Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The Marsdens had not heard from the kidnapper, nor had Tidwell, who was back in Wiltshire answering the telephone.
Rogers, on the other hand, had news. “A note arrived for Your Grace an hour ago. Hand delivered to the door. There was a knock. When I went to answer, no one was there, but there was an envelope on the mat.”
“Did you bring it inside?”
Rogers said he had done.
“Don’t touch it again,” Crispin told him. “We’re on our way.”
He hung up before Rogers could speak, and turned to the rest of us. “It might just be an invitation to someone’s birthday party, but we should take a look before we do anything else.”
Tom agreed with this, and so did everyone else, so we piled back into the Hispano-Suiza and drove the short distance from Knightsbridge back to Mayfair, where we all crowded into Sutherland House through the front door.
The note was on the console table in the foyer, and we gathered around while Tom sliced open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of notepaper from within.
So far, everything looked as it had previously, with the exception of there being no name on the outside of the envelope.
I suppose the letter-writer didn’t think it was necessary, seeing as the servants weren’t likely to be receiving mail in this fashion.
The envelope and paper were the same, however: a good, but not exceptional, stock of cream stationery.
Perhaps not something Smythson would be likely to carry, but you could probably find it in a lot of different places.
The similarities stopped when the single piece of notepaper was unfolded.
Or rather, the ink was the same. The handwriting was not. It was flowing and elegant, with loops and curls and both upper and lower case letters instead of the usual spiky capitals.
Bring the money to Dover Street station tonight. Put the bag inside the door of the last compartment on the last eastbound train and walk away. Your fiancée will be returned to you when the money is received.
As usual, there was no signature. Not at all as usual, I recognized the style.
“German Kurrentschrift.” My voice was flat.
Crispin flicked a look at me. “Wolfie?”
“It looks very much like it. I can’t be certain without something to compare it to.”
While it looked like what I remembered, I didn’t want to accuse anyone of kidnapping and blackmail without proof positive.
Although I don’t know why I bothered to be fair when Wolfgang had already committed murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping several months ago.
Accusing him of doing it again would hardly make a difference.
“Let me guess,” Crispin said. “You burned all his notes in a fit of pique after the ordeal?”
I eyed him balefully. “And what if I did? While you apparently keep Laetitia’s letters in the drawer of your night table, we’re not all equally sentimental.”
The brow arched. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that.”
“Mrs. Mason told me,” I said. “And for the record, no. I didn’t burn Wolfgang’s correspondence, in a fit of pique or otherwise.
I didn’t keep it in the first place. Although it’s quite likely that there’s something at the flat.
We would have to look. I don’t carry his letters with me, believe it or not. ”
“I’ll take the note and Kit, and we’ll see what we can find,” Tom said, gathering up the note and envelope in one gloved hand.
“Meanwhile, you two go to Thornton Heath. I’ll pass the note to Finch, just in case we get lucky with a fingerprint.
When you return, we’ll reconvene and discuss what happens this evening. ”
Crispin nodded. “Let me drop you off at the Essex House on our way.”
“Don’t mind if you do,” Tom told him, and headed for the door with Christopher trailing behind.
Crispin turned to me. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I told him, and followed him back out to the Hispano-Suiza.
Thornton Heath is a little hamlet south of London. The name sounds romantic in a Wuthering Heights sort of way, which is perhaps appropriate, since there’s very little about Wuthering Heights that’s romantic.
There’s nothing romantic about Thornton Heath, either.
It’s a depressing little place, and the cottage the Schlomskys had leased for their daughter and her maid, thinking they were providing the two young women with a lovely country getaway, instead turned into Flossie’s prison.
I can’t imagine that that improved the atmosphere of the place any.
And that was before Christopher ended up languishing there for a few days, which couldn’t have helped, either.
The house gives me the collywobbles, and not in a good way.
It took us the best part of an hour to get there, and we spoke little on the way.
There wasn’t much to say about the new note, or at least nothing that couldn’t be said later.
