Journalists! Judging by the racket as he and Delphick drew near, the briefing room must be full of them, and all impatient ... No Inspector Terling? No bet. Bob Ranger grinned as, from behind—surely not from inside?—a sudden cupboard near the briefing room door. Terling’s trembling sidekick cautiously appeared. He thrust a typewritten sheet into Delphick’s startled hands, muttered something, and bolted back towards the lift with an air of immense relief.
The chief superintendent opened the door. Out thundered a wave of sound from what only logic insisted couldn’t possibly be a thousand journalistic throats. Television, radio, newspaper, and magazine reporters perched on uncomfortable wooden chairs or on the edges of rickety tables, loading films into their cameras, finding empty pages in their notebooks, waving tape recorders and microphones in the direction of the door as soon as they spotted a likely victim.
“Chief Superintendent, can you—?”
“Mr. Delphick, what’s the latest—?”
“Is it your oracular opinion that—?”
Delphick surveyed the scene with an austere smile, and murmured, just loud enough for Bob to hear, that he’d feared as much. Without Inspector Terling, the media maniacs were understandably on the warpath at having been kept waiting. Indeed, he hardly expected to escape with his life unless Bob managed to repel boarders by sheer force of personality. There seemed to be not a sympathetic soul among the lot of them ...
His grey eyes searched the excited throng for the one or two sympathetic souls he hoped to see. Mel Forby, slipping gracefully through the tumult as her colleagues surged past her to the foot of the low platform, caught that searching look as she turned, and smiled a quick greeting, though she couldn’t help frowning when, miming discreet surprise, Delphick raised an eyebrow on observing her unescorted state. As she seated herself in almost the farthest corner of the room, she tried not to glare. The Oracle thought she was as helpless without Banner as Banner himself liked to think, did he? Cookery classes, indeed! But then she remembered, and smiled again. A different occasion might have seen her seething with justifiable wrath; but now, remarkably restrained, calmly opening the notebook she’d taken from her jacket pocket—for once, former fashion ace Forby wasn’t bothered about ruining the line—Mel settled herself quietly on the end seat of the row and prepared to take down whatever revelation might be vouchsafed her in the next few minutes, while the other reporters clustered in a babbling riot of questions as close to that tall figure as they could crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen—please!” Perhaps it wasn’t the noisiest press conference Delphick had ever attended, but it wasn’t one of the quietest, either. “Please!” He raised a hand in admonition, and drew himself up to his full height. Beside him, in accordance with instructions, Bob loomed, lurked, and scowled as menacingly as he could.
“Thank you.” The riot had faded to a mere hubbub, and was still weakening. Delphick lowered his hand, and raised his voice instead. “I know you’re all anxious to put your questions, but no useful purpose can possibly be served by everyone shouting at once. Maybe you’ll allow me first to give you details of today’s ... occurrence, and then we’ll take in turn such questions as I’ve left unanswered ...”
Muttering, the reporters retreated to the wooden chairs, watched with some interest by Mel, demure in her dark jacket, almost invisible at the back. The Oracle, grateful for her unwonted restraint, found his eye drawn briefly towards her before, bracing himself, he sent up a silent curse for the perfidy of Inspector Terling, consulted the typewritten sheet, and launched into his explanation.
“The latest in the recent series of Ram Raids,” he read, enunciating every syllable with great care, “took place at around five-twenty this morning. A stolen car was reversed into the window of the Opal Art and Antiques Emporium in Curzon Street, and a quantity of goods, including a matching pair of Chinese vases worth seventy thousand pounds, was illegally removed from the premises by person, or persons, unknown, in the same vehicle.”
He coughed. “Miss Opal Winter, proprietor of the Emporium, who was staying overnight in the flat above the premises, during the course of the robbery interrupted the raiders, and received from them injuries which resulted in her admittance to hospital. She is, however, fortunately in no great danger.”
