Miss Seeton by Moonlight (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 12) Read online

  Miss Seeton by Moonlight

  A Miss Seeton Mystery

  Hamilton Crane

  Series creator Heron Carvic

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Note from the Publisher

  Preview

  Also Available

  About the Miss Seeton series

  About Heron Carvic and Hamilton Crane

  Copyright

  chapter

  ~1~

  IT TAKES, AS everyone knows, two to make a quarrel. And it takes a village like Plummergen, in Kent, to show the world how a quarrel should best be enjoyed. When Mrs. Welsted, who with her husband and daughter runs the draper’s, was laid low by influenza and refused to let Miss Pydell have the key of the church for daily organ practice, words were exchanged which resulted in Miss Pydell’s attending Rye, over the border in Sussex, ever after. When Mrs. Skinner and Mrs. Henderson found themselves in dispute over whose turn it would be (in three weeks’ time) to arrange the altar flowers, not even the talking-to given them by Miss Molly Treeves, the vicar’s sister, could do more than bandage wounds doomed in perpetuity to erupt at the slightest provocation.

  And provocation, in Plummergen, is seldom slow to manifest itself. The village delights in controversy. If there is nothing controversial to be found, then it must be invented, for the benefit of all who wish to take sides—indeed, who thrive on so doing. Almost everyone in this little community can contrive controversy when required, to a degree; but the principal contrivers, virtual professors in the art, are Miss Erica Nuttel and Mrs. Norah Blaine, otherwise known as The Nuts.

  The Nuts have embraced a lifestyle dedicated in almost equal parts to vegetarianism and gossip. They eat more bean salad, and monger more scandal, than anyone else in Kent. They have lived in Plummergen for upwards of a dozen years, and flatter themselves that they have been accepted by the inhabitants: but they are wrong. They are tolerated, they are humoured—and, behind their backs, they are mocked by people who were born in cottages where their grandsires were born, and where they confidently expect their grandchildren to live: cottages which still boast their original windows, whether sash, dormer, or casement, and not the net-curtained, plate-glass discordance of Lilikot, where The Nuts reside.

  Lilikot, in Plummergen’s main (indeed only) street—The Street, as it is formally known—is located conveniently (for The Nuts) opposite two centres of village communication, the post office and Crabbe’s Garage, which runs a bus service to nearby Brettenden twice a week. This means that The Nuts need never miss a single coming or going about the village, whether of importance or not—and, if not (and if nothing else seems promising), they will strive to make it so. On a scale of one to ten for inventiveness, Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine score eleven, every time; and the results of their speculative labours are always given their first airing over the road, in Mr. Stillman’s post-office-cum-general-stores.

  But this morning was different. This morning, instead of being the instigators of Plummergen’s usual diet of wild surmise, The Nuts were rather its victims, and everybody was enjoying themselves a great deal.

  Mrs. Flax had opened the bowling. “Four pounds of granulated, Mr. Stillman, thanks. Mrs. Blaine’s not the only one wishful to brew a last batch of strawberry jam.” The word brew reminded her audience, if any reminder were needed, of her position as Plummergen’s wise woman, which ensured that her views on any subject would be treated with respect: or with courteous and silent interest while she expounded them, at any rate.

  Mr. Stillman quietly set two packets of sugar in front of Mrs. Flax as she continued, “Not that the poor soul’s fit to be brewing jam, to my mind. Proper peaky she’s bin looking, this last week or more. Two lemons, Mr. Stillman, thanks.”

  “Not herself at all,” agreed Mrs. Skinner, and a general murmur echoed her. Even Mrs. Henderson, reluctantly, could hardly bring herself to deny what everyone knew was true.

  “There’s an atmosphere about that house,” she said, with a darkling glance through the post office windows in the direction of Lilikot. “Different, somehow.”

  “And maybe we can guess why,” said Mrs. Spice. “Not that ever in all my born days did I think I’d live to see it, the pair of ’em always having bin so thick right from when they first come here, and now . . .”

  “When friends fall out,” remarked Mrs. Skinner, her gaze pointedly directed away from Mrs. Henderson into a far corner of the shop, “there’s always one to blame far above t’other, we all know that. Only, with her being too pigheaded to apologise, nobody but herself can do anything about it.”

