Miss Seeton Undercover (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 17)

by Hamilton Crane

  “Well!” said Mrs. Blaine.

  “Exactly,” said Miss Nuttel.

  There was a further thoughtful pause. The dilemma was obvious: to maintain the watch, or to summon immediate succour for Plummergen’s poisoned youth?

  “She won’t be able to do anything,” said Mrs. Blaine at last, “until break, when they have their milk. Nobody can make people drink something they’re not expecting, can they? And unless she’s caught in the act, you know nobody’s going to believe us ...”

  “Never have before,” agreed Miss Nuttel glumly.

  Mrs. Blaine creaked to her feet. “I still say some fresh air would do me good, Eric—and there’s no need to look like that, you can’t say your toast wasn’t far more indigestible than mine ever is—but if,” speaking louder above Miss Nuttel’s splutters of annoyance, “I went out and helped you with the garden ...”

  After a moment, Miss Nuttel nodded. “Good thinking, old girl. Er—sorry.”

  And in perfect amity the pair struggled together down the stairs, and headed for their coats and outdoor shoes.

  The mid-morning squeals of obviously healthy children, borne on an autumn breeze from the playground a quarter of a mile away, considerably dampened the enthusiasm of the Nuts for telephoning the authorities, even if between them they could decide which authorities should be telephoned—which (perfect amity being a sensitive plant, short-lived) they couldn’t. By tacit agreement, the matter was dropped, or at least put in abeyance, while Miss Nuttel pruned, mulched, dug, and deadheaded, bossing Mrs. Blaine—whose horticultural abilities were as unorthodox as the culinary skills of Miss Nuttel—unmercifully until Bunny threw down her dibber in a sulk and flounced indoors to prepare dandelion-root coffee, double strength, for one.

  Jeremy Froste and Bethan Broomfield, late risers, drove up The Street from the George and Dragon, pausing to gaze at the admiral’s flagpole before continuing northwards out of the village. They were followed by Rodney Roydon in his own vehicle. It seemed that the search for photogenic locations in general, and the Plummergen Peculier in particular, had widened; it also—to Miss Nuttel’s regret—seemed that reporter Roy could have suffered no lasting harm at Admiral Leighton’s hands ...

  The admiral remained indoors until almost lunchtime: as, peeping through her kitchen window every five minutes, did Mrs. Blaine. The kitchen window was open: the tempting fragrances of vegetarian cuisine began to waft gardenwards. Could Bunny, still sulking, be doing this to annoy? Just as hunger was gnawing with sufficient force at the vitals of Miss Nuttel for her to consider capitulation, there came the click of an opening door ...

  Another click came hard upon the first. As the admiral strode jauntily down his front path, Mrs. Blaine waddled urgently down hers. Her eyes met those of Miss Nuttel, fearful above a straightened spine, the secateurs in her hand, prepared to go down fighting.

  “Miss Nuttel!” The admiral nodded to his neighbour, and waved. “Mrs. Blaine!”

  “Shopping.” Miss Nuttel, who’d now had time to note the canvas bag in the Buzzard’s other hand, jerked an expressive thumb.

  “I’ll get the list,” hissed Mrs. Blaine, and rushed back to the kitchen.

  They arrived in the post office less than a minute after the admiral, who was being gallant in a bluff naval manner to Emmy Putts at the bacon slicer.

  “... two pounds of best Cheddar, my dear, and a dozen eggs—brown, if you have them. Mustn’t forget the old pork pie either, of course.”

  The squabble forgotten, Miss Nuttel nudged Mrs. Blaine. Mrs. Blaine nodded. Pork pie was all the hint they needed—unless, of course, it was a cunning double-bluff.

  “Large Melton Mowbray.” Emmy plonked the crusty, jelly-rich pie down on the counter beside bacon, cheese, and eggs. “Your birthday, is it, Admiral? I mean—all them flags, and everything.”

  The admiral had been baffled once already by the ignorance of the younger generation: he would not risk further disappointment. “A special celebration, true, but hardly my birthday. My, er, private tribute to—to a splendid historical episode, Miss Putts, that’s all.” Miss Putts preened at the courtesy; the Nuts glared. “I’ll come back later for the grog, if you’ll be kind enough to pack my order in the meantime—give me a good excuse to see you again, eh?” Emmy preened still more. The Nuts glowered. “Settle up now, shall I?”

