by Joan Lambert
“Thanks a lot,” Laura murmured to her retreating back. “It’s good to know someone really doesn’t want to murder me even as they try to.” She frowned, wondering what Lady Longtree had meant about the murder being a mistake.
“Quite a lady,” Rachel observed. “She seems to know a good deal about the case, too. Very clever, I should say. And she may be right. If those people really did want to kill you, they would have succeeded by now, I should think.”
“You mean they’re just trying to scare me so I’ll get out of the way?”
“They were,” Rachel answered, stressing the past tense. “Considering all the harm you’ve done them, they really might want you dead by this time, just not immediately. Pushing you into the street or dropping a rock on your head might have killed you, but abducting you is different. What they want now, I imagine, is information. They mean to put you out of commission but keep you alive until they find out whatever it is they want to know.”
“That cheery conjecture will enliven my dreams - if I’m able to sleep at all,” Laura retorted glumly, as images of a large man standing over her, knife at the ready, flooded her brain. What on earth did they think she knew?
To her surprise, she did fall asleep, and she didn’t even dream. She felt better when she woke up again, too, though not quite as marvelous as Lady Longtree had predicted. After a nice hot shower she would probably feel fantastic.
Laura swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “Shower,” she said to Rachel, who was staring fixedly out the window. “It is definitely time for a shower.”
Rachel sent her a dubious glance, but she made no verbal objection and Laura headed slowly for the bathroom. On the way, she joined Rachel at the window to see what galvanized her attention.
“It’s a good spot to keep an eye on anyone who takes a fancy to walk in the grounds,” Rachel explained. “Surprising what a lot of action there’s been.”
“Your companion of the cellar,” she continued, pointing towards an arbor covered with vines. “He and Claudine seem to be great friends.”
Laura was astonished – and chagrined, not because Richard was taking an interest in Claudine, which she thought rather sweet although undoubtedly fraught with ulterior motives, but because Richard was accomplishing a great deal on a number of fronts while she was still lying in bed like an invalid.
“Most definitely friends,” she murmured, watching Richard’s arm slide tenderly around Claudine’s shoulders. She responded by leaning against him and turning her face up to his. There was nothing cold or restrained about Claudine now.
A romance born of opportunism, Laura thought to herself, and hoped they knew what they were doing. Probably they did. Claudine would get favorable coverage in the news, and Richard would get a willing source of information.
She studied their faces and changed her mind. They were definitely a pair of clever opportunists, but all the same she suspected she could be seeing the real thing.
Smiling to herself, she went off for her shower. After making liberal use of the expensive moisturizing cream supplied by the hotel, she put on clean clothes from bottom to top and emerged ready for action. Resting in bed wasn’t getting her anywhere. There were too many unanswered questions floating around in her mind, and concussion or not, she had to find some answers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Laura headed downstairs, ignoring her body’s treacherous desire to sink down once more into the comfortable bed. If she didn’t get out of here, she wouldn’t be able to resist that pernicious impulse. But where could she go that would win approval? The police were keeping everyone cooped up like rabbits.
She had a sudden inspiration. “Do you suppose Violet would let us go to Longleat House this afternoon?” she asked Rachel. “I missed it in the last round, and I’d love to see it while we’re so close. I can’t see how I can get into any trouble touring an Elizabethan manor house, especially if you come too.”
Rachel regarded her skeptically; then she grinned. “We can but try,” she replied. “And where you go, I go, as Violet observed. Those are my orders, and I’ve always wanted to see that house anyway. It’s supposed to be gorgeous. It even has Lily Langtry’s negligee on her – what do you call those little sofas for lounging on?”
“Chaise longue, I believe,” Laura supplied.
“Yes. Anyway, she stayed in the little room next to the Prince of Wales because she was having an affair with him and everybody knew it, so they put their rooms near each other. She was an actress, and in those days that was very risqué. They called her the Jersey Lily, because that’s where she came from, in America, and because she was so beautiful.
“She did what she liked, that lady,” Rachel concluded admiringly.
“I wonder if they used the chaise for their liaisons?” Laura asked. “They’re awfully narrow.”
Rachel giggled. “What a fuss if they fell off. Then the whole household, especially the servants, would know what they were up to.”
Violet came in looking pleased. “Got Abdul,” she announced. “Thanks to your suggestion, Laura. We found him hiding out in the father’s house in Bath.”
“Fantastic!” Laura exclaimed. “That means we don’t need to be cooped up here any more. Rachel and I want to go to Longleat House. I didn’t see it on our last trip, and I may never have another chance.”
Violet groaned. “I am loath to let you out of your room, never mind letting you loose in a tourist attraction. I suppose, though, that I can’t stop you, short of locking you in and throwing the key away.”
“I’ll keep a close eye on her,” Rachel promised.
“All right,” Violet conceded grudgingly. “As long as you go in Rachel’s car and promise to go only to the house and not wander the grounds.
“And stay together, and come right back,” she added.
Laura grinned. “We will. Thanks, Violet. Off we go!”
Lady Longtree elected to go with them. “I didn’t see the murals painted by the owner on our last visit,” she explained. “He’s an old friend and I would like to see what he’s thinking about these days. He always lets one know in his paintings.”
