The Toff and the Kidnapped Child (14 page)

Then he waited.

 

 

No light came on, and there was no sound, until a car came swishing past and Rollison was shown up in the headlights for a moment; after that the darkness seemed greater than before. He put a hand to the door and pushed; it did not yield. He found the handle, twisted and pushed; still the door did not open. He moved to one side, taking out the thin pencil torch he had used when he had come to Hapley last night. Little more than twenty-four hours ago the girl had been sitting happily in her study, with no idea of what was going to happen to her.

How great
was
his own risk?

Would the Leonis believe him about the letter to the bank? They were bound to know most of the tricks he was likely to use, and that one wasn't exactly novel. Its strength was that Leoni could not be sure either way.

His chief hope was that they would believe that they could get what they wanted and be safely away from here before nine o'clock in the morning, and be out of danger, but that if he died the police would be after them.

He put the thought of death behind him.

He saw the grass, the flower beds, still strangely colourless, and then a crazy-paving path which led to the back of the cottage. He walked round. There was a yellow light at a small window, and he went close and peered inside, but all he could see was an oil lamp shining on a polished table. He went on, and found the back door inside a little porch. He disturbed a bird or a bat, and it rustled, startling him. He stepped inside the porch, and there seemed to be no light at all when he switched off his torch. He tried the handle, turned and pushed – and the door opened.

Nothing else happened.

He shone the torch about a kitchen which had flagstones on the floor, a huge dresser which seemed to take up the whole of one wall, and a small table. He banged against the table, and it scraped on the stone. He looked for an electric light switch, found one, pressed it down, and blinked in the bright light.

A door leading to the front part of the cottage was open. He stepped through it. Two doors led off a passage, one of them was ajar, and a pale yellow light shone through; this was the room with the oil lamp, a kind of night light. He pushed this door open further, finding it very heavy, and it swung back against his hand; so he held it open with his foot and looked round the door – to see a girl lying on a narrow bed.

 

Caroline seemed to be asleep, like her mother – and her father, now.

His heart began to thump.

There was just the slight sound of Caroline's breathing, and of his; and, suddenly, the hum of a car engine. Would this be one of the Leonis? The car went by. He put on the electric light in this room, and the child stirred. She was remarkably like her mother, and yet there was also a likeness to her father, especially about the eyes. Her eyelids fluttered; obviously she was near the surface of sleep, and it seemed to be a natural sleep.

Then Rollison saw the note on the bed, pinned close to the pillow, where he could not fail to see it. There was his name, pencilled –
the Toff.
There was a crude little pencilled drawing of the man without a face, too, as if whoever had sketched this had wanted to make a fool of him. That was what he had to remember: the Leonis would plan to make a fool of him. No matter how genuine this set-up seemed, it was not; there was some snag which he could not yet understand, some mystery which was unexplained.

It was too easy.

He picked up the note, and remembered the cards which he had picked up last night. He tore open the envelope, not worrying about fingerprints this time, and saw another card fall out. He picked it up. The child stirred again, but he did not glance at her. He turned the card over, and read:

 

“Leave the stones inside the bed when you've taken her.”

 

He put the card back into the envelope, and tucked that into his inside coat pocket. The gun against his side seemed very heavy, but he had no immediate sense of danger, only of bewilderment. The Leonis would not make a fair exchange; there was no possibility of that. Still less would they accept diamonds without being sure of their genuineness. It was uncanny.

He pushed the bedclothes back.

Caroline stirred but did not wake. She was dressed in a pale pink nightdress and a quilted dressing-gown. The hems were rucked up about her knees, and
her
legs and feet looked very slim and pale. He hoisted her up, and she was a dead weight in his arms. He knew then that he dare not take any avoidable risk with her, and he placed the genuine diamonds in the bed, pulled up a blanket awkwardly, and wrapped it round her, and then turned towards the door.

It was still unbelievable, but no one moved, and there was no sound.