  The Buzzard was gone, leaving Emmy to simper for a moment or two before turning, with reluctance, to Mrs. Blaine and her tinned tomatoes. Somehow it just wasn’t the same.

  The Nuts, determined to miss out on nothing, stationed themselves in clear view of Ararat Cottage, intent on lingering in the post office, on spreading the purchase of fewer than six items until such time as some of the younger Plummergen mothers should appear ... either to set their minds at rest—or to confirm their very worst suspicions.

  Suspicions were confirmed as Miss Seeton came in sight, walking briskly—cheerfully?—in a southerly direction down The Street, holding an empty shopping bag, heading home with who knew what horror and destruction to her discredit behind her at the school. Should they follow, to forestall further horrors? Summon help? Head north, to render such immediate aid as they could?

  A lengthy, whispered—and acrimonious—discussion now ensued. Miss Nuttel, ever squeamish, was once more voicing her veto on the final First Aid option when Mrs. Scillicough (of the notorious triplets) and Mrs. Newport (of their angelic cousins) popped providentially in for sliced bread, fizzy lemonade, and jam. For savoury, they reported that every child who normally went home for dinner had bolted said dinner and gone haring back to school with its pockets full of conkers; this (Mrs. Scillicough added) at Miss Seeton’s urging, according to the kiddies.

  “And Miss Wicks,” added Mrs. Newport, “though lord knows how, seeing she’s not bin out of her house all week.”

  Mrs. Blaine essayed a shiver, but curiosity was greater than her conviction that spells might be wrought with the fruit of the horse chestnut tree. “They’re ... all right?” she enquired, following the sisters to the grocery counter to catch the slightest hint of a hidden truth behind what they were willing to say aloud. “Nobody’s—nobody’s, well ... ill?”

  “Bright as bloomin’ buttons, the whole boilin’ lot.” Mrs. Scillicough’s tone implied that there were occasions on which she might prefer her offspring to shine with a little less brightness.

  Mrs. Blaine tried not to display disappointment; Miss Nuttel, anxious to resume a closer watch on Ararat Cottage, announced that it was time to be getting back.

  “You be careful at the window, Miss Nuttel,” said Mrs. Newport. “Don’t want glass all over you if the Ram Raiders has a go, do you?”

  Mrs. Blaine jumped. “You mean there’s been another Ram Raid? Eric, for goodness’ sake come away—only think of what could happen!”

  Miss Nuttel envisaged the aftermath of splinters, and turned green. Mrs. Scillicough said:

  “Yes, on the News at dinner-time, but miles from here—though nearer than previous, I suppose. But,” with a scornful look for her sister, “everyone knows they Ram antique shops, never groceries or stamps. Don’t you go paying no heed to her.”

  With which sterling example of sibling rivalry ringing in their ears, the Nuts hurried from the post office and returned to the relative safety of their house, next door to Ararat Cottage—on which they prepared to maintain a patient watch for the rest of the afternoon.

  Patience was rewarded in several ways. At the end of her lunch hour, Miss Seeton was seen walking north again, with what looked like one of Mrs. Bloomer’s mixing bowls in her carrier bag. Mrs. Blaine spoke hopefully of mass poisoning and hallucinogenic potions; Miss Nuttel agreed, but reminded her there was little to be done while Mr. Jessyp and the education authorities chose to Ignore the Evidence and insisted on Trusting Certain People. The admiral popped across to the post office, returning with bottles of what he cheerfully referred to as grog; the Nuts guessed he and Miss Seeton together would soon put this to som
e sinister purpose. The sound of the end-of-school bell ringing its merry message on the breeze at four o’clock was almost disheartening; even more disheartening was the sight of schoolchildren, in the best of health, scampering past Lilikot’s gate, hurling challenges for conker matches as soon as Miss says they’re pickled proper. Miss Seeton walked home again, without her bowl—evidently leaving the dread potions to work their ominous magic in an empty building ...

  And Admiral Leighton emerged at five o’clock, hauling down his six-flag signal to fumble with the halyards and, with a flourish, to replace it with the green-and-white Gin Pennant, proud in the light from his sitting-room window.

  chapter

  ~ 21 ~

  THE TROUBLE—such as it was—might be said to have begun, indirectly, with Colonel Windup.