Delphick, drawing a deep breath, thrust the folded paper into the pocket of his tweed jacket and prepared for the onslaught. The jargon of the prepared statement had covered the basics, but naturally the journalists needed more than the basics to embellish their stories and turn them into scoops. They knew he knew more than that: he knew they knew he knew. And now that the proprieties had been observed, media speculation was about to run utterly riot in pursuit of headlines ...
“Is it true the stolen car was a Rolls-Royce?”
“Was it really the property of the Stentorian chargé d’affaires?”
“How did the Raiders manage to overcome embassy security? Did they attack the official driver?”
“Was he bribed?”
“Was he drugged?”
“Is there any suggestion that the Stentorian Embassy is a clearing-house for the drugs traffic?”
“Chief Superintendent, if the gallery owner wasn’t seriously hurt, is the reason you’re on the case instead of the Art Squad inspector because it’s turning into a major diplomatic incident?”
“Will the Stentorian Ambassador be summoned to the Foreign Office?”
“Will the FO ask His Excellency to expel any of his staff from this country?”
“Do we have an extradition treaty with Stentoria?”
“Is there any drugs connection?”
“Do you suspect that the Ram Raid profits are being used to support foreign terrorist activity?”
“Have you any knowledge of terrorist cells currently in operation in this country?”
“Do you suspect a communist plot?”
“Did they use a Rolls-Royce to strike a symbolic blow against the capitalist system?”
Bob, still dutifully looming as Delphick attempted to deal with the barrage of questions, found his head whirling as he listened to the wild theories being piled one upon another with enthusiasm almost as great as that with which the shoppers of Plummergen, according to Anne and her mother, were wont to theorise about whatever Miss Seeton might be doing now ...
Miss Seeton! Could her influence be to blame for the apparent lunacy which had gripped Fleet Street? Bob didn’t need to ponder the matter for more than a moment: he knew very well that it could—and was. One wave of her umbrella, a couple of quick sketches, and England, according to Fleet Street, was under starter’s orders for all-out war with the People’s Republic of Stentoria ...
And he wouldn’t be in the Oracle’s shoes for a thousand pounds a week.
chapter
~ 15 ~
DELPHICK HAD TALKED himself nearly hoarse trying to give sensible answers to questions which weren’t the least bit sensible, as well as to a few which did contain the odd glimmer of journalistic merit. He promised himself a long, bitter session with his Art Squad colleague once this was over, and wondered if by any chance there was a packet of throat lozenges buried anywhere in his desk: his frequent sips of water from the waiting jug were barely helping him to hold his own.
Amid the frantic flurry of multiple interrogation, the silence of Amelita Forby, busy with her notebook, passed almost unnoticed by her peers, while Delphick, normally observant, didn’t notice it at all. He was too engrossed in the verbal thrust and parry of the inquisition to which Inspector Terling’s pusillanimity had perforce subjected him to do more than register vaguely that the thrusting could have been a good deal sharper than in fact it was ...
His larynx began hinting that enough was enough. Good public relations with the press were one thing: masochism such as this was above and beyond the call of duty. Delphick, in a not-so-exaggerated croak, informed the ravening Fleet Street hordes that any further queries should be directed to Inspector Terling; slamm
ed his empty glass on the table with a defiant air; and bade everyone a firm, though husky, good afternoon. Bob, recognising his cue, lumbered round to the front of the little dais and in silence loomed pointedly at the reporters until they got the point.
“Alone at last, thank the Lord,” gasped Delphick, as the door of the briefing room finally closed. While Bob looked on with some interest, the chief superintendent seized the almost empty jug, tipped into his glass the dregs of the official water, and drained every drop without stopping. He coughed; he wheezed; he coughed again.
“There is much,” he remarked, in a voice slightly stronger than before, “to be said for the habit of carrying a flask of brandy in one’s hip pocket for emergencies. Ahem. Ahem! Failing brandy, perhaps a cup of coffee—but not,” fading again, “in the canteen. I think. The smoke ...”