He went to the front door. The key was in the lock, but it was not bolted. He opened it. A car in the distance showed him up vaguely, and light shone on the face of the girl, who had snuggled down, as if glad of his chest to rest against. The light became brighter, and Rollison turned so that the driver of the car could not see what he was carrying. For a moment he thought that it was going to slow down; that it might be Leoni in the M.G.

It passed.

Rollison carried the girl to the Rolls-Bentley, opened the back door clumsily, and gradually pushed Caroline in. There was almost room for her to lie at full length, with her head against one corner. The courtesy light in the roof showed regular features, the wide-set eyes, the curling lashes, and the wavy auburn hair. He closed the door, and took the wheel. The obvious thing was to take her back to the school; she would be properly looked after there, and if she went straight back into school life and school atmosphere, the kidnapping might have much less effect on her. He started off. There was ample room to turn the car towards Hapley. He could still not believe that this had really happened, and that he had Caroline.

“It's too easy,”
he told himself aloud. And then the thought flashed into his mind:
‘They wouldn't let me have her unless they believed they could get her back whenever they wanted.'

That was it; they dared not let her go alive, but they had; so this was a kind of confidence trick.

He did not drive fast, his mind was crammed with jostling thoughts, and the urgent need to see through this trick. It was just conceivable that the Leonis had decided that the best thing was to give her up; they might have feared that the risk would be too great if they went on, but that theory didn't square with anything he knew about them. Ralph Kane might be wrong in his judgements, because he was emotionally involved, but Grice wasn't. Grice wouldn't talk about anyone as he talked about the Leonis unless he knew the truth. And Leah wasn't emotionally involved; she was just frightened.

Why should they let him get away with this?

Why was Max so sure of himself? How could they get possession of Caroline again?

The car wasn't being followed, and the street lights of Hapley showed up, a garish yellow ochre. The spire of a church showed clearly. He saw a sign pointing to the railway station, and that reminded him how small the town was. In a few minutes he could swing off the road and into the school grounds, into the sanctuary of the school where Miss Ellerby reigned, and Miss Abbott did what she was told, where Mrs Higgs bustled and disapproved, and where Higgs stayed in the background. Here, where it had begun, it could finish. And—

“My God!” he breathed.

He actually took his foot off the accelerator, because the thought that flashed into his mind startled him so much. He slowed down, and pulled into the side of the road. He was only a few hundred yards from the road off which the school grounds led, and he saw the dim lamplight shining on it; here was the scene of the accident to Jeff – who might still be alive.

Could the Leonis get Caroline back from here?

Then he remembered seeing a wide-eyed girl who had missed Caroline, dressed in a quilted dressing-gown like Caroline's – the kind that Caroline was wearing. But Caroline had been fully dressed, so the nightgown had been taken from here to the cottage.

He did not think he needed to know much more.

He saw a small car parked in the dark driveway of a house near the school; an M.G. sports model. He saw the head and shoulders of the driver outlined against a glow of light from the house beyond. He had no doubt that it was Max Leoni; and he had few doubts about anything else. He swung the car out, then turned it between the open gates of the school. There were the same yellow lights as there had been last night, but no one was about. He swung round, in front of Miss Ellerby's house. He sat for a moment, watching the side of the house, and he saw a shadowy figure appear from some shrubs – from the garden where the M.G. had been parked.

Max.

Rollison opened the door of the big car, and as he did so another shadowy figure appeared from the other side, and he recognised Higgs.

“Who do you want?” Higgs demanded in his subdued voice, and then he saw Rollison drawing the girl out of the car, and cried wildly: “You've found her!”

“Ring Miss Ellerby's bell,” Rollison said.

“She—she ought to go straight to Miss Abbott's house, she—” Higgs was stuttering with excitement.

“We'll take her to Miss Ellerby's first,” Rollison said. He carried Caroline, who stirred in his arms and then snuggled down more comfortably as the front door opened. Light streamed out as he stepped on to the porch.