  Colonel Windup lived in a small house next to the George and Dragon, and had done so for many years, though village wags (of which Plummergen had more than its share) contended that Colonel Windup lived in the George and Dragon, next to a small house. Few could realistically dispute this interpretation of the facts: the colonel did, indeed, spend most of his waking hours in the bar of the George, speaking to nobody except to ask for the same again, please—the same being neat whisky, in double measure—just as nobody (apart from the professional Your change, Colonel from barmaid Doris, her assistant Maureen, or landlord Charley Mountfitchet) spoke to Colonel Windup—which suited the colonel very well. His sole means of communication appeared to be the cryptic letters he would unleash upon an unsuspecting public at the slightest provocation, demanding of those in even feeble authority that Something Must Be Done, while never specifying at any time what that something should be. Those same village wags maintained that, if Colonel Windup ceased his perpetual letter-writing, Mr. Stillman’s revenue from stamps and stationery would be reduced by half, and postman Bert’s regular round could be prosecuted by bicycle instead of in his official van.

  Plummergen, in its own way, was rather proud of Colonel Windup. A few purists might have called his behaviour antisocial. While valid, this was very much a minority view, for there was undoubted merit in the colonel’s ability to mind his own business—an ability, in Plummergen, so rare as to be almost unique. The fact that the business in question was the voluntary slow pickling of the colonel’s liver by regular applications of neat scotch was neither here nor there. It was (Plummergen held) his own business, deliberately chosen, inflicted upon nobody else; and, in return, nobody else inflicted themselves or their business on the colonel ...

  Until Jeremy Froste and Bethan Broomfield made the mistake of trying to do so.

  The television people had been unsurprised by reactions, both favourable and unfavourable, to their arrival in Plummergen. They were used to both after the past few months, during which they had travelled the country preparing for the second series of that unlikely smash hit Not All Roast Beef. Jeremy Froste recognised the predatory gaze of bored housewives contemplating the surrender of their virtue for the chance to appear, demonstrating long-secret ancestral recipes, on the nation’s domestic screens—to the fluttered eyelashes of giggling schoolgirls with similar surrender on their hopeful, undomesticated minds. Bethan Broomfield knew well the nods and smiles, the coaxing cups of tea from pensioners prepared to share with the public their version of great-grandmother’s meeting with Mrs. Beeton, great-grandfather’s inadvertent sale of the patent for keeping the fizz in ginger beer ...

  “Oh, I’m enjoying myself tremendously: I’m sure I’m going to like it here. Everyone seems so very friendly,” said Miss Broomfield, in reply to Nigel Colveden’s inane conversational gambit on the occasion of their first meeting. “And they seem awfully helpful, too. I’ve made dozens of notes, and we’ve heard all sorts of things—”

  “I believe you,” muttered Nigel, not so smitten with the newcomer that he could ignore the irony of the situation. Given the mystical sway held by the media over a large proportion of the Plummergen populace, he was amazed the poor girl hadn’t been deafened with information ... whereas if she and the man Froste had simply turned up as private individuals to ask the same questions, it would have been the crash of silence—even from that large proportion—which deafened them, and they would have gone away next day, defeated by deliberate village dumbness: at which Plummergen, when necessary, excelled.

  “—and we’ve only been in the place five minutes.” She fixed him with a dazzling smile of what could well have been genuine pleasure. Bethan Broomfield might not, it seemed, have worked so long in television that she’d become disillusioned with its effect on those outside the charmed circle. “Well, a bit longer than that, of course, but not so very long”—Nigel thought her giggle quite enchanting—“and yet everyone’s been so, well, helpful, talking to us, not a bit the way you sometimes hear villages are—you know, so busy arguing with each other they don’t want to bother talking to strangers. I think it’s wonderful—such a surprise ...”

  Nigel choked discreetly as Bethan babbled on about the surprising co-operation she’d already received, how tremendously friendly everyone was, how she was sure it was all due to the reputation of Jeremy Froste as a producer of marvellous programmes that people were so very willing to tell her things ... though actually she had to admit (in a coy whisper) that some of what they’d been told they hadn’t really needed—though all very interesting (she added hastily, blushing), she supposed. Just, well, not really what they’d been looking for.