  Mrs. Scillicough cleared her throat, and others smirked, as Mrs. Henderson sniffed. “What some folk call pigheaded,” she informed the little group of shoppers, “there’s others consider no more than sticking to principles. Say what you like, them Nuts stick to their principles, the pair of ’em, agree with ’em or no as you choose.”

  “I’ve never agreed with ’em,” said Mrs. Flax. “It’s not right, turning up their noses at honest meat like they do, let alone inventing the stuff, lentils and split peas and goodness knows what—flying in the face of Nature, that’s what they’ve bin doing, if you ask me.” The one person in Plummergen entitled to indulge in any inventing, concocting, or exploiting of Nature, in the opinion of Mrs. Flax, was Mrs. Flax. “Why else,” she continued virtuously, “should we’ve bin given a good set of teeth, and stomachs, if not to enjoy a chop or a rasher of bacon once in a while? Which,” she added, turning back to Mr. Stillman, who stood and waited while the conversation surged about him, “I’ll take two pounds of, thanking you, and set the dial to seven. Not too much rind on, neither. No,” she went on, as the huge steel disc of the bacon-slicer began to whirr in its dark red cage, “what I think is, Mrs. Blaine’s not just peaky—not by herself, she isn’t, in a manner of speaking. There’s more to it than that. Some,” she added, “might say as she’s plain ailing, but . . .”

  “She’s not consulted Dr. Knight,” said young Mrs. Newport, who lived in the council houses at the end of the village, past which Mrs. Blaine would have to go to reach the nursing home owned by the doctor and his wife and run by them under the stern eye of Major Matilda Howett (Ret’d).

  “She never does,” retorted Mrs. Skinner, “not needing to, with all them herbs they grow.” She cast a wary look in the direction of The Wise Woman. “So what’s your view of the matter, Mrs. Flax? It’s more than peaky from their quarrel, you reckon?”

  Mrs. Flax drew herself up to her full height. “Peaky?” she repeated, raking her audience with a look which promised revelations to come. “There’s a sight more than peaking about Mrs. Blaine, believe me—herbs, you say. And just who is it as looks after that garden of theirs across the road? Not Mrs. Blaine . . .”

  “Miss Nuttel,” breathed someone on cue, and everybody uttered little gasps of thrilled delight. “But—Mrs. Flax, you surely never—”

/>   “Oh yes I do! If there’s anyone in this village knows more about herbs than me, I’d like to meet ’em. And when being peaky comes on so sudden as it did with Mrs. Blaine—for there’s no denying last week she was as bright as a button—well,” concluded Mrs. Flax, pursing her lips and looking portentous, “I’m not saying a word, you understand. But there’s no law can stop me from thinking,” with a nod, and a frown. “To them with the eyes of knowledge, the signs is clear enough . . .”

  “There’s no signs of nothing,” said Mrs. Scillicough in a flat voice, “save that they’ve not bin able to agree over that daft bit of sculpture in Brettenden. Dear knows, I’ll never understand why folk should fall out over such a great mess of scrap metal, but that’s what The Nuts have done—and nothing more.” Mrs. Scillicough had but scant respect for the authority of Mrs. Flax since the Wise Woman let her down so badly over the soothing herbs intended to give the young mother a respite from the demands of her notorious triplets. Mrs. Scillicough in desperation doubled, then trebled the dose—which stubbornly continued to act more like a stimulant than a suppressant, resulting in permanently sleepless nights. “They’ve had a tiff, that’s all,” and she smothered a defiant yawn.

  Before the startled Mrs. Flax could find words to quell this small insurrection, Emmeline Putts rushed into speech from behind the grocery counter. Emmy had a strongly proprietorial feeling for the contentious sculpture, since it had been commissioned by, and stood outside, the Brettenden biscuit factory where her mother worked. “You didn’t ought to call it scrap metal, Mrs. Scillicough, indeed you didn’t. Why, it’s one of Humphrey Marsh’s finest pieces. The managing director said so himself.”