I’m sure Crispin was dreading what we might find at Thornton Heath, as I was myself.
The last time we’d been there—first time for Crispin—we had been looking for Christopher, and we had found a dead body instead.
The first time I had been there, we—the elder Schlomskys, Wolfgang and I—had stumbled upon Flossie’s kidnappers in the process of clearing out, and a battle had ensued.
Wolfgang had, more or less, saved my life, and it was after that, and after Crispin had had some very unkind things to say about Germans in general and Wolfgang in specific, that I had told him to propose to Laetitia because she deserved him, and vice versa.
In fairness to myself, I didn’t know at the time that he was in love with me and would see it as a rejection. In justice to him, however, he had been exceedingly rude, and while I understood better now why he despised Wolfgang, there was no excuse for forgetting that I, too, was half German.
But all of that was water under the bridge.
Here we were, headed back to Thornton Heath.
I’m not certain that either of us really believed there was a chance we’d find Laetitia in the dank and depressing little house—Wolfgang would have to be stupid to use it again, and he wasn’t.
But at the same time, I think we both felt that we needed to check, partly because we couldn’t not do it, but also partly because it was something to do, and a way to while away the hours until the last tube train from Hammersmith to Finsbury Park tonight.
The drive took place mostly in silence. Crispin remembered how to get there from last time we visited, so I didn’t have to worry about giving him directions I didn’t have. It took almost an hour before he pulled the H6 to a stop in the drive beside the house.
We both peered out at it in silence for a moment.
It looked as unoccupied as it had done the last time we were here—not that that necessarily meant anything.
The lawn was brown, as was to be expected at this time of year, and the trees and bushes bare.
The windows—two up, two down, on either side of a black front door—looked like empty eyes.
I shuddered, and pretended the place didn’t give me a crawly feeling down my spine.
Crispin slanted me a look from behind the wheel. “All right there?”
“As all right as I’ll ever be. It’s a horrible place. Bad things happened here.”
He nodded and reached for his door handle. “Might as well get it over with.”
Might as well. I pushed my door open and followed him down the drive to the rear of the house.
The garage door gaped open, and we could see that the small building was empty. The boards that had been nailed over the rear bedroom window—the room where the kidnappers had kept Flossie, and where Wolfgang had kept Christopher—were still intact. Crispin eyed them with his lips pressed together.
“I’m sure she’s not here,” I told him, and he shot me a look.
“Most likely not. I was thinking of walking into that room expecting to find Kit.”
That had been harrowing, especially on the heels of having to chase the German freighter down to get me off it—or in my case, after waking up onboard a freighter in open water bound for God knew where.
And we had been able to smell the dead body before we came upon it, and of course we had been worried that it was Christopher who was dead.
But that was the past. I squared my shoulders. “Let’s do it. The sooner we do, the sooner we’ll be done.”
Crispin nodded and headed for the kitchen door.
It was unlocked, which made things easier.
I suppose the house was abandoned, or something like it.
The Schlomskys hadn’t renewed their lease, of course—unless the original lease had been for more than a year, and then they might still have possession—but the owners of the house hadn’t returned to it, either.
It had a dusty, un-lived-in feeling to it as soon as we stepped across the threshold into the kitchen.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here since the last time we visited,” I said softly. Crispin shook his head.
We crossed into the dining room, and from there the sitting room and the stairs to the upper level. Everywhere was empty but for dust and debris. The stairs creaked as we made our way up.
On the landing all three doors stood open: to the front bedroom, the back bedroom, and the water closet.
All three were empty. The cot where Wolfgang had kept Christopher—and where Ruth and Sid had kept Flossie—was still sitting by the wall, but was denuded of its bedding.
The floorboards inside the door, where the dead body had lain, still showed faint signs of bodily fluids.
I wrinkled my nose. “Nasty.”
Crispin nodded. “Nothing to see here. Certainly no sign of Laetitia.”
No. “Time to go,” I said, and turned on my heel to clatter back down the stairs.