Chapter 12 #2
Ernest confirmed his suspicion. “For Miss Dalrymple. Her ladyship’s dining out,” he repeated patiently, “and so’s his lordship, of course.”
“And Miss Dalrymple was late for dinner?”
“Hasn’t come back yet.”
“Great Scott!” Alec exclaimed, biting back several more forceful imprecations. What the deuce was Daisy up to now, that even her fellow-conspirators were unaware of? What were they all up to? “I must speak to Petrie,” he said determinedly.
“If you’ll please to come this way, sir.”
The footman ushered Alec into a formal dining room. On the white tablecloth six places were set, glasses sparkling, silver gleaming. Five soup-spoons halted between plate and mouth; five faces turned towards the door, premature relief giving way to disappointment, then worry.
And, in Petrie’s case, to dismay. He started to rise.
“Mr. Fletcher here’d like a word, Mr. Petrie, sir,” Ernest belatedly announced.
Petrie pushed back his chair, but Lucy Fotheringay intervened. “I think Mr. Fletcher had better have a word with all of us,” she said with a crispness quite unlike her usual world-weary manner.
“We’re all in this together,” agreed a young man unknown to Alec, standing up. “I’m Pearson, Tom Pearson, and this is my wife.”
The pretty, pixyish blonde beside him gave Alec a strained smile. “You’re Daisy’s friend, aren’t you, Mr. Fletcher? We’re awfully worried about her. We expected her back by tea-time.”
“Do sit down, Mr. Fletcher,” Miss Fotheringay invited, her drawl back in place. “Have you dined? You’d better take Daisy’s place.”
Alec did not protest his unwillingness to intrude, nor his lack of evening dress. The footman set a plate of soup before him and reluctantly left the room.
The moment the door closed behind the servant, Petrie said with a forced optimism, “Daisy may have stopped at her mother’s for the evening.”
“There’s a telephone at the Dower House,” Miss Fotheringay pointed out, scarcely concealing her scorn. “You said yourself we mustn’t ring to see if she’s there in case she isn’t.”
“If she was, she’d have phoned you,” Alec said. In a voice in which he tried to blend camaraderie with a certain official, no-nonsense tone, he went on, “All right, you’d better tell me what’s going on. Why the urgent messages calling you down here? Where did Daisy go, what for, and why alone?”
He addressed the questions at large. The others deferred to Petrie.
“We’re looking for some … something.” He sleeked back his already sleek fair hair with a nervous hand.
“It was Daisy’s idea for some of us to go out alone, to cover more ground.
She was the one who worked out where each of us would go, so none of us is too sure exactly where she was heading after her last telephone call.
” He glanced around the table and received confirming nods.
“I stayed here,” Mrs. Pearson explained, “and the rest reported in now and then.”
“You were expecting trouble, then?” Alec tried not to explode with anger, remembering his own inability to stem the tide of Daisy’s determination.
“Lord no!” said Pearson, “or we’d never have let her go off on her own. We ’phoned in for news, don’t y’know. We were just making enquiries.”
“In village shops,” Petrie elucidated.
“Making enquiries in village shops? What the dickens are you looking for?” Alec recalled Petrie’s hastily covered pause. “Or should I say whom?”
Petrie’s alarm told him he had struck gold. The young man pressed his lips together, aware too late that he was the last person capable of misleading an experienced detective.
“Miss Fotheringay?”
“We’re sworn to silence,” she said with uncharacteristic uncertainty. “But Phillip, with Daisy missing.…” Her voice trailed away.
Alec turned a searching gaze on each in turn. Even Petrie’s face expressed indecision.
“We can’t!” he said, agonized.
“Mr. and Mrs. Pearson, I take it you know I’m a policeman?
” They both nodded soberly. “So do the rest of you,” Alec continued with a sternness he had no need to feign.
