Damsel in Distress

by Carola Dunn

  But in this case, Petrie was the instigator of the interference. Why would that generally law-abiding young man choose to try to solve a crime himself, rather than reporting it to the police?

  To protect a friend or relative was the most likely answer. Yet Pearson was convinced their purpose was not to shield a criminal, so probably the friend or relative was the victim—and blackmail the crime. If the blackmailer was using a village shop as a convenience address … .

  No, they would know which shop, which they clearly did not since they had been scouring the countryside asking questions.

  Only two other possible crimes sprang to mind where, for the victim’s sake, the police might not be called in. One was a confidence trick, where the sucker—as the Americans so charmingly put it—was too embarrassed by his gullibility. Alec doubted that would have caused the deadly serious expressions in the five pairs of eyes fixed on his face, as he now observed.

  He put down his spoon, having finished the soup without the slightest idea of what kind it had been.

  “Am I correct,” he said slowly, “in supposing your secret is a kidnapping?”

  Four faces registered more relief than dismay. Petrie’s was horrified, but Alec detected a hint of relief there, too. They both opened their mouths to speak. Alec, with a gesture, deferred to the younger man.

  At this inauspicious moment, a butler appeared, his stiff back and impassive face somehow radiating disapproval, and announced, “Mr. Arbuckle has called.”

  Miss Fotheringay glanced around at the others, then, to Alec’s surprise, she said in a resigned tone, “Show him in, please, Lowecroft, and you’d better serve the next course. Set another place for Mr. Arbuckle if he hasn’t already dined.”

  “As you wish, miss.” Lowecroft departed, stiffer than ever.

  “It won’t do Daisy any good if we starve,” Miss Fotheringay pointed out, “and Mr. Arbuckle is going to have to decide what to do about our quick-witted sleuth and his brilliant deductions.”

  No brilliant deduction was necessary to guess that the unknown Arbuckle was somehow involved. “Who is … ?” Alec started to ask. He fell silent as the butler returned with a short, slight, long-faced man in evening dress.

  Long-faced in both senses of the phrase, Alec noted. Between the lantern-jaw and the receding hairline was as careworn a countenance as he had ever seen.

  While the butler set a seventh place at the table, Petrie introduced Alec—as Mr. Fletcher—to Arbuckle. Another surprise: the man was an American. He didn’t look at all pleased to meet Alec, even though he was unaware of the police connection.

  The footman, Ernest, and a parlour-maid brought in several dishes. During the serving of loin of veal with broad beans and sautéed potatoes, the conversation stuck strictly to the weather. Arbuckle reported lightning over the Malvern Hills. No one mentioned the possibility that Daisy might get caught out in a storm. On the contrary, the prospect of the end of drought and heat was welcome with much false-ringing enthusiasm.

  “All very well,” Bincombe said gloomily when the servants had withdrawn, “but if it really sets in to rain it’s not going to make things any easier.”

  “Never mind that,” Arbuckle said flatly, with a dismissive gesture. “There’s two things I wanna know: Where’s Miss Dalrymple and what the heck is this gennelman doing here?” He glared at Alec, then transferred his glare to Petrie.

  “Daisy’s missing,” said Mrs. Pearson, a catch in her voice. Her husband pressed her hand.

  “Missing?” Arbuckle groaned, sinking his head in his hands. “I knew I shouldn’ta let that little girl … .” Recalling Alec’s presence, he raised his head and frowned.

  “Mr. Fletcher is a friend of Daisy’s,” Miss Fotheringay told him. “He came to see her, and we could hardly conceal her absence.”

  “But he don’t know … ?”

  “He’s guessed a good deal,” Pearson said bluntly. He gave Alec an apologetic glance. “Deduced, I should say. Mr. Fletcher happens to be a Scotland Yard detective, don’t y’know.”

  Arbuckle looked appalled. “How much has he figured out?” he demanded.

  “That someone has been kidnapped,” Alec said. “I must assume, someone close to you.” Which meant the man was wealthy enough to make extortion worthwhile. What the connection with Petrie was, Alec could only conjecture.

