Chapter 13 #2
In pitch darkness she started up, feeling her way, testing each branch before she put her weight on it, childhood skills taking over just like riding a bike. Thunder rumbled sullenly, but the next flash of lightning was pallid, the storm already moving on.
Glancing down, Daisy realized Gloria had not followed.
The thunder ceased. She heard a crashing in the bushes and swearing voices, then a shout of triumph.
“Got ’er!”
“What abaht the uvver one? Keep looking!”
“Blimey, we’ll never find ’er in this, mate.”
The rain was pouring down in earnest now, breaching the leafy canopy in trickles, streams, and torrents. The larch’s needles were no protection. Uncomfortably seated on a narrow branch, clinging to the trunk, Daisy was soaked through in no time. She shivered.
They had Gloria again. All Daisy’s efforts were for nothing—unless she could get back to Fairacres in time to send the men to the rescue before the kidnappers moved their victim elsewhere.
Yet she dared not descend until she was certain they had given up searching. Fortunately, the thunder was distant now. Through the hiss and plop of falling rain, she listened to the sounds of the hunt dying away.
“Bloody ’orrible!”
Daisy would have jumped a mile if she hadn’t been hemmed in by branches.
“Gawd, I can’t wait to get back to the Smoke!”
The voices sounded as if they were just below the tree, but through leaves and branches she saw the glimmer of torches and realized the men were on the path. She watched the lights bob away towards the cottage, having kindly helped her find her bearings.
She waited what seemed like an age, then clambered down, though she could not be sure the others were not lying in wait. Pushing through the bushes, she turned away from the cottage and plodded gingerly into the inky night.
Alec scowled at the map spread out on the desk in the viscount’s den. “Here and here and here, Mrs. Pearson?” He pointed to the three villages Daisy had telephoned from.
“Yes.” The pretty young woman consulted her list. “And she said she had covered these others in between. She didn’t ring from each place.”
“So she could have gone on to any of these three, or beyond if she made good time. Has anyone any reason to favour a particular direction?” He glanced around the circle of intent faces.
“She was heading generally back towards Fairacres,” Pearson pointed out hesitantly. “I shouldn’t imagine she’d turn away again.”
“A good point,” Alec approved. “These two are most likely, then, Astonford and Little Baswell.”
“Astonford’s a tiny hamlet,” Petrie put in. “Doesn’t even have a pub, let alone a shop.”
“The shop in Little Baswell will have closed long since,” said Miss Fotheringay, “but the pub will be open for another half hour.”
“Heck, what does it matter?” Arbuckle asked. “We might figure out which village she went to but she could be anywheres now. We can’t comb the countryside.”
“And if we could,” Bincombe gloomed, punctuated by a rumble of thunder, “if we had a hundred men, we might pass within a yard or two of her without seeing or hearing her in this weather.”
Unfortunately he was right. Alec bowed his head in defeat, then squared his shoulders and said reluctantly, “Yes, we’ll have to wait till daylight. Maybe by then I’ll have come up with a brilliant plan to find her.”
“Maybe she’ll be back,” Mrs. Pearson consoled him wearily.
“You’re not waiting up to see, my pet,” her husband informed her. “Beddy-byes time.”
“You’ll all want to be rested for tomorrow,” Alec said. “You’d better all go to bed, except you, Petrie, if you please. I want to hear everything you can tell me about the kidnapping. And from you, too, Mr. Arbuckle, if you don’t mind staying a while, sir.”
“No sirree. But Lord and Lady Dalrymple may be a mite surprised to find us here when they get home.”
“Great Scott, I’d forgotten all about them! We could go down to the Wedge and Beetle, but I haven’t booked for tonight and I don’t know whether they can accommodate me.”
“You’d better stay the night here, Mr. Fletcher. I expect we can square it with Daisy’s cousins.” Miss Fotheringay eyed him sardonically. “We’ll just tell them she forgot she had invited you. They don’t know that’s inconceivable.”
Acknowledging her mockery with a half-smile, Alec agreed, “It would be much more convenient to stay. I shan’t go to bed anyway, in case Daisy turns up.”
“You need your beauty sleep too,” she told him. “We’ll take it in turns sitting up, won’t we?” she appealed to the others.
“Not Madge,” Pearson said firmly, “but I’ll take my turn. I’ll make out a schedule.” He sat down at the desk and searched the drawers for paper and pencil.
