“Why you? I’ll tell you why. We got a bit o’ good news for you, me ol’ mate. Bin savin’ it up for the occasion. Abaht that certain person you’re interested in, namin’ no names, know what I mean?” Norman winked prodigiously. “Well, guess ’oo spotted ’is daughter the tennis whizz this mornin’—” he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and corrected himself, “I mean yes’dy mornin’. In a little MG bein’ driven by a young feller, an’ trailed by a carload o’ fuzz?” Norman blew on his fingernails and polished them ostentatiously on his lapel. “Yours truly is ’oo. Minders, them rozzers in the car be’ind was. So later on we nosed round a bit, ’Arve an’ me. Turns out the car belongs to a Nigel Colveden, son an’ heir of Sir George Colveden of Rytham ’All, just outside Plummergen. An’ that’s where your ol’ sparrin’ partner’s kid’s bin stashed away for safe keepin’. Oho! Penny beginnin’ to drop, is it? Cheerin’ up a bit, are we, then? Thought that might put the roses back in them pale chops o’ yours . . .”
A little later, Bob Ranger shifted uneasily on Miss Seeton’s sofa. It was much too short for him to stretch out on it, but by pulling one of the easy chairs alongside to accommodate the lower part of his legs when bent at the knees, he had contrived to start off reasonably comfortably. The problem was that whenever he wanted to turn over—and in defiance of common sense he kept doing so in the hope of achieving a better fit—he had to move the easy chair along to the other end. At some stage it had occurred to him to bring up the second chair, but the acrobatics subsequently involved in reversing his position woke him up so thoroughly that he decided with a sigh to give up the struggle and do a bit of thinking.
He devoted some time to wistful daydreaming about the new king-sized bed he expected to be sharing with Anne after they returned from their honeymoon and took up residence in the house they were buying with the aid of a ten-thousand-pound building society loan in Bromley, within easy commuting distance of London, and not all that far from Plummergen by car. Too far for Anne to be able to go on working for her father as nurse/receptionist, unfortunately; but she already had a job lined up in Bromley as secretary to a group medical practice, and Dr. Wright had found a redoubtable lady, a recently retired Army nursing officer who liked to be addressed as Major Howett and seemed certain to become known as The Howitzer, to run his private nursing home for him.
What with Anne’s salary and his metropolitan police sergeant’s pay and allowances, they ought to be able to manage pretty well, at least until . . . well, they’d have to cross that bridge when they came to it, wouldn’t they? The main thing was to get this blessed wedding over with and push off on aforesaid honeymoon before the Oracle had a chance to get it into his noddle that the Thumper blackmailing affair and Miss Seeton’s latest adventure required his continuing presence in Plummergen.
Not, of course, that the two cases were in any way related. It was just that if there was trouble around, Miss S. headed straight for it like a blooming homing pigeon. She really did get up to some barmy tricks, like deciding to go pottering about the church in the dark just when a bunch of villains were helping themselves to the communion plate. Pity she hadn’t got there soon enough to scare them off, then the police needn’t have been involved at all. As it was, old Potter had had the time of his life, bothering the vicar, then on the phone to his divisional HQ reporting the burglary and the assault on Miss S. The moment Chief Inspector Brinton heard about it, he’d be bound to descend on Plummergen to take personal charge, and be on the blower toot sweet to the Oracle, and . . .
Filled with foreboding and convinced that he was in for a wakeful, depressing night, Detective Sergeant Bob Ranger drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Upstairs in her own bed, Miss Seeton was also asleep, but unlike her protector below was dreaming energetically. Of a spotlit Aida center stage and visibly growing larger, waving her arms about and brandishing a tennis racket, with Bellini’s doge looking sorrowfully on, and . . . someone else in shadow, but the shadow turned to blackness and there was pressure, pressure, but then it was gone again and, absurdly, Nigel was proffering a bouquet of day lilies not to Aida but to the doge . . . and yes, of course!
Miss Seeton’s eyes snapped open for a few seconds. Of course, that was who it was!
Then she went back to sleep.