  “No dice, you won’t get another thing out of me,” Arbuckle said fiercely. “Nor my young friends, I hope.”

  “Not a word,” vowed Petrie.

  “Daisy’s missing,” Miss Fotheringay reminded them with equal fierceness.

  “Oh lord!” Petrie groaned.

  The American shook his head despairingly. “I know, I know, and I feel real badly about it, you can bet your sweet life. I’ve taken to that young lady in a big way.”

  His patent wretchedness somewhat assuaged Alec’s rebuilding fury. “I’m going to go on guessing,” he said. “Deducing, if you will. For a start, I believe the victim is your daughter, sir.” A pretty girl was the only possible explanation for Petrie’s predicament, the only possible rival for his loyalty to his dead chum’s sister. Arbuckle’s dropped jaw confirmed it. “Further, you have been warned not to contact the police if you want her safely returned.”

  That was too obvious to surprise Arbuckle, though Petrie was impressed.

  “By Jove, Fletcher,” he said, “I don’t know how you fellows do it. Didn’t I tell you, sir,” he went on, turning to the American, “that Scotland Yard knows what’s what?”

  “You did, son, and I don’t doubt it, though I’m doggone sure they don’t have much experience at dealing with kidnappers. But anyways, what can they do except join the search? There’s no way to keep a posse secret, and the moment word gets out, it’s all up with Gloria.”

  “Sir,” said Alec, “I do appreciate your position, believe me. But are you so sure there’s nothing else I could do if I knew all the facts? I’m trained and experienced in deciphering the way criminals think and in drawing conclusions from inadequate data.”

  “Sure, but …”

  “In any case, I must insist on being given any information which might conceivably help in finding Daisy—Miss Dalrymple. I take it you all suspect she’s in the hands of the kidnappers?” He looked around the table, garnering general agreement. With an effort, he managed to keep his tone calm and reasonable. “If they are as ruthless as you believe, she’s in danger too. You can’t imagine I’d do anything to add to the risk?”

  Miss Fotheringay cast a half apologetic, half defiant glance at Arbuckle. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know, Mr. Fletcher. Anything I know, at least. Daisy’s safety comes first, and we haven’t the foggiest what to do.”

  Her taciturn boyfriend nodded.

  “Oh yes,” cried Mrs. Pearson.

  “Sorry, old man,” her husband said gruffly to Petrie, “but she’s right, you know. We’ll try to give away as little as possible.”

  Alec shook his head. “I can’t tell what will be useful until I’ve heard everything. Nor can I know what will need to be done.” He turned to the American. “I’m prepared to say I shan’t approach the local force unless I consider it absolutely vital, but that’s as far as I’m able—and further than I ought—to go.”

  Sagging in his chair, Arbuckle yielded, his face becoming an old man’s as the tension left it. “Okay, okay, I guess I know when I’m beat. Tarnation take it, I owe Miss Dalrymple something for the gutsy way she’s gone to bat for my girl. If you’ll just not spread the word about being a gumshoe, I’ll tell you everything. Where shall I start?”

  “First things first. Let’s see if we can work out where Daisy went today.”

  13

  Like the man who had brought their bread and marge, tinned corned beef, and mushy, greyish tinned peas, the kidnapper who fetched their plates wore a scarf across nose, mouth, and chin. In the increasing gloom, his features would have been practically invisible anyway. Daisy wondered whether she would be a
ble to identify the one she had seen in full daylight, at the front door.

  She rather doubted it. Not only had she seen him very briefly; what attention she could spare from her plight had been concentrated on his black eye and Phillip’s probable role in its creation.

  He left. The bar thudded into place.

  “Will he come back?” she asked Gloria, whose face was no more than a pale smudge beside her.

  “I guess not. They never have after … dinner.”

  “Dinner!” Daisy sighed. Not particularly hungry after Mrs. Barnard’s tea, she had eaten the bully beef but had not managed to swallow more than a mouthful of the rest. She suspected she might regret it later. “Well, it will soon be night outside as well as in here. I’d better get on with it. Help me move the mattress under the hole to deaden the sound if any big bits fall.”

