Walking Into Murder (11 page)

They obeyed this time, their nails clicking on the stone floor as they followed him. Laura let out a sigh of relief and then realized she was going to sneeze. She should have known better than to hide behind dusty curtains. She squeezed her nose hard in a desperate effort to hold the sneeze back, but the impulse was irresistible and it emerged anyway. The sound was muffled but still audible.

“What was that?” Antonia asked sharply.

Laura held her nose again as another sneeze threatened. The dogs saved her. One of them sneezed, too, a loud wheezing sound that utterly obscured her next sneeze. Maybe they were allergic to dust too, she thought gratefully.

“Dogs,” Lord Torrington answered briefly. They heard the sound of a drink being mixed; then there was silence - a very uncomfortable silence. Laura waited with interest to see what would happen next.

She jumped when the butler’s voice sounded again. Another person came through the two doors. The footsteps were lighter than Lord Torrington’s heavy tread.

“Nigel,” Catherine mouthed, and Laura thought she was probably right. The feet crossed quickly to the main staircase and mounted the steps.

Lord Torrington’s angry voice broke the silence. “Why is that devil still hanging around? I thought he’d left!”

He didn’t wait for an answer. “Where’s Angelina?” he asked sharply. “Don’t like her here when Morris is around. Too friendly with her by far. Don’t trust his motives.”

“I sent her to stay with my mother,” Antonia replied. “I thought it best. Besides, Lottie has gone away for a few days.”

“Damned right it’s best,” Lord Torrington grunted. “I just hope your mother can hold on to her. Last time the silly child ran away from her and we had the deuce of a time finding her. She’s a clever little creature, but she doesn’t know what’s good for her.

“Morris doesn’t either, since he’s still here,” he went on furiously. “He’s a loose cannon and I don’t want him around. And you didn’t answer me. Why the hell is he still here? You knew I wanted him gone.”

“He came back on his own,” Antonia said, sounding defensive again. “He said he was helping Stewart with something.” She began to weep. “I can’t stop him,” she wailed. “He’s always been like that, doing what he wanted no matter what. If he gets an idea in his head he just does it…”

The weeping came to a halt. “He scares me, Bark, truly he does. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s had that awful fascination -”

“There, there, m’dear, not your fault,” Lord Torrington soothed absently, as if to a child. “He’s a bad one, though, no way around it, and he’s got to go. I’ll make sure he does,” he added grimly. “That’s -”

He broke off as the dogs sprang up, barking loudly. A buzzer sounded in the hall near Laura.

“Who could that be?” Lord Torrington asked irritably. “Have we got guests for tonight? If we have, I suppose we’ll have to let them in. But who the hell is going to cook for them? Why did that cook vanish anyway? You’ve got to learn to cook, Antonia,” he went on with a return to his former truculence. “Don’t know why you never have. Can’t be that hard.”

“Perhaps you should give it a try, then.” Antonia’s voice dripped with ice and sweetness. She really did have claws, Laura thought, and was pleased. Lord Torrington positively exuded male chauvinism – a tendency of quite recent origins despite what most people thought. Females had been in charge for more than a hundred thousand years until patriarchal religions had come storming along a mere ten thousand years ago, and about time they were again, too.

Lord Torrington merely grunted, and Antonia sighed. “Charlotte advertised in the local paper for a new cook,” she told him. “It came out today. I imagine that’s someone applying for the post.”

Laura frowned. Who was Charlotte? The name sounded familiar, but she didn’t think she knew anyone called Charlotte.

“At least we might get some dinner in the future,” Lord Torrington replied, sounding more cheerful.

“Not if those two beasts greet her,” Antonia retorted sarcastically. “Most people don’t like being drooled on or knocked over.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Lord Torrington agreed grudgingly. “I’ll put them out the back door and you get the front.”

He whistled to the dogs, hustled them past the curtains, where they tried hard to linger but without success. Lord Torrington grabbed their collars and shoved them through the door that led to the kitchens.

“Out!” he told them firmly, opening the back door. “Go take a pee.”

