The Disappearance of Mr James Phillimore

by Dan Andriacco

  “And he does it very well,” Lynda said stoutly.

  We decided that today was to be our museum day, so we spent the morning at the fabulous British Museum. It was hardly spoiled at all by Mac’s lectures on the way. “Holmes once had rooms just around the corner from the Museum on Montague Street,” he informed us as we set off.

  “Didn’t that guy in the ‘Blue Carbuncle’ hang out at the British Museum?” Lynda asked.

  “Indeed he did,” Mac confirmed, “and at the nearby Alpha Inn, which most scholars believe is actually...”

  And so forth. By the time we got there, Mac had discussed in excruciating detail how the British Museum is mentioned in five Sherlock Holmes adventures.

  Looking like a Greek temple, Britain’s national museum is one of the world’s greatest collections of, well, everything - about eight million permanent items, according to the guidebook I flipped through. One of the special exhibits was on Shakespeare. We practically had to pull Mac away from it to get to Headley Hall by noon. He thinks he’s Falstaff.

  The logistics of getting there had been worked out in the morning, but it wasn’t easy. Lynda initially balked at Faro’s offer to drive us.

  “I hate being dependent on that throwback to the Brass Age of journalism,” she sulked.

  “I can understand that,” Kate said.

  “Sure.” I nodded. “I’m simpatico, too, but let’s face the facts: If it weren’t for Faro, we wouldn’t be getting into Headley Hall at all.”

  Lynda rolled her eyes. “I wonder what his angle is. He’s not helping us out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “Perhaps” - Mac added that word at the beginning of the sentence just to appear modest - “Faro would like to see Sebastian McCabe in action.”

  Kate insisted that she had no desire to go along. “I have to catch up on some long-distance mothering,” she said grimly, holding up her smartphone.

  I had a feeling some virtual fireworks were on her agenda.

  Chapter Ten

  HO’T Time at Deadly Hall

  Except for the fact that Lynda was sitting in the back seat of Faro’s Ford Mondeo with me, holding my hand, our arrival at Headley Hall was like a rerun of two days before. It was still raining.

  This time, though, the massive front door opened before we even got out of the car. A man with shoulder- length hair in a ponytail came out, paused, and opened an umbrella. Beneath his Chicago Bears T-shirt lay a powerful physique. Behind him I spotted Trout, the Phillimore butler, standing in the doorway. Trout watched the bruiser for a moment, as if to be sure he was really leaving, and then shut the door.

  “That’s Rod Chance!” Lynda exclaimed. Why don’t you yell in my other ear and make them even?

  “I’ll have to trust you on that.”

  Lynda is a lot more up on sports than I am, except for Cincinnati Reds baseball. But even I’d heard of Rod Chance. Until being sidelined by a leg injury earlier this year, he was known around the world as the bad boy of soccer - or football, as they call it on the British side of the pond. A South African playing for a British team, he was known for his violent temper and the huge multi-year contract he had signed five years ago. His career had already been on the decline before the injury, creating fan resentment and leading to tabloid headlines like NOT A CHANCE.

  Potentially a has-been at age thirty-two, Rod Chance also had one other claim to fame: He was the first Mr. Heather O’Toole, the man she’d divorced to marry the even-richer Phillimore. They’d had some famous late-night rows when they were married. But now we’d just seen him leave the house her current husband had disappeared from. If I were the suspicious sort... Actually, I am the suspicious sort. I’m also the new son-in-law of two people who had remained romantically linked, off-and-on, for decades after their divorce. The existence of Lynda’s younger sister, Emma Teal, was living proof of that.

  While I was musing along these lines, the athlete hustled down the drive and hopped in a late-model silver Jaguar with the license plate HOT ROD 1.

  “Taking notes, Mr. Faro?” Lynda asked archly.

  “No need to, my dear.” The columnist smiled and tapped his forehead. “It’s all stored up here.”

  He parked the car.

