s hardly nine-fifteen. What say we take a little stroll as far as the vicarage, see if he’s home? If he is, chat about this and that in a casual sort of way, and see what comes of it?”

  All the talk about snuggling up had pointed Mel’s thoughts in quite a different direction, like upstairs, but she remembered that Molly Treeves had, in thanking her privately after the end of the meeting, cordially invited her to drop in at the vicarage at any time. It might well be diverting to follow up Thrudd’s idea. She swallowed the last of her brandy too quickly, spluttered, and dabbed at her watering eyes. Then she got up and stood looking down at him. Tonight, she suddenly decided, was going to be the night. If T. Banner didn’t make a move, she would. But there’d be no harm in strolling along to the vicarage first.

  “Okay, you dynamic newshound, we’ll go dig up some dirt. On your feet!”

  The evening air was balmy and fragrant, and Miss Seeton breathed deeply of it as she strolled toward the church, her long, heavy flashlight in her hand but switched off. It was almost dark, but one could still make out the shapes of the buildings in The Street, of a car parked a little beyond the churchyard lych-gate, and the illuminated sign outside the George and Dragon. The incipient headache was still there in the background, but it no longer seemed inevitable that it would prevail, and Miss Seeton began to sing to herself. She had a good memory for tunes and rhythms, but a poor one for words, and rarely managed a complete line.

  Thus it was that, having denuded the vestry cupboard of the silver it contained and while Harvey was re-locking it, he and Norman were startled to hear the heavy latch on the west door rattle, the door itself squeak open, and a small but jaunty voice singing “A wand’ring minstrel I, a thing of tumty tumty . . .” And then desist, as though it had suddenly occurred to its owner that though the psalmist had stressed that it was perfectly in order to sing unto God with the voice of melody, that probably wasn’t the sort of melody he’d had in mind.

  “Cripes,” Norman whispered. “Oo the ’ell’s that?” One must be charitable and give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. In the course of numerous appearances before magistrates over the years, it had been pointed out more than once to Norman that his chosen career involved a deplorably slack attitude toward the eighth commandment. It may however be questioned whether he realized that his words on this occasion put him in breach of the third, too. On a technicality.

  Harvey hastily doused the tiny pocket torch he had been using, while Norman peeped round the half-open vestry door just as Miss Seeton switched on her flashlight and its powerful beam stabbed through the darkness of the nave. Never having had occasion previously to note the location of the electric light switches in the church, Miss Seeton directed the beam here and there more or less at random, until it picked out the cross on the altar in such a splendidly theatrical way that she held it in that position for a time while she admired the effect.

  It was, she decided, a bit like the climax of a production of Aida she had seen at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in north London one evening at the end of the Second World War, when the fog outside was so dense that it pervaded the auditorium and lent an unearthly radiance to the spotlights on . . . who had it been? Victoria Sladen? A very large diva, anyway.

  But come, this would never do. Miss Seeton abandoned the idea of trying to find the light switches, and proceeded up the central aisle, trying to recall the last occasion when she had been responsible for the flowers, and where she had put them. There were the two big vases, one on either side just inside the communion rail. Some of the day lilies from her garden would do very well for those, but the big shallow bowl on the shelf just below the ledge of the pulpit was going to be more of a problem . . .

  Her musings were disturbed by a muffled clanking noise coming from the direction of the vestry, and for the first time since setting out from Sweetbriars Miss Seeton experienced a flicker of unease. She pointed her torch toward the vestry, the door of which she then saw was ajar.

  “Vicar? Er, is that you, Mr. Treeves? Mr. Treeooblh—”

  Having left the church door open, she had not heard William Parsons enter behind her. Parsons himself was in a state of indecision. He had been given specific instructions to remain at the wheel of the getaway car outside the church, but none about what he should do if, while his colleagues in crime were about their business, he glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw a slightly built, elderly lady approach, go in through the lych-gate, and make for the church door. Something had to be done, though, so he had quietly followed her, watched her movements and then temporarily lost his head and pounced when she called out. With his hand now clamped firmly over her mouth, he could keep the old girl reasonably quiet, but that left only one of his arms free to try to control her furious and surprisingly agile struggles, and for crying out loud, watch out for that damn flashlight . . .

  It was too late. The impact of the heavy torch on the side of his head just above his right ear was not only violent enough to jar the bulb and extinguish the light, it also stunned William Parsons, who sank to his knees as Miss Seeton wriggled free, only to be grabbed again by Norman, who dragged her unbuttoned cardigan off her shoulders and used it to tie her wrists together behind her before she realized what was happening. Then he pushed her face down to the cold stone slabs of the floor of the nave and unceremoniously sat on her behind. And just when one had been on the point of apologizing for hitting the other person with the torch! It had been the man’s own fault, of course, and he and his friends were clearly up to no good, but one did so hate violence. There seemed to be little point in reasoning with them, so one might as well just wait and see . . .

