Miss Seeton, By Appointment (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 6) Read online

  Miss Seeton, By Appointment

  A Miss Seeton Mystery

  Hampton Charles

  Series creator Heron Carvic

  FARRAGO

  Contents

  Dedication

  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

  Note from the Publisher

  Preview

  Also Available

  About the Miss Seeton series

  About Heron Carvic and Hampton Charles

  Copyright

  Dedication

  For Anthea Morton-Saner,

  who makes the improbable come to pass

  chapter

  ~1~

  “MORNIN’, GORGEOUS,” said Bert the postman, taking his time over looking through his bundle of mail. He was a perky young man with a shock of red hair, an émigré cockney who enjoyed life in Kent, especially in the summer. And more particularly still, he enjoyed the one week in three when he was on the Plummergen round. For most Plummergen residents the sight of the little red post office van was the high point of the day, and they nearly all came to their doors for their letters and a bit of a chat. The Nuts, as they were known in the village, and whom Bert had privately christened The Long and Short of It, never failed. The rotund Mrs. Norah Blaine was usually civil enough in a fussy sort of way, but it made Bert’s day when Miss Erica Nuttel got there first, for with her he was engaged in an unceasing and to him highly enjoyable battle of wits.

  “’Ardly your lucky day, ducks.” He doled out the items one by one, with a running commentary. “Gas bill. Picture postcard of Wookey ’Ole, where Maureen’s ’avin’ a super time, bless ’er cotton socks. Psychic News in a plain wrapper an’ I should think so, too. Load o’ codswallop if you want my opinion—”

  “I don’t,” Erica Nuttel snapped. “And moreover I take the greatest possible exception both to your impertinent familiarity and your reading a personal message addressed to me. The district postmaster will most certainly hear about this.”

  Bert grinned, unabashed. “Cor! ’Ark ’oo’s talkin’! Know what your trouble is, doncher? Jealous. Tell you what, give us a kiss and I’ll let you ’ave a look through the rest. Some good stuff ’ere. Take Sir George up at Rytham ’All. ’Is nibs an’ ’er Ladyship keep up a very good class o’ correspondence, ’n’ they ain’t the only ones. Some o’ your neighbors get ’oliday postcards from places an ’ell of a lot more exotic than Wookey bleedin’ ’Ole, I can tell yer. An’ they ’ave some ’ighly exclusive pen pals, too. F’rinstance, guess ’oo’s got a letter from the Queen, then?”

  He plucked a large, opulent-looking envelope from the bundle and brandished its reverse so that Miss Nuttel could see the gold coat of arms embossed on the flap. “Sockin’ great typewriter she must ’ave there at Buck ’Ouse. Comes out like them large print books I get my mum down Brettenden Li’bry. She likes anything a bit saucy, Mum does. O ho! ’Oity toity! Like that, is it?” Bert added to the door, which had been slammed in his face. “An’ up yours, too!”

  He put his tongue out, made an exceedingly vulgar gesture with his free hand in the full awareness that one or both of The Nuts would be observing him from behind the net curtains, and crossed the road to the garage. His van was already parked outside Mr. Stillwell’s hardware and general store, inside which lurked the little counter that constituted Plummergen’s sub-post office. This would be Bert’s last port of call in the village proper, when he emptied the pillar-box and went in to pick up registered mail and parcels to take back to base with him. Plummergen being a compact sort of village, it was convenient to leave the van there and make deliveries on foot, popping back to it for another bundle as necessary.

  “Oh, Eric, you are mean! Do let me have a go with the binoculars!” Norah Blaine positively quivered with impatience, but Miss Nuttel continued her vigil from her perch on the chair she had placed by one of the upstairs windows facing the street, adjusting the focus from time to time to keep Bert under scrutiny as he continued on his jauntily eccentric way up The Street.

  “Be quiet, Bunny. And stop plucking at my slacks; I’m trying to concentrate. You know you can never focus binoculars properly, anyway. He did it quite deliberately, you know. He’s been back to the van twice already, each time with just that one big envelope in his hand. Making sure everybody in the village knows about it.”