  If I’d entertained any thoughts that Trout would welcome us as old buddies, they died a quick death when he opened the door. He was friendly, as before, but in a reserved British way. After telling us that Ms. O’Toole would be right with us, he retreated into the back of the house.

  We waited in the massive entranceway. Lynda smoothed her dress, a luscious chocolate and gold number she had bought at some horrendously expensive shop in the Via Condotti in Rome as a honeymoon indulgence. I usually shop for clothes at the St. Vincent de Paul Store in Erin.

  “It’s hard to believe I’m in the home of Heather O’Toole,” Lynda said, her professional reserve totally MIA.

  Have you ever met somebody in person that you’d previously seen only on television or even on the big screen? They’re usually shorter, or fatter, or have more wrinkles, or are disappointing in some other way. In Heather O’Toole’s case, the main difference was that she seemed more human than in the movies. She bounded down the staircase - no grand entrance for her - wearing jeans and a man’s white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show muscular arms. Her thin sandals and her toenails were the same shade of gold. She wasn’t built like Lynda, but nobody would mistake her for a boy, either.

  Her wavy black hair hung shoulder length, just like her ex-husband’s. But she was better looking, with creamy skin, full red lips, and wide eyes. I wondered whether the long dark lashes were as phony as the violet of those eyes, but only for a moment. That’s all it took for me to decide it didn’t matter. She was somewhere north of very pretty and only slightly south of beautiful, which is a very nice neighborhood to hang out in. It wasn’t hard to see why she’d been cast as the newest Bond girl in Dragonfly. But in manner, she was more like the friendly, volleyball-playing girl next door (assuming you didn’t live next to Wendy Kotzwinkle, who threw me over for that football player in the eleventh grade).

  “Hello, Welles, always good to see you,” she tossed off. She didn’t mean it, and she didn’t bother to act as if she did. Her voice reminded me that she was an American. That was easy to forget because most of her films from Harry Potter on had her speaking in a British accent.

  Heather put out her hand and shook each of ours in turn as Faro made the introductions. (I’m sure the girl next door wouldn’t mind if I called her Heather.) It was a firm handshake, and I thought that James Bond had better watch out. Even in sandals she was taller than Faro. I caught a whiff of the intoxicating Birth of Venus perfume, lightly applied.

  “I suppose you’ve heard nothing new about James?” Faro said.

  She shook her head. “Only what I read in your column this morning. That was all totally new to me. This whole crazy-ass situation is devastating, Welles. First he disappears, and now I find out he’s some kind of crook.”

  “We are sorry to intrude on you at this difficult time,” Mac said. “I hope that this is no more inconvenient than necessary. We noticed another caller leaving. If our visit was the reason...”

  Heather waved the notion away with a swat of her hand. “That was just Rod, my ex. He’s one of my husband’s unhappy investors. As usual, he threw a temper tantrum like a two-year-old. I had to have Trout throw him out.”

  Mac raised an eyebrow. “And that worked?”

  “Maybe you didn’t notice, but Trout has muscles to spare.” Actually, I had noticed. “He isn’t just a butler; he’s also my personal trainer and bodyguard when I’m home. I may need more bodyguards to fend off Phillimore investors as the bad news spreads. There must be thousands of us.”

  “Us?” I blurted out.

  “Yes, I’m one, too, damn it. I was James�
�s client before I became his wife. Right now I’m feeling pretty foolish about being either one. Rod thinks I knew something about this fraud business, but I didn’t. I’m a babe in the woods about money stuff.” You’re a babe, all right!

  My favorite journalist looked skeptical. “Didn’t you graduate summa cum laude from Vassar?”

  “I majored in history, not finance.”

  “But wasn’t your father something on Wall Street?” Lynda persisted.

  Heather’s smile was hard to read. “You seem to be an expert on me, Ms. Teal-Cody.” That’s how Faro had chosen to introduce her. Although it’s not Lynda’s preferred moniker, she offered no correction.