“Quite apart from my … feelings for Daisy, I’m obliged to tell you that I can’t simply overlook your determined efforts to keep from the authorities what is clearly a serious matter. ”
“I quite appreciate your position,” said Pearson. “As a matter of fact, I’m a solicitor. I assure you, before I let myself or Madge become involved I ascertained that no crime has been committed by any of us. Nor is our intention to shield any other person who has committed a crime.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pearson, that clarifies matters.”
Taking a spoonful of cooling soup, Alec thought rapidly. He had often noticed that lawyers, though in general the cagiest of men, once they let themselves go frequently gave away far more than they intended.
That a crime had been committed seemed certain.
The obvious deduction was that Phillip Petrie had called in Daisy to solve it, knowing her propensity for interfering in police matters.
To be fair, Alec was forced to acknowledge that she had two or three times been almost as much a help as a hindrance.
But in this case, Petrie was the instigator of the interference. Why would that generally law-abiding young man choose to try to solve a crime himself, rather than reporting it to the police?
To protect a friend or relative was the most likely answer. Yet Pearson was convinced their purpose was not to shield a criminal, so probably the friend or relative was the victim—and blackmail the crime. If the blackmailer was using a village shop as a convenience address.…
No, they would know which shop, which they clearly did not since they had been scouring the countryside asking questions.
Only two other possible crimes sprang to mind where, for the victim’s sake, the police might not be called in.
One was a confidence trick, where the sucker—as the Americans so charmingly put it—was too embarrassed by his gullibility.
Alec doubted that would have caused the deadly serious expressions in the five pairs of eyes fixed on his face, as he now observed.
He put down his spoon, having finished the soup without the slightest idea of what kind it had been.
“Am I correct,” he said slowly, “in supposing your secret is a kidnapping?”
Four faces registered more relief than dismay. Petrie’s was horrified, but Alec detected a hint of relief there, too. They both opened their mouths to speak. Alec, with a gesture, deferred to the younger man.
At this inauspicious moment, a butler appeared, his stiff back and impassive face somehow radiating disapproval, and announced, “Mr. Arbuckle has called.”
Miss Fotheringay glanced around at the others, then, to Alec’s surprise, she said in a resigned tone, “Show him in, please, Lowecroft, and you’d better serve the next course. Set another place for Mr. Arbuckle if he hasn’t already dined.”
“As you wish, miss.” Lowecroft departed, stiffer than ever.
“It won’t do Daisy any good if we starve,” Miss Fotheringay pointed out, “and Mr. Arbuckle is going to have to decide what to do about our quick-witted sleuth and his brilliant deductions.”
No brilliant deduction was necessary to guess that the unknown Arbuckle was somehow involved. “Who is…?” Alec started to ask. He fell silent as the butler returned with a short, slight, long-faced man in evening dress.
Long-faced in both senses of the phrase, Alec noted. Between the lantern-jaw and the receding hairline was as careworn a countenance as he had ever seen.
While the butler set a seventh place at the table, Petrie introduced Alec—as Mr. Fletcher—to Arbuckle. Another surprise: the man was an American. He didn’t look at all pleased to meet Alec, even though he was unaware of the police connection.
The footman, Ernest, and a parlour-maid brought in several dishes.
During the serving of loin of veal with broad beans and sautéed potatoes, the conversation stuck strictly to the weather.
Arbuckle reported lightning over the Malvern Hills.
No one mentioned the possibility that Daisy might get caught out in a storm.
On the contrary, the prospect of the end of drought and heat was welcome with much false-ringing enthusiasm.
“All very well,” Bincombe said gloomily when the servants had withdrawn, “but if it really sets in to rain it’s not going to make things any easier.”
“Never mind that,” Arbuckle said flatly, with a dismissive gesture. “There’s two things I wanna know: Where’s Miss Dalrymple and what the heck is this gennelman doing here?” He glared at Alec, then transferred his glare to Petrie.
“Daisy’s missing,” said Mrs. Pearson, a catch in her voice. Her husband pressed her hand.