  Nigel choked again, then hastily smothered his mirth by asking what she and Jeremy Froste had been looking for. Of her subsequent eager recital of the rare apple varieties for which the pair were searching, he had, next morning, retained enough to be able to impress his parents; that evening, his obvious interest had apparently been more than enough to impress Miss Broomfield.

  “Lots of notes,” she repeated, to his further prompting. “And Jeremy—Mr. Froste—has taken dozens of photographs. We have large-scale maps of the area, and we’ll—he’ll—be able to work out the best angles for the shots—the sun, and that sort of thing—when he’s decided where exactly he’s going to film, if we can find enough photogenic places, though I’m sure we shall, because he’s so very talented. And this is such a marvellous place, of course. We saw the plaque about the Best Kept Village Competition in the bus shelter. You must have been awfully pleased. I suppose you’ve lived here all your life? You’re very lucky.”

  Nigel agreed that he had been born in Plummergen, and (the village being east of the Medway) was a true Man of Kent. “As opposed,” he explained, “to a Kentishman, that’s a man of West Kent.” He paused. Was he telling her things she didn’t really need to know?

  It appeared not. Bethan surveyed him with wide, wondering eyes. “Deadly rivals, I suppose?” she enquired. “Is there programme potential there? Perhaps Jeremy would be interested—he plans to do so much more than Not All Roast Beef, and everyone knows he’ll go far.”

  Nigel did not follow her gaze to the nearby table where Jeremy Froste held court, surrounded by a throng of wife-nagged husbands who’d never known young Maureen so eager to bring their drinks across from the bar rather than insist, as she usually did, that they come to fetch them. “I could tell you about it first,” he suggested, feeling pleased with his quick thinking, “then you could decide if it was worth bothering him with. I mean—an expert like you ...” He observed her modest blush, and thought it as enchanting as her giggle; then blushed in his turn as she directed those wondering eyes full upon himself, and said that she was sure he was the expert, and she’d love to hear him tell her all about it.

  “Oh, gosh.” Nigel grimaced. “I remember something from school, but ... well, er, when William the Conqueror turned up in 1066 our lot went out and welcomed him—waved green branches at him, the crawlers—and he said they could hang on to, er, whatever rights and privileges they’d had before. The other lot—well, they didn’t crawl, so ...”

  “No privileges,” said Bethan, smiling. “A
nd you’ve been deadly rivals ever since?”

  Nigel chuckled. “Our most deadly rivals live about five miles away, over the marsh in Murreystone—to the east,” he added, “which must make them even more Men of Kent than we are, and I bet they crawled twice as hard. Probably waved flags as well as greenery, knowing them.”

  “Talking of flags,” said Bethan, before he could enlarge on the dark doings at the time of the Best Kept Village Competition, “we couldn’t help noticing the little house opposite the post office when we drove in, the one with the flagpole. Someone said an admiral lives there. And your father’s a general, isn’t he? Aren’t there a lot of retired—I mean, in a little village like this ...”

  She was blushing again. Nigel said quickly, “A fair selection, yes. Our local nursing home’s run by a former army major—our vicar was in the Home Guard—oh, and we’ve a colonel, too. As a matter of fact, he’s here this evening—in that corner, if you can manage to look without making it too obvious. Colonel Windup,” said Nigel, as Bethan slipped round in her seat and glanced casually over her shoulder in a manner that won his approval. “Never been known to speak a word to a soul,” Nigel said, as she turned back again; and he proceeded to amuse Miss Broomfield with an assortment of anecdotes starring Major Matilda “The Howitzer” Howett, the Reverend Arthur Treeves, Major-General Sir George Colveden, and Admiral Leighton, expounding at some length on the latter’s propensity for flying the gin pennant on every conceivable occasion, and on some of the consequences (these carefully censored) arising for those who should avail themselves of his hospitality.

  “But,” objected Bethan, who had chuckled and smiled in a most gratifying manner at each and every punch-line, “you haven’t told me anything at all about Colonel Windup. Doesn’t he keep bees or organise burglar-catching teams or play cricket or—or anything? I should have thought he would at least have helped your father run the Village Watch.”