Antonia went to the front door. Laura and Catherine heard her greet the newcomer over the butler’s ubiquitous voice and then two pairs of footsteps came into the hall and passed by the curtains into the drawing room.

“Do forgive our automatic butler,” Antonia was saying with a mix of humor and condescension that perfectly suggested the trials of parenthood. “Master Nigel, Lord Torrington’s son, created him when the real butler left. It’s become rather a joke with all of us, but there are times when I wish I knew how to turn him off. One of these days I must ask Nigel about it.”

Antonia had morphed from weeping wife to sarcastic one and then to indulgent stepmother in two minutes flat, Laura thought in astonishment. The woman was a chameleon! But then, all of them seemed to have the ability to switch roles suddenly. Lord Torrington was no exception. When he returned to the drawing room his truculence had evaporated, and he was the perfect jovial host and prospective employer.

“Good of you to come, Mrs. Murphy,” he said, after Antonia introduced him and explained that Mrs. Murphy was indeed interested in the position of cook at the manor. “Let’s have a chat, find out if the position will suit. Then I’ll take you up to meet the Baroness in her sitting room upstairs. We work at these things together, you know. All quite informal.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mrs. Murphy replied primly. “That will be fine.”

Catherine gave Laura a poke. “Nigel?” she mouthed, pointing upstairs. Laura nodded. There was a surprising amount of traffic at the manor tonight, and they might not get another chance to leave their hiding place undetected. Lord Torrington would soon bring Mrs. Murphy out to meet the Baroness, too.

“Back stairs,” Catherine mouthed. Laura nodded again. Catherine led the way up to Nigel’s room, the last on the main hallway, and they knocked softly at his door. The sound of another door closing and soft footsteps farther down the hall sent them piling into the room without waiting for an answer. Nigel wasn’t there.

Catherine’s face fell. “I wonder where he’s gone,” she whispered.

“Maybe to his grandmother’s room,” Laura suggested. “But we can’t go there.” She peered around the room. She dared not turn on a light, but two large windows let in some moonlight. The bed looked as if a tornado had struck, but the rest of the room was very neat. Masks hung in well-spaced rows along the walls.

The dogs began to bark hysterically again, and they went to the window to see what had disturbed them. Surely, the prospective cook wasn’t leaving already?

An engine sprang to life and she saw the van, with Morris driving, backing toward the barn. It stopped, the engine idling. Laura fought down a laugh. How was he going to manage the dogs this time?

To her disappointment, he didn’t try. Instead, he waited in the van while a darker man she didn’t recognize called softly to the dogs and opened the back door to let them in again. Jasper and Lucy bounded through, delighted to rejoin Lord Torrington.

“That’s Stewart, the groom,” Catherine whispered, as the dark man went back to the van. “I wonder what they’re doing.”

Once the back door had closed behind the dogs, Morris climbed out. The two men opened the back doors of the van and then went into the barn. After a while, they came out, carrying a bundle that looked like a rolled-up rug. It must be very heavy, Laura thought. They were both straining to hold it up. An oriental carpet perhaps? Could they be stealing it?

Catherine gasped. “Look! Look at the end of it!” Laura looked, and saw shoes protruding from one end of the rolled-up rug.

“My dad’s shoes!” Catherine moaned, grabbing Laura’s arm. “They’re my dad’s shoes. I’d know them anywhere. Laura, my dad’s inside that rug!” She turned to Laura, her face frantic with terror.

Unbelieving, Laura stared at the rug. Surely, that couldn’t be true. Then she saw the shoes and recognized them immediately. Thomas had worn those shoes the night they had been at the manor together. She had noticed them because they were so perfectly polished. Her stomach tightened with fear.

Catherine gasped again. “It’s him! It really is him!” Laura saw it too, just a quick glimpse of Thomas’s face sticking out at the other end of the rug. Then the two men dumped him unceremoniously into the van.

CHAPTER TEN

“What have they done to my father?” Catherine whimpered. “Is he dead? Laura, what should we do?” She looked like a panicky child, all pleasure at their escapade erased from her face.

Laura tried to reassure her. “I doubt he’s dead,” she said, pretending an assurance she didn’t feel. “I mean, why would they bother to wrap him up in a rug if he was?”