  “And it was in the paper,” chimed in Mrs. Skinner. “A masterpiece, they called it, with a photograph and everything,” as if that must be the final word. But Mrs. Scillicough failed to see why The Brettenden Telegraph and Beacon (est. 1847, incorporating [1893] The Iverhurst Chronicle and Argus) should be accepted as the arbiter of Plummergen taste; and Mrs. Henderson automatically lent support to this dissent. She tossed her head.

  “Scrap metal’s what Mrs. Scillicough said, and I must say I agree. Looks a regular eyesore, cluttering up the front like that and nobody able to miss seeing it whenever they go past—how anyone could pay good money for a thing like that beats me.”

  “But it’s by Humphrey Marsh,” breathed Emmy, who’d never heard of the renowned modern sculptor until recently, but who was a splendid example of suggestibility and the power of the press. When her mother had come home and told her the Beacon was going to print an article, with photograph, next week, and Mrs. Putts might’ve got herself in a corner of the picture when they snapped the leader of Brettenden Town Council unveiling Food Chain—and she had—Emmy became an authority on Humphrey Marsh almost overnight. She cut out the article for her scrapbook, and ordered an eight-by-ten print of the photograph which showed what her mother swore was the top of her head. Not since Emmy herself (wearing a long blond wig) had been crowned Miss Plummergen at the summer fete had the Putts family enjoyed such renown. “He’s ever so famous, Mrs. Henderson. Someone’s wrote a book about him, and there was a bit in my magazine, too—ever so handsome, he is. Real rippling muscles,” said Emmy, sighing. “He was on the telly last night, what’s more.”

  “Moore? Why, I saw that too,” broke in Mrs. Skinner, her memory jogged by Emmy’s final words. “Another Henry Moore in the making,” she quoted, “that’s him, and never mind your rippling muscles, Emmeline Putts. Carrying all them heavy lumps of metal around, hammering and such, I’ve no doubt.” She frowned at Mrs. Henderson. “Very modern, he is. There’s people so ignorant they still think sculpture’s all marble statues and carving. Very old-fashioned, they say that’s become. Welding, and blowtorches, they do it like that now—the telly man interviewed this Humphrey Marsh, and that’s what he told him. A-a vision for the future—or something like that . . .” She stumbled into silence as memory failed her, and Mrs. Henderson smirked.

  “Vision,” said Mrs. Henderson, “may be what some folk choose to call it—but a nightmare’s more what it looks like, to my way of thinking—and not just me,” she added, before the admirers of Humphrey Marsh’s distinctive iconoclasm could argue back. “Nobody’s noticed Croesus wanting anything of the sort, have they? It was in the paper this very week—Anyone’s—not one word to say it’s visions he’s having stole from all over the place. He wants things as look like what they’re supposed to, and more’s the pity, is what I think. Because if he didn’t,” concluded Mrs. Henderson in triumph, “he might get his gang to come and clear that mess away from outside the biscuit factory, then we wouldn’t have to look at it no more. And I’ll take three packets of digestive, please, Mr. Stillman, if Mrs. Flax will excuse me. I’ve got better things to do with my time than talk about rubbish all day long.”

  This blatant disrespect had everyone gasping, but Mrs. Henderson was too carried away by her own eloquence to care. She had recognised, in the eyes of most of her audience, a flicker of agreement once she’d raised the topic of Croesus: she knew she’d scored a point, and wanted to leave the shop (and the discussion) on a winning note, which would annoy Mrs. Skinner all the more.

  And Mrs. Skinner was duly annoyed. As Mr. Stillman, with an inquiring look at Mrs. Flax, produced the biscuits requested by the queue-jumping Mrs. Henderson, her rival said in an irritable tone, “Modern art, that’s what it is. Bound to be difficult for some people to understand, Modern Art is,” and pronounced the capitals in a meaningful way.

  But Mrs. Henderson, heading for the door with the digestive biscuits in her shopping bag, looked over her shoulder and remarked, to nobody in particular: “And if some people ever stopped to consider some of the strange folk as are supposed to know all about Art, they’d not be so quick to make fools of theirselves by talking about it and giving other people the wrong idea!”

  She was gone, leaving everyone looking at everyone else, trying to pretend they had no idea what she had meant: trying, but with little success. They all understood perfectly well who she’d been referring to in that oblique way, and with whose strangeness the name of Mrs. Skinner had been very cleverly coupled. Though whether anyone would come right out and say so was another matter . . .

