Chapter 12
“Miss Arbuckle, I presume?” said Daisy gloomily as the bar thudded into place on the outside of the door behind her.
The grimy girl huddled on the lumpy mattress on the floor stared up at her wide-eyed. The room was too dark to make out the colour of her eyes, but her limp, unkempt hair was fair. No doubt gold and curly when shampooed, Daisy thought charitably.
Feeling rather limp herself, she stepped forward, saying, “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Gee, sure, please do.” Miss Arbuckle moved over. “Excuse me, I wasn’t expecting…” And she burst into tears.
The straw-filled palliasse crackled as Daisy flopped down beside her and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. With the other hand she absently rubbed a particularly painful patch of nettle-rash on her leg.
When the sobs showed signs of giving way to sniffs, she offered her handkerchief.
“Here, take this. My name’s Daisy Dalrymple.”
“I am Gloria Arbuckle. How did you know? Oh, I guess those guys downstairs told you.”
“Actually,” Daisy said in a low voice, “I was looking for you, and there can’t be many girls locked up in tumbledown cottages in woods in this area. At least, I hope not!”
“Looking for me?” Gloria said in wonder, following Daisy’s example in speaking softly. “You? Wait a minute, though! Dalrymple? You must be Phillip’s deceased friend’s sister. Have they … have they found his body?”
As she started to dissolve in tears again, Daisy deduced that she was talking about Phillip’s body, not Gervaise’s. The last Gloria had seen of Phil, he was being dragged off to be murdered, Daisy recalled.
“He was so b-brave, trying to escape, and the one he hit was raising Cain, shouting about k-killing him.”
“He’s alive,” Daisy said hastily. “He’s perfectly all right.”
The tears came anyway, but they were tears of relief. “And Poppa?” Gloria sniffled a few minutes later. “Phillip said they wouldn’t harm him.”
“I met Mr. Arbuckle last night. He’s right as rain except for worrying about you, and being a bit tired from running round collecting ransom money. He’ll have it by tomorrow.”
“So they’ll let me go soon, and you, too.” Gloria heaved a shuddering sigh. “It’s been horrible, but the worst was thinking Phillip was dead. Miss Dalrymple, I’m real sorry you’ve gotten mixed up in this.”
“Daisy, please. Formality seems too, too idiotic in the circs. Phillip involved me in the first place, but it was my own fault I was caught. I’m never going to hear the last of it.”
“Well, I can’t help being glad you’re here. You start imagining all sorts of dreadful things when you’re alone.”
“They haven’t mistreated you?” Daisy asked.
“I mean, apart from all this.” She waved her hand at the squalid room, noting a covered chamberpot in one corner; noting also that it was already darker than when she arrived.
The sun wouldn’t set for hours yet, so the clouds must be growing thicker.
“They haven’t beaten you, or starved you, or anything like that? ”
“No. They’ve even apologised for the food all being cold.” Gloria managed a shaky laugh. “They don’t dare light a fire because they’re afraid the smoke would attract attention. What brought you here? Why did Phillip involve you?”
Already editing the story in her head to eliminate the upsetting parts, Daisy said, “I’ll explain later.
Right now, while there’s still some light, I’m going to see what I can do about getting us out of here.
I refuse to wait for them to let us go. A friend of mine’s coming down from town tomorrow. ”
Stiffly, she hauled herself to her feet. The door she ignored, and a brief inspection eliminated the window as a means of egress. Even with a hammer, no fear of making a noise, and all the time in the world, she doubted she could have knocked out the sturdy boards.
That left the possible hole in the ceiling Phillip had mentioned. Unable to make use of it because of his tied hands, he had not examined it closely.
She crossed to the corner where the stain ran down the wall—the worst stain, rather; none of the walls was exactly pristine.
Actually, at that point the wall and the ceiling were interchangeable.
The rear wall of the cottage ran up vertically for three or four feet.
Then the incline of the roof forced an inward slope to a horizontal portion of ceiling running down the centre, which met the opposite roof slope at the front.
On tiptoe, Daisy could touch the flat part. She did not need to. The crumbled plaster on the floor came from an indentation just level with the top of her head.
She reached up to feel the hollow, and jumped back hurriedly in a cloud of dingy white powder as a large chunk came loose. Landing with a thump on the floor, it broke into little pieces. Daisy held her breath, swinging round towards Gloria with her finger to her lips.
No outcry below, no footsteps rushing up: the men must be in the other downstairs room.
“Gee!” said Gloria.