  “Switch that bloody thing off!” Norman hissed to Harvey, whose little pocket flashlight had briefly illuminated the scene. “An’ keep your gobs zipped up, both of yer. Wake up, dumbbell, you’re not ’urt, move it . . . give us your tie. Necktie.” Deeply embarrassed by the results of his intervention and still woozy from the effects of the blow to his head, Parsons clumsily pulled off his tie and held it out in the direction of Norman’s voice. A few seconds later, Miss Seeton’s ankles had been tied together, but her captor remained where he was for the time being.

  “Right, scarper! Out front an’ get that stuff stowed away. I’ll be right wivyer!”

  Only after she had heard the other two men leave the church was the crushing weight on her removed, and Miss Seeton heard herself being addressed directly for the first time.

  “Right, listen to me, lady. Dunno ’oo you are or what the ’ell you’re up to, but you’re dead lucky, you are. An’ if you wanter stay lucky, you jus’ lie there nice an’ quiet an’ count up to a thousand ’fore you even think about yellin’, or tryin’ to get yourself undone. You let me down we shall know it, sure as a gun, an’ one o’ the boys’ll be back one fine day to sort yer out.”

  “Somebody’s in a hurry,” Thrudd Banner remarked, grabbing Mel by the upper arm and pulling her back from the curb as a car hurtled down The Street from the direction of the church and disappeared round the corner at the end. “Damn fool roadhogs, only their sidelights on, too.
” He released her arm, and Mel promptly slipped it back through his as they crossed the now deserted road and turned right.

  “You sure it isn’t too late to bother the Treeveses? Doubt if Plummergen folk are nightbirds, somehow.” Mel gave Thrudd’s arm a hopeful little squeeze. And wasn’t that a little return pressure? “It’s a nice evening. Why don’t we just wander about for a while and then call it a day ourselves?”

  “Okay by me. Unless the vicarage is a blaze of light when we get there, and Molly Treeves is out on the doorstep looking out for another couple to make up a four for bridge.”

  They ambled along in companionable silence for a while before Thrudd spoke again. “Fascinating when you come to think of it.”

  “What is?”

  “The way the upper classes stick together. I mean, if old Wilfred Thumper really is that way inclined, you’d have thought there’d have been rumors over the years. Specially about a guy with a public reputation like his. Thing is, what are you proposing to do about it if it turns out to be true?”

  “Search me. An item like that’d be bound to come in handy sooner or later, though. Waste not, want not, that’s my motto.” She stopped abruptly. “Ssh, listen. Can you hear somebody calling out?”

  “Where?”

  “Sort of high-pitched. Seems to be coming from the church.”

  “Probably a cat. Forget it.”

  “Don’t think so. We’re going that way anyway. Even if it is only a cat, we ought to let the poor thing out.”

  By the time Mel and Thrudd neared the lych-gate, the sound was clearly audible, and could not possibly have been made by a cat. In fact they soon identified it, and rushed to the west door, which was partly open. They expected to find Miss Seeton inside, but not in a contorted heap on the floor attempting with wrists tied behind her to reach her similarly bound ankles.

  chapter

  ~9~

  “SHE REALLY is a remarkably resilient person for her age,” Dr. Wright said when he came downstairs, followed by his daughter, and the others looked up at him expectantly. “Or, to put it another way, she’s as tough as an old boot. I tried several times to persuade her to spend the night at the nursing home just to be on the safe side, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Anne will bear me out.”

  “Quite right,” Anne confirmed, gazing fondly at Bob Ranger, who was overfilling an easy chair while Mel Forby and Thrudd Banner occupied the sofa in the living room at Sweetbriars. “She’d got the idea into her head that we’re much too busy with the arrangements for the wedding to want her underfoot, as she put it.”

  “But she really is okay, is she, Doctor?”

  “A number of bruises and contusions from dragging herself over the stone floor to the church door, but nothing serious, no. And fortunately she’d worked herself up into such a high old state of indignation over the way the men behaved that she quite forgot to go into shock. The sedative I put in her cocoa will give her a good night’s sleep, and apart from a few aches and pains, she should be as right as rain in the morning.” He switched his medical bag from one hand to the other and looked round the room benignly. “Well, I’ll be off, then, it’s past my bedtime. Leave you young people to it. You’ll look in on Miss Seeton first thing in the morning then, Anne. Look her over, help her dress and so forth, right? Fine. ’Night, all.”

  “I’m wondering if I ought to kip down on the sofa for the night,” Bob said thoughtfully after his prospective father-in-law had left. “PC Potter’s reported the incident to Ashford, and they’ll be sending a CID man over to talk to Miss S. in the morning . . .”

  Thrudd grinned. “So naturally you want a piece of the action, right?”

  “I should jolly well think he does,” Anne said stoutly. “Miss Seeton’s a consultant to Scotland Yard, and don’t you forget it.”

  Thrudd threw up his hands in mock defensiveness. “I surrender, don’t hit me again, lady. Might be a good idea at that, though I can’t really see these desperadoes coming back to have another go at her, can you?”

  “What beats me is how she managed to get herself to the door tied up like that in the dark and wriggle herself up against it backwards to lift that heavy latch,” Mel said, and Anne nodded in agreement.