Upstairs in the George and Dragon, Thrudd Banner was nearly asleep, again, but Mel Forby had managed to revive him twice already with a certain amount of imagination and ingenuity, and had no intention of desisting for quite some time. The past couple of hours had been altogether too delicious. Starting with the nightcap in his room, from his bottle of duty-free Dimple Haig with water from the tap, in tooth-glasses. Followed by a speculative look from him, a teasing insult and a slap on the wrist from her, warm, strong hands seizing both of hers, a playful bout of wrestling that fooled neither of them, and then the first fierce, aggressive kiss, the breaking away, the wide-eyed, wondering gaze of mutual realization turning to one of open desire . . . and then at last the heart-thudding joy of that long-awaited naked embrace, the impossibility of ever getting enough of each other!
At least, that was the way she, Amelita Forby, saw the situation, and without more ado she set to work to persuade Thrudd that, in bed at least, it is equally blessed both to give and to receive.
chapter
~10~
CHIEF INSPECTOR Chris Brinton looked at the cupboard in the vestry in disgust and disbelief, sniffed, and turned to Detective Constable Foxon. “Dunno why they didn’t just keep the stuff in a wet paper bag. Even you could’ve sprung that lock. With one of your hair-curlers.” Foxon scowled defensively.
“Leave it off, Guv. So what if it is a bit long? Matter of fact, I had an appointment at Charlene’s Unisex Snip ‘n’ Blow this morning, and whose fault is it I couldn’t keep it, Sir?” It being Saturday, Brinton decided that a degree of mutinous behavior was allowable, and let the impertinence pass.
“All right, all right, let’s get on. It looks like turning into a right sort of shambles today anyway, without you and me giving each other any aggro.”
There were standing orders at Ashford divisional police headquarters that Brinton was to be informed, if necessary by telephone at home, of any incident in Plummergen or involving Miss Seeton. Mercifully on this occasion the news had reached him after rather than during a tender half-hour with Mrs. Brinton, and he had taken a certain satisfaction in ringing up the Oracle at home just before midnight to put him in the picture.
At that stage the burglaries at two other churches within ten miles of Plummergen had not yet been reported. News of one had come in by the time Brinton and Foxon left Ashford, and they learned of the other over the car radio on the way.
“What time’s Mr. Delphick s’posed to get here?”
“Eleven or so, he said. He’ll pick up Ranger from the doctor’s place and find us. Then we’ll all have a word with Miss S., bite to eat at the pub after, and then you’d better get your backside over to the other two villages, unless we get word of more of the same, in which case we’ll very likely need to call in the US Cavalry.”
Brinton gazed gloomily round the vestry, plucked a surplice off a hook behind the door, and held it up against himself. “Not sure I fancy going to heaven if regulation dress is anything like this.” He put it back. “There’s a dabs team doing the rounds, fat chance they’ve got. I ask you, three, count them, at least three jobs during the same night in the same area. Has to be the same villain behind them, right, Foxon?”
“Offering me a bet, sir? I’d chance a couple of quid on it.”
“Big of you. So would everybody else. You’d think something like that’d be a dabs man’s delight. Find just one print common to all three places and there you go. Pull off a series of jobs like that, cheeky sods are bound to be pros, very likely got some form, bingo. No trouble finding the right collars to feel. But whoever tried isolating a fingerprint in a church, for crying out loud? Might just as well run your dusting brush over Waterloo Station.”
“Right. And if they did get lucky and come up with a common print, it’d very likely turn out to be the bishop’s.”
“Talking of bishops, who’s the bigwig the vicar said he had to rush back to his house to meet?”
“Archdeacon. Not sure exactly where he fits in, sir. Got a vague idea he’s some sort of bishop’s adjutant or admin officer. They’re the blokes who get clobbered by the opposition whenever they sell off some rundown old church to be turned into a Macdonalds hamburger bar, anyway.”
“Ah. You know, you sometimes surprise me with your erudition, Foxon. Well, if he’s in for a bollocking, no wonder old Treeves was looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. On the other hand, from what you say, this archdeacon chap might prefer the insurance money to the silver whatnots . . . my word, it’ll be a turnup for the book if we uncover a ring of bent clergymen nicking their own stuff, wouldn’t it?”
“. . . so I thought I’d just look in and ask you how things seem to be going, sir.”
