The Flower Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Now look here, friend,” said Gordon, “you’ll only complicate matters if you lose consciousness again. We need you if we are going to clear this thing up. I take it you have had no time to call the police?”

  “Do you think—I should? The letter warns against that, you know.”

  “I think the police are better fitted to cope with a thing like this than you and I are, and the quicker they know about it, the quicker they can do something. I think they should be the ones to deal with the matter of what is put under a stone—if any.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said the sad voice, and the lids dropped over tortured eyes.

  “Does Maggie know where that stone is located?”

  The man opened his eyes again. “Is Maggie here? Oh, that is good! Yes, she knows. You can trust her absolutely.”

  “I thought so. Well, I’ll have an interview with the police. Shall I take the letter? And then I’m going out to find your daughter! You be resting—and praying!” he added.

  A hopeless look swept over the face of the sick man.

  “You can’t find her,” he said despairingly. “I’ve had one of the best detectives in the state out hunting her for three weeks, and there isn’t a trace of her.”

  “That’s all right. I’m asking the Lord to lead me to her. Will you ask Him, too? You know Him, don’t you?”

  Disston nodded diffidently as if he were embarrassed. “I haven’t been—much—along that line lately!”

  “Then get back to Him,” said the young man cheerfully. “Your strength is in Him, you know. There comes the doctor! Is there anything else I should know?”

  Gordon gave a brief explanation to the doctor of how he had found the sick man, and the doctor looked troubled.

  “He has a rather serious heart complication,” he said in a low tone. “A shock like that is bad. We should have a nurse, and I’ll stay here tonight as much as possible. Can you stay?”

  “I have to go out for a little while on an errand for Mr. Disston,” explained Gordon. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  “That’s good. We may need you. If we could only get hold of Diana that would be the best medicine possible,” said the doctor anxiously.

  “I’m going out to get her!” said the young man with assurance.

  “Maggie’s got a nice little bite of supper for you,” whispered Gordon’s mother as he came down from the bedroom where they had carried the sick man.

  “Sorry, Mother, but I can’t stop now. I’m going after the little lady. You and Maggie will have to carry on here till I get back. We’ve sent for a nurse, and she ought to be here soon. Mother, Mr. Disston had a note saying his daughter is being held for ransom. I’m taking it to the police; some of them may be here soon, probably not in uniform. Where is Maggie?”

  “Here!” said Maggie from the shadows.

  “Well, Maggie, can you show the police where there would be a stone in the spring house where ransom money could be put? They’ll want to know.”

  “I can, sir!” said Maggie eagerly from out of a shower of anxious tears.

  “Well, that’s all. Don’t get frightened, and pray! All the time!”

  “That we will, sir,” said Maggie, with a strong look in her blue eyes.

  “But won’t you take just a bite, Gordon?” urged his mother.

  “No time, Mother dear!” He smiled at her. “Plenty of time to eat afterward.”

  He walked briskly away into the night, and his mother heard the little car cough and start on its way.

  The night went on, and all was quiet in the great house. The nurse arrived and fell into her place in the scheme of things; several policemen arrived silently and entered the house rubber shod. They conversed very little. They peered out into the darkness in the direction of the spring house and prepared a neat bundle. They asked Maggie a few keen questions, and she answered them as keenly. Presently one of them was missing, and a shadow drifted out behind the house as if he had been a wraith. By and by another one was missing from the dark room at the back of the house where they had chosen to sit, and then another, until there were only two left inside on guard. At their direction all but the lights in the sickroom were extinguished, and Mrs. MacCarroll and Maggie sat side by side on the couch in the dark living room, silently, praying, and visualizing what might be happening off in the vague distance where Gordon MacCarroll had gone. And Gordon’s mother tried to keep her fears back, tried to rest her faith on the almighty God, and did succeed in keeping back the tears. Oh, God, keep him. Don’t let him do anything rash! You’ve always guarded us. Keep us now! Raise up the sick, Father, and help Gordon to find the little lady. Over and over she prayed.

