Wiles of a Stranger (21 page)

“I don’t know whether to make a zoo or a jungle,” he said, staring at them, and moving them about. “Which shall we make, Miss Stacey?”

“We don’t want the poor creatures locked up. Let them roam free, as they did in India. It was thoughtful of your Uncle Bertie to—send them to you.”

“I don’t have any Uncle Bertie,” he told me. “It is my Uncle Sheldon who is in India, and he never sends me anything. He doesn’t even know me.”

“You must be mistaken!” I exclaimed, thrown into confusion.

He looked at me as though I were mad, or a moron. “I know my own uncles’ names, Miss Stacey. Yes, I shall make a jungle. We’ll get some plants from the park,” he decided, but in the interim he was content to let the crushed brown wrapping be their lair, and I had to be content to assure myself Sheldon, for some reason, preferred the nickname of Bertie.

I hovered near the door, craning my neck out to look for Mullins, or more precariously, Mrs. Beaudel or a servant going to her chamber.

My vigil was soon rewarded. Mullins’s carrot top peeped out from the door, then glided towards me. “She has nothing packed. She could hardly do so. It would be as good as a declaration she knew what was to happen.”

“Nothing to tell you where the hired house is either?”

“Not in plain view. I hadn’t time to give it a good rifle. I’ll slip below and watch her. If she comes upstairs, you are to keep your eyes sharp, Miss, and your ears. If you hear her window slide open, or anything of a suspicious nature, dart down to the kitchen and notify me. Keep a lookout on the yard as well,” he added, flowing to the window. “Aye, this is as good a spot as any for you to stay today.”

“Do you know what time Morrison is coming?” I asked.

“He’s sending a note asking for an interview at two. If it is not granted, he will let me know. We figure the snatch will be made right after his visit, when she knows Beaudel has got the check in his fingers.”

“You don’t think they might wait a few days, Mullins?”

“Nay, it would complicate matters, if he got the blunt invested and then had to pull it out. It takes time. They’ll strike while the iron is hot. Time’s running out for them, with this Sir Algernon fellow coming home soon.”

This forecast made a tedious day for me, sitting cooped up in the nursery, with not even my rendezvous in the meadow.

“You’ll look out for Wiggins below?” I asked.

“That I will. The lad’s as nervous as a cat on a griddle. He’s polished the same teapot three times. Not a bit happy to see me land in on him either, but I don’t believe he suspects anything amiss. I’ve been prosing his ears off with stories from Sacheverel’s place.”

“Morrison supplied you with an ill-fitting suit from Danely Hall,” I mentioned, wondering if the runner knew Morrison was in reality Lord Sheldon.

“He didn’t supply it. Bow Street has a wardrobe. Morrison just told us the color. The buttons ain’t right, he says, but they’d not know that here.”

“Morrison, of course, would know,” I said, hoping for some confirmation from Bow Street that he was indeed Sacheverel’s son.

“Aye,” he said, but in an unthinking way.

“What excuse have you made for remaining the whole day?” I asked.

“There was questions in the letter I brought that want answers. The old gent is in the fidgets, and hasn’t got round to writing his reply up yet. It would make no sense to set out in the afternoon, so it looks as though I’ve got my excuse right and tight.”

We went to the table and chatted to Lucien for a while. Mullins was soon in charge of the elephant and some smaller animals, concealing them in folds of the brown paper, to repel attack from the tiger and hyena.

He was running up and down from kitchen to nursery all that morning. On one visit, he informed me Morrison’s letter had come, and Beaudel had agreed to the hour for the visit.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“We have our ways, Miss,” he said grandly. “If you’re interested in the business at all, what I done is this. I lingered at the end of the hallway when I saw the letter arrive, and within ten minutes the old boy rung for Wiggins. Wiggins went straight to the kitchen and give a footboy a letter to go to the Shipwalk. So was it a yes or no, you are thinking. I know it was telling the major to come ahead, for Wiggins said he’d best get on with his silver polishing, as Beaudel was expecting a caller at two, and he’d have to be out of his apron to catch the door. Induction, you see. Or possibly deduction, but plain logical thinking is the trick.”