“And jolly nice it is to see you, Delphick old boy. Everything shipshape and Bristol fashion so far, I’m glad to say. Nigel’s in his seventh heaven chauffeuring the girl back and forth to wherever it is she insists on going, and she seems happy enough. Not a lot to say for herself, mind you, but judging by the amount she puts away at mealtimes, she’s not pining away.” Sir George Colveden fondled his moustache for a moment, his expression darkening. “Bad business about Miss Seeton, though, what? Things have come to a shockin’ pass when a lady can’t even drop into her parish church with a handful of flowers without a bunch of ruffians assaulting her.”
“I haven’t spoken to her myself yet, but Sergeant Ranger rang me before I left home this morning and I gathered from him that she seems to have given a pretty good account of herself. And that she seems to be quite chirpy today after a good night’s sleep.”
“As one would expect, my dear chap, just as one would expect of her. Miss Seeton is one of the old school, you see.” Sir George nodded complacently, not unaware that any fair-minded person of his acquaintance would say the same thing about him. “My wife said she’ll pop in and see her later today. Take her a pot of jam or something, though what a person recovering after a nasty experience needs with jam I fail to grasp. Anyway, we were talking about young Thumper’s daughter. Getting anywhere, are you? Tracking down the bounder behind those disgraceful letters, I mean.”
Delphick pursed his lips and breathed out through his nose. “Depends how you look at it. For want of any positive leads, we’ve had to proceed on what seems to be the only commonsense theory, that the letters were sent by an ex-convict with a grudge against Sir Wilfred. Somebody released at about the time the letters began to arrive. Now as a magistrate, you’re aware that the Home Office is awash with statistics about all manner of unlikely things—”
“Proportion of left-handed forgers with red hair in the criminal population, that sort of nonsense? Quite. But you’re going to tell me that when you asked for a simple little thing like a list of chaps sent down by Wilfred Thumper . . .”
“Precisely, sir.” Not for the first time it occurred to Delphick that Sir George wasn’t as daft as he often sounded. “They were, to put it tactfully, less than helpful.”
“Civil servants? Jumped up, blitherin’ idiots for the most part. Know what I do when I have to write to one, Delphick? At the bottom I put ‘You are, Sir, My obedient servant, G. Colveden.’ Doesn’t do a bit of good mind you, but I like to make the point. So you had to send chaps beetling round all Her Majesty’s prisons, did you? Have a look at their discharge logs?”
“Bang on again, General. I can see I ought to have consulted you from the first. And there’s been a lot of delving in the records of the Royal Courts of Justice. Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short, we did manage to draw up a list. And we’ve been able to eliminate a good many of the names with reasonable confidence. On the other hand, we’re a long way from having a particular suspect in our sights, and of course we might very well be on the wrong track altogether.”
“Every confidence in you, me dear fellow. And Brinton, of course,” Sir George added charitably after a perceptible pause, “who is presumably after these blighters who mistreated Miss Seeton. Brinton’s inclined to be a bit of a bull in a china shop in my experience, but then there’s no need for overmuch subtlety in handling gentry like these, I s’pose. As I shall make crystal clear to them if they come up before me in due course, I can assure you. Now where was I? Ah, yes, Brinton. Can’t say I’m sorry if he’s otherwise engaged at present, between you and me and the gatepost he’s been rather overdoin’ the bodyguard act on Patricia. Carloads of flatfoots pursuin’ her and Nigel every time they go out of the gate. I say, I’ve just remembered, we’re all supposed to go over to this fancy opera place next Tuesday, Glyndebourne is it? Thumper’s treat, perfectly frightful prospect. Well, I’m not having Brinton’s merry men on parade that evening, I can tell you . . .”
“Oh dear, Mr. Delphick, I do feel so very embarrassed over the trouble I’ve caused everybody, especially poor Mr. Ranger, that is, Bob, as I am trying to remember to call him.”
Seeing one of his superior’s eyebrows rise, Ranger cleared his throat noisily. “It’s nothing, sir. Just a bit of a crick in the neck from sleeping on Miss Seeton’s sofa—”
“So very generous and thoughtful, though I’m sure I wasn’t really in need of protection, because the gentleman—why I refer to him in that way I really can’t imagine—the person who spoke to me did explain that he and his friends would come back to, er, complain only if I called out before counting to a thousand, and it took me much longer than that. Because of breaking my torch when I hit the other man, you see. To find my way to the door, that is, and unlatch it.”
