Chapter 15
On Daisy’s arrival, now that there was something to be done, all desire to sleep had left Alec.
Nonetheless, having picked up the Dalrymples’ chauffeur at the lodge, he let the man take the wheel of the Austin.
Truscott knew the way to Cooper’s Wood—and the rain was still coming down by the bucketful.
Peering through the opened windscreen, the chauffeur followed the red tail-lights of the Lagonda down the lane. Petrie, also familiar with the route, was at the wheel of the car in front. Its owner, Pearson, sat beside Alec in the back of the Austin.
“The others may think I should be in on the planning,” he said self-deprecatingly, “but I’m quite prepared to leave it to you, sir, don’t y’know.
This show’s a bit different from storming a French village held by the Boches.
We couldn’t very well go in with machine-guns blazing in the middle of Worcestershire, even if the girl weren’t there. ”
Alec blenched. “Ye gods, no! I trust none of you has a service revolver hidden in his pocket?”
“No. Bincombe said something about shotguns but I soon set him straight.”
“You have my eternal gratitude, Mr. Pearson. My superiors are not going to be happy about this caper at best. If someone got shot, I’d be in the soup over my head and swimming for my life with no land in sight.”
“You’d be back on the beat and I’d be struck off the roll,” said the solicitor wryly. “No firearms. Right-oh, what’s the scheme?”
“Dammit, I wish I’d asked Daisy more about her hole in the roof.”
“Her what?”
“She and Miss Arbuckle escaped through a hole in the roof, I gather. Knowing Daisy, she probably made the hole.”
“But how did they get down from the roof?” Pearson queried, sounding stunned.
“I don’t know,” Alec said regretfully. “If there’s a ladder, we might use it to climb up and abstract Miss Arbuckle before we tackle her captors.” He raised his voice to be heard above the tattoo of raindrops dancing on the hood. “Do you know the cottage, Truscott?”
“No, sir, that I don’t.” The chauffeur shook his head, silhouetted against the headlamps’ light reflected off water sheeting from the sky.
“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what’s this about Miss Daisy escaping?
From what Mr. Phillip said, I thought we was going to rescue her.
I’d do a lot for Miss Daisy, but if she’s safe I’ve the missus and the nippers to think on. ”
Letting Pearson explain the situation, Alec tried to devise a plan. Again and again he wished he had asked Daisy more questions. He had been so thankful to see her safe and sound, however filthy, that he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
“So it’s Mr. Phillip’s young lady’s to be rescued?” said Truscott. He gave a philosophical sigh. “Ah well, I’ll do my bit. The missus wouldn’t hear of aught else. What was you wishing me to do, sir?”
“We’ll all follow Mr. Petrie through the wood to the cottage, with only his torch lit if at all possible.
If he directs it at the ground, it shouldn’t be visible very far off.
Then we’ll surround the cottage. I’m assuming it’s pretty small, so we shan’t be too far apart.
If anyone finds a ladder, we’ll try to get the girl out first.”
“I take it, sir,” said Pearson, “your aim is to bag the kidnappers as well as rescue Miss Arbuckle?”
“Ideally,” Alec agreed, unsure whether the “sir” was addressed to him as a superior officer for the nonce or because of his age.
It made him feel ancient, though Pearson could not be more than five or six years younger.
“We’ll do our best to take them in,” he continued, “but the girl’s safety must be paramount.
Otherwise I’d wait and try to catch the ringleader, as well as his minions. ”
“Of course.”
“It means we absolutely must take them by surprise, so that they don’t get a chance to use Miss Arbuckle as a shield. They’ll have a man on look-out, especially after Daisy’s escape. No lights as we get near the cottage. We’ll have to work by touch.”
“This rain will cover a certain amount of noise.”
“Yes, we’re lucky there.”
“Are you going to invoke the name of the law, sir?”
“I hadn’t thought. Given that I’m here strictly in an unofficial capacity, what would you advise?”
“Hmm. In view of the threats against Miss Arbuckle, and the possibility, however remote, that they might get away with her, I’d say not.”
“You’re a copper, sir?” Truscott asked. “A policeman, I mean?”
“Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher,” Pearson introduced him, “of Scotland Yard. But keep it under your hat. What next, Mr. Fletcher? Say we have the place surrounded but haven’t got the girl out. Shall we try to break in or try to draw them out with some sort of sound?”
“The downstairs doors and windows may be barred or reinforced. If we haven’t got the girl, we’ll try to draw them out. What shall we do? We can hardly just knock on the door.”
“Daisy could, pretending she was lost and cold and preferred shelter at any cost.”
