Compared with the exquisite poetry of the first four words, the remainder of what she said struck Nigel as being a shade disappointing, and the sound of the violins diminished accordingly. Nigel was all in favor of her going into quite a bit more detail about his sweetness, and then his taking over for a while with a rapturous monologue on the subject of Trish’s radiant beauty, exquisitely sensitive and generous nature, and his own unworthiness. Then, after a few reruns of that incredible kiss, he thought he might venture some remarks on the theme of the undesirability of long engagements.
It was not to be. For some reason Trish seemed to view their embrace as being less than earth-shattering, and to be disinclined to pursue the conversation along the above lines. She was otherwise agreeable enough, though, speaking warmly of the comforts of Rytham Hall and a touch wistfully of Nigel’s good fortune in having been landed with a couple of very satisfactory parents.
“Ma’s all right,” he admitted. “And I suppose Dad means well, even if he is barking mad.”
“He is nothing of the kind, Nigel Colveden. He’s a cuddly old poppet and don’t you forget it.”
“Dad? Cuddly? Good grief!”
“Distinctly cuddly. And I know what I’m talking about, because I’m stuck with this horrendous sourpuss of a father who chews nails for breakfast. His idea of a relaxing read is probably Fox’s Book Of Martyrs. Mind you, I expect he reckons most of them got off much too lightly.”
“I say, Trish, would you say I was, um, as cuddly as Dad?”
Trish stopped, turned, and surveyed him. “Couldn’t say, I’ve never tried your father, but I doubt it. You’re reasonably cuddly, I must admit. Oh, all right then. One more, and then straight back to the house. Come here.”
Thus it was that Nigel was again rubbery-kneed and blissfully happy during the last part of their walk, that even Trish was more than just healthily pink about the cheeks, and that the two young people were amicably wrangling about Sir Wilfred Thumper when they came into earshot of Norman on the other side of the hedge.
“. . . and what’s more, my father’s the stingiest man I’ve ever known. I’m not surprised people can’t stand him.”
“Come off it, Trish. Sir W. Thumper may be a lot of things, but at least you can’t claim he’s stingy. Dash it, he’s treating us all to seats at Glyndebourne the day after tomorrow. You, me, and my aged parents. Plus himself and your mother. That’s going to set him back a packet.”
“Ha! Bet you anything Mummy’s paid. And even if by some remote chance he did cough up, if I know him, he’ll charge it up to official expenses . . . Nigel, can you smell anything?”
“Only you, darling Trish.” Fervently.
“No, hands off, you horror. I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Something like won-ton soup, or maybe fried crispy noodles. Whatever can it be?”
“You’re imagining things. Ma’s Sunday lunches are pretty good, but hardly what you’d call exotic . . .”
The sound of their voices faded into the distance, but Norman made no attempt to keep in range. He had heard enough to enable him to conceive a brilliant idea.
Miss Seeton always looked forward to her visits to Rytham Hall, and unless the weather was bad enjoyed walking there. Dear Lady Colveden, thoughtful as ever, had telephoned that morning to suggest that if she were still feeling the effects of her ordeal in the church Sir George would be delighted to fetch her in the big car, but the bruises were more colorful than painful, and what better therapy could there be in any case than the gentle exercise involved in a twenty-minute walk?
How kind the Colvedens always were, and how generous their hospitality at the hall. An interesting word, hospitality, its meaning so much closer to the original Latin than that suggested, nowadays at least, by the word hospital. Hospes, that is. A guest. Being woken up too early and made to do raffia work when not very well hardly makes one feel like a guest. Especially when one has had to pay.
The orders of Knights Hospitallers wouldn’t have charged for their services, of course. And a baronet was after all simply a superior, hereditary kind of knight, so Sir George, so free with his invitations, was a modern hospitaller. Well, perhaps not exactly superior. Hadn’t King James I invented baronetcies and sold them to raise money? Like the scandal involving Lloyd George and that man Maundy Gregory in one’s own young days.
