Damsel in Distress

by Carola Dunn

  “Did you agree?”

  “Nah. I said if anyone but me turned up with the dough, it could mess things up but good. I told him to go on same as usual, like nothing had happened, so’s not to make anyone nervous.”

  “How did he react to that? Did he seem relieved?”

  “Not so I noticed. Why?”

  “Oh, you might have wanted him to stick close to you, which would have cramped his style. As it is, he’s been free to meet his henchmen whenever he wants. He knows you’re off to town today to fetch the ransom?”

  “I mentioned a coupla days ago I’d have it by today.”

  “All right. Just one thing more, unless you have any questions, Daisy? Miss Fotheringay?”

  “Yes,” said Daisy. “Mr. Arbuckle, I realize it goes against the grain to think a trusted employee might have turned on you like this. But it’s better than if it was someone out for revenge, isn’t it? I mean, at least Gloria’s safe? You haven’t actually done anything to make Crawford hate you, whatever he may fear for the future.”

  “I have not, Miss Dalrymple, not consciously,” Arbuckle said heavily, “though, like Mr. Fletcher said, it maybe sticks in his craw that I’ve made more from his know-how than he can ever hope to. But—and believe me, I lay awake half the night thinking about this—if I’m right that he’s carrying a torch for my girl, and he knows she prefers young Petrie, waal, that opens up a whole new can of worms.”

  Even as she wrinkled her nose at the graphic idiom, Daisy acknowledged the validity of his fears. The rejected lover, the mutation of love into hate, had been the basis of uncountable tales of rape, murder, and mayhem throughout the ages.

  Lucy had lost her usual blase expression, and Alec’s grave face showed his concurrence.

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” he said, “which may make you look more kindly on my last point. I most strongly advise calling in the local force and setting up a proper search for Miss Arbuckle.”

  Arbuckle stood up, impressive despite his lack of inches as he leaned forward with both fists planted on the table. “Nope,” he said inflexibly. “I don’t believe they’d find her, and it just might be what sends the guy over the edge. I can’t risk it.” He held up one hand as Alec opened his mouth to argue. “You tell ’em and I’ll deny it. I’ll say Gloria’s gone back to the States. No, sir, we have to play it his way, whether it’s Crawford or some other bastard. I’m going to fetch the ransom.”

  His resolute march towards the door turned to a tired trudge before he reached it, but he left, nevertheless.

  Alec watched him go, sighed, and turned back to his almost untouched breakfast. Cutting into a sausage, he said, part sour, part admiring, “Obstinate old so-and-so. I do feel for him, poor chap, but … !”

  “What are you going to do?” Daisy asked. “Phillip and I are eyewitnesses to the kidnapping, so his denial won’t carry much weight.”

  “None, even if Petrie won’t cooperate. But I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.” He glanced at Lucy.

  “I shan’t tell tales out of school, Mr. Fletcher,” she said dryly.

  “Thank you.” He gave her a wry smile. “You see, I have to agree with Arbuckle on several points. For a start, he’s correct in saying the British police are not well versed in handling kidnappings. We have very few, whereas I gather there’s quite an epidemic in America. In the second place, a search is not likely to succeed when the area to be covered is so enormous.”

  Daisy feelingly agreed. “It was pretty hopeless when we could be fairly sure she was nearby. I only found her by sheer luck.”

  “Exactly. And the associated problem is that she may very well not be in Worcestershire any longer. The Met doesn’t have the manpower or the local knowledge to mount a detailed search, and I haven’t the authority to call out the forces of half a dozen counties!”

  “Who does?” Lucy asked. “Your superiors?”

  “Only the Home Secretary,” Alec told her bluntly. “Even the Commissioner would have to try persuasion, and before that I’d have to talk the Assistant Commissioner, the head of the C.I.D., into … . Well, suffice it to say it’s a long chain of persuasion, and all in the face of Arbuckle’s denials. By the time anything was done, the chances are the ransom would be paid and the whole thing over.”

  Lucy nodded. “More than likely. Too, too maddening!”

  “There’s another thing.” Alec hesitated. “I hope I’m not letting it influence my decision. The fact is, whenever I report the kidnapping, I’m going to face some awkward questions about why I didn’t report it sooner. Especially after last night. The only thing which can save my bacon is a successful outcome.”

