by Mira Stables
To Lady Eleanor and her son, driving back to the Manor as fast as Chevalier could take them, it suggested something quite different. It had brought back to Giles’s memory the brief impression of that third figure, dimly seen, who had leapt to Chevalier’s head on that fatal night. He would not care to swear to it, but that figure could well have been young Overing’s, the comb and ribbons bought for a captive, not a sweetheart. They agreed that the tale hung together quite credibly, and with the confirmation supplied by Clemency’s letter they were convinced that the search had narrowed to the vicinity of Follifoot.
Piers had already spread out the map and marked the place with a heavy black line. Now he suddenly said, “Nab Hill! A scant four miles away. I wonder if our highwayman is the same enterprising fellow who tried to stop me? What’s more it’s not so far from the Buckstone crossroads.”
“Then Clemency might even be held in that horrid cottage,” contributed Lady Eleanor with a shudder. “Or have you already searched that area, Piers?”
“No. And since there seems at least a fair chance that it is the place we want, we must move with great care.” He stood in deep thought for several minutes and then nodded decisively. “This is the way we’ll do it. We’ll drive down the Otley road past the end of the farm lane, and in a hired chaise, too, so that there is no risk of recognition. For if Overing is one of the band he would soon spot any of our turnouts and make a pretty good guess as to the occupants and their errand. We can tell at a glance if the lane has been used recently. If it has, then we embark on a closer search when the moon is up.”
“Could I come too?” asked Prudence. “If you are only going to drive past the place, I should be no hindrance. It is dreadful just sitting at home waiting for news.”
Piers smiled at her sympathetically. “Indeed you may come, and Aunt Eleanor too, if she wishes. In fact a chaise carrying two ladies with their escorts would be less noticeable than one in which two gentlemen travel alone.”
There was still more than an hour of precious daylight left by the time that they were ready for the road. No one seemed much inclined for conversation. Too much rested on the outcome of their mission. Once Piers showed the ladies how easy it was to detect freshly made tracks in the heavy hoar frost that crusted the turf where the sun had failed to penetrate, but the journey passed mostly in silence until they were approaching Nab Hill.
“Over the next crest,” said Piers. “You’ll see the place on the left. It stands well back from the road, but you can see it quite plainly through the trees now that the leaves are down.”
The postilions had been instructed at the outset to maintain a brisk but steady pace, neither dawdling along so as to attract suspicion nor springing the horses in such a way as to make close observation difficult. The four passengers sat more erect, taut with expectation and eager eyed for the signs that Piers had indicated. Now they were trotting past the dilapidated gate that gave access to the overgrown lane. Pru held her breath. Giles gave a muted whoop of triumph. Then they were past, and the horses were being checked for the steep descent, while three excited voices, all speaking together, poured out the particular details that they had noted. Only Piers was silent, keen eyes still scanning the building and their setting. Then the road plunged between high stone walls, and the lonely cottage was lost to sight.
“There was no smoke from the chimney,” cried Lady Eleanor. “I looked especially for that.”
“They’d not risk it during daylight,” explained Giles. “You can see smoke for miles. Someone would be sure to come and investigate.”
“It must be dreadfully cold,” his mother said, with a sympathetic shiver. “Poor Clemency. If she really is there,” she ended in sudden doubt.
“Well someone is certainly using the place,” said Piers. “There were signs that the gate has been dragged open recently. It has sagged on its hinges, so the soil was pushed up into a ridge. And there were clear footprints and hoof marks made since the frost set in. Tonight will show whether it is those we seek.”
“Do you plan to mount a rescue operation tonight, then?” asked Giles.
“I wish I might think so, but I fear not,” said his cousin regretfully. “At present all is conjecture. It may be that travelling tinkers or gypsies are using the place. But even if we find that Miss Longden is indeed held there, we have still to discover just how she is secured and guarded before we dare attempt her rescue. Remember — we shall have only one chance.”
The grave warning banished the air of hopeful anticipation which, at the first glimmer of possible success, had sprung up among the little party.
“Then what do you propose?” asked Giles.
“I’ll make a reconnaissance tonight. We still have two days of grace left to us. If we could establish that this is the place we are seeking, we shall be in a much stronger position. Even if, in the final outcome, we have to pay the ransom that the scoundrels are asking, we might well effect a rescue while they are picking up their ill-gotten gains.”
“But I thought — Giles said — we could not possibly raise such a sum,” demurred Prudence.
“No, that is not the difficulty,” explained Piers. “Remember that your father’s income has been accumulating untouched these four years past. I daresay he could raise double the amount. But since I took it upon myself to withhold the demand, the responsibility is mine. I have already arranged for the money to be available if it is needed.”
Even his aunt and cousin looked a little startled at this. To be sure he had spoken quite openly of being pretty well to pass, but since he displayed no ostentatious signs of wealth they had never thought to speculate on the size of his fortune. Lady Eleanor said, rather hesitantly, “Then if her Papa is well able too meet such a call on his purse, why do we not just pay? It seems to me that in any attempt at rescue, more lives must be at risk.”