Even to her, the argument hardly sounded convincing, but Catherine seemed to accept it. “We have to rescue him,” she whispered. “We’ve got to get to him fast if he’s still alive. Hurry! Follow me!”

She ran to the other window, which had the trellis underneath, put one leg over the sill and began to descend. Laura peered down to make sure Catherine hadn’t fallen and immediately felt dizzy. She had always been terrified of heights. Did she really have to go down that way? Maybe she could run down the back stairs and go out the back door, or maybe alert the others, explain what was happening…

“Come on,” Catherine hissed. “There’s no time. Hurry up!”

Laura took a deep breath. Catherine was right. If Thomas was still alive, they had to get to him fast. There was no time for the stairs or to find help. No one would believe them anyway, and she couldn’t let Catherine face the two men alone.

Gingerly, she lowered herself onto the trellis, clutching the window as she felt with her foot for a secure toehold. There weren’t any. The trellis was fragile, and the vines swayed dangerously under her grip. She forced herself lower anyway. How had Catherine done this so easily?

She was halfway down and Catherine had just reached the bottom when the van doors slammed. The unexpected noise made Laura flinch, and she grabbed at the vine to steady herself. The engine revved, spewing gravel, and the vehicle sped away. She craned her neck, trying to see where it was going. As she did, the piece of vine she was holding swung away from the trellis, taking her with it. Swinging wildly, she clung desperately to the branch and struggled to rein in her feet. One toe hit a branch; she shoved the rest of the foot into it, then the other foot and waited for her heart to stop pounding so violently.

“Hurry up!” Catherine’s voice was impatient and lashed with terror.

Laura obeyed. She couldn’t stop now, so she might as well get down as fast as she could. Gritting her teeth, she willed her hands, her feet and toes and fingers, and even her elbows and shoulders to find a piece of wood or a bit of vine, anything that would hold her up until she could find the next precarious perch.

The strain on her arms had become intolerable, but she dared not look down to see how far she had come. Then she would definitely fall. Even thinking about it made her dizzy. She dislodged one foot tentatively from its perch; then a branch cracked sharply and her other foot went out from under her. Grabbing frantically at vines and trellis, she plummeted toward the ground and landed with a thump. After a stunned moment, she moved an arm and a leg and realized to her astonishment that she was unhurt – aside from the fact that she would be a mass of scratches and bruises tomorrow.

She got shakily to her feet. “You did great,” Catherine hissed. “Follow me!” She ran into the darkness before Laura could object. She trailed after Catherine, hoping the girl knew where to find a car. But when she caught up with Catherine again, she was opening one of the stable doors.

Laura’s stomach dropped to her boots. Surely, Catherine didn’t expect her to go after Thomas on a horse? She hadn’t ridden a horse for forty years, and that was only a pony led by some long-suffering adult in endless circles around a dusty ring. She had not enjoyed the experience. The pony had bitten her, she remembered, when she was finally able to get off.

“Good boy, Senator,” Catherine crooned. “Good boy.” She hauled out a saddle and the cloth that went under it and approached the huge horse.

“Hold this strap,” she commanded, handing Laura a long leather strap attached to the horse’s head. Laura obeyed, keeping as far as she could from the prancing forefeet, and the teeth.

“Hold still, boy,” Catherine told the horse, who nuzzled her gently before he turned his attention to the stranger. He snuffled Laura expectantly, and then blew hard out of his nose in her direction. It felt like a fluttering wind on her cheek, and she felt almost pleased. Maybe he liked her.

She was quickly disillusioned. Senator whipped his head in the other direction, then plunged it up and down in rapid succession and pawed at the ground. His eyes began to roll wildly, and he snorted harder.

“Steady, Senator,” Catherine soothed. “Steady now. We’re going for a ride, isn’t that great? You don’t get to go out at this hour very often, do you?” Catherine went on talking, her voice low and steady, and the horse gradually stilled. Every once in a while, though, he rolled his eyes at Laura, as if he expected her to perpetrate some dreadful assault on him.