  “Well, it is interesting, after all,” Norah expostulated. “If it had been me, I’d have grabbed it from him and had a good look at the address for myself.”

  Miss Nuttel sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous; you’d have done nothing of the kind. You let that ghastly young man with his crude innuendos intimidate you. Besides, it’s obvious it must be for the Colvedens. Sir George is a justice of the peace, after all. The letter is undoubtedly from the palace. Perhaps he’s going to be made lord lieutenant of the county.”

  “Or a deputy lieutenant,” suggested Norah, who was inclined to be less bold in her speculations. “Is there just one of those, by the way, or are there several?”

  “I really couldn’t say. And frankly, Bunny, the question is academic so far as we’re concerned. If you really want to know, you could always ring up the Daily Telegraph . . . Oh, no! It’s too much!”

  Mrs. Blaine did her fluffy best to bristle. “Well, really, Eric! I was only asking . . .”

  Erica Nuttel scrambled down, an expression of outrage on her face. “He’s delivered it to that woman!”

  It took a few seconds for Norah Blaine’s ineffectual protests to die down and for her friend’s news to sink in. Even then she opened and closed her little goldfish mouth several times before she was able to regain the power of speech. “Miss Seeton?” she quavered at last. “A letter from Buckingham Palace?”

  “For me? From Buckingham Palace? Oh, dear, surely not! How very extraordinary! There must be some mistake . . .”

  “Nah, no mistake, Miss S.,” Bert said, beaming at Miss Emily Seeton reassuringly. “Cheer up; if the beefeaters lock you up in the Tahra London, me an’ me mates’ll ’ave you out in no time.” He winked conspiratorially at Martha Bloomer, who had bustled into view behind her, bearing a dust pan and brush. Martha, who lived practically next door to Sweetbriars and “did” for Miss Seeton as necessary, had a rosy, generous soul. Moreover, she hailed originally from London, her Plummergen-born husband, Stan, having wooed and won her during a hop-picking season long ago, when Londoners by the hundreds—including Martha and her family—used to flock from the East End to earn a few pounds as casual helpers. The passage of the years had changed her in many ways, but she still remembered a thing or two about the way to deal with cockney sauce.

  “The Tower? My goodness, I certainly hope not . . .” Miss Seeton was saying distractedly as Martha unceremoniously relieved her of the imposing missive and studied it briefly.

  “Now, you pay no mind to his nonsense,” she said decisively. “He’s just trying to tease you, miss. There’s a card in there; I can feel it. Miss Emily D. Seeton, Sweetbriars, Plummergen, Kent. That’s an invite, that is, plain as a pikestaff.”

  “No flies on you, Mrs. B., is there? She’s dead right.” Bert adopted
a ludicrously fluting falsetto as he pretended to usher Miss Seeton to a table. “Soo glad you could join us in partakin’ of this ’ere collation, Miss Seeton. Do just kaindly sit ’ere between Lord Muck and the Dook of Owsyourfather. Oh, and maind the old dook don’t slosh ’is soup all over yer frock, love.”

  “Give over, Bert.”

  Sensing that Mrs. Bloomer was beginning to hoist storm cones, Bert reverted to his normal manner. “Yeah, right. Sorry, Miss S., jus’ my little joke. What I reckon is, it’s for one o’ them garden parties. An’ you’ll ’ave some company, ’cos I got another one just like it in my bag, for Sir George ’n’ ’is lady. Go on, open it; it won’t bite.”

  Not wholly convinced that it wouldn’t, Miss Seeton would have preferred to retreat to the privacy of her bedroom and run through a few of her yoga exercises before opening the royal missive. At the same time she realized that such a course of action would constitute cruel and unnatural punishment for both faithful Mrs. Bloomer and for cheery Bert, of whom she had become quite fond since coming to live in Plummergen. “Yes, well, perhaps, but it would never do to tear the flap, would it—oh, is that a penknife? How thoughtful . . . well, you’re both right! Fancy! It says ‘I am commanded by Her Majesty to request the pleasure of the company of Miss Emily Seeton at a Garden Party to be given . . .’ Me! Invited to a royal garden party!” Of course, I couldn’t possibly go—”

  “Wotcher mean, not go?”