The skies cleared as the long morning progressed. On different trips, Mullins informed me that Beaudel had locked his office door, which his logical thinking told him the collection was being removed and examined. He had seen Mrs. Beaudel talking to Wiggins, a lively discussion he described it, and took it for an omen of the pending kidnapping. At lunch, he brought up the tray for Tess, which no doubt raised him even higher in her esteem.

“I’ve had a word from Morrison. We agreed beforehand I’d saunter out to the stable at eleven, to pass on my report to him, and hear what he had to say, if anything. He’s decided you can take the wee lad down to the meadow as you usually do. ‘Twill be better to have you and him out of the way of possible harm, do you see?”

“But I was going to help—help spy for him.”

“You’ve already done that. We wouldn’t want no harm to come to the lad, now would we, miss?”

“No, of course not,” I said reluctantly.

“There’ll be me here, to see her sneaking out of the house by her own volition, and report same to Bow Street at the proper time, so you take the lad out, as the major advises.”

I had been listening to hear if Mullins ever referred to Morrison as Lord Sheldon, and noticed he had not. I decided it was time to clarify it, and set my mind at rest. “Did Lord Sheldon ask you to refer to him as Major Morrison?” I asked.

“We agreed it was for the best. It’s the name he goes by in this house, and to make sure I don’t let anything slip to the contrary, I just call his lordship Major.”

“How did he prove to you that he actually is Sacheverel’s son?”

“Why bless my soul, he never proved nothing to me, ma’am. He dealt with Mr. Townsend direct. He satisfied the chief, and that’s got to be good enough for me. Have you doubts, then?” he asked, with quick interest.

“Just curious.”

“Ah, ‘tis an interesting business, being with Bow Street. Folks always do ask us a million questions, how we trap criminals and all. Logic—there’s the secret.”

It seemed hard to miss the excitement after my tedious morning, but Lucien’s safety was paramount, and in the end I agreed to it.

There was one opportunity to gauge Mrs. Beaudel’s mental state for myself. She went to her room to freshen herself for luncheon, and stopped in at the nursery for a moment.

“I hear your Uncle Sacheverel sent you a gift, Lucien,” she said, her muddy green eyes searching the room for it. “Carved animals. How pretty they are. Sheldon must have sent them to you from India.”

“No, Lord Sacheverel sent them to me himself,” he replied, fondling the tiger.

“What do you call him?” she asked, tousling his curls.

“I don’t have a name for him,” he said, gently removing her hand.

“Bring them down to the saloon tonight to show your Uncle Charles, and we shall make names for them all, like Adam and Eve naming the animals,” she suggested, with a fond smile.

What an actress she was, to smile and beam, while planning to rob the boy.

“They already have that kind of names,” he told her. “I think I will call the tiger Algernon, after my brother.”

“Why don’t you make the hyena Algernon?” she asked, her smile fading, as she turned to me. “He looks a little pale, don’t you think, Miss Stacey? But you will be taking him out this afternoon, as usual?”

“Yes, we always go out on fine days.”

“I think I will call the peacock after you, Aunt Stella,” Lucien said, but with no intention of irony or ill will. The peacock was a pretty, dainty bird.

“Goose! A peacock is the male of the species, and I do not wish to be a peahen. I wish we had some peacocks for the park. I wonder how people get them to stay where they want them. Dear me, look at the time. I must dash. You will take Lucien out this afternoon? I don’t like to see my little guy’s color fading.”

“Yes, I will.”

She left. I thought she seemed nervous, more fidgety and chattering than usual. Small wonder!

At fifteen to two, I got my pelisse and took Lucien down the servants’ stairs, to leave by the back door. Mullins sat in the kitchen, enjoying a small ale. When we came down, he arose and sauntered in a casual-seeming way toward the stairs, to take up his vigil above. Wiggins was also there, having Tess give his shoulders a final brushing, before going abovestairs to greet Major Morrison and Mr. Mills.

“Time for your ride, is it?” Cook asked Lucien.

“I am not riding today. I am going to collect a jungle for my animals. Have you got a box I can use? A good big box.”

“A jungle? My, I haven’t got anything that big!”

“The box the sugar and tea come in will do. It will only be a small jungle, Cook,” he told her, with a very superior air.

“If it’s only twigs and grass you’re after, I fancy this little box will do you,” she said, rummaging in a corner for a smallish box.