  “Thank goodness she did, though, or she might have been lying there all night. Nobody could possibly have heard her calling out if the door had stayed closed.”

  “I’m telling you, even at that it was darn close to a miracle that Thrudd and I were near enough to the church to hear her. And we still haven’t figured out what in the world she was doing there in the first place. You know how it is with Miss S., she was gassing away nineteen to the dozen while we were untying her, but she hasn’t got the knack of finishing one sentence before she gets involved in explaining something else entirely. What was all that about Aida and doing the flowers, Thrudd?”

  “Ask me another.” He yawned mightily. “The poor old girl’d been through a pretty rough half hour, after all. She’ll probably make better sense in the morning. You going to stay here or not, Bob? If you are, we’ll walk Anne home and then head for the pub.”

  “But what on earth am I to say to the Archdeacon?” the Reverend Arthur Treeves moaned for the third time since PC Potter had taken his leave and promised to return in the morning with a colleague from Ashford to take down the details of the stolen silver.

  His sister snorted. Characters in books are often described as snorting when in fact the sound envisaged is probably more like an explosive, contemptuous, or mirthless laugh, which would come out as “Hah!” in direct speech. Still flushed with her triumph over Erica Nuttel at the Women’s Institute meeting earlier that day, Molly Treeves really snorted; to such effect that she hastily had recourse to the box of Kleenex conveniently at hand.

  “Well, for goodness sake, don’t apologize to him, whatever you do. Blame the churchwardens,” she then advised. “It’s all their fault anyway, I expect, and there’s nothing the Archdeacon can do to them. Pull yourself together, do. It isn’t as if you took the blessed silver and tied Miss Seeton up. The Nuts are much more likely suspects, in view of the fact that Miss Seeton pulled Erica Nuttel’s trousers down this afternoon.”

  This was the first the vicar had heard of the imbroglio, and he goggled in amazement. “My dear Molly, you can’t mean, that is you aren’t seriously suggesting . . .”

  “Oh, go to bed, Arthur. I’ll talk to your precious Archdeacon for you if you’re too feeble.”

  • • •

  “Gawd, I don’t never want no more excitement like that,” Norman announced, and then added a couple more negatives to ram his point home. “Not never.”

  Harvey said nothing, but shuddered delicately and raised his glass of pink gin in mute agreement before drinking deeply. William Parsons remained slumped in his chair, a very picture of despair. It was just after one-thirty in the morning, and the three men were in the living room of Norm’s unexpectedly snug flat above the Jade Garden, a Chinese take-away restaurant in South London’s Lewisham High Street, a safe hour-and-a-half’s drive from the scenes of their recent exploits.

  “Still, there in’t no need to sit there lookin’ like a pregnant duck, even if you did upset the apple cart an’ get a wallop on your bonce for interferin’, Bill. Give us a tune on that ol’ fiddle-face, blimey, we done all three jobs as per accordin’ to plan in the end, din’t we?”

  “I think you were out of your tiny mind to insist on going ahead with the other two after that ghastly business in Plummergen, if you want my opinion. My nerves were in shreds.”

  “You’re up the pole, ’Arve. Why, even if that ol’ bird ’ad managed to get out o’ there an’ kick up a rumpus in less than an hour, you’re not tellin’ me the Old Bill would go tearin’ round the neighbor’ood lookin’ for us in other churches, are yer? Nah, we was as safe as ’ouses on them other jobs.”

  Parsons was not so easily to be cheered. “I feel terrible. That old woman could easily have had a heart attack, thanks to me.
Don’t you realize she might be dead, with the police setting up a murder hunt for us at this very moment? And even if she is all right, she’s a witness, Norm. My God, I’d never have got into this if I’d imagined for a moment that . . .”

  “Blimey, ’ark ’oo’s talkin’! Don’t you come the old acid with me, Bill. What you got in mind on yer own account in’t no Sunday school outin’. Far as tonight went, first place, that ol’ biddy weren’t no shrinkin’ violet. She as near as dammit ’ad you out for the count there. An’ I felt the muscles on ’er when I was fixin’ ’er up. I’ll give you two ’undred to one she’s back ’ome sinkin a glass or two to settle ’er tum, just like us. Second place, there in’t no way she could’ve got a make on us.” He chuckled. “Unless o’ course you ’ad your name an’ address embroidered on that tie o’ yours.”

  “No. It was a birthday present, years ago,” Parsons admitted, and unexpectedly brushed a tear from the corner of his eye. “It probably came from Woolworths.”

  “Well, then, there you are. You listen to me, mate, the on’y one of us what ’as anythin’ to worry about’s me, ’cause I’m the on’y one she ’eard say anythin’, an’ I never used no names. So if I’m sayin’ we done all right tonight, we done all right. Get it?” He pointed at the collection of silver candlesticks, chalices, collection plates, and other items ranged on the table. “All we want now is for ’Arvey to wangle us the right price for this little lot—an’ ’e chose ’em so ’e knows where ter place ’em—an’ we’ll all be laughin’. Specially you, Bill Parsons.”

  “Why me?”