  So they sat there and listened with ears attuned to the darkness outside and the meadows down behind the spring house. That would be where the kidnappers would creep sometime in the night to get their money. They wondered what had been demanded and whether the father had had enough, and what was it that the grim policemen had wrapped up in a little bundle. They were glad of the presence of those silent policemen. It made it easier to breathe.

  The hours crept slowly by, silent save for the moaning of the sick man overhead.

  And sometimes Mother MacCarroll would glance out the window down across the lawn to where her own little kitchen glowed and take heart of hope. Gordon had left that light burning for her. It seemed to reassure her.

  Chapter 23

  Diana had just finished her second cracker when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She sat staring at the door. It was locked she knew, but the thought of the manager of the restaurant came to her. He could break down the door as easily as he would crush an eggshell if he cared to. Of course, she was crazy to think of him. He wouldn’t leave the restaurant and come after her, but if he should, what should she do? She had no one, no one to protect her.

  Then like a flash came a verse that she had read only that morning before she went out to her work: The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

  That was it. She must trust in that. God, help, help! she cried out in her heart even as the tap sounded on the door.

  She hesitated a moment and then said, “Who is it, please?” Her voice sounded frightened even to herself, and she was suddenly conscious of her eyes that were heavy with weeping.

  “It’s me!” said Mrs. Lundy, and there was a pleased sound to her voice, not like her usual gruff tones.

  Diana snapped off the bright light and went to the door.

  There stood Mrs. Lundy with a big box in her arms.

  “Well, they’ve come again!” she announced triumphantly, “and he’s a regular guy. He bring ’em himself. You ain’t gone to bed, have you? ’Cause you better get yourself togged out in your best. He’s down there in the parlor waitin’ for you, and he seemed like he was in a hurry.”

  Diana’s eyes were filled with quick fear again.

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Mrs. Lundy. There is nobody who would come to call upon me here or bring me flowers. Those flowers that came in the past were from my old home.”

  “Well, here they are, anyhow, and he’s downstairs. And if I was you I wouldn’t keep him waitin’ very long. He’s some classy guy, he is. I says to my daughter as I come through the kitchen on my way up, to see the meat didn’t burn, I says, ‘Tilly, I always said that third-story back was different, and now I know it.’”

  “But really, Mrs. Lundy,” said Diana, drawing back and brushing away the dampness from her eyelashes, “I don’t in the least know who this is, and I’m afraid there’s some mistake.”

  “Well, have it your own way,” said the landlady grumpily. “It’s your mistake, not mine, anyway. And I must say I don’t see the point of you keeping on saying you don’t know him. I got eyes in my head, ain’t I? Whether you know him or not, you march down there and settle it with him! I gotta cook my meat!” And Mrs. Lundy deposited the box on the floor with a thump and sailed away downstairs.

  W
ith her heart palpitating like a trip hammer Diana picked up the box. With excited fingers she tore open the wrappings, lifted the cover, and that heavenly fragrance of spicy sweetness wafted through the room.

  The flowers had come again! The mystery flowers. God sent them every time in her need! But now must she go down there and have the mystery and beauty torn from them by having the giver turn out to be somebody she didn’t like?

  She dashed cold water on her face, smoothed her hair, and then with sudden impulse she scooped the flowers from their box and took them in her arms, carrying them in a sheaf before her to shield her.

  Downstairs the doorbell was pealing through the house once more, and Mrs. Lundy ungraciously left her meat again to answer it. She eyed the creature with disdain who slid inside before she could stop him. His hair was unkempt, his face and hands were dirty, and his clothes were ragged. Mrs. Lundy herself was not beyond being untidy, but this creature was of another world than even hers.

  “What you want?” She frowned at him.

  He blinked in the flickering light of the hall like a creature at bay and demanded, “I wantta see the party on the third floor back.”

  “Whatcha want her for?” demanded the landlady.

  “That’s my business!” he growled.