By the time she had reached the outskirts of Plummergen, Miss Seeton’s thoughts had drifted on through Maundy Gregory the honors broker to the “maundy money” presented on Maundy Thursday by the sovereign to as many old men and women as there were years of her age. That made her think of almshouses, and in no time she was back to hospitals and knights hospitaller, and of course, the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade was an offshoot of just such an order!
Miss Seeton blinked a few times, looked about her, and realized that she had walked most of the way to Rytham Hall without noticing the fact. Yes, the gates to the driveway were just a hundred yards or so beyond the van parked at the side of the road with its bonnet propped open and the gentleman leaning over the engine. Oh dear. Much as one wanted to be helpful whenever possible, mechanical problems were something best left to those who understood them. It cost nothing to be polite to a stranger encountered on the highway, however.
“Good morning! Or should it be good afternoon? One is never quite sure after twelve noon but before lunch, is one?”
Being occupied in cursing Charlie Yung Fat for allowing his van’s radiator to have run dry, Norman had not heard Miss Seeton approach. Startled by her voice, he straightened up so suddenly that his head came into collision with the underside of the open bonnet and dislodged the metal rod that held it up. When he told Harvey later that it bloomin’ nearly decapitated him, Norman was not being quite truthful, but he undoubtedly sustained a painful blow to the nape of his neck and at the same time blistered the palms of his hands on the still very hot radiator as he scrabbled, moaning incoherently, to free himself.
He then suffered the further shock of realizing that he had seen the elderly lady now standing beside him with an expression of great concern on her face before. Struggling to free herself from William Parsons. Just for a moment, by the dim light of Harvey’s pen-torch. And that he had left her trussed up on the floor of the nave of Plummergen church, having addressed her at some length with no attempt to disguise his voice. And finally that she was no less a person than Miss Emily D. Seeton, the Battling Brolly.
Norman had always prided himself on his quick thinking when in tight corners, but he had never previously crammed such intensive mental exercise into a mere second or two. He hadn’t disguised his voice then, so he’d have to do it now, while seeing double as a result of that wallop on the bonce, keeping out of range of that blasted brolly she was holding, and trying to disregard the pain in his hands.
“Oh my goodness, you poor man! That must have been extremely painful.”
Swaying on his feet, Norman somehow managed to summon up what he imagined was a nonchalant smile but was in fact a ghastly grimace. “Aio naio, nawt a tawl,” he fluted. “Ay mainor mishawp.”
“Has your, ah, vehicle broken down? I fear that I have no understanding—”
“Naio, nawt brayken dawn. Naio wottah in the rawdiawtah.”
By watching his lips rather than attempting to recognize the weird sounds that issued from them, Miss Seeton managed to grasp the gist of what the man was saying. “Water? You require water? Nothing could be simpler. Rytham Hall is just along here, and I am on my way there for luncheon. If you will come with me I am quite sure the Colvedens will be delighted to provide you with as much water as you need. Oh dear, you do look a little shaky, perhaps you would care to use this as a walking stick? Here—” Offering him her umbrella, Miss Seeton was surprised when Norman reared away from it wildly, caught his trouser leg on the end of the front fender, and fell headlong onto the grass verge.
“Ai’m quaite all rate,” he insisted when he had dragged h
imself up onto all fours; but Miss Seeton shook her head firmly.
“I have a better idea. You stay here, and I will go to the hall and ask Nigel to bring the water and help you. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. And some vaseline or something for your hands.”
Norman gazed up at her and feebly nodded agreement. Then, after she had turned and started to march purposefully toward Rytham Hall, he slumped back onto the grass and swore long and eloquently.
“You were right you know, Trish,” Nigel said when he returned to the house some twenty minutes later, just in time to join the others at the table.
“What about?”
“You remember you thought you could smell Chinese food? Well, you did. That van reeked of it. Terrible old banger, but we got it started all right once I’d filled up the rad. Peculiar chap, wasn’t he, Miss Seeton? You know, it beats me how you made head or tail of what he was saying. Talked as though he had a mouth full of marbles or something. Wonder who he was?”