  “I read a lot,” Lynda said.

  “Well, I hope you don’t believe everything you read. You know how journalists are.”

  Can we change the subject now?

  I don’t know whether Mac noticed that Lynda was fuming, any more than I know whether HO’T intended her comment as a slap at Faro, or Lynda, or both. I don’t even know if she was aware of my wife’s profession. At any rate, Mac spoke up.

  “Ms. O’Toole, I am sure you know we came here on a mission,” he said.

  “I just know that Welles said you have some notion about a hidden room in the house. Where did you get that silly idea?”

  “From a short story your husband wrote.”

  “A short story? James? I didn’t know he could write anything except checks.” I bet. “Welles also said something about hiding priests.” Heather shook her gorgeous head skeptically. “I don’t think James was hiding any priests.”

  “Perhaps not,” Mac said, as if making a big concession. “It is, however, more than possible that the original owners of the manor may have done so. That is why we were hoping to get your permission to search for a secret room in the house.”

  “I’ve already given it,” Heather said. “That’s why you’re here. Go ahead and look. Just don’t get sticky fingers. And if you find James” - she gave an ironic smile that I bet she had practiced in the mirror - “tell him to have his lawyer call my lawyer. If you need anything, Trout will be around somewhere. I’ll be upstairs working on my lines.”

  For the movie, or for your interview with Scotland Yard? As I said, I have a suspicious mind.

  “So what are we looking for?” Lynda asked after Heather had gone back upstairs.

  “Anything that does not look like the entrance to a secret passage,” Mac said. In other words, you haven’t the foggiest. “Priest holes were made by carpenters, so look at the wood very closely. Stairs and paneling were common places for concealed entrances. There were also a few instances of false fireplaces. Most often the priest holes themselves were in basement or attic areas. My conjecture is that somewhere on this floor is an entrance to a hiding place underground. Trout said that he was upstairs the other night and did not hear Phillimore return after he left with us, so it is likely that he did not go above the ground floor.”

  “I’ll take the library,” Faro said.

  Mac claimed the dining room - his favorite room in any house, next to whichever one has the most books - while Lynda and I went to the parlor together. I insisted that we would act as a team, the honeymooners.

  “What do you think?” I asked her when we were alone. “Is this whole idea totally nuts - or just slightly?”

  “That depends on whether we find a hidey hole. Get to work.”

  Lynda started at one end of the room while I attacked the other. Mac’s instructions to examine the wood gave us plenty to work with because there was a wainscoting that went up about three feet all around the room. Wherever there seemed to be any kind of seam or joint, I pushed, pressed, and pulled, trying to find an opening. What it would open to, I had no idea. What was on the other side of the parlor? In a house this big, it was hard to tell.

  “A map would help,” I muttered.

  After about ten minutes of fruitless peering and poking, Lynda said from the other side of the room, “So, do you think she’s pretty?” Uh-oh. Incoming! Incoming! Step carefully, Jeff!

  I gave that a think before I said, “Oh, you mean Heather O’Toole? I didn’t notice.”

  I wasn’t looking, but I could hear Lynda roll her eyes. “Is that the first lie you’ve told me since we’ve been married, Jeff?” And when did you stop beating your wife?

  “That’s a very good question. You should be a reporter.” I chuckled. “Of course, she’s very beautiful for a famous movie star.” Wait, that didn’t come out right. Can we open some windows? “But, you know, beauty is only skin deep.” Of course, plenty of guys would like to go skin diving with her!

  Lynda sighed. “And she’s wearing my mother’s favorite perfume, too. The one she’s famous for.”

  Of all the women in the world, Lynda’s mother was the last one Lynda wanted to be reminded of. And that goes double for me.

  “Do you think we’re finished here?” I asked.

  “Well, we’ve each been over the whole room twice without finding anything, so I guess so.”

  We ran into Mac in the hallway. “Any luck?” I asked. He shook his head grimly. “Perhaps Faro...”