  “You only found out about it late last night!” cried Daisy, outraged on his behalf. “I don’t see what else you could do when I came in and told you where Gloria was but go and see if she was still there! Any delay would have been madness.”

  “So your delinquency only begins this morning, Mr. Fletcher,” Lucy observed. “Which means the prospect of awkward questions actually weighs on the other side, that is, for reporting in now.”

  “Confound it, Lucy!” Phillip burst into the room, his usual diffidence towards her in abeyance. “You’re not trying to persuade him to spill the beans!”

  “Take a damper, Petrie,” Alec advised him. “I’d already decided it was more or less pointless to contact my colleagues at this stage, and I wouldn’t save my skin at the expense of Miss Arbuckle’s, believe me. Not that I’m ungrateful for your caveat, Miss Fotheringay.”

  “Lucy,” she murmured.

  Alec smiled at her. Daisy could have kissed her. If Lucy unbent so far as to invite him to call her by her Christian name, it was a good omen for the Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s eventual acceptance.

  “Sorry,” said Phillip, abashed. His face was drawn, dark circles beneath his eyes. The hopes raised last night, only to be dashed, must have been harder to bear than his previous state of despondency.

  He needed something to do, Daisy decided. “So it’s all up to us now,” she said. “Tommy and Madge have gone to follow Crawford …”

  “Tommy! Dash it all, why not me? Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “We’ll all have to take a turn, or he’ll get suspicious of the same car always being behind him, don’t you think, Alec?”

  “Certainly,” Alec said promptly, continuing with his breakfast and leaving present matters to Daisy.

  She knew, however, that he would not hesitate to jump in if he disagreed with her proposals. A husband who always knuckled under would be as bad as one who never let her use her own brains, she thought. “So you can relieve the Pearsons, Phil,” she said.

  “I haven’t got a car,” Phillip pointed out disconsolately.

  “Binkie will lend you the Alvis,” Lucy promised. “Won’t you, darling?” she added as Binkie came in.

  “Right-ho. What?”

  “Is that an interjection or a question, darling?”

  “What will I do?” Binkie asked with a belated touch of trepidation.

  “Lend Phil the Alvis.”

  “Oh, right-ho! Why?”

  “Because the kidnappers pinched the Swift,” Daisy reminded him, glaring the nascent grin off Alec’s face. “Tommy and Madge have followed Crawford to Cowley. When they telephone, Phillip will take over the pursuit.”

  “Oh, right-ho. Er, who’s Crawford?”

  Binkie had somehow been missed out of the general enlightenment. While Phillip, unmoved by doubt, explained that Crawford was the confounded ugly customer who had grabbed his girl, Daisy turned to Lucy.

  “I don’t think Phillip should go alone,” she said in an undertone. “The poor chump’s bound to do something silly. Binkie had better go with him.”

  “Binkie will never stop him. Besides, a mixed couple will look less suspicious than two men, don’t you think? I’ll go, unless you want to?”

  “No!” Alec swallowed a mouthful. “Daisy’s still rocky from last night. I’d take it
as a favour if you’d go, Miss … Lucy.”

  “I’m perfectly all right,” Daisy insisted. Battling the infuriating blush she felt rising in her cheeks, she went on, “But actually, if you don’t mind going, Lucy, I’d rather like to take Alec to meet Mother later on. Unless there’s something else you need to do, Alec?”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t think of a thing.” It was his turn to flush. “Unfortunately for Miss Arbuckle’s sake,” he said hastily. “I’m looking forward to meeting Lady Dalrymple.”

  Lucy laughed. “Daisy’s mother doesn’t actually bite,” she commiserated.

  “No, but Geraldine jolly nearly does,” Daisy said guiltily. “I’m afraid I had to tell her and Edgar that you’re a detective—and that we’re all here at your request to provide cover for your investigation.”

  “Great Scott!” Alec groaned. “You could at least have confessed that it’s I who am embroiled in your affairs, not the reverse! Lord and Lady Dalrymple must think the police …”

  “What’s that?” Phillip demanded. “The Dalrymples know you’re police?”