  As, blundering in the dark, they hauled the pallet into the other corner, Daisy heard a faint rumble. She could not imagine what their captors were doing. About to ask Gloria whether she had heard a similar noise before, she was forestalled by a second rumbling growl, which she recognized as distant thunder. The weather had broken at last.

  She was glad she had not mentioned the sound to her companion. Gloria did not seem to have noticed the far-off drumroll; if she happened to be afraid of thunderstorms, the longer she remained unaware the better.

  “Tell me about the kidnapping,” Daisy invited, feeling for their makeshift plug and giving it a tug. It came loose in a shower of plaster, pieces of lath, and musty, mouldy straw. Coughing, she was pleased to see that the hole, an irregular patch of dark grey in the blackness, had nearly doubled in size.

  “I thought Phillip told you. Can I help?”

  “There isn’t enough room. I’m having to stand with my neck crooked as it is. Phil did tell me, of course, but you might have noticed something he didn’t. By the way, I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything more about the kingpin, the man they call the Yank?”

  “No,” Gloria said, sounding puzzled. “They didn’t talk in the room below this again. Maybe they realized Phillip overheard them. Does it make any difference who he is?”

  “You never know, it could. Phthoo!” Daisy spat out crumbs of plaster, suddenly wondering how many insects made their homes in the thatch, and what sorts. Not that she really cared whether it was spiders or earwigs which landed in her hair, as long as they stayed out of her mouth. “I can’t talk while I’m doing this,” she mumbled through half-closed lips.

  Gloria obligingly began to recount the kidnapping and everything that had happened since, which was little enough. Listening, to her disappointment learning nothing significant, Daisy continued to demolish the roof. It was hard work chiefly because she had to reach up to do it. The plaster and straw came down easily, and the lath was not much solider, though she had to pull and twist to break some pieces.

  In one way that was most satisfactory. On the other hand, she had no greater desire to fall through the roof than off it.

  A gust of wind blew a flurry of bits of straw in her face. Feeling a sneeze coming, she snorted.

  “Shall I take a whack at it?” Gloria asked.

  “Would you? It shouldn’t take much longer.”

  Fumbling around each other, they changed places. Daisy heard a closer growl of thunder and began to talk about Phillip and Gervaise’s boyhood.

  After a few minutes, Gloria interrupted her in a small voice. “It’s beginning to rain, and I think I can hear thunder.”

  “So do I,” Daisy admitted. “Are you afraid of it?”

  “N-no. Not exactly, but I don’t like it. At least, it’s the lightning. We have terrible electric storms at home.”

  “They’re not so bad here,” Daisy assured her, as though she had a basis for comparison. “In fact I rather enjoy all the banging and crashing and flashing. Shall I take over again?”

  “No, I’m okay. Oh, there’s something big and hard here.”

  “A proper rafter, or beam, or whatever?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good, it’ll give us purchase. The hole must be about big enough, isn’t it?”

  “It’s hard to tell in the dark. Let me feel.”

  A momentary flood of light silhouetted Gloria’s head against the hole. She gasped.

  “One, two, three, four, five,” Daisy counted, “six, seven … .”

  Crash, bump, bump, mutter, mutter, mutter.

  “G-golly gee!”

  “It’s still a long way away. Seven miles.” Or was it a count of five to the mile? She couldn’t remember and hoped Gloria couldn’t either. “Any noise we make they’ll think is thunder,” she said encouragingly, “and the lightning will help us get our bearings. Let’s go.”

  “Y-you first.”

  “All right. We’ll roll up the mattress to stand on, and then you’ll have to give me a boost, I expect. I’m no gymnast.”

  Wobbling on top of the mattress, Daisy stuck her head out into the open. Her shoulders brushed the thatch. Refreshing rain hit her face in dots and dashes, and odd gusts of wind frivolled through her shingled hair. She felt for the beam Gloria had reported.

  Luckily, it was on the downward side of the slope. With a bit of a struggle, Daisy managed to raise her arms through the hole and dislodge some of the straw resting on the beam. Then she was able to get her elbows on top of it.

  “Give me a shove,” she requested.