They drove into Longleat along the curving road Laura had noticed from the Safari Park. She peered down the steep hill, hoping for a glimpse of the lions and tigers and wolves she knew were roaming there, but tangles of shrubbery blocked the view.
After Rachel had parked her little car, they stood side by side on the expansive lawn looking up at Longleat House. It was a large building, with two long wings, but the rows of tall windows gave it an impression of lightness and grace. It had a lived in feel, Laura thought, though most of it was open to visitors. Perhaps that was because the owner, the sixth Marquess of Bath and his family, still lived in part of one wing.
Lady Longtree’s unexpected fund of personal knowledge helped too. “Alexander, the present Marquess, was a suitor of my sister’s,” she told them, “but even in those days he was a great eccentric and my parents weren’t entirely satisfied about the nature of his intentions. Perhaps they were right. He did have quite a reputation. At any rate, he is a brilliant man with many talents. This whole tourist site was his idea – he opened the house to the public so he could pay the taxes and dreamed up the Safari Park and other attractions so he could keep the place up properly. It’s been a great success, but at the time opening one’s house to the public wasn’t considered proper, not that he ever paid much attention to that. He’s a free spirit.”
He was also a man who could laugh at himself, Laura mused, as she surveyed the Great Hall through which they entered. The tables were covered with framed drawings of contemporary jokes from magazines and newspapers, most at the owner’s expense. They were a welcome relief after the stark rows of glowering portraits she had seen elsewhere.
The Marquess was a big man, six and a half feet tall, Lady Longtree told them, and that, too, seemed in keeping with the enormous spaces all around them. The Great Hall was thirty five feet
high; the other rooms were also large as well as richly furnished. Gorgeous tapestries lined the walls, and the ceilings, painted in the Italian style with vivid colors and intricate designs, were magnificent.
Laura sighed with pleasure as she surveyed the opulence around her, glad she was here and not lying forlornly in bed reading inaccurate and highly sensational newspaper accounts of recent events at Stourhead and elsewhere. Richard’s were more accurate, but since he refused to divulge his sources, other journalists had to make up stories as best they could.
“It feels wonderful to be here and out of the hotel,” she said fervently. “Thank heaven they caught Abdul. Now we can relax and enjoy ourselves.”
Lady Longtree frowned. “I hope that is the case,” she murmured quietly, and went off to see the murals, which were in the opposite wing. Laura sighed, wondering what the old lady knew that they did not.
She discovered a few pieces of that hoarded knowledge when the three of them met at the outdoor cafe for tea half way through the tour.
“It is interesting, is it not, that all the babies who have been taken are girls?” Lady Longtree remarked as they sat down. “Two more were found earlier today, you know, in tourist attractions further north, both girls.”
Laura was startled. “I knew the ones I’d heard about were girls, but I hadn’t realized all of them were. It’s strange that they take girls. Usually everyone wants a boy. And why leave them in tourist attractions? There must be a reason.”
“Yes, there must be,” Lady Longtree agreed. “Another fact intrigues me,” she went on. “All the girls taken so far have at least one parent of middle-eastern or Arab extraction who is a practicing Muslim. I cannot help but wonder…”
She left the thought unfinished and looked up at them speculatively, even sadly. Laura took a deep breath. An unpleasant explanation had occurred to her, based on the research she’d been doing lately on the treatment of women and girls in areas of the world where fundamentalism had taken hold.
Reluctantly, she gave voice to her thought. “Could the fact that they are all girls have something to do with female circumcision? It’s practiced mostly by Muslims in Africa, but I am aware that it still happens in other countries, even when prohibited by law. Old customs die hard, especially in rural areas, and practices that involve repression of women are apt to be resurrected in countries racked by political and religious turmoil.”
“Exactly,” Lady Longtree replied, looking satisfied, not at the mutilation itself, Laura assumed, but at the fact that the issue had been raised. “Yes, it does go on in other countries, or so I read. Fundamentalism is on the rise but at the same time some girls and even parents are rebelling, often quite publicly, against the practice. That means fewer circumcised women are available for traditional men. It creates a volatile atmosphere, I fear, in which acts of terrible cruelty can be committed, especially against women.” Her blue eyes were hard and unforgiving, but her face was filled with sadness.
“A further fact has turned up,” she went on, as if determined to get the words out. “There seems to be great wealth involved in this effort to steal baby girls, more money than there usually is in fledgling criminal activities.”
Again, she left the implications unvoiced. It was as if she was trying to elicit or even coerce ideas out of them with vague hints and suggestions instead of stating them directly, Laura thought. She also had the strong feeling that Lady Longtree was preparing herself for something unpleasant, something she didn’t want to hear. She wondered if it involved the missing granddaughter.
It was also curious that according to Richard, Alan’s brand new tour company was well-financed. Could there be a connection?
“There was a case about female circumcision in the papers not too long ago,” Rachel said suddenly. “A young woman, a law student, I think, was being forced to marry some older man and get circumcised to do it. She refused point blank, but her father insisted and kidnapped her. She got away and sued him and the man who wanted to marry her. He offered a lot of money for her, so she said her father was selling her, that it was slavery and against her rights, which of course it was.”