From the meadow, one has a fine view of the back of Glanbury Park. On that particular afternoon, it was the east side I wished to see. If a ladder went up to Mrs. Beaudel’s window, or if she let herself down by a rope, I did not mean to miss it. It struck me then, in the clear afternoon sunlight, that a daytime kidnapping was not at all a likely thing. They would wait until darkness fell. Beaudel was not going to get the money invested in an hour. Arrangements with brokers and so on would take a few days.

Lucien was soon busy pulling out weeds and newly sprouted trees to form his jungle, while I sat on the grass, staring at the east side of the building, where there was not a single suspicious thing happening.

When he had collected his jungle, Lucien decided he would go to the stream to stir up the tadpoles. I was to guard his jungle box. My eyes went in slow arcs from stream to window, back and forth, back and forth, until I was tired of doing it. What a lack of logic on Mullins’s part, and Morrison’s too, to think anyone would be stupid enough to have herself kidnapped in midafternoon, when a few hours would lend her darkness and privacy. I was so certain the deed would be done at night that I got up to go and tell Mullins so.

I looked back to the stream to call Lucien, and saw no sight of him. It was less than a minute, not more than thirty seconds, since I had seen his black head bobbing at the stream’s edge. He was just bending over, I decided, and went to fetch him, my mind still more occupied with the other matter. Possibly Mullins and Morrison thought Stella would take her departure when Beaudel went to the bank to deposit the money. That was why they were alert in broad daylight.

I called to Lucien, as I approached the stream, still looking about for him. I began to fear he had fallen in, and hastened my pace. There was no answer to my shouts. I looked all around, and saw only some trampled grass where he had been. Beyond the stream, at this point, there was thin brush. A few branches were still swaying, where he had pushed his way in. A rabbit or fox had caught his attention, I thought, annoyed.

“Lucien!” I called. “Come back. We’re going in.” There was no answer.

That was my first apprehension of anything amiss. He was not badly behaved. He would have answered at least, if he had not wanted to come just yet. I called again, louder, and again heard nothing but the gentle swishing of the leaved branches, then a quiet sound of running feet.

Without thinking, I leaped across the stream and pushed my way into the tangle of brush, just at the point where the branches had been moving. Ahead of me, in the clearing, I saw a woman dressed in black, walking at a quick, awkward gait, hurrying, with some heavy burden in her arms. As I looked and shouted, she turned and peered over her shoulder at me. It was Mrs. Cantor, the milliner from the village. There was no mistaking her black eyes She wore an expression that would have curdled cream.

It was not the expression that turned my blood to water though. It was the little black shoes protruded from one side of her bundle, and the black head glimpsed from the other side. She was carrying Lucien in her arms, an inert bundle. He was unresisting, obviously unconscious. I couldn’t even allow myself to think the other—that he was dead.

A wild scream, my own, rent the still air, as I took flight after her. I didn’t get farther than three steps before a heavy blow fell across my temple. I saw an arm in a dark coat, with a gloved hand at its end, holding some sort of stick or stone, swing past my face, just at the corner of vision. Then darkness and oblivion came over me.

Chapter Sixteen

It was a cellar they took us to, not a large one, but a small, dark, damp, moldy cave of a place, containing nothing but our own bodies and a pile of coal in a corner. It was too dark to read my watch, but I had the instinctive feeling that not a great deal of time had passed since I was knocked on the head in the meadow.

As soon as I realized I was not dead and gone to hell, I began feeling in the darkness for Lucien, praying he was here, and not buried. He was lying beside me, wriggling like a pig in a basket. I was surprised to discover I had not been tied. They counted on the blow to keep me unconscious until we were securely locked in this hole, it seemed.

“Are you hurt, Lucien?” I asked.

A muffled sound came from his head. Feeling around, I found a gag binding his mouth, and removed it.

“We have been kidnapped, Miss Stacey!” he said, his voice sounding hollow in the cave, and not entirely displeased at such dashing goings on. “By daylight! If Algernon hears of it, he will think me a flat. Did they hurt you?”

“Yes, my head hurts where they hit me, but I’m all right. No bones broken,” I replied in a low voice. “Whisper, in case they are listening nearby.”

“My hands and feet are tied up,” he told me.