“There are several reasons,” said Piers slowly, “sound ones, I believe. There is the need to deliver Miss Longden from her miserable and dangerous situation as swiftly as possible. Consider. She — a tenderly nurtured child — has already been kept in conditions of deadly fear and privation for days. What must her state be? Then there is the fact that we cannot trust her captors to keep their word and hand over their hostage unharmed. In addition to this,” he went on, smiling a little, tight lipped, “I have an unconscionable objection to enriching criminals, and thereby encouraging them to repeat their villainies elsewhere. You may set it down to my Yorkshire birth and blood. I’ll submit to being fleeced if I must. But it will go sorely against the grain.”
“And good valid reasons,” agreed Giles heartily. “I’m with you, all the way. Is that the sum of it, then?”
There was a brief silence. Then Piers looked up. But though he met his cousin’s gaze straitly enough, he did not seem to see him, nor, indeed, to be aware that he was not alone. For once the fury that had been so rigidly suppressed lest it impair his judgement was plainly to be seen. The blue eyes were incandescent with it. “No,” he said, quite gently. “There is one more small matter. Once my darling is safe out of their hands, I am anxious to try a fall with these gentry myself. The world, I think, will be a sweeter, cleaner place, when I have rid it of the vermin that dared to use her so.”
Chapter Eighteen
IT was just on nine o’clock when Piers completed his preparations. The hour was earlier than he would have chosen, since the inhabitants of the derelict cottage might still be astir, but moonset was at midnight, and some light was essential. He had refused Giles’s earnest plea to accompany him. One determined man could discover all that was to be learned. Two would only double the risk of detection. Giles had to be content with a promise that when the time for action came, he should certainly have a part in it. Meanwhile he was surveying his cousin’s activities with deep interest.
Piers had begun by demanding flannel boots for his horse. The clink of shoe on stone would carry far on frosty air, and the quarry would be fully alert to such an indication of
an alien presence. Heavy woollen stockings borrowed from Beach to pull over his own footgear came next, and he was already wearing dark clothing. But Giles stared open-mouthed when he asked for a pail of soot from the chimney and proceeded to rub this unusual cosmetic into the skin of his hands and face and throat. He smiled at Giles’s expression, white teeth gleaming oddly in his blackened visage, and said that he had got the idea from watching the black fellows in Australia, who could literally melt away into the bush. “Quite often, in poor light, the best way of taking cover is to keep perfectly still,” he explained, and advised them not to wait up for him as there was no telling how long his explorations would take.
They watched horse and rider disappear down the avenue. “Though I couldn’t possibly sleep, and don’t mean to go to bed until he is safe home again,” said Lady Eleanor. The hours of waiting stretched endlessly ahead. One could not concentrate on a book, and no one had the heart for playing cards when Giles suggested that way of passing the time. Conversation, too, was desultory, until Giles was called away to look at one of the in-foal mares who was near her time and was giving some cause for anxiety. The two ladies were then able to find some relief by discussing Piers’s astonishing outburst in the chaise. At the time no one had said a word, and Piers himself seemed unaware that he had spoken aloud and had gone on, after a brief brooding silence, to discuss such every day topics as the phase of the moon, the weather and which horse he would choose for his projected expedition, quite as though he had said nothing out of the ordinary.
“And what could one have replied?” demanded Lady Eleanor of the interested Prudence. “What does one say, when one’s nephew betrays in one breath that he has fallen deep in love, and in the next one calmly announces his intention of committing murder as though it was the most natural thing in the world. One can scarcely just wish him happy! Or express the hope that his plans will prosper! Though I must confess that I feel for him wholeheartedly on both counts.”
The gentleman in question was at that moment happier than had been for some days, and so far his plans were indeed prospering. He had gained entrance without difficulty to an empty hen house which stood scarce a quarter of a mile from his goal and which provided both shelter and concealment for his horse. He was now slipping shadow-like in the shelter of the wall towards the back of the cottage. To be on the move, with some hope at last of bringing help and comfort to his little love, relieved in part the hideous imaginings to which he had been a prey since her disappearance.
He had reached the corner of the wall and paused to listen. Close at hand was an outbuilding — stable or barn — and beyond it, across a yard, the cottage itself, dark and silent. Swiftly he crossed the open space that separated him from the outbuilding, and in that minute heard a horse whicker and the shrill answering squeal of a stallion. So there were horses stabled here. And Giles had spoken of a stallion.
The yard lay in full moonlight. Crossing it, he would be clearly visible to any watcher. It was also littered with broken and discarded implements. He made out a rusted plough and two ancient cart wheels, a yoke and a battered bucket, and as he stood mentally charting these treacherous obstacles his ears were assailed by a scraping creaking noise coming from the direction of the house. He slid back into the shadow of the barn. The noise came again, ending, this time, with the crunch of a door pushed firmly home. Someone had come out of the house and footsteps were approaching the stable. He heard the clank of a bucket set down, and then the groan of a rusty lock yielding unwillingly to the key.