She turned to Lady Longtree, her eyes wide and startled. “I remember now – it was your daughter who prosecuted them, and she won, too. She didn’t charge a fee, your daughter I mean. She told the young woman to use it to get started in law. That was really wonderful of her, I think.”
Lady Longtree smiled. “It was a difficult case for my daughter, I recall. She was rather hard to live with during that time. But she won and that was important.”
With even greater reluctance, Laura voiced another unpleasant idea. That seemed to be her function in this conversation, she reflected grimly.
“Maybe someone didn’t like the way that case turned out and wanted to get at the girls earlier, before they could object,” she said slowly, “somebody wealthy who has a vested interest in making sure there are enough properly bought up and circumcised young women to make suitable wives for rich and powerful men in the future. Their parents could be bribed, other people bought…
“Surely, though, that isn’t possible in today’s world?” she interrupted herself almost desperately.
“Anything is possible with enough money,” Lady Longtree replied soberly, and her eyes were steely again. “Still, I do think the matter is coming to a head and will make sense soon,” she went on in a more cheerful tone. “Violet will put the picture together, I am sure. She has dealt with many complex cases.”
On that note they separated. Their mood less buoyant now, Laura and Rachel resumed the tour.
“Let’s do Lily Langtry right away,” Rachel suggested. “She will cheer us up and get us back into sightseeing mode. I’m not sure what Lady Longtree was getting at, but I had the feeling it was unpleasant. I wonder how she knows so much.”
“By osmosis, I think,” Laura answered. “She seems to grab ideas out of the air. Her conversation reminds me of that awful maze outside. I doubt if anyone could unravel Lady Longtree’s thoughts.”
“She’s very clever,” Rachel agreed. “Maybe she was a lawyer like her daughter in her younger days. She certainly talks like one sometimes.
“She’s wonderfully well-preserved, too,” she went on admiringly. “Quite spry, really, and she looks very young sometimes.”
“I’ve noticed that too. Then, at other times, she looks old and sad.”
Rachel sighed. “So do we all. Life can be pretty horrendous.”
“Yes,” Laura agreed, “but for the moment let’s forget all that and really look at this incredible staircase and everything else we’re seeing. We should keep moving, too. I think they close in less than an hour.”
Rachel consulted her map of the house. “If we go the wrong way, against those little arrows on the signs, we’ll come to the area where Lily stayed.”
“An excellent idea,” Laura agreed.
They came first to the Prince of Wales bedroom, where the future king had slept, paid perfunctory attention to a former sitting room, now called a music room because of its collection of old musical instruments, and proceeded to the boudoir, now the Chinese Room, where Lily Langtry had stayed. The beautiful hand painted wallpaper with its oriental theme made the room light and graceful, which Laura thought appropriate for the lovely actress. The chaise longue was there, and the infamous negligee.
“That sofa is dreadfully narrow, I must say,” Rachel giggled, and leaned over to finger the robe lovingly. An alarm went off and her hand shot back.
Laura cringed. “Perhaps it’s time for us to get out of this room,” she murmured over the ear-splitting clang of the alarm.
“I guess it’s not a good idea to touch anything,” Rachel apologized. “I’ll keep that in mind if I see anything else that tempts me.”
They fled into the outer hall and lingered innocently over a display of costumes while the attendants in charge of various rooms scurried around trying to tell if anything had been taken before turning the
alarm off again. One of the women looked at them suspiciously and Laura searched for a distracting question.
“Why do those draperies behind the costumes go all the way into the next room?” she asked, unable to think of anything else.
The woman brightened, eager to display her knowledge. “There’s actually a corridor behind them formed by two parallel rows of draperies that run the whole length of the next room as well as this costume hall,” she told them as she ushered them into a long and elegantly furnished room beyond the hall. It was beautifully decorated in deep orange and gold hues.
“This room is called the Saloon, and it’s where important people, royalty and so forth, were entertained,” the attendant continued. “The draperies were hung along the back wall and around the corner into the costume hall, leaving enough space between the two rows of curtains so that servants could carry trays to the saloon, and linens and hot water to the bedrooms, without disturbing the guests.”
Laura was intrigued. “How fascinating! The servants must have seen and heard a lot back there!”
“Indeed they did. Most were loyal but I am sure there were others who took advantage of what they knew to get favors or money.”
“My ancestors lived in this area, so they might have been servants here,” Rachel mused. She grinned. “I bet they’d have taken a stab at blackmail if they were.”
The attendant looked shocked, and Laura led them hastily toward the next room, called the State Dining Room. It was decorated in even deeper tones of reddish orange, and the table settings and ornaments were richly bordered in gold. Sensuous and opulent and exuberant, Laura mused, possibly due to a pronounced taste for Italianate shared by both the present owner and his ancestors.
The pale blue and white of the room they came to next, where the children of the house had lived, was almost a relief. Or it was, until Laura examined the white-flounced antique cradle on display. As she stared, the cradle rocked slightly, and she heard a faint hiccup. She glanced around the room. No one else was there, not even an attendant. Then who had hiccupped?