“No need to worry about me, horse,” she told him, trying to mimic Catherine’s soothing tones. “I am highly unlikely to get any closer to you than I can possibly help, so you see, you have all the advantages here.” The horse seemed to listen with interest, so she kept up a stream of similar nonsense while Catherine got him ready.

“Great,” Catherine said finally, slipping a metal object in Senator’s surprisingly receptive mouth and adjusting the last strap. “You’re really good with horses, you know. He didn’t even spit out the bit. Too mesmerized by you. Anyway, he’s ready to go.”

She led Senator outside, and Laura followed at a safe distance from his long legs and hard hoofs. Somewhere off to their right, they heard the sound of the van, laboring once more up the long hill.

Catherine’s taut shoulders slumped in discouragement. “What if we can’t catch up?” she asked. “What can we do then?”

Laura tried to think of another way to reassure her. Without Catherine, this rescue would never get off the ground.

“We have one advantage,” she pointed out. “They have to use lights. We should be able to spot them once we’re on the top of the hill.” She wasn’t sure there was any truth in this claim, either, but Catherine nodded, intent on the chase again.

“I’ll get on first and calm him down while you climb up behind me,” she explained. Laura’s jaw dropped. She was supposed to get on too? But how? Senator’s back was much higher than her head.

Catherine forestalled any objections she might have made. “See that mounting block?” she asked, gesturing at a solid-looking hunk of wood. “Stand there, and when I’m in the right position, climb aboard.”

With a leap that astonished Laura, she propelled her slender body into the saddle, adjusted herself against it and grabbed the reins.

Recovering her wits but little of her courage, Laura climbed up on the block and waited with a sense of impending doom. This was impossible, surely. She was bound to fall off the back of this creature. Senator sloped down at quite a sharp angle at that end. She watched warily as he pranced in nervous circles around her.

Catherine soothed him expertly, seeming hardly to move in the saddle as Senator snorted and danced skittishly. “Over there,” she told him when he had settled a little. Firmly pulling at the reins, she guided him toward Laura. He complied, his big feet mincing delicately in the required direction.

Catherine held him still as Laura struggled to heave a leg over his back. This was a great deal harder than going over a windowsill, she decided, and wondered how she could get some leverage. Finally, she clutched the back of the saddle, gave a great leap and found herself perched on Senator’s buttocks with one leg dangling almost to the ground on the other side. Catherine leaned over and pulled her back so that her legs were evenly distributed on both sides. Slowly, Laura levered her hips forward until she was pressed against the hard saddle.

She winced. The horse – not to mention the saddle - would give her some nice bruises, too, but in much more delicate places.

“Quite a leap,” Catherine observed. “Now, hold on tight. We’re off!”

Laura clung tenaciously to Catherine’s waist as she urged the horse forward, first into a trot, and then into a canter. The latter was faster and more frightening, but Laura almost welcomed the shift. Catherine managed to raise herself up and down with graceful regularity as Senator trotted, but Laura bounced so hard with each step that she knew she would be unable to walk for at least a week.

Their pace slowed to a walk when they came to the flooded place at the bottom of the hill. The horse splashed through it unconcernedly. Laura was pleased to note that she was so high up that the water couldn’t reach her. Senator’s tail, however, could. It whisked back at her face with maddening regularity as they proceeded. Laura tried closing her eyes, but that was worse. Total darkness was unnerving as well as unbalancing, she discovered, when one was bouncing up and down in unexpected patterns.

Catherine urged Senator into a trot as they ascended the hill, but then he lurched to a stop. Laura peered around Catherine’s back. The moon was bright enough so that she could see across the hills on both sides of the road. On one of those hills a pair of lights bobbed up and down.

“The van,” she murmured, and Catherine nodded.

“There’s an old shed up there,” she said. “That must be where they’re taking him. It’s on an old farm track. Pretty muddy and rough for a van, but I guess they can make it.” She steered Senator gently to the left, looking for the turning.

