The Worsted Viper (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Hm!” said Mrs. Bradley. “Now what on earth have those wretched students been up to? Why aren’t they in their own homes?”

  She soon knew the answer to this question. Scarcely had they finished breakfast when she received a polite message that she was urgently required in the lounge by two unknown and (she imagined) dishevelled young ladies.

  They were, of course, Alice and Laura.

  “We hitchhiked,” Laura explained. “Nearly as much hike as hitch, by the feel of my legs.”

  Mrs. Bradley, who disliked the public rooms in nearly all hotels, asked for a private sitting-room. The girls seemed completely exhausted, and, as they began to tell their tale, Alice began to cry.

  Mrs. Bradley sent for sandwiches and coffee, and told them to be quiet until they were rested. The refreshment seemed to be welcome. By the time the sandwiches were finished and a third pot of coffee had been ordered, the two girls were themselves again, and Laura took up the tale.

  “You sent us home, and honestly we meant to go,” she said. “It wasn’t our fault this time old Kitty got mislaid. We had half an hour to wait on Norwich station. I was taking Alice home with me for the rest of the holidays. We’ve got about another four weeks, you see, and we thought we’d do our holiday stuff for College.

  “Well, we went into the refreshment place for a bun and such, and a man pushed in and said he’d come from Mr. Os and we were to return at once to Stalham. You’d been knocked out and were half-cold, and they’d arrested a man and thought we might be able to identify him.

  “Well, there was a car waiting, and two more men, and the thing was that they helped old Kitty in, in a gentlemanly sort of way, and then, just as young Alice was going to step up—”

  “One of them knocked me back so hard that I cannoned into Laura and nearly sent her flying,” put in Alice.

  “Would have, only she happens to be such a light weight. As it was, I only did a bit of a stagger, and so was able to absorb and note down the number of the car.”

  “We went straight to Mr. Os at the police station,” said Alice, “and told him what had happened. He was ever so nice, and we gave him the number of the car—at least, Laura did—and, of course, he told us that, so far as he knew, you were quite all right as he’d only spoken to you that day.

  “Well, we were nearly frantic, and didn’t know what to do. The inspector told us to tell you he’d left for Yarmouth. We went to Stalham, and a man lounging there told us you’d said you were going to Hull.”

  “Hm! We must have been followed and a telephone message sent back to this lounger. Poor children,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Well, now you must get some rest, and then we’ll get to work.”

  “But, Kitty—” began Alice, looking horrified.

  “Mrs. Bradley’s right,” said Laura. “We’re no good in the state we are at present. My feet!”

  “They’ve been pretty thorough,” said Jonathan, when he had heard the story.

  “There’s no harm done, I hope,” said Mrs. Bradley. “In fact, it’s as well that the students are here. Laura can help with the cruiser. We can do with an extra hand.”

  “If you’ll let me have the car, I’ll run along now and see about the cruiser,” said Jonathan. “You’d better come with me, Deb. Then we needn’t take George. I daresay he’d like a rest after driving all night.”

  George had not driven all night, but Mrs. Bradley did not say so. She counselled her nephew not to leave his wife alone. When she had seen them off she sat down to work out the most probable movements of Mr. Os, who had shown considerable enterprise, she thought, in having them trailed as far as Hull.

  By the time Jonathan and Deborah returned, the students were almost themselves again. Jonathan tried to be jocose about Kitty’s second kidnapping adventure, but it was clear that her companions were far too much upset by what had happened to be able to joke about it, even with him.

  “The first thing to do, I suppose,” he said, immediately giving up the badinage and addressing himself to his aunt, “is to get back to Norwich with all speed and connect up with Pirberry. You say that he’s wise to—”

  “Oh, I’m sure about that,” said Mrs. Bradley interrupting him and at the same time kicking him sharply upon the ankle to indicate that it was not at present in the general interest that the girls should distrust Inspector Os. “He’s an intelligent man.”

  “Quite,” agreed her nephew, heroically concealing the agony the kick had caused him. “Well, we can have the cruiser, so let’s get along to her, shall we?”