  But we found Faro sitting on a window seat, reading a book. This wasn’t the sort of library with shelves floor to ceiling on all four walls. It was a big, open room with several bookcases with glass doors, a globe, and assorted chairs and love seats.

  “Really, Welles,” Mac boomed, “this is no time to pursue your literary interests.”

  Faro held up the book so that we could see the title, Priest Holes of Berkshire. “I’m researching. Haven’t found anything useful yet, though.”

  “You’re supposed to be searching, not researching,” Lynda snapped.

  “Already have,” Faro drawled. “Following Professor McCabe’s instructions, I looked particularly closely at the paneling and the fireplace. I also examined the bookcases for that old canard of the bookcase that swings out like a door. Nothing.” He closed the book and made a show of looking around. “Have I missed anything?”

  “I suppose not,” Mac growled. “I assume the window seat is solid?”

  “Oh!” Faro stood up as if his pants were on fire. “When I was checking out one of the bookcases I saw this book and sat down to read it. I haven’t looked inside the window seat.”

  “It looks like it could be original to the house,” Lynda said.

  I think she meant that it was no stretch to assume that the wood was milled more than five hundred years ago and then fashioned into a window seat about six feet wide and maybe two feet deep.

  Like many window seats, the top opened on hinges like a lid - not the entire top, but the middle portion. Faro opened it and removed some blankets from the floor. Kneeling, he reached down and tapped the bottom. “Seems solid. But look” - he pointed and his voice rose in excitement - “it should be bigger on the inside. I think the third section, the farthest to the right, is gimmicked.”

  Mac moved to the right end of the window seat before Faro could stand up. “I read about a priest hole entrance through a window seat. I should have thought of it earlier.”

  He pushed here and he pushed there until he must have hit on a hidden spring. That third of the window seat slid to the left, revealing a gaping darkness.

  “Holy shit,” Lynda breathed.

  Mac struck a match and gave it to Lynda. She knelt down, a maneuver my brother-in-law was not built to execute with any great agility, and held the match into the mouth of the darkness.

  “There’s a ladder,” she said. “I’m going down it.”

  “Then so am I,” I said. I guess it would be pointless to point out that you might get your expensive new dress dirty.

  “Okay, but Mac and Welles, you won’t fit. The opening is too narrow.”

  Mac handed her a pack of matches,
which wouldn’t have been necessary in her smoking days. “You will need more.”

  I won’t pretend the few seconds it took us to climb down that ladder backwards didn’t creep me out. The light of the match cast weird, flickering shadows and I didn’t know what we were going to find down there. A dead body wouldn’t have surprised me at all. But instead we found...

  An uninhabited room. It was ten feet by ten feet square and not much more than seven feet high. It made me claustrophobic, especially the height, but people were a lot shorter when it was built. It was sparsely furnished with a camp bed and a wooden chair, old but not sixteenth century. A battery-powered lantern sat on a small table.

  “This wasn’t left by a priest in hiding a few centuries back,” I said, picking it up.

  “Neither was this.” Lynda held up two wrappers from Cadbury Dairy Milk candy bars. Wanted: One fugitive felon with a sweet tooth.

  “What do you see down there?” Mac called.

  “Phillimore’s not here,” I said, “but he was.”

  “Take pictures with your iPhone, please.” It annoyed me that Mac thought I wouldn’t think of that. It annoyed me even more that I hadn’t thought of that. But Lynda was already snapping away.

  “I wonder why he didn’t suffocate,” I said.

  “He wasn’t here that long,” Lynda said. “Besides, if you look up in the corner of the ceiling you’ll see little air holes.”

  Within ten minutes we were back up in the library. Lynda’s dress was soiled, but nothing permanent. I was sure she wouldn’t care anyway. She had a hell of a story to write.

  “The big question,” she said in the car on the way back to our hotel, “is how and when he emerged from hiding and got away.”