“He's found Carrie Kane!” cried Higgs.

Miss Ellerby, standing there like a busty Amazon, exclaimed: “No!” and came rushing forward, threatening almost to knock Rollison to one side. “Oh, dear God, you've found her! Thank God, thank God!” She stared into the girl's face, and something in her voice did what Rollison had failed to do: it woke Caroline, and the light shone on to her bright eyes. “Give her to me!” cried Miss Ellerby, almost sobbing. “Higgs! Go and tell Miss Abbott, then make sure that Caroline's bed is ready in the sick bay, and bring the carrying chair.
Hurry!
”

“Yes, ma'm!”

“I'll manage her,” Rollison said, and carried Caroline into the big, high, barely furnished room where he had been the previous night; with only Miss Ellerby in it, it seemed more empty than ever. There was the large settee, and he laid the girl on it, while Mrs Higgs came hurrying, her eyes bright and her face flushed with excitement. “Mrs Higgs, we've got her back, everything's all right.” Miss Ellerby went down on one knee beside Caroline, who was looking at her as if dazed, clutched the girl's hands, and said: “Did they ill treat you, my dear? Are you all right?” Then there was a pause, before she asked: “Do you want anything to eat or drink? Higgs! Get some milk, and some biscuits. Hurry, there's a good soul.”

Mrs Higgs hurried out.

Caroline was moistening her lips, as if she couldn't find her voice; if she wanted anything, it was water, but Rollison did not speak, only stared down at her, and watched the schoolmistress who had shown such forced composure the night before behaving with such uncharacteristic excitement now.

Rollison went to the telephone. At first, Miss Ellerby did not notice that, but she glanced round suddenly, jumped up, and asked sharply: “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to tell the police that she's safe,” Rollison answered.

“There's no need—”

“Don't be absurd,” Rollison said. “There's every need to make sure they know at once.”

“No, there isn't,” rejoined Miss Ellerby flatly. “What on earth is the matter with you? If you send for the police now they'll come and pester the life out of the child with their silly questions – it would be a wicked thing to do.” She glanced down at Caroline, who looked bewildered, and whose eyes were still very heavy with sleep. “For heaven's sake have some sense, and leave it until she's asleep, at least. When she has had a night's rest will be time to ask her questions.”

Caroline said something in a low-pitched voice, and it was difficult to catch the words.

“I'm all right, Miss Ellerby,” she seemed to say.

“I'm the best judge of that,” snapped Miss Ellerby, and glared at Rollison, showing far more feeling than she had all the previous night. “I forbid you to telephone the police. I shall send for matron at once, and if in her view the child needs a doctor, then I shall send for the resident doctor. I have no doubt that both she and matron will prescribe the same thing: sleep.”

“But Miss Ellerby—” Caroline began.

Rollison spread his hands, resignedly.

“All right, I won't tell the police yet,” he conceded. “But at least I must telephone the child's father.”

“I see no objection to
that
,
”
conceded Miss Ellerby, almost reluctantly, and then Mrs Higgs came bustling along. “Higgs, I want you to send for matron. Tell her—”

“I've told her already,” Mrs Higgs said, and this time Miss Ellerby could find nothing to disapprove. Rollison lifted the telephone. He saw that the headmistress was watching him, as if to make sure he did not dial the police. In fact he dialled O, and when the exchange answered, gave his own London number. Caroline was trying to sit up, and the headmistress pushed a pillow behind her back.

“There's no need to worry and no need to say a word,” Miss Ellerby said; that was an order.

Rollison heard the ringing sound.

“And your mother and father have been very anxious about you; but they will soon know there is nothing to worry about,” Miss Ellerby was saying. “You have to put it behind you, as if it were a bad dream. A bad dream,” she repeated, as if to herself, and she nodded her big head.

“This is the hestablishment of the
h
onour'ble Richard Rolleeson,” announced Percy Wrightson, in a tone which would have made Jolly break into a grin.