  So the party, including Laura and Alice, went westwards out to Goole, and found the cruiser, a fast boat capable of just under thirty knots, moored at the left bank of the river.

  Jonathan saw the party on board, and then went to the controls, which were in a glassed-in cabin forward. He was closely followed by Laura.

  “That’s it,” said he to her. “You’re second in command of the ship. Power-Meadows engines up to a hundred horsepower each. We ought to be able to catch anything they’re likely to muster.”

  “Off we go,” said Mrs. Bradley. There was an unusual degree of excitement in her tone. Jonathan started the engines and the cruiser, foaming at the stern, eased away from her moorings. Jonathan engaged the clutch, and soon she was passing an island in the river and rounding the sharp bend by Hook. She dropped down past Goole, on the right bank, made the hairpin beyond it, and then, picking up the ebb tide, was soon among craft of all kinds in the vast width of the Humber estuary.

  “If we don’t get them, then Mr. Pirberry will,” said Mrs. Bradley to Deborah and Alice, who were seated beside her in the stern. The glassed-in control cabin was forward, and the whole length of the main cabin lay between them and Jonathan and Laura.

  The cruiser slowed among the crowded vessels and the coming and going of ships. There was plenty to see, and Alice, forgetting in the fascinating scene on the traffic-laded estuary her anxieties about Kitty, gazed interestedly on either side at a sight which could not fail to engage the close attention of any Londoner.

  Sunk Island was left far to port, and the cruiser ran in close to Grimsby, avoiding Spurn Head. Now she was striking south, and the breeze, which had been fresh but not noticeably strong in the channel, struck them with sudden violence.

  Jonathan, distrustful of the coast, which he did not know, kept out to sea, and, setting a course for Cromer, followed the route of the Grimsby-Rotterdam steamers.

  Laura took over the controls whilst he worked out his course. Her experience had been on inland waters only, but following his directions and advice, she managed to handle the powerful, sea-going cruiser like an expert.

  “Good work,” said Jonathan approvingly, taking over again. “How do you like her?”

  “Marvellous,” said Laura, in the inadequate phraseology of her generation. “When are we due at Yarmouth?”

  “Ought to make Cromer before tea, anyway. I don’t much like the look of the weather, but unless it blows a gale it shouldn’t affect us much in this. She ought to bucket through anything. Get along aft, would you, and suggest to the others that something to eat wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  The wind increased a little during the afternoon. Jonathan was asking twenty knots from the cruiser, although she could go faster. Fortunately there was no tendency on her part to “turn,” as she was equipped with twin screws, so no helm was needed to keep her on a straight course. The sea, however, grew heavier, and Laura went off several times to see how the others were getting on.

  It grew so cold on the open deck that at about half-past three Deborah and Alice took shelter in the cabin, for Alice, who, a good enough sailor ordinarily, was beginning to feel what some have called, euphemistically, the motion of the vessel, thought she had better lie down.

  Hot tea and dry biscuits revived her, and the cruiser was off Cromer by a quarter past four. Although the wind was boisterous there was still a brightly shining sun.

  Jonathan, keeping well outside the five fathoms
line with its extraordinary divagation at the edge of the sandbank known (with a marked lack of originality) as Foulness, was able to come in a little closer off Mundesley, and the trip south of Mundesley as far as the deeper channel called Hemsly Hole was without incident.

  It was from the lightship just south of Hemsly that they got the first news from shore. Jonathan spotted the signal immediately, having received instructions from Mrs. Bradley to keep a lookout for the lightship. The X signal was hoisted by the lightship, meaning “Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals.” Jonathan responded by playing the devil’s tattoo on his klaxon, and it immediately became evident that the signal was intended for him, for the lightship, using a heliograph, flashed back the letter L, meaning “You should stop. I have something important to communicate.”

  Jonathan reduced speed, and the cruiser drew in towards the lightship.