Alec did not argue. His eyelids felt heavy and gritty after the drive from London following a long day at the Yard, clearing up paperwork so that he could take an extra day off.
“Someone wake me when it’s my turn,” Miss Fotheringay drawled, “or if the missing sheep returns to the fold. I’m for bed. Come on, Madge, darling. If we’re gone when the cousins get back they’ll assume Daisy’s gone up, too, which will spare all sorts of complications—for tonight at least.”
“Good thinking, Miss Fotheringay.”
“I can when I try. I’ll tell Lowecroft to have a bed made up for you. Good-night all.”
The ladies departed just in time. Pearson had barely finished writing out his schedule when from the front hall came the sound of voices and a door shutting.
Petrie turned to Alec. “I’d better introduce you right away, Fletcher.”
“I’ll lie low,” Arbuckle said promptly.
Alec followed Petrie out. As they emerged from the passage into the hall, the gentleman handing his dripping umbrella to the footman said irately, “Dash it, Geraldine, I know a copper when I see one!”
Taken aback, Alec hesitated. Lord Dalrymple could not have caught more than a glimpse of him, was now not even looking their way. Besides, Alec was seldom if ever recognized as a policeman. Not that he himself objected to his profession being known, but he had promised Arbuckle to keep it quiet.
“The small copper is common,” his lordship continued didactically, to Alec’s further bewilderment; though not particularly tall, he was above regulation height.
Lord Dalrymple, bending to give an absent pat to the spaniel who lolloped to greet him, went on to assert, “What I saw was a Queen of Spain, a rare visitor. The man was talking through his hat. I should hope I can tell Issoria lathonia from Lycaena phlaeas!”
“Yes, dear,” soothed Lady Dalrymple, “but the man is a noted authority. That was why he was invited to meet you.”
“Authority!” her husband snorted. “Ass!”
Petrie turned his head. “Butterflies,” he murmured, then moved on. “Lady Dalrymple, will you allow me to present Mr. Fletcher? I’m afraid Daisy forgot to mention to you that she had invited him. He wasn’t able to make it until today.”
“How do you do, Mr. Fletcher,” her ladyship said severely, and at once turned back to Petrie. “Where is Daisy? She missed tea and had not come in when we left.”
“The ladies have gone up to bed,” Petrie told her misleadingly. “They had a tiring day.”
“Indeed! This treasure-hunting nonsense of Daisy’s has gone on long enough. I shall tell her so in the morning.”
Meanwhile, Lord Dalrymple introduced himself to Alec, and continued eagerly, “Are you acquainted with the Lepidoptera, by any chance?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I can tell a Peacock from a Cabbage White, but that’s about it.”
“Large White, my dear sir, Large White. You refer to Pieris brassicae, I take it. A pest, to be sure, but not unattractive in its way.”
“Are you coming, Edgar?” said his wife. “It is late and you will insist on going out at dawn.”
“I was going to offer Mr. Fletcher a night-cap, dear.”
“I’m sure you can rely upon Mr. Petrie to do the honours.”
“Please do, my boy. You’ll excuse me, Mr. Fletcher. It’s true I like to rise early and go out before the heat of the day. Goodnight.”
Forbearing to point out that tomorrow was unlikely to be hot, Alec bade him good-night.
At the bottom of the stairs, the viscount turned and said earnestly, “It was a Queen of Spain, I’d take my oath on it. A fritillary, you know.”
Alec rather liked him, but he could see why Daisy didn’t choose to make her home with her cousins.
He and Petrie rejoined Arbuckle, Pearson, and Bincombe in the den. The footman came in a moment later with decanters of brandy and whisky.
“I knows Miss Daisy’s not come in yet,” he said in a hushed, enigmatic voice, with a significant look. “Mr. Lowecroft’s gone to bed. I’m the only one on duty. If there’s aught I can do to help, just ring, and you knows, Mr. Petrie, sir, I can keep mum.”
“Good fellow,” said Petrie, turning to Arbuckle. “Whisky, sir?”
“I could bear to take a drop.”
More appreciative than Petrie of Ernest’s offer, Alec soberly told the youth, “It doesn’t look as if there’s anything to be done now. Tomorrow’s another matter. If Miss Daisy isn’t home yet, we may need every man we can get.”