  “Not go? Whyever not?”

  Faced with a united front of indignant astonishment on the part of her two friends, Miss Seeton frankly dithered. It was a great relief to her when Bert eventually decided that duty called him elsewhere, and took himself off vowing to return to the charge the following morning after discussing the matter with his mum. Then Martha Bloomer very sensibly prescribed a cup of tea and one of the ginger chocolate biscuits Mrs. Stillwell had begun to stock a few months earlier, and within half an hour at least some of Miss Seeton’s perturbation had subsided.

  By the time she had finished her modest lunch she was feeling timidly elated, and was even toying with the idea of accepting the invitation, with which a printed reply card had been thoughtfully enclosed. If Sir George and Lady Colveden had indeed received a similar invitation, it made a great difference, of course, but Bert might have been teasing about that, too. As well as about the Tower of London, that is. Such a good-humored young man; much too young to know that nobody had been locked up in the Tower since the unfortunate Sir Roger Casement, so strange for a family to be named after a kind of window. On the other hand there was a herald called Portcullis—a pretty name but not perhaps as nice as Bluemantle Pursuivant—and thinking of gates and apertures of one sort and another, what about Lord Portal who had been something important to do with the air force—or was that Lord Trench, no, Trenchard, surely?

  Miss Seeton had moved on in her reverie through Trenchard—who confusingly made her think of policemen as well as airmen—to trench coats, riding breeches, breeches buoys, and Grace Darling when the sound of somebody tapping at the window dragged her to the surface of her stream of consciousness, and she looked up to see Nigel Colveden outside. At once she gave him a little wave, and hastened to the front door to let him in.

  “My dear Nigel, how very nice to see you! I’d quite forgotten you must be on vacation by now, and what lovely weather you have brought with you! Come in, come in. Have you had lunch? Mrs. Bloomer went home a long time ago, but if you’re hungry, I’m sure I could make you a sandwich—”

  “Thanks all the same, Miss Seeton, but I had lunch a couple of hours ago. It is ten past three, you know.”

  “Good gracious, is it really? I’m afraid I’ve been daydreaming again. About Lord Portal, and shipwrecks came into it, too, for some odd reason. Well, a cup of tea, perhaps, while you tell me all your news.”

  Sir George and Lady Colveden’s son and heir was twenty, and a student at an agricultural college. No intellectual giant, he was nevertheless a pleasant, open, and on occasion resourceful young man who had more than once appointed himself Miss Seeton’s protector and rendered her sterling service. His principal interests in life were his MG sports car and whichever young woman he was currently infatuated with.

  Miss Seeton had been acquainted with the Colvedens for no more than two or three years, but could remember several of Nigel’s inamoratas, who were almost invariably as unsuitable as they were glamorous. The gleam in his eye told her the situation was normal: namely, that Nigel Colveden had a new girlfriend, but naturally one could hardly ask him outright. That would never do.

  “Well, Nigel, tell me about your new girlfriend,” she heard herself suggesting as she offered him one of the really quite excellent biscuits, and sat down rather suddenly, warm with embarrassment.

  “Oh, Lord, does it show that much?” Nigel’s grin indicated that he was both unabashed and more than ready to launch into a lyrical account of his latest entanglement. Reassured, Miss Seeton sipped her own tea and waited.

  “Yes. Well, wow! You’d never guess in a million years, but I’ve met Marigold Naseby. The Marigold Naseby!”

  “Er . . . how very nice, Nigel. Do forgive me, but I’m not absolutely sure—”

  “You must know, Miss Seeton, it’s been in the papers! The Lalique Lady.”

  “Lalique? Oh, such a wonderfully bold vision for a jeweler, but then did he not create pieces for Sarah Bernhardt? One does so regret having been born too late to see her perform . . . perhaps even wearing a Lalique piece. You are referring to the great Lalique?”

  “Yes, yes, at least I suppose so, but the important thing is that Marigold Naseby has been chosen as the Lalique Lady! Following The Search of the Century for Cedric’s Symbol. Cedric Benbow.”