“Chinaman, was he? Good Lord, they seem to be all over the place these days. Like those Indian wallahs that are buying up all the grocery shops—”
Allowing the others to try to put Sir George back on the right lines, Miss Seeton demurely concentrated on Lady Colveden’s excellent salmon mousse and kept her own counsel.
chapter
~14~
“I SEE. At least, I think I do. But as through a glass, darkly. Who was it put it like that?”
“St. Paul, I fancy, sir.”
“You always know, confound it! Sometimes you sound for all the world like Jeeves.”
Delphick thought for a moment, decided to feel flattered, and grinned. “We endeavor to give satisfaction, sir,” he intoned in a Jeeves-ish voice.
Sir Hubert Everleigh stood up, pottered over to the coat-rack in the corner near the door of his office, and took up the old putter he kept there. Addressing an imaginary golf ball, he kept his head down and wiggled his wrists, carrying on the conversation as he did so.
“All this was on Saturday, though, and Amelita Forby’s piece duly appeared in yesterday’s Negative. Any reactions to that, by the way?”
“Possibly. Sergeant Ranger rang me from Plummergen this morning, to pass on something young Nigel Colveden mentioned when they happened to meet yesterday evening. It seems there was a suspicious character hanging about in the vicinity of Rytham Hall earlier that day, around lunch-time. With an old wreck of a van, apparently broken down. Miss Seeton was on her way to lunch with the Colvedens, so she encountered the man first. He said his radiator had run dry, so she told him to stay put, went on to the hall, and explained the situation to Nigel, who took a jug of water down to help him out.”
“That sounds much too simple and straightforward for Miss S.”
“It is. When young Colveden got there he found the chap in something of a state. The bonnet of the van had fallen on his head, he’d burned his hands on the engine block or something, and tripped up and twisted his ankle.”
The assistant commissioner dropped the putter onto the carpet, straightened up, and sighed with satisfaction. “That’s more like it. Miss Seeton’s work, undoubtedly.”
“Ranger thought so when he heard about it, sir. When they discussed it, Colveden recalled her saying something about taking some vaseline with him as well as the water—for his hands, presumably—but he hadn’t paid much attention at the time. So she might well have had a hand in that particular series of mishaps. Anyway, the radiator really had run dry, so Colveden filled it up and sent the man on his way. Not exactly rejoicing I imagine, but more or less fit to drive.”
“So what, apart from the fact that something prompted Miss Seeton to set about him, was suspicious about this chap?”
“Had a most peculiar way of talking, Colveden told Ranger. Otherwise ordinary enough, in the sense that he looked like the sort of bloke who might well drive a clapped-out van. Possibly a market trader, middle-aged, ferrety-looking little chap, nondescript clothes. But he had this weird accent, it seems. As though he was trying to sound posh but didn’t know how.”
“Hm. Why would he want to do that, I wonder?”
“There’s a lot of ifs and buts about this, sir, but Ranger theorizes that if—as Miss Seeton’s sketches suggest— there’s a connection between the Plummergen church job and the Thumper blackmailing affair, and if the gang involved saw Amelita Forby’s piece in the Negative about Miss Seeton—”
“Hold your horses a minute. I thought we were all more or less agreed that we’re looking for a man with a grievance acting alone.”
“So we are, but if we’re right, he’s also done time, and might easily have made some friends in jail. Chief Inspector Brinton down in Ashford’s responsible for the investigation of the church burglaries, and he’s convinced they were organized by a pro.”
“Not sure I follow you, but let it go for now. You inclined to go along with your chap Ranger’s theory? Sounds a bit farfetched to me.”
“He’s not normally given to flights of fancy, sir. At all events, he’s passed on the information such as it is to Mr. Brinton, and the Kent police will no doubt interview Nigel Colveden and get his firsthand description of the man.”
“Why not get Miss S. to draw a picture of him?”
“Ranger’s rather hoping she might do that spontaneously, sir. He’ll keep in touch with her.”
“Well, I suppose you know what you’re about, but I must say it all sounds very vague and unsatisfactory to me. Sketches or no sketches, we’re no nearer to identifying this blighter Miss Seeton claims to have seen at the Hurlingham Club.”
“Oh, but we are.”