“You’re sure there were three men altogether, Miss Seeton?”
“Quite sure, Mr. Brinton. The one who came up behind me when I called out to the vicar, only it wasn’t the vicar, of course, and now that I think about it I realize that Mr. Treeves would be most unlikely to drop things in the dark in the vestry instead of putting the light on. As indeed I should have done myself had I known where the switches were. But then I would have missed the striking effect of the crucifix illuminated in the beam of my torch, wouldn’t I? And the two who came out to help him after I hit him—” Miss Seeton paused in apparent embarrassment and briefly wrung her hands. “You know, I should so much like to be able to say that the blow was unintentional, but I fear—”
“Good gracious, you’re surely not wasting sympathy on a man who assaulted you, are you?”
“Well, no, his behavior was certainly deplorable, and at the time of course I had no way of knowing that I’d seen him before—”
“You what? Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you.”
“That’s perfectly all right, Mr. Brinton,” she said primly, making Brinton feel thoroughly ashamed of himself and rephrase his question in a hushed, almost reverent voice. “May I just confirm this? Did I understand you to say that you can identify at least one of the men who were in the church last night?”
“Well, I don’t know who he is, but I saw him at the tennis match.”
Delphick intervened. “Would that be the tennis match you went to in London, Miss Seeton?”
“With the Treeveses and Nigel, yes. Sir Wilfred and Lady Thumper were there, too, I saw him as Bellini’s doge, strong-willed but at the same time curiously wistful, you know. Whereas Tintoretto—”
“One moment. Who’s Tintoretto?”
“Just a fancy on my part, Mr. Delphick, it was simply that he made me think of Tintoretto’s self-portrait, I’m sure you know it. The beard, you know, and that dreadfully haunted expression.”
“Let me be quite clear in my mind about this, please. You saw a man who reminded you of Tintoretto at the tennis match, and it was the same man who crept up behind you last night?”
“As I have just been explaining, Mr. Delphick.”
“Yes. Thank you
. I’m sorry to sound stupid, but how could you tell, in the dark?”
“Well, I must admit that it didn’t occur to me at the time. I was, you see, in a somewhat agitated frame of mind. And for a minute or two immediately after I broke my torch, it seemed like pitch darkness. But one of the men who came out of the vestry was carrying a tiny flashlight, and I suppose I must have unconsciously registered some sort of impression before the one in charge made him switch it off.”
“So it didn’t occur to you at the time. So may I ask, when did it? Occur to you, I mean. That it was the same man—” Delphick broke off abruptly, appalled to hear himself sounding exactly like Miss Seeton in full cry. Fortunately nobody else seemed to have noticed.
“Some time later. After Dr. Wright and Anne had very kindly put disinfectant on a few little scratches here and there and I was really quite comfortable in bed, not dreaming for a second that dear Bob had volunteered to stay, and was trying to settle down on this quite unsuitable sofa—”
“Yes, yes, we think he’ll live, Miss Seeton—”
“Now you’re teasing me, Mr. Delphick.”
Delphick grinned. “Sorry. Overeager. Take your time.”
“Yes, well, all at once I remembered his beard tickling my neck, you see. And then I must have gone to sleep, because I had a rather confused dream, no doubt because I’d been thinking about Aida. It was Victoria Sladen, by the way, I’m sure of it. But not carrying a tennis racket, that goes without saying. On one of those dreadful foggy nights we used to have every winter in London until they did away with coal fires. In the fifties, wasn’t it?”
“Killer smog, they called it,” Brinton chipped in, earning himself a glare from Delphick. “Diabolical, it used to be,” he added insouciantly.
“And I woke up at some stage in the night, and simply knew that it was Tintoretto.”
Delphick pondered, and then looked up hopefully. “You haven’t got a reproduction of this painting among your art books, by any chance? It’s not essential, I’m sure we can get one from Hatchards or somewhere, but—”
Advantage Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 7) Page 8