  The communication, received in Morse Code “from Scotland Yard,” said the lightship keepers, was to the effect that the wanted persons were known to have been off Yarmouth at half-past two, having put back from Cromer, and now were heading for the south.

  “Trailing his coat,” said Jonathan.

  “That means the Port of London Authority will have been warned,” said Mrs. Bradley, “but we’d better keep on their track in case they don’t put in at the Thames Estuary. It’s not an easy passage, with those short, choppy seas.”

  “And even if they do,” said Jonathan, “there are plenty of hide-outs in Essex, if they choose to run in up Whitaker Channel and take the River Roach avoiding Burnham-on-Crouch.”

  “Kitty!” said Alice, very pale.

  “She’ll be all right,” said Laura, without the usual energetic conviction with which she was wont to pronounce this phrase.

  “Of course she will,” said Jonathan cheerfully, but feeling guiltily conscious of his inexpressible gratitude that it was not Deborah in the hands of Mr. Os. Mrs. Bradley had told the girls, at last, who the quarry was.

  “The only pity is,” he went on, “that some of us didn’t rumble the blighter sooner.”

  He resumed his place at the controls, put the cruiser into reverse and edged her away from the lightship. Fortunately there was no dinghy to consider. The cruiser’s small boat was slung in davits, and was only in the way if you bumped into it accidentally.

  They left three buoys to starboard off Caister Bank, and entered Yarmouth Roads, but passed the mouth of the river a mile or more out, and cruised on southwards towards Lowestoft.

  “Two and a half hours’ start, roughly speaking,” said Jonathan. “Wonder what sort of craft they’ve got? If they’re as fast as we are, we’re done.”

  • CHAPTER 26 •

  “Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.”

  —From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

  “One thing,” said Laura, who, in case night cruising should be necessary, had taken over whilst Jonathan went into the cabin after tea to get some sleep before darkness fell, “I suppose we’re not the only boat out looking for them?”

  “By no means,” Mrs. Bradley answered. “But the description the lightship gave us of their cruiser might apply to hundreds of small pleasure craft, and the trouble is that they may have transferred onto something larger as soon as they were out of sight of Yarmouth. They certainly slipped through the police cordon there. Perhaps Mr. Os wore a disguise.”

  “That’s a blow,” said Laura, speaking less philosophically than usual. “You don’t think anything will happen to old Kitty, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m the person they’re after. They knew I should follow as soon as I heard that she’d been kidnapped. That is the reason why they’ve left so broad a trail.”

  “Yes, I see,” said Laura, seeing also that perhaps it would not prove difficult to get on Kitty’s track after all. The wind, which had continued to freshen, was now blowing so hard that all the waves showed white for as far as the eye could see. “Look!” said Laura suddenly. “There’s a boat ahead of us. Do you think it could be them?”

  Mrs. Bradley, who carried glasses, trained them on the dancing speck which Laura’s keen eyes had singled out.

  “It’s possible,” she said. “Can we travel any faster, do you think?”

  For answer Laura gave the cruiser full throttle and they seemed to leap forward like a speedboat. For a second they hung above a deep depression of blue; the next instant down they plunged, dipping the nose of the cruiser, which shivered, small craft though she was, as though she suspected them of trying to break her back.

  “Here,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Let me take over. You take the glasses and see what you can see.”

  “I’m going on deck,” said Laura, hauling the limp Alice along. “If we spot old K., I shall signal her to jump. After all, to get her back.…She ought to be prepared to take a risk.”

  “There’s a heavy sea running,” said Mrs. Bradley, rather anxiously. She took the wheel.

  The cruiser, bucketing badly under her half-skilled handling and the effect of its own speed, began to decrease, with exciting suddenness, the distance between it and its quarry.

  “There’s someone on deck,” said Laura, putting her head in. “It is old Kitty, I think. Wonder if she will jump for it? Mind if I give her a hail? Either the boat ahead is in difficulties or else they’re egging us on.”

  She entered the control cabin and played in Morse Code on the klaxon the initial letter of Kitty’s name. Dash dot dash said the klaxon, and scarcely had it given its message when, through the glasses, Laura saw her friend wave both arms.