“What? Have you been holding out on me, Delphick? I take a very poor view—”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir. I only got confirmation myself shortly before I came to see you. I’m pretty sure the man we’re after is one William Parsons. His name’s on our list, I’m glad to report, so we’d have got round to him eventually—”
“Without Miss Seeton’s help, you mean? Unworthy of you, Delphick. Give credit where credit’s due, that’s my motto. Including, needless to say, to you and your team.”
Delphick inclined his head. “Sorry, sir. I deserved that. The man Parsons was formerly a branch manager for the Reliable Building Society. He came up before Mr. Justice Thumper on embezzlement charges, and Thumper sent him down for eight years. With maximum good conduct reduction, he was released in early December last year, shortly before Thumper thinks he started receiving the anonymous letters.”
“Was he now. And do we know the present whereabouts of this Parsons?”
“We do. He’s employed as an ambulance driver by Sussex County Council, based at a place called Cranhurst.”
“Ambulance man, eh? Just as Miss Seeton said.”
“Actually, she specified St. John’s, but it’s near enough to be highly significant, certainly.”
“Going to pull him in for questioning, of course.”
“With your permission, sir, I’d like to wait for a day or two before doing that. As I explained, we’ve only just got him into our sights, and I’d like to be in possession of more background when we do nab him. Talk to his probation officer, for example. He or she won’t show us the file, of course, but might be willing to provide a verbal picture of the man. Some indication as to why he in particular among what one might call Thumper’s victims—”
“One might, but one jolly well better hadn’t. Her Majesty’s judges enjoy high privileges and are inclined to be touchy about them. I didn’t hear that remark, Delphick.”
“And I didn’t make it. It would, nevertheless, be useful to find out if Parsons is known to have any particular reason to feel hostile to Sir Wilfred, or to harbor any grudge against his daughter.”
“How’s the girl holding up, by the way? Any problems in that department?”
“None whatever, I gather. Nigel Colveden implied to Ranger that there’s quite a romance developing between them. And they set off in
his car as usual this morning for her practice session, with a discreet Kent police escort laid on by Mr. Brinton.”
“All right. What are you proposing to do exactly, then? Apart from pumping this man’s probation officer?”
“Get hold of the transcript of his trial if it can be dug up. Send a man to the prison to have a word with any of the screws, beg pardon, sir, warders, who might remember Parsons. Above all, try to tie him directly to Hurlingham and to Plummergen on the relevant dates. If only negatively, by establishing that he could have been there. If it turns out that he was on duty on both occasions and can prove it, we’ll be back to square one. Needless to say, I’m having an eye kept on him from now on, but as discreetly as possible so as to avoid putting him on the alert. If he is our man, with any luck he might lead us to his associates, and wander into our hands of his own free will.”
“Very well. I’ll go along with that so long as you can give me a hundred percent guarantee that no harm will come to the Thumper girl.”
“She’ll be watched like a hawk, sir.”
“People don’t watch hawks, Delphick. Other way round. Caught you out there. All right, off you go and do it your way, but keep me posted.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Sir Hubert let Delphick get as far as the door before speaking again. “I say, Delphick?”
“Sir?”
“These photocopies of Miss Seeton’s sketches. Interesting, very. Where are the originals?”
“The originals? In a safe place, sir.”
“Well, that’s as far as we’ve got so far. What? Oh, thanks. I must admit it’s a significant advance on last Saturday. Even my assistant commissioner here seems reasonably satisfied.” Delphick sat back comfortably in his chair. Talking to Chris Brinton over the phone was a lot less demanding than being in the presence of Sir Hubert Everleigh.
“Quite. Oh, a day or two at most, obviously can’t let it drag on. Needless to say, whatever we dig up I’ll pass on to you personally. What I particularly wanted to talk to you about was this, though. Everleigh’s given me the leeway I asked for, but reasonably enough insists that the protective cover on the girl must be watertight. Now when I dropped in on Sir George Colveden the other day he mentioned that the Rytham Hall lot are all invited to Glyndebourne tomorrow as Thumper’s guests.”
Advantage Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 7) Page 11