“Shall I stop off on the way, sir?” enquired Bob, as the two headed back to the lift. “Or should we try asking them to send something up? Like a good gargle,” he added, grinning, as Delphick ahemmed twice more, loudly, and thumped himself on the chest. “Some of the cough medicine the doctors in Anne’s surgery prescribe’s pretty potent stuff, she says.” And he pressed the button with a cheerful finger.
“Or embrocation,” groaned Delphick, entering into the spirit of the thing as the memory of the press conference began to fade. “Ahem! Not, however, inhalation. Friars’ balsam is hardly palatable in the way a good brandy—”
“Mr. Delphick! Chief Superintendent! Excuse me, sir!” The call came at just the same time as the lift. As the doors thudded open, Delphick held back, glancing round to see which of his colleagues—a junior one, from her mode of address—had hailed him.
She came hurrying down the corridor, crisp and efficient in her uniform, a notebook in her hand. Someone with news to impart, obviously ...
News? Her uniform? Dark jacket—neat skirt—no handbag to make her look like a visitor ...
Delphick’s mouth dropped open. Bob spluttered. “Going up, of course,” she said sweetly, stepping into the lift and holding the doors open as she motioned the two men inside. “Okay, boys?”
“You know very well,” protested Delphick, his breath returning as she pressed the button, “that it isn’t.” The emphasis he tried for on the last word made him cough again, though the sound was lost beneath the thud of the doors and the whine of the motor. Nobody, however, could call Mel Forby unobservant. She thumped him kindly on the back, and grinned.
“Not okay? I should have thought you’d be only too glad of the chance to thank me privately for not having given you a hard time in front of those ignorant clowns—sir,” she added, jumping to attention as the lift stopped unexpectedly and a tall, distinguished man stepped in.
“Ah, Delphick. Your encounter with the denizens of Grub Street is successfully concluded?”
Delphick, his eyes grimly averted from Mel’s illicit presence, frantically sought a suitably oracular and ambiguous reply. “Er,” he said, and groped for the knot of his tie, gasping. “Lost my voice,” he mouthed, trusting to fortune to help him out. All he could trust Mel for was not to give herself away, though he wouldn’t put it past her to carry her impersonation of a Woman Police Constable to such lengths she’d start saluting once she realised who it was in the lift beside her.
Bob couldn’t help it: he held his breath, he gritted his teeth, he bit his tongue—but nothing was any use. He gave up the uneven struggle. The lift trembled on its steel hawsers as he turned in desperation to face the corner, and collapsed, gurgling horribly, with his head against the wall.
Sir Hubert Everleigh, Assistant Commissioner (Crime), raised an eyebrow as he surveyed those broad, shaking shoulders. “Your sergeant would appear to be somewhat overcome. Surely you did not, Chief Superintendent, even in your state of acute aphonia, insist that he should be the one to stand up to the, ah, importunities of the press? Delegation, Delphick, is all very well in its place, but, when it is likely to have so dramatic an effect on one’s subordinates, should be employed with considerable circumspection.”
Delphick, coughing, managed to speak the name of Terling with sufficient force as to render the rest of the sentence unnecessary.
“Another example,” said Sir Hubert, sighing, “of the perils of delegation. When an inspector can induce a chief superintendent to take on his appointed duties—but we are at your floor. I will hold the doors while you and your junior colleague assist the good sergeant to a place of succour and safety ...”
The lift carried on upwards, bearing Sir Heavily to the heights. Mel marched at Bob’s side, two paces to Delphick’s rear, looking more like a police officer than either of her speechless companions. In a near silence—Bob was still stifling gleeful guffaws, Delphick’s breath rasped in his frozen throat—the little group made for the chief superintendent’s office.
Delphick slammed the door and rounded on the reporter, his eyes bleak, his voice, though hoarse, stern. “Miss Forby, you have a considerable amount of explaining to do. I ought to have you thrown out on your ear for this. Of all the—the ...”