Alec shuddered. “Thank heaven you didn’t come up with that little notion back at the house! She’d have done it.”
“One of us could fake it. I’ve done some amateur theatricals in my time.”
“Let’s hear you.”
“Let me in,” Pearson begged in a high voice. “I’m freezing!”
“Lor, sir, that’s Miss Daisy to the life!”
To the discriminating ear of a lover it didn’t sound in the least like Daisy, but Alec supposed it would do for a bunch of Cockney criminals. “Throw in a bit of a stutter,” he suggested. “Teeth chattering.”
“P-please let me in. I’m f-f-freezing.”
“Not bad. You can perform if we decide to go that way. Any other ideas?”
They discussed other possibilities but came back in the end to the pseudo-Daisy. The men must be eager to recapture her so her voice would bring at least one to the door.
“I’ll give you a choice of back-up,” said Alec. “Petrie, who’s the keenest, or Bincombe, who’s the best with his fists, I’d guess.”
“Petrie. Deprive him of the chance to get to his girl and he might go off half-cocked and take it anyway.”
“All right. For the rest of us, I’ll have to talk to him first about whether there’s a back door, and the positions of windows. We shan’t be able to see so I hope he remembers.”
“Looks like the rain’s lightening up a bit, sir,” Truscott reported. “Nearly there.”
Before Alec had time to consider the effect on their plan of the end of the downpour, the Austin pulled in behind the Lagonda.
Truscott doused the lights. Alec had caught a glimpse of tree-trunks, unobscured by curtains of water.
The rain had decreased to the point of no longer penetrating the foliage above.
He stepped out of the car. A chilly douche promptly hit his hatless head and trickled down his neck. He swore silently.
An electric torch snapped on. By its light, the six men gathered in a huddle, and Alec questioned Petrie about the cottage and its immediate environs.
“There’s a back door. We once watched the witch coming out of it to feed her chickens.
No windows in the end walls downstairs, only upstairs, I’m pretty sure.
Well, almost sure. I haven’t been near the place since I was a boy, remember.
The other windows are small enough to make it dashed difficult for a man to climb through. I think.”
On that shaky basis, Alec ordered the disposition of his troops.
“All right, Petrie, how do we get there?”
“The beginning of the ride is back here. It’s so overgrown I nearly missed it.”
They followed him back along the lane a dozen yards. In the torch’s narrow beam, the mass of bushes and small trees seemed to Alec unbroken, impenetrable, but Petrie soon found a path.
He extinguished the torch. “It’s light enough to find the way without,” he said, and plunged between two thickets.
Alec realized the clouds had parted and the first faint light of midsummer’s early dawn was painting the world in tones of grey and charcoal. A crow’s sleepy caw came from the tall trees edging the ride, and nearby a small bird twittered.
“Wait! That’s torn it. I was relying on darkness for surprise,” he explained as Petrie returned, “as well as heavy rain to cover any sounds.” He held out his hands palms up. The only falling water was dripping from the surrounding leaves.
“We’ll just have to storm the place,” Petrie said impatiently, already turning back to the path.
“That’s the most risky for Miss Arbuckle. You go ahead, but don’t rush in. Pearson and I will study the lay-out and see if we can’t come up with a better scheme. All right, fellows, let’s go.”
Close behind Petrie, Alec stayed ready to grab him if he seemed about to run amok.
He found himself dodging scarce seen branches which whipped back into his face, jerking his trouser turn-ups from the determined grasp of brambles, squidging through ankle-deep mud.
His admiration for Daisy, who had traversed this jungle in pitch darkness in a thunderstorm—and in a skirt—grew by leaps and bounds.
Petrie stopped so suddenly Alec nearly ran into his back. “I think the cottage is under that sycamore,” he whispered, pointing at a tree towering over the brush choking the ride. “Yes, there’s the chimney, see?”
“Good man.” Alec turned his head. “Pearson, come and have a look.”
They squeezed past Petrie and picked their way forward. The only sound they made was the squelch of the mud beneath their feet, hidden by a rising ground mist, but all around the birds were singing now. Greys paled and hazy colours emerged. The air smelled richly of green, growing things.
The path curved around a gorse bush speckled with yellow blossoms. Alec stopped dead as one end of a thatched roof came in sight.
Motioning Pearson to keep still, he inched ahead. A blotchy wall, a broken window.…
He halted, heart in mouth, but nothing stirred.
Another step.
The door stood open, a black hole like a missing tooth in a decaying face. “Too late,” said Alec with a sigh. “They’ve cut and run.”