  Miss Seeton began to feel just a little less mystified by Nigel’s sudden expression of interest in Lalique. She had given up reading newspapers years before, finding them increasingly depressing, and generally turned the radio off after the weather forecast. She was nevertheless not wholly without access to news. Martha Bloomer, for instance, liked to discuss lunar exploration and the like, having a cousin by marriage who claimed to have seen a flying saucer in the night sky over Tenterden.

  Moreover, Miss Seeton occasionally took tea with the vicar and his sister, and the Reverend Arthur Treeves from time to time ventured an opinion about events in the world outside Plummergen. Whenever this happened the formidable Miss Molly Treeves corrected him on the facts and challenged his interpretation of them, and Miss Seeton was inclined to let it all wash over her. She was, however, perfectly sure that she would have taken note if either of the Treeveses had mentioned the name of Cedric Benbow.

  “Miss Naseby is a friend of Cedric Benbow? Well, I never! Do you know, Nigel, that I was at art school with Cedric Benbow? Such a strange boy he was then, much troubled by acne, and, dare I say it, with a rather common way of speaking. None of us imagined for a second that he would go on to such great things.”

  Nigel regarded Miss Seeton with something approaching awe. It had become clear even to him that, astonishingly enough, she had never heard of Marigold Naseby. On the other hand she was claiming acquaintance with the legendary Cedric Benbow, the gilded young dilettante of the thirties who had become Mayfair’s leading portrait photographer and dabbled in theatrical design before achieving worldwide fame as the grand old man of fashion photography.

  “Gosh,” he said reverently.

  chapter

  ~2~

  “HANG ON a minute, Chris. I’ll just jot these names down.” While he reached for his scratch pad Chief Superintendent Delphick tried cradling the telephone receiver to his ear with his shoulder in the way people in films seemed to manage so deftly, and as always it fell with a clatter to his desk. As he picked it up again he darted a stern look across the room in the direction of Detective Sergeant Bob Ranger, but he was too late: his gentle giant of an assistant had already spun round in his chair and was rummaging in the small filing cabinet beside his desk whil
e suppressing a grin. After putting Chief Inspector Brinton of the Kent police through to The Oracle, he’d made a private bet with himself that the conversation between the two old friends would be a lengthy one and that The Oracle would drop the phone at least once. Brainy he undoubtedly was, but Bob would hate to see his boss in charge of a chain saw.

  “Sorry about that. The Colvedens I know quite well, of course, including young Nigel. And I’ve heard of Cedric Benbow; who hasn’t? But who’s Lalik? Sounds like one of those fishy Lebanese wheeler-dealers with a flat in Eaton Square and a finger in too many pies for his own good. What? Oh, I see. L-A-L-I-Q-U-E. Famous jeweler. Yes, yes, now I’m with you. I should have twigged when you mentioned Benbow. There’s been something in the Daily Negative about it, I recall. What do you mean, a rag?” A pause to give the idea brief consideration. “Well, I suppose it is, really. But having had dealings with the lady, I enjoy reading Amelita Forby’s pieces. So this Marigold Naseby’s the girl who won the competition, is she? Tell me more.”

  Delphick listened attentively for some time, a slow smile spreading over his face, and made a few more notes before he spoke again. “Take your point, Chris. I can’t see Miss Seeton making the front page of Mode magazine either, but then again no rational person could have envisaged her getting involved with those devil-worshippers of yours. Apart from the fact that she lives in Plummergen and knows the Colvedens, she has nothing whatever to do with this project, you say. And neither do you and your merry men . . . officially, anyway. Ah, well, forewarned is forearmed, I suppose. Your sinking feeling is entirely understandable, though. No, nice try, but I haven’t anything to occupy her with somewhere else for a few days. Do give me a ring when it’s all over. Hope it keeps fine for you.”

  After putting the phone down Delphick pondered for a minute or two, then turned to Ranger. “Been down to Plummergen to see your intended lately, Bob?”

  “Most weekends when I can get away, sir.”