  “Awwright, you can stand there. She’s comin’ down in a minute!”

  The man lifted his little unholy eyes toward the stairs, his mouth stretched in a diabolical grin that showed the spaces between the rotten teeth where some were missing, and he kept one hand in the pocket of his tattered coat.

  Diana came down slowly, rounding the head of the stairs on the second floor, her flowers before her.

  “God! Take care of me!” she breathed as she stood a minute dreading to go on. Then it occurred to her that the manager of the cheap little restaurant where she had worked would never bring her gorgeous, expensive flowers, and she had really nothing to fear in that way. It must, of course, be one of her old friends who had found out where she was and had taken this tactful way to show her homage.

  So she gathered courage and continued on, dreading most of all to have the romance taken from her lovely spirit-flowers. Well, whatever came she would always say that God sent them, anyway.

  The cringing man at the foot gazed up at her for an instant, his hand gripping that something inside his pocket. Then he lowered his head with a Uriah Heep motion and spoke in a whine.

  “You’re Diana Disston!” he charged as if it were a crime.

  Diana stopped, startled, new fear coming into her eyes, her heart suddenly sinking. Was this creature the sender of her wonderful mystery flowers? Her arms grew suddenly heavy, like lead, and the flowers slid from her grasp and fell in a heap before her on the step. Her knees were weak. She felt as if she were going to sink down with the flowers. But she must not give way. She must not!

  “I useta go ta school with you. You remember me?”

  “No!” said Diana from a throat that was dry and lips that were trembling. “No!” She tried to scream it, but the sound was only an anguished whisper.

  “My mother useta sew fer your mother,” he whined on. “I got her outside now in a taxi. She’s on her way to the hospital fer an operation, an’ she wants ta see ya. She’s got somepin’ ta tell ya ta yer advantage. ’Cause she may die, that’s why she wants ta tell ya. You come out ta the taxi an’ talk ta her.”

  Diana gripped the stair railing and tried to back away. She must not fall! She must not! Oh, if Mrs. Lundy would only come, or somebody.

  “But I don’t know you!” she pled with that note of fright in her voice. “I can’t go out there now!”

  “I’ll teach ya ta know me!” said the man, low menace in his voice now, and whipped out an ugly gun, pointing it up at her. “You scram down here right quick! Make it snappy. I ain’t waitin’ round any longer, see? Come on or I’ll shoot the pretty feet out from under ya! Keep yer trap shut an’ come on or ya’ll be a dead un!”

  Diana stood there powerless to move, and when she tried to scream no sound came from her frightened lips.

  Then suddenly from the dim recesses of the unlit parlor, without warning, the legs of one of Mrs. Lundy’s parlor chairs crashed down upon the man’s wrist, his hand fell limp at his side, and his gun dropped to the floor and went off with a loud reverberation.

  Simultaneously the kitchen door at the end of the hall swung open and a big burly policeman, Mrs. Lundy’s brother who had dropped in for a bite to eat, came stalking out from the kitchen, a big wedge of apple pie in one hand and an ugly gun in the other.

  Now the best thing the creature in the hall could do was to run, and he had taken care that the door was unlatched before he began his performance, so he proceeded to put himself into action. Like a rat he turned and would have been gone into the shadows of the street but the policeman, even while he stuffed the last gigantic mouthful of pie inside his enormous mouth, brought his gun into action with a tiny motion no more than a turn of a wrist, and a bullet went neatly into the foot of the intruder. With a howl he dropped at the foot of the stairs as the policeman came forward with a mighty stride and grasped the little human rat by the back of his ragged collar.

  Then turning around to the young man who stood in between the flowered chenille curtains of the parlor doorway, the man of the law said, “Good work, buddy! I don’t know who you are, but you certainly did lam him one just in the nick of time, and if you should ever want ta get on the police force I’ll write ya a recommend.”