  “I told them, Phil.”

  “Hang it all, Daisy, the more people know, the more risk for Gloria!”

  “I had to say something. Geraldine was on the verge of throwing us out after what she described as our ‘frolics’ in the early hours of the morning.”

  “They’d know who Alec is sooner or later,” Lucy said, “and they’d have been fearfully offended to have been kept in the dark earlier.”

  “Why the deuce should they ever know?”

  “Because Edgar’s Daisy’s cousin,” Lucy explained patiently, with a sly look at Daisy, “and when Alec joins the family they can hardly keep his profession secret.”

  “Joins … ? Oh! It’s come to that has it?” Phillip looked faintly disapproving. Daisy scowled at him.

  “Should have guessed, old man,” said Binkie. “Invited Fletcher down to meet her mater and all that, what? Have to tell one’s people first.”

  “Actually,” Daisy fumed, suddenly unexpectedly near tears, “nothing’s settled. Alec hasn’t even proposed and after the m-mess we’ve landed him in, perhaps he never will.”

  Alec reached for her hand. “This isn’t quite how I’d envisaged it,” he said wryly, “but I can’t leave you in suspense, my love. This isn’t the first mess you’ve landed me in, and somehow I doubt that it will be the last. Will you marry me?”

  “Oh, Alec!” The tears flowed then. He enfolded her in his arms.

  The others tactfully disappeared. As the door closed behind them, Daisy was distantly aware of Binkie’s plaintive voice: “But Lucy, I haven’t had my breakfast!”

  Madge telephoned. She and Tommy had followed Crawford all the way from the Abbey Hotel to the Morris factory. Tommy was sitting in a perfectly ghastly café opposite the works, drinking simply poisonous coffee and keeping an eye on the maroon two-seater, while she reported in. What next?

  “I advised her to try the tea,” Alec told Daisy and Lucy, “to follow if he leaves, and otherwise to hang on until relieved. Bincombe and Petrie should be back soon.”

  Phillip and Binkie came in a few minutes later.

  “We tried three garages,” Phillip announced. “The nearest to the kidnap spot’s a mile and a half away, and the others four or five miles. They all swore they’d never been asked by an American to go searching the lanes for a Studebaker.”

  “Not the sort of thing they’d forget, eh, what?” said Binkie.

  “I hardly think so,” Alec agreed. “I can’t see how even Arbuckle will be able to doubt now that Crawford’s our man.”

  17

  “I’ve just remembered,” Daisy said in dismay. “Crawford’s met Phillip. What if he recognizes him?”

  “Not likely.” Lucy adjusted the cloche to a jaunty angle on her smooth, dark head. “I won’t let Phil get too close, and I’ll see he keeps his hat on. With the Alvis’s hood up he’ll be practically invisible.”

  “Having the hood up will look suspicious.”

  “Hardly, darling, when it’s drizzling.”

  “Oh, is it?” Daisy looked out of Lucy’s bedroom window. A light but steady rain was falling. Odd; for the past couple of hours she’d have sworn the sun shone. “That’s lucky. Phillip really needs something to keep him busy.”

  With quick, expert fingers, Lucy touched up her make-up. A last dab of powder on the nose and they went downstairs. The men were waiting in the front hall, Phillip twitching with impatience.

  Alec smiled at Daisy but addressed Lucy. “I’ve asked Petrie to ring up at once if Mr. and Mrs. Pearson are gone when you reach Cowley. They’ll be following Crawford, so don’t waste time trying to find out if he’s still there. Bincombe will stay within reach of the ’phone.”

  “Hold the fort, darling.” Lucy kissed Binkie’s cheek, then turned and kissed Daisy. “Good luck, darling. Cheerio. All right, Phillip, you can stop fidgeting. Let’s go.”

  Alec gave Binkie a few last-minute instructions about what to do in various contingencies. “Don’t telephone the Dower House unless you absolutely have to,” he finished.

  Binkie grinned and nodded. “Right-oh. Best of luck, old man.”

  “Anyone would think Mother was an ogre,” Daisy said crossly as she and Alec went out under a shared umbrella to the Austin, brought round from the stable-yard by Bill Truscott. Everyone’s good wishes had the perverse effect of making her more nervous than she already was. “She may be a bit difficult at times, but I’ve seen you cope with much worse.”