Breathing again, shallowly because of the dust lingering in the air, Daisy looked up to see a small patch of green. Leaves! Beautiful green sycamore leaves and a bunch of winged seeds …
“Oh blast!” said Daisy.
“What’s the problem?”
“Is anyone likely to come up in the next few hours?”
“I guess they’ll bring something to eat. Quite soon, because it’s going to get dark and they won’t let me—us—have a lamp. Why?”
“They’ll see the hole.”
“Can’t we stuff your handkerchief into it?”
“We’ll try,” Daisy said dubiously, studying the ragged edges of the opening, “though I’m afraid it may be rather too large.”
“We could use my stockings, too. I gave up wearing them days ago.”
“All right, that might work. I’d have preferred to make the hole still larger while we have some light, but that would never do. We’ll just have to wait until dark.”
They succeeded in fashioning a serviceable plug. It caught on the splintered spikes of broken, half-rotted laths and looked as if it would stay up for long enough.
“What good will a hole in the roof do us?” Gloria asked hesitantly.
“We’ll work that out once we have one big enough to climb through,” Daisy told her with an assumed confidence she was far from feeling.
She could not sit here tamely, hoping for release, wondering whether the Yank would murder one or both of them. She had to try to escape. Resolutely she turned her mind from the possibility of a fall from the roof leading to a broken leg or a broken neck.
As the Austin Chummy reached the end of the elm avenue and Alec saw the house before him, he let out a long, low whistle. Knowing Daisy’s father was a viscount had failed to prepare him for anything quite as impressive as Fairacres.
The entrance portico boasted four Ionic columns, and behind it rose a cupola, white against the slate grey overcast. On either side stretched four tiers of windows: a semi-basement rustic below, attics above, and between them two rows with pilasters.
The balustrade running along the top of the facade was interrupted at regular intervals by classical statues, with a smaller cupola at each end.
Both in the course of his duties and as a student of history, taking tours on open days, Alec had visited grander mansions.
Wentwater Court, where he first met Daisy, was considerably larger and more impressive, for instance.
It was the fact of Daisy’s having grown up here that he found a bit intimidating.
More than a bit, he acknowledged ruefully, drawing up before the portico. He must be mad to imagine she might consider marrying a middle-class, widowed copper with a child, a resident mother, and a semi-detached in St. John’s Wood.
Yet she had invited him to meet her mother.
Wearily stepping down from the car, he glanced up at the relief on the pediment above the pillars. Just distinguishable in the fast-fading evening light, a cornucopia poured forth fruits.
Somewhat heartened by the implied welcome, Alec trod up the steps and faced the choice of a knocker in the form of a pineapple, an old-fashioned bell-pull, or an electric button. He opted for modern convenience.
The youthful lackey who opened the door wore a maroon jacket with brass buttons. A footman, Alec diagnosed.
“May I see Miss Dalrymple?” he requested, and then wondered whether Daisy’s cousin had daughters. “Miss Daisy Dalrymple,” he amplified. “The name’s Fletcher.”
The youth regarded him with undisguised interest. “If you care to step in, sir, I’ll see if Miss Dalrymple’s in,” he said in the sort of voice which indicated he had to check for form’s sake though he knew the answer perfectly well. “Was miss expecting you?”
“Not exactly. That is, tomorrow, not today.”
“Ah,” remarked the footman profoundly. He glanced back as if to see if his superior, the butler, was creeping up on him across the polished marble floor. Reassured, he became confidential. “You’ll likely know what it’s all about, then, sir, this funny business?”
“Part of it,” Alec said with caution, taking off his hat.
“That’s all I knows meself,” the lad admitted, discouraged. “Though I did think when I obliged Mr. Petrie right at the start that he’d let me in on it. Lor, what a sight for sore eyes he were!”
“Oh?”
The monosyllable failed to draw a description. “Then along come the American gentleman, as hadn’t ate his breakfast yet, the which I asked him special. ‘Ernest,’ says Mr. Petrie, ‘you ask him has he ate.’ So I does, and I tips him the wink on the sly. Have you dined, sir?” he enquired solicitously.
Utterly bewildered, Alec was for a moment under the impression that the question had been addressed at some past time to an unknown American gentleman. Realizing it was meant for him, he confessed that no, he hadn’t. “But I shouldn’t dream of presuming on Lady Dalrymple’s hospitality,” he added.
“That’s all right, sir. Her ladyship’s dining out, and a good job, too. Miss Dalrymple’s guests kept putting dinner back, waiting for her to turn up, but…”
“Waiting for her ladyship?” Alec asked with a sinking feeling.