“Confounded cheek?” supplied Mel, as he wheezed to a husky halt. “Brazen nerve? Brass neck?”
“How typical,” came the automatic retort of the purist. “Weak tautology rather than literacy. Not that one expects the telling phrase or verbal witticism from a rag like the Daily Negative, of course—but—”
He recollected himself, and glared again: but it was too late. Mel, with her sweetest smile, was sitting in his visitors’ chair, picking up the telephone. She held out the receiver.
“Coffee, I think you were saying? Sounds great. Sorry I don’t know the canteen number, but ...”
“Mel!” Delphick noted with surprise that his voice was now almost back to normal, even if it was the combination of exasperation and shock which had effected this remarkable cure. Amelita Forby was irrepressible, as he knew only too well ... And then the witty verbal possibilities of irrepressible and press made his lips twitch. He turned away. “Sergeant Ranger,” came the strangled instruction. “Do something!” And the chief superintendent choked.
“Sir,” said Bob, willing enough, but himself weakened by memories of that awkward ascent in the lift. “Er ...”
With only the anguished verso view of his superior for guidance, Sergeant Ranger knew he must use his initiative. He sighed, took the telephone from Miss Forby’s outstretched hand, dialled the canteen, and requested coffee and biscuits for three to be sent up as soon as possible. There seemed little else, with Mel’s eyes on him, to be done.
“You boys have a good view from here,” said Mel, ambling to the window and looking out on London. “All the sights—and then some,” she added, turning back and gazing thoughtfully at the opposite wall. “Now, that rings a bell or two in this”—she looked at Delphick—“illiterate brain.”
There was a glass case screwed to the wall: a case such as those in which anglers, with justifiable pride—assisted where necessary by plaster of Paris—display the ones that didn’t get away. In Delphick’s case, however, there was no record-breaking bream, pike, perch, or trout to be admired, but rather a battered, broken umbrella, a memento of the occasion on which Miss Seeton’s path had first crossed that of the constabulary after the Covent Garden killing.
“Yes, I’ve heard about that.” Mel moved across for a closer look. “Did she mention it when she was up here yesterday, or was she too polite to say anything?”
“How did—?” Delphick caught himself up. “Mel, you’re rambling. She? Do you suggest that it is a woman’s hand behind the Ram Raids?” As she was about to speak, he allowed himself to reconsider. “On the other hand, the female of the species, as we know, is more deadly than the male—but nevertheless I—”
“But be damned!” Mel’s eyes were sparkling. “Nevertheless, nerts! Miss Seeton’s who I’m suggesting as well you know. C’mon, Oracle, we go back a long way, remember? My spies tell me you had her along to doodle a few of her specials, and my gue
ss is they weren’t for any big-wig’s private collection ...”
She raised her eyes to the ceiling, and adopted an attitude of deep concentration. “Some of the wigs in the offices up there are pretty big, I’m told. Wouldn’t have been one of them I met just now, by any chance? If you can call it meeting someone when nobody bothered with introductions, that is—but I’m not one to take offence. If people feel like making amends, I’m perfectly happy to pop along another few floors and make myself known ...”
Delphick threw up his hands, and sighed. “Blackmail, my dear Mel, is unworthy of you—and besides,” as she did her best to look ruthless, “I don’t believe you—though I’m intrigued by your operating methods. How did you contrive to effect your—your illicit intrusion at a time almost exactly coincidental with Sir Hubert’s appearance?”
“Sir Hubert? Not many of those around, except—hey, not Everleigh? You mean I’ve just ridden in the same lift as the Assistant Commissioner? Wow! They’ll never believe this, at the Negative. Wish I’d taken a snap or two for souvenirs. The way they tell me Sir Heavily likes to do with Miss S.’s doodles, if he gets the chance ...”
Miss Seeton Undercover (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 17) Page 12