  Then Emmy Putts, who felt in some obscure way that the reputation of her hero was at stake, remarked thoughtfully: “Yes, well—she never says much, does she, but stands to reason she thinks a lot, what with teaching the kiddies and all. Ooh, yes, I wonder what Miss Seeton thinks about it, I reelly do . . .”

  And a collective sigh of speculation filled the entire post office, before the tongues began to wag once more.

  chapter

  ~2~

  THE SUBJECT OF all this speculation was, as ever, completely oblivious to any idea that she or her affairs could be of interest to others. Miss Emily Dorothea Seeton, who gladly took early retirement from her teaching of art in a Hampstead school, has lived in Plummergen for seven years now: a septennium which, to Miss Seeton’s eyes, has been as happy—and uneventful—as seven years could possibly be. There are many who would take issue with her on this latter point, among whom must be included Chief Superintendent Delphick of Scotland Yard; Superintendent Chris Brinton of Ashford, in Kent; Inspector Harry Furneux of Hastings, in Sussex; and Assistant Commissioner Sir Hubert Everleigh, of the Metropolitan Police; not to mention assorted crooks and villains whose careers, once their paths crossed that of Miss Seeton, turned out considerably shorter than anticipated.

  But Miss Seeton sees nothing of this. Her eyes, for all their training in the appreciation and understanding of Art, do not so much ignore or look past the unusual as look right through it. She is unable to conceive of the adventures in which she so frequently becomes embroiled as being in any real way anything to do with her: adventures simply do not happen to a gentlewoman—Miss Seeton, therefore, does not have them. Whatever occurs that is out of the ordinary must be happening to somebody else; her eyes might
for a moment wander in search of that somebody, but when she recollects herself and subdues her regrettable curiosity, she is able to dismiss the untoward completely from her mind.

  At present, she had managed to dismiss completely from her mind the tremendous bustle of broom, duster, and vacuum cleaner amid which she sat quietly re-reading a letter from one who had, over the past few years, become a dear friend. While Martha Bloomer threw herself with enthusiasm into the scouring of Sweetbriars, the cottage which Miss Seeton inherited from her late godmother and cousin Mrs. Bannet, the owner of Sweetbriars smiled to herself, and turned another page, and paid no heed to the flourish of feathers above her head as an unwary cobweb was swirled into oblivion.

  “Hi there, Miss S.,” the letter had begun in confident black ink. “I’m writing from my sickbed, would you believe—a broken ankle, of all things!”

  “Oh, dear,” said Miss Seeton, and clicked her tongue, turning to the end of the letter to see which of her large acquaintance had been so unfortunate, although from the mode of address she had a fair idea.

  Her idea was correct. “Yours, as ever, from my bed of pain, Mel,” proclaimed the signature, underlined twice and flamboyantly scrawled. Newspaper reporters, Miss Seeton remembered, needed to make notes of what they were reporting as quickly as possible—shorthand, so useful, although not something she herself had ever needed to learn. But all the girls in the Commercial Stream had been taught it before leaving school, and some of their friends would borrow their books to teach themselves the rudiments, ordinary lessons requiring one to make notes—except Art, of course, where it was surely more important to See for oneself rather than to scribble down the mere words of another’s way of Seeing. She supposed. It was certainly the way she had tried to teach her classes: to think, to see for themselves, and then to draw what they had seen so that others could share it . . .

  “A broken ankle, of all things!” Miss Seeton read on, expecting to learn what manner of accident had befallen poor Amelita Forby, demon reporter of The Daily Negative; but Mel had too much consideration for her maidenly correspondent’s blushes. Miss Forby’s relationship with Thrudd Banner, the freelance star of World Wide Press, wasn’t exactly a secret from their friends, but she saw no need to dwell on the more private moments in detail: neither she nor Thrudd were movie actors, tycoons, or minor royalty. Besides, Miss Seeton had been a skilled practitioner of yoga for several years now, and would therefore be unimpressed by the physical activities being enjoyed moments before the brittle crack of a broken bone put an end to all the fun.