  “Thank you, brother,” said Gordon MacCarroll, coming out into the brightness of the hall and looking down sternly at the cringing, whining creature on the floor. “I’m not applying just now, but I’ll take it as a favor if you’ll see that this man is fingerprinted. I think he’s connected with a kidnapping, and if I’m not mistaken it was about to take place. Please don’t let him get away till you hear from me.”

  “I’ll not let him get away,” swaggered the policeman. “We got him fingerprinted already. We got plenty on him without no kidnappin’ as far as that goes, but we’ll hold him alrighty. I been layin’ fer this bird fer three weeks, an’ he slipped me every time. Now I’m goin’ ta keep him.”

  He snapped the handcuffs around the man’s wrists, swung the door open easily, put his piercing whistle to his lips, and an instant later a car rolled up to the door. Strong hands lifted the crippled prisoner into it.

  The door closed on this scene, leaving a huddled audience of open-mouthed Lundy relatives in the kitchen door, commenting with satisfaction on how “Uncle Bill gave the bum his medicine.” Then they suddenly melted away and there were only Diana, sitting white and shaken on the stairs with her big sheaf of carnations at her feet, and Gordon MacCarroll, standing stern and relieved between the chenille curtains.

  “I ask your pardon,” he said, looking toward the drooping girl. “There didn’t seem to be any other way.”

  “Oh, thank you!” said Diana, struggling with the silly tears which, now that the danger was over, seemed to insist upon raining down her cheeks. “I—was—so frightened!”

  “Well, you needn’t be frightened anymore,” said Gordon with a lilt in his voice. “I’ve come for you! But—I’m forgetting—you don’t know me any better than you did the other fellow.”

  “Oh yes I do!” cried Diana, her eyes shining through the tears. “You are the man from the stone cottage. You prayed for me once—at least I hope the prayer was meant for me. I’ve carried it with me ever since the night I went away. And I saw you again when we drove up to ask the way somewhere—”

  “That’s nice!” said Gordon, suddenly smiling, a light coming into his eyes. “That makes it a lot easier. Because I’ve come for you, and I’d like you to come as quickly as possible. I don’t want to frighten you, but your father is sick and is calling for you. I promised him I would bring you at once. Can you trust me to take you home?”

  Diana’s eyes were wide with consternation. “My father is sick? Oh, what is the matt
er?”

  “Suppose I tell you on the way. We haven’t any time to waste. Your father is in great anxiety about you. Every added minute is torture for him.”

  Diana turned and fairly flew up the stairs.

  She was back in a couple of minutes. She had grabbed her suitcase, which was all packed for going somewhere, taken her hat and her purse in hand, and come. Gordon had gathered up the flowers, and she took them from him as one takes something very precious.

  “My father is sick!” she explained breathlessly to Mrs. Lundy, who stood in the kitchen door staring. “I’ll be back!”

  The big policeman was at the door when they went outside, and Gordon paused to say a few words in a low tone and hand him a telephone number he had written on a card. Then he put Diana into the car and they started away.

  Diana sat there tense, the flowers clasped in her arms, her face white with anxiety like a little ghost above the blossoms.

  “Now, please, tell me about Father,” she implored.

  “Your father had some sort of a collapse this evening following a shock. He fell and cut his head. I do not know just how serious it is. I understand there is a heart complication. But the doctor felt it was important I should bring you as soon as possible.”

  His voice was tender and sympathetic.

  “Shock!” said Diana, with trembling lips. “What kind of a shock?”

  “He found a note tied to his doorknob this afternoon saying that you were being held for ransom and would be murdered if a large sum of money was not forthcoming tonight.”

  “Oh, how dreadful!”

  “He seems to have fainted and fallen. He was unconscious when I got there.”

  “Oh, you saw him fall?”

  “No, but Mother had watched him go up the drive. She felt so sorry for him. It was just after the radio announcement that you were missing.”

  “Radio?” said Diana in bewilderment.

  “Didn’t you know your father had you paged on the radio?”

  “Oh no!” said the girl, shrinking back in horror. “Oh, poor Father!” There was the breath of a sob in her voice.