“There,” Laura whispered, pointing at an almost invisible pair of tracks. Catherine turned into them, keeping Senator to a walk on the uneven terrain. Laura was relieved until she realized that his walk was almost harder to endure than his other gaits because it swayed her back and forth at the same time that it bumped her up and down. She was about to ask Catherine if she could get down and walk, or even run if that was necessary, when she saw the van turn, and the headlights came toward them. Why were they coming back already? Had they just dumped Thomas up there, or was he still in the van?

“Off,” Catherine said, to Laura’s infinite relief. Uncaring of Senator’s potentially murderous hoofs, she slid off his back and landed in an inglorious heap.

Catherine dismounted with far more grace and led the horse quickly off the road and into the bushes. Laura followed as fast as she could, surprised that she could walk at all. Fear was a great motivator, she realized.

They reached cover just in time. Within minutes the van shuddered past them. Its tires churned deep into the mud as it bounced and clattered, but somehow it kept crawling forward. Laura and Catherine ducked down to hide their pale faces.

“Should we follow them or go up to the shed?” Catherine asked, panicky again.

“Go up to the shed,” Laura answered with a confidence she didn’t feel. “I’m pretty sure your Dad’s up there. I’ll go the rest of the way on foot,” she added. “I’ll never get back on the horse without that block thing.

“Besides,” she added fervently, hoping to cheer Catherine up, “I don’t intend ever to get on a horse again for the rest of my days.”

Catherine giggled. “I’ll walk too,” she offered. “This is bad terrain for a horse in the dark, so I’ll lead Senator. Lord Torrington would kill me if he got injured.”

“I am far less worried about Lord Torrington right now than about the pair of thugs that just left,” Laura retorted, and immediately wanted to take back the words. There was no point in reminding Catherine of what they might find when they reached the shed. It was better to keep her positive.

They trudged up the slope, and sooner than Laura had expected they came to the old building. Catherine slung Senator’s reins loosely across a fence; he lowered his head placidly and began munching on grass.

Cautiously, they approached the shed and peered inside. The rug had been dumped in an untidy heap in one corner but it was too dark to see anything else. Turning on her flashlight, Laura splayed it around the small space to make sure no one else was there, and then she dared to let it rest on the rug. The shoes were still visible but not the head. There was no movement inside it. They crept closer, terrified to look and terrified not to. Finally, unable to wait any longer, they began to unfold the heavy carpet.

“Dad!” Catherine whispered in horror as the man’s head reappeared. His eyes were closed, his face deathly pale. Catherine dropped to her knees beside him and clutched his hand. “Dad! What have they done to you?

“Laura, is he dead?” Her young voice was filled with terror.

Laura sank down beside her and picked up the other hand. “He’s alive,” she assured Catherine quickly. “He’s warm, and there’s a pulse.”

“Not for long, I fear.” The deep and cultivated voice came from the door. Morris stood there, nonchalantly fingering a long knife. “First, I have a few questions to ask him. So far, he’s refused to answer but now he might reconsider. After that… Well, we’ll see, won’t we?”

Terror rose in Laura’s chest. Morris must not have left with Stewart. Why hadn’t she thought of that? He must have been watching them all along, waiting, biding his time. And now he had Catherine to use as a threat to make Thomas talk…

Still fingering the knife, Morris sauntered toward them. Laura’s arm shot out to pull Catherine behind her, but her gesture came too late. Catherine had already sprung. Lowering her head, she rammed Morris in the belly, knocking him backward, then kicked him hard, aiming for the groin but getting his chest instead. The double blows knocked the wind out of him. Gasping, he struggled to his knees. Catherine faced him defiantly.

Laura looked around for a weapon of some kind - anything she could use to defend Catherine. A long wooden object lying near Thomas caught her eye. Grabbing it, she hurried to Catherine’s side.

Morris stared at them unblinkingly while his breathing steadied. His eyes were narrowed with rage. Laura shivered. Never in her life had she seen eyes that were so totally devoid of human warmth and so mesmerizing. She felt incapable of movement, held in place by the sheer force of that malevolent gaze. Catherine too seemed unable to move. Laura could feel her terror.

“You are going to pay,” Morris said, his voice icy with threat. “You can be sure of that. No one barrels into me like that without paying very dearly.”