Chapter 16 #2
Alec watched him go, sighed, and turned back to his almost untouched breakfast. Cutting into a sausage, he said, part sour, part admiring, “Obstinate old so-and-so. I do feel for him, poor chap, but…!”
“What are you going to do?” Daisy asked. “Phillip and I are eyewitnesses to the kidnapping, so his denial won’t carry much weight.”
“None, even if Petrie won’t cooperate. But I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.” He glanced at Lucy.
“I shan’t tell tales out of school, Mr. Fletcher,” she said dryly.
“Thank you.” He gave her a wry smile. “You see, I have to agree with Arbuckle on several points. For a start, he’s correct in saying the British police are not well versed in handling kidnappings.
We have very few, whereas I gather there’s quite an epidemic in America.
In the second place, a search is not likely to succeed when the area to be covered is so enormous. ”
Daisy feelingly agreed. “It was pretty hopeless when we could be fairly sure she was nearby. I only found her by sheer luck.”
“Exactly. And the associated problem is that she may very well not be in Worcestershire any longer. The Met doesn’t have the manpower or the local knowledge to mount a detailed search, and I haven’t the authority to call out the forces of half a dozen counties!”
“Who does?” Lucy asked. “Your superiors?”
“Only the Home Secretary,” Alec told her bluntly.
“Even the Commissioner would have to try persuasion, and before that I’d have to talk the Assistant Commissioner, the head of the C.I.D.
, into.… Well, suffice it to say it’s a long chain of persuasion, and all in the face of Arbuckle’s denials.
By the time anything was done, the chances are the ransom would be paid and the whole thing over. ”
Lucy nodded. “More than likely. Too, too maddening!”
“There’s another thing.” Alec hesitated.
“I hope I’m not letting it influence my decision.
The fact is, whenever I report the kidnapping, I’m going to face some awkward questions about why I didn’t report it sooner.
Especially after last night. The only thing which can save my bacon is a successful outcome. ”
“You only found out about it late last night!” cried Daisy, outraged on his behalf. “I don’t see what else you could do when I came in and told you where Gloria was but go and see if she was still there! Any delay would have been madness.”
“So your delinquency only begins this morning, Mr. Fletcher,” Lucy observed. “Which means the prospect of awkward questions actually weighs on the other side, that is, for reporting in now.”
“Confound it, Lucy!” Phillip burst into the room, his usual diffidence towards her in abeyance. “You’re not trying to persuade him to spill the beans!”
“Take a damper, Petrie,” Alec advised him. “I’d already decided it was more or less pointless to contact my colleagues at this stage, and I wouldn’t save my skin at the expense of Miss Arbuckle’s, believe me. Not that I’m ungrateful for your caveat, Miss Fotheringay.”
“Lucy,” she murmured.
Alec smiled at her. Daisy could have kissed her. If Lucy unbent so far as to invite him to call her by her Christian name, it was a good omen for the Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s eventual acceptance.
“Sorry,” said Phillip, abashed. His face was drawn, dark circles beneath his eyes. The hopes raised last night, only to be dashed, must have been harder to bear than his previous state of despondency.
He needed something to do, Daisy decided. “So it’s all up to us now,” she said. “Tommy and Madge have gone to follow Crawford…”
“Tommy! Dash it all, why not me? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“We’ll all have to take a turn, or he’ll get suspicious of the same car always being behind him, don’t you think, Alec?”
“Certainly,” Alec said promptly, continuing with his breakfast and leaving present matters to Daisy.
She knew, however, that he would not hesitate to jump in if he disagreed with her proposals. A husband who always knuckled under would be as bad as one who never let her use her own brains, she thought. “So you can relieve the Pearsons, Phil,” she said.
“I haven’t got a car,” Phillip pointed out disconsolately.
“Binkie will lend you the Alvis,” Lucy promised. “Won’t you, darling?” she added as Binkie came in.
“Right-ho. What?”
“Is that an interjection or a question, darling?”
“What will I do?” Binkie asked with a belated touch of trepidation.
“Lend Phil the Alvis.”
“Oh, right-ho! Why?”