“Missing?” Arbuckle groaned, sinking his head in his hands. “I knew I shouldn’ta let that little girl.…” Recalling Alec’s presence, he raised his head and frowned.
“Mr. Fletcher is a friend of Daisy’s,” Miss Fotheringay told him. “He came to see her, and we could hardly conceal her absence.”
“But he don’t know…?”
“He’s guessed a good deal,” Pearson said bluntly. He gave Alec an apologetic glance. “Deduced, I should say. Mr. Fletcher happens to be a Scotland Yard detective, don’t y’know.”
Arbuckle looked appalled. “How much has he figured out?” he demanded.
“That someone has been kidnapped,” Alec said. “I must assume, someone close to you.” Which meant the man was wealthy enough to make extortion worthwhile. What the connection with Petrie was, Alec could only conjecture.
“No dice, you won’t get another thing out of me,” Arbuckle said fiercely. “Nor my young friends, I hope.”
“Not a word,” vowed Petrie.
“Daisy’s missing,” Miss Fotheringay reminded them with equal fierceness.
“Oh lord!” Petrie groaned.
The American shook his head despairingly. “I know, I know, and I feel real badly about it, you can bet your sweet life. I’ve taken to that young lady in a big way.”
His patent wretchedness somewhat assuaged Alec’s rebuilding fury.
“I’m going to go on guessing,” he said. “Deducing, if you will. For a start, I believe the victim is your daughter, sir.” A pretty girl was the only possible explanation for Petrie’s predicament, the only possible rival for his loyalty to his dead chum’s sister.
Arbuckle’s dropped jaw confirmed it. “Further, you have been warned not to contact the police if you want her safely returned.”
That was too obvious to surprise Arbuckle, though Petrie was impressed.
“By Jove, Fletcher,” he said, “I don’t know how you fellows do it. Didn’t I tell you, sir,” he went on, turning to the American, “that Scotland Yard knows what’s what?”
“You did, son, and I don’t doubt it, though I’m doggone sure they don’t have much experience at dealing with kidnappers. But anyways, what can they do except join the search? There’s no way to keep a posse secret, and the moment word gets out, it’s all up with Gloria.”
“Sir,” said Alec, “I do appreciate your position, believe me. But are you so sure there’s nothing else I could do if I knew all the facts? I’m trained and experienced in deciphering the way criminals think and in drawing conclusions from inadequate data.”
“Sure, but…”
“In any case, I must insist on being given any information which might conceivably help in finding Daisy—Miss Dalrymple. I take it you all suspect she’s in the hands of the kidnappers?
” He looked around the table, garnering general agreement.
With an effort, he managed to keep his tone calm and reasonable.
“If they are as ruthless as you believe, she’s in danger too.
You can’t imagine I’d do anything to add to the risk? ”
Miss Fotheringay cast a half apologetic, half defiant glance at Arbuckle. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know, Mr. Fletcher. Anything I know, at least. Daisy’s safety comes first, and we haven’t the foggiest what to do.”
Her taciturn boyfriend nodded.
“Oh yes,” cried Mrs. Pearson.
“Sorry, old man,” her husband said gruffly to Petrie, “but she’s right, you know. We’ll try to give away as little as possible.”
Alec shook his head. “I can’t tell what will be useful until I’ve heard everything.
Nor can I know what will need to be done.
” He turned to the American. “I’m prepared to say I shan’t approach the local force unless I consider it absolutely vital, but that’s as far as I’m able—and further than I ought—to go. ”
Sagging in his chair, Arbuckle yielded, his face becoming an old man’s as the tension left it.
“Okay, okay, I guess I know when I’m beat.
Tarnation take it, I owe Miss Dalrymple something for the gutsy way she’s gone to bat for my girl.
If you’ll just not spread the word about being a gumshoe, I’ll tell you everything. Where shall I start?”
“First things first. Let’s see if we can work out where Daisy went today.”