Sheer chance had favoured him. Never before had Will visited the stable so late at night. But that very morning Rufus had slipped on a patch of ice and come down, straining a fetlock, and Pelly had permitted Will to poultice the injury afresh before settling down for the night.
To speak the truth, Will preferred the stable to the cottage, and wished he might sleep in the straw with the horses, but those two ’ud never let him. They didn’t like him out of their sight for long, and they didn’t like him talking to the girl. They had taken to locking him into his room at night, fearful that he might decide to change sides. He only wished he dared. But Pelly’s tales of the gang’s ways with traitors had scared him to the marrow, and against his terror, pity for the captive paled to insignificance. If he remembered uneasily how Elspeth had spoken of Miss Clemency’s kindness and how she had helped her trim a bonnet to wear to church, he salved his discomfort by buying her a comb and some ribbons for her hair. Her hairpins had been lost among the hay in her struggle with Pelly. She had braided her hair to keep it from getting hopelessly tangled, and had tied the braids with wisps of hay until Will had brought her the ribbons.
Now, as he locked the door behind him and went to Rufus’s stall, he called up to reassure her. “It’s only me, Miss. Will. I’m putting a fresh poultice on Rufus.”
The listener outside did not hear what the girl answered, perhaps because of the ecstatic leap of his own heart. Such luck was almost unbelievable. In a rush of exultation he felt that Fate had at last chosen to smile on him, so much so that he was sorely tempted to make his rescue bid at once. It was only a matter of lying hid until Overing came out of the stable, knocking him out, and taking the key. But his own warning sounded in his ears. “Only the one chance.” Without further investigation it was too dangerous. They might, for instance, have chained her. The very thought made him grind his teeth in impotent rage — but did not alter the fact that he had no tool for cutting chains. Better to stick to the original and sensible plan, try to establish communication, and work out a scheme that would cover all eventualities.
It was some time before Will finally re-locked the stable and went back to the cottage. While he waited, Piers made a careful survey of the outside of the building. Apart from the big door which Will had used, the only other means of access was a square opening high up in one gable end, which had been used aforetime for lifting hay straight from the wain into the loft. Its wooden cover was probably bolted into position, but without a ladder it was impossible to establish which way it opened. In the other gable was a series of small round holes. Piers judged that pigeons had probably been kept here. It might be possible, if he could reach the roof, to speak to the prisoner through one of those holes.
When Will had gone, he waited patiently for a considerable time, until he felt that the inhabitants of the cottage would surely have settled for the night, and then made his way to the back of the barn where the yard wall joined it. Climbing the wall was child’s play, but heaving himself up on to the roof was more tricky. The thatch was rotten, and it would not do to leave a hole in it to advertise his nocturnal visit. He managed at last to find a spot where the thatch had already fallen away to expose solid timber which enabled him to pull himself up, and then wriggled his way cautiously to the end nearest the cottage where the pigeon entries were. He moved as carefully as he could, not so much for fear of the risk to his neck on the frost rimed thatch as for the danger of leaving discernible traces. Best to pray for a sudden thaw, he thought grimly, or trust that the tracks would be ascribed to a marauding fox.
As he had estimated, it was just possible, by hanging perilously over the edge of the roof, to put his mouth to one of the orifices in the wall. Another scrap of aboriginal bush lore came to his mind. With lips pressed close to the opening and one hand funnelling the sound while the other anchored him to the roof, he called “Coo-ee,” as loudly as he dared. No response. But at least no rough male voice had made sharp outcry, so there was no guard within the stable. He tried again, twice in close succession, and then, tentatively, “Clem-en-cy!” Listening intently he just caught the faint incredulous reply.
“Where are you? Oh please! Where are you?”
“On the roof. Can you move closer to the pigeon entries?” he said slowly and clearly.
There was a pause. He could hear a faint scuffling sound, and then her voice, so close and clear that he hastily bade her hush before she got beyond, “Piers! It is you, isn’t it?”
“Speak softly,” he cautioned. “We’re not far from the cottage, and I can hear you very clearly now that you have moved close to the wall. How are you secured and guarded?”
“I’m not tied up any more. I was at first but the only way down is through the loose box, and they leave the stallion there. He’s a killer. Harry told me so, and Will says it’s true.”
“Can you see a small wooden door at the other end of the loft?”
“Yes. I found it the first day, but it won’t open from inside.”
“Good. Means it will open from outside. Listen, love. I daren’t stay long. I’ll be back tomorrow night with more help and a ladder. We’ll have you out of this. Meanwhile, can you play a part? Not betray that I’ve been in touch with you? Behave just as you have been doing?”
Incredibly there came the sound of a soft chuckle. Not knowing how her spirits were soaring at the very thought of his nearness, so that in spite of cold, dirt and discomfort she was for the moment gloriously happy, he could scarcely believe that his ears had not deceived him. Her voice was confident — amused. “Of course I can. All females can play-act. Anyway, no one but Will comes near me. I think the other two are afraid of me since I hit one of them on the head with a padlock.”
Not a hint in that gay young voice of the terror and revulsion that still swept over her at the thought of one man’s cruel eyes and greedy mouth. Certainly one small female could play-act.