  “And cope I shall,” he soothed her, opening the passenger door. She was grateful for his forbearance in not pointing out that she had never seen him dealing with a prospective mother-in-law.

  He went round, got in beside her, and saying, “First things first,” he kissed her.

  “First things” thoroughly accomplished, Daisy settled back in her seat with a satisfied sigh as Alec pressed the self-starter, engaged the gear, let off the brake, and started down the avenue.

  “When we’re married,” she said, just for the sake of saying the words, “will you teach me to drive?”

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for husbands to teach wives.”

  “Binkie taught Lucy.”

  “They’re not married. We’d better not wait for the wedding. Daisy, are you quite sure your mother really invited me to lunch?”

  Daisy melted at the evidence that he was nervous too. “Of course,” she assured him. “When I rang up to see if it was convenient for us to pop in today, she actually offered of her own accord.”

  “She wants to vet my table manners,” he said with conviction, adding ruefully, “Fairacres is rather larger and more impressive than I’d expected.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your table manners, dearest. Fairacres is a bit different from the house in Chelsea, isn’t it? I dare say that’s why it came as a shock.”

  “What I don’t understand is how you came to be penniless when your father owned so much. The house and land are entailed on the male heir, of course, but still …”

  “It’s because of Gervaise dying in the War. Father had always assumed he’d take care of me, you see, until I married or if I didn’t marry. When he was killed, Father was too heartbroken to think about changing his will, and then he died in the ’flu epidemic before he got around to it.”

  “I know how it took people by surprise,” Alec said softly “Joan left things undone. Dear love, you mustn’t mind if I speak of Joan now and then. I love you differently, but just as much.”

  “I don’t mind. I know Belinda will need to talk about her mother. Alec, I have to tell you about …” She stopped as the car turned into the Dower House’s short drive. “Oh, bother, here we are. It will have to wait.”

  He put on the brake and turned to her, his grey eyes serious. “I hope you will always feel able to tell me absolutely anything.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Oh, Alec, I do love you. No, don’t kiss me. Mothe
r wouldn’t do anything so vulgar as peer through the window, but she might just happen to be standing by it. Alec, when Edgar inherited Fairacres, he offered me a home, and when I refused he offered to settle some money on me. I refused that, too, but I’ll tell him I’ve changed my mind if you want me to.”

  “Great Scott, no! I shall expect you to help support the family by writing, not by cadging off your relatives.”

  Laughing from sheer lightness of heart, Daisy waved gaily to the gardener, who was pulling the crop of weeds already springing up after the rain.

  “You remember Owen Morgan, from Occles Hall?” she asked Alec. “If we need another man to help rescue Gloria, I’m sure he’d do it.”

  “Not another one who finds an appeal from you irresistible?” Alec said indulgently. “Whatever it is in those guileless blue eyes that persuades people to jump through hoops for you, I hope you’ll try it on your mother.”

  “Mother’s proof against it,” Daisy said with regret.

  The Dowager Lady Dalrymple acknowledged her daughter’s introduction of the undistinguished stranger with a haughty nod and a cool “How do you do.” But Daisy saw her eyes widen.

  Fearing a penniless intellectual, a wealthy upstart, or even, heaven forbid, a foreigner, her ladyship obviously didn’t know what to make of Alec. He was neither scruffy nor over-smartly dressed; his voice, while not Eton-and-Oxford, was accentless; he was, in fine, the very picture of a perfectly respectable gentleman.

  Unfortunately, where a prospective son-in-law was concerned, respectability was a damning word. Lady Dalrymple had set her heart on nobility, or, at worst, the upper ranks of the landed gentry.

  “Sherry, Mr. Fletcher,” offered her ladyship stiffly, “or do you prefer one of these modern cocktails? Cook has some gin, I believe.”

  “Sherry, please, Lady Dalrymple,” Alec said, and bit his lip.

  Catching his eye, Daisy was relieved to see he was biting back amusement, not chagrin.

  “Alec prefers medium dry, like me, Mother,” she said. “Shall I pour? Sweet for you?”