  A jerk and a heave and a moment later she was on the roof, careful to keep her weight over the beam. The still-dry thatch prickled through her thin linen skirt, but at least it wasn’t slippery. She was afraid it soon would be once the rain really got going.

  “Come on!”

  Hauling Gloria out was more difficult. At last she sat beside Daisy on the beam. Daisy heard her take a deep breath of fresh air and let it out on a sigh.

  “What next?” she asked.

  A sheet of lightning let Daisy look up, hopefully, into the sycamore tree above. The nearest branches were within reach, but too thin to support anything larger than a squirrel. A pity—climbing down the tree would be the easiest way to the ground.

  The next flash, which followed almost at once, showed Gloria with her hands over her ears and her eyes screwed shut. It also showed Daisy what she had forgotten: the lean-to behind the cottage. Its roof was directly below them, not more than a couple of feet lower than the edge of the eaves, and at its lowest point only four or five feet above the ground.

  The heavens crackled and roared. The moment the din ended, in a hush as if the world held its breath waiting for the next onslaught, Daisy reached out unseeing to pull Gloria’s invisible hands away from her invisible ears.

  “Listen!” she hissed. “All we have to do is slide straight down. There’s a two-foot drop, then another slide, and then a drop of about four feet. Can you manage it?”

  “I th-think so.”

  “Good. We’ll both go at once; we’ll be less likely to land on top of each other. Keep still when you reach the ground and I’ll find you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ready … steady … go!”

  Thatch rasping her skin, Daisy found it quite frightening to let herself slither into the blackness—and she had seen what lay below, however briefly. Gloria could only trust her blindly. Already afraid of the storm, was she spunky enough to obey?

  Daisy’s feet met thin air. A moment later she thunked on her bottom on the lower slope. She had just time enough to wonder if she’d have done better face down when her feet flew out again. She landed, arms swinging for balance, on something that crunched, a cinder path perhaps.

  Gloria landed beside her with another crunch, loud in the unnatural stillness. It didn’t sound at all like thunder. It sounded, in fact, like feet on a cinder path.

  “Wossat?” The voice came clearly from the cottage. No betraying gleam of light showed, but the men were there and awake.

  “Better ’ave a dekko. Coulda bin … .” The rest was drowned out by a s
tupendous thunderclap. The lightning was almost simultaneous.

  Daisy grabbed Gloria’s hand and tugged her away from the building.

  Speed was impossible, so there was no advantage to aiming for the comparatively clear ride in front of the cottage, even if they were not starting from the back. They would do better losing themselves quickly in the tangled thickets of the wood, Daisy had decided. Hand-in-hand, lightning-dazzled eyes sightless, they stumbled forward, hands groping ahead for obstacles.

  Behind them electric torches sprang to life.

  They were spotted immediately, but the long beams spilled past them, illuminating a green wall of leaves. Daisy saw a rabbit path opening to their right.

  “Quick!” she cried, and broke into a run.

  Footsteps and curses followed. Within a few paces, the twisting path hid the men, but they had the torches to light their way. Once out of range, Daisy and Gloria were blind again.

  The skies came to the rescue. Flare after flare banished the dark, amidst continuous blasts and booms and long, rattling rolls. Unable to hear or see their followers, sure they must be gaining, Daisy dived into the nonexistent gap between two bushes, dragging Gloria with her.

  They emerged in a space free of undergrowth beneath a larch. Rather, they were more or less in the middle of the larch, for the branches started less than a yard from the ground, continuing up the trunk in what looked to Daisy practically like a ladder.

  As the next flash arrived, in a momentary hush, she grabbed Gloria’s arm, pointed upwards, and said in her ear, “Climb!”

  In pitch darkness she started up, feeling her way, testing each branch before she put her weight on it, childhood skills taking over just like riding a bike. Thunder rumbled sullenly, but the next flash of lightning was pallid, the storm already moving on.

  Glancing down, Daisy realized Gloria had not followed.

  The thunder ceased. She heard a crashing in the bushes and swearing voices, then a shout of triumph.

  “Got ’er!”

  “What abaht the uwer one? Keep looking!”

  “Blimey, we’ll never find ’er in this, mate.”