“Because the kidnappers pinched the Swift,” Daisy reminded him, glaring the nascent grin off Alec’s face. “Tommy and Madge have followed Crawford to Cowley. When they telephone, Phillip will take over the pursuit.”
“Oh, right-ho. Er, who’s Crawford?”
Binkie had somehow been missed out of the general enlightenment. While Phillip, unmoved by doubt, explained that Crawford was the confounded ugly customer who had grabbed his girl, Daisy turned to Lucy.
“I don’t think Phillip should go alone,” she said in an undertone. “The poor chump’s bound to do something silly. Binkie had better go with him.”
“Binkie will never stop him. Besides, a mixed couple will look less suspicious than two men, don’t you think? I’ll go, unless you want to?”
“No!” Alec swallowed a mouthful. “Daisy’s still rocky from last night. I’d take it as a favour if you’d go, Miss … Lucy.”
“I’m perfectly all right,” Daisy insisted. Battling the infuriating blush she felt rising in her cheeks, she went on, “But actually, if you don’t mind going, Lucy, I’d rather like to take Alec to meet Mother later on. Unless there’s something else you need to do, Alec?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t think of a thing.” It was his turn to flush. “Unfortunately for Miss Arbuckle’s sake,” he said hastily. “I’m looking forward to meeting Lady Dalrymple.”
Lucy laughed. “Daisy’s mother doesn’t actually bite,” she commiserated.
“No, but Geraldine jolly nearly does,” Daisy said guiltily. “I’m afraid I had to tell her and Edgar that you’re a detective—and that we’re all here at your request to provide cover for your investigation.”
“Great Scott!” Alec groaned. “You could at least have confessed that it’s I who am embroiled in your affairs, not the reverse! Lord and Lady Dalrymple must think the police…”
“What’s that?” Phillip demanded. “The Dalrymples know you’re police?”
“I told them, Phil.”
“Hang it all, Daisy, the more people know, the more risk for Gloria!”
“I had to say something. Geraldine was on the verge of throwing us out after what she described as our ‘frolics’ in the early hours of the morning.”
“They’d know who Alec is sooner or later,” Lucy said, “and they’d have been fearfully offended to have been kept in the dark earlier.”
“Why the deuce should they ever know?”
“Because Edgar’s Daisy’s cousin,” Lucy explained patiently, with a sly look at Daisy, “and when Alec joins the family they can hardly keep his profession secret.”
“Joins…? Oh! It’s come to that has it?” Phillip looked faintly disapproving. Daisy scowled at him.
“Should have guessed, old man,” said Binkie. “Invited Fletcher down to meet her mater and all that, what? Have to tell one’s people first.”
“Actually,” Daisy fumed, suddenly unexpectedly near tears, “nothing’s settled. Alec hasn’t even proposed and after the m-mess we’ve landed him in, perhaps he never will.”
Alec reached for her hand. “This isn’t quite how I’d envisaged it,” he said wryly, “but I can’t leave you in suspense, my love. This isn’t the first mess you’ve landed me in, and somehow I doubt that it will be the last. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Alec!” The tears flowed then. He enfolded her in his arms.
The others tactfully disappeared. As the door closed behind them, Daisy was distantly aware of Binkie’s plaintive voice: “But Lucy, I haven’t had my breakfast!”
Madge telephoned. She and Tommy had followed Crawford all the way from the Abbey Hotel to the Morris factory. Tommy was sitting in a perfectly ghastly café opposite the works, drinking simply poisonous coffee and keeping an eye on the maroon two-seater, while she reported in. What next?
“I advised her to try the tea,” Alec told Daisy and Lucy, “to follow if he leaves, and otherwise to hang on until relieved. Bincombe and Petrie should be back soon.”
Phillip and Binkie came in a few minutes later.
“We tried three garages,” Phillip announced. “The nearest to the kidnap spot’s a mile and a half away, and the others four or five miles. They all swore they’d never been asked by an American to go searching the lanes for a Studebaker.”
“Not the sort of thing they’d forget, eh, what?” said Binkie.
“I hardly think so,” Alec agreed. “I can’t see how even Arbuckle will be able to doubt now that Crawford’s our man.”