  “She’s got it,” she said, putting the glasses back in their case. “Now for it.” She glanced at the swiftly running sea, and pulled a life-jacket from its locker, but immediately thrust it back again.

  “You’re not going in?” said Mrs. Bradley; but knew the question was unnecessary, even at the moment of putting it. She half-closed the throttle, continued to slacken speed, and, as Alice and Laura dived, she headed the cruiser to port, the side on which they had gone in, so as to swing the screws away from the direction in which they were swimming.

  Kitty, with what must have been enormous pluck and a very touching faith in her companions, flung up her arms and half-jumped, half-fell, off the cruiser they were pursuing. Mrs. Bradley, knowing that Laura and Alice were clear of the suck of the propellers, put her own cruiser into top speed and it dashed towards the quarry.

  Within twenty yards of the struggling girl she eased off again, noting with considerable lessening of her first anxiety that Kitty, although she was floundering badly, seemed able to keep herself afloat. The heavy seas, however, continually washed over her head. Mrs. Bradley blew a long blast on the klaxon, which effectively awoke her already disturbed and restless nephew. He came into the control cabin.

  “Anything up?” he enquired. “Here!” He pointed forward. “What’s that in front?”

  “Never mind. Get a life-belt overboard,” said his aunt. “Get Deborah to help you.”

  “No. You two handle the rescue work. Give me the controls,” said he. “It’s no joke manoeuvring for ‘Man Overboard’ in a sea running like this.”

  He was on his own ground, and Mrs. Bradley did not dream of arguing. She went up on deck with Deborah.

  “Mind you don’t go overboard,” she said.

  The rescue itself, although difficult, was not particularly exciting. Laura got to Kitty and gave her the fourth method of assistance, which is that rendered to an exhausted but not terrified swimmer. It consisted in Kitty’s lying on her back and taking Laura by the short sleeves of the shirt, and in Laura’s swimming breast-stroke towards the cruiser.

  The cockle-shell antics of the latter, however, with scarcely any way on her in such
a rolling sea, however diverting they might have been to watch, were not of the most reliable assistance to the swimmers, although Jonathan did everything he could. Alice, coming up shortly after Laura had garnered Kitty, swam alongside, ready to render assistance if any should be required. But Laura, a host in herself when it came to swimming, got Kitty up to the cruiser.

  Jonathan had cut out the engine for fear of suction from the screws, and pooping seas began to break over the cruiser, to the extreme danger of the two rescuers on deck.

  What control could be exercised over the cruiser’s flirtations with the sea was exercised by Jonathan, but there was very little he could do. Unless the swimmers were to be kept continually changing their direction—a risk which could not be run for fear of exhausting the three girls—he could not keep the cruiser’s head to the seas.

  “All right?” said Mrs. Bradley, at last.

  “Yes,” shouted Alice, leaping like a porpoise to get her head well up.

  “Right. Come to it at When.”

  “All right.”

  “When!” She flung out the life-belt at the opportune moment, and as the cruiser sank to a piece of water, which flattened between two rollers, the trained body and mind of the excellent Alice responded to the word of command and the dexterous flight of the apparatus, which landed beside her. In a moment she was on board, with a heave and a roll, which would have capsized a small boat, but which the stout cruiser bore with equanimity. The unfortunate Kitty, on her back with Laura above her, was by this time feeling half-drowned, and Jonathan, himself a powerful swimmer, realised this. There was little he could do beyond what he had done already by cutting out the engine and using the way already on the vessel. Even with all the handicaps, however, his seamanship and judgment proved unexceptionable, and the girls were hauled safely aboard. The cruiser, although her deck was awash during some of the tricky manoeuvres, responded with spirit to the return to life to her engines, and by the time Mrs. Bradley had given artificial respiration to Kitty, who seemed to be “almost full of water,” as Laura observed, and Deborah had made some strong tea into which Mrs. Bradley dashed whiskey, the cruiser was again on her course.