“And the bedding in the pram?”
“A little white embroidered pillow,” Lily said. “A pair of white pram sheets, two white pram blankets, and then the pram canopy which is dark blue. The canopy was on.”
“Anything else?”
Lily shook her head. She could feel herself crying inside, a feeling she had never known before, not even at the death of her mother. She felt as if she could cry for ever and never be rid of this swelling fear and grief.
“And the pram. What make was it?”
“It was a Silver Star deluxe,” Lily said. “In deep blue with a blue hood and canopy. Silver spoked wheels and brakes.”
“And what was the last time anyone saw the baby and the pram?”
“In the garden,” Lily said carefully. “I was sitting with him. I came in to take a telephone call. I saw that it was starting to rain and I went out to fetch him in. The pram was gone and the garden gate had been opened. It must have been—” She broke off and glanced at Muriel.
“About ten o’clock,” Muriel said. “No later than quarter past.”
“So the baby had been alone how long?”
“About fifteen minutes,” Lily said very quietly. “I was on the telephone. I had been sitting watching him a moment before. And Nanny Janes was watching him from the window.”
The inspector nodded to the sergeant. “I think we’ve got enough for a description,” he said. “May the sergeant use your telephone?”
“In the hall,” Muriel said. She rose to her feet and opened the door and pointed it out.
“I forgot something,” Lily said suddenly. Both men looked at her. “Something else he was wearing,” she said. “He had little white knitted bootees, made out of lambs’ wool.” The thought of Christopher’s firm little feet released Lily’s flood of tears again. “Little white bootees,” she said, choking. “With white silk ribbon ties.”
37
THE INSPECTOR, the sergeant and the constable searched the small garden for clues. There was nothing to show that a pram had ever been there. Lily tried to show them exactly where it had stood on the wet grass, but there were not even wheelmarks to show for it. It was as if the pram, and her baby, had never been. Lily showed them the stone by the gate and how the gate had been pushed open. It was just a little stone, it would have taken very little effort to move it.
They searched the cobbled courtyard and the street outside, looking for footprints, or wheelmarks, or the ends of cigarettes. They found nothing.
Stephen came home while they were searching the street outside the garage. Lily was watching them from the dining room. She turned to him from the rainwashed window and ran towards him.
“Oh, Stephen,” she said.
Stephen put his arms out and Lily let him enfold her. He held her lovingly and gently and Lily let herself cry against the comforting warmth of his shoulder. Muriel, coming in to the dining room, saw Stephen’s face, calm and contented at last, as Lily cried, heartbroken, against his chest. “Stephen, where can he be?”
Stephen patted her back and spoke over Lily’s head to his mother. “What do the police say?”
Muriel shrugged. “Nothing as yet. They have alerted all the local forces. Whoever has taken him cannot have gone far. We called them within an hour.”
Stephen nodded. “Taken from the garden?”
Lily looked up and held his coat lapels. “I only left him for a moment,” she said urgently. “I just went in to the telephone. I would have been sitting and watching him sleep otherwise. Nanny Janes was in the nursery and she watches him from the window. I was only gone a moment.”
Stephen covered her hands with his own in a comforting grip. “It’s all right, my darling,” he said gently. “I know. No-one is blaming you for a moment. It’s not your fault. We’ll get him back and we’ll be laughing about this tomorrow.”
Lily shuddered and shook her head. “I can’t imagine laughing ever again,” she said.
The policemen came back through the garden, their eyes still on the ground, and mounted the verandah steps. Muriel opened the door to them and indicated the door mat for their wet boots. They both wiped their feet very thoroughly as she watched them, before stepping inside.
“You’ll be Mr. Stephen Winters, I take it,” the inspector said. Stephen, one hand still holding Lily’s, nodded his head.
“Have you found any clues?”
“I’m afraid not. But with the ground so hard and the sudden rainstorm, it was only ever an outside chance. I should like to ask you some questions, Sir.”
“Of course,” Stephen said. “Mother, Lily, go and sit in the drawing room. Have a cup of coffee and ask them to bring a pot in here for us.” He glanced at Lily, noting her dishevelled hair and bare legs. “Go and get changed, dear,” he said. “Smarten up a bit.”
Lily moved as he bid her and Muriel gathered her towards the door.
“And try not to worry,” Stephen commanded. “This could all be over in ten minutes.”
Lily cast a look back at him as if he were her only hope. Stephen smiled encouragingly at her and then switched his attention to Inspector Walker. “A bad business,” he said grimly, all optimism put to one side now that the women were out of earshot. “D’you think it’s a professional job?”
The sergeant flipped open his notepad.
“Do you have any enemies?” the inspector asked. “Anyone in your professional life? Someone whose defence failed, perhaps?”
Stephen shook his head. “We do very little criminal work,” he said. “A man in my position is bound to rub up the wrong way against some chaps; but no-one springs to mind.”
“Ever been threatened?” the inspector said. “Maybe from the war? Some old scores after conflict in the regiment? They weren’t always easy times, especially for young officers.”
Stephen looked at him quickly. “What d’you mean?”
The inspector shrugged. “Any shirkers in your battalion who thought you sent them out on patrol too often? Any complaints come to mind? We’re picking up a lot of men even now, years after the war, who can’t forget.”
Stephen shook his head. “They were grand chaps,” he said. “Every one of them would have laid down his life for me.”
The inspector nodded slowly. “Nearer home then,” he suggested. “Any members of your staff? Anyone sacked recently, anyone bearing a grudge from the office? Any unhappy maids? Any difficulties?”
Stephen wrinkled his brow and then shook his head again. “I can’t think of anyone. Mother knows more about the running of the house than I do, but everyone we have has worked here for years. The maids, the cook, the gardener, my batman. They’ve all been with us for ever. And they all love Christopher. It couldn’t be one of them.”
“Any suggestions at all?” the inspector asked.
Stephen shook his head. “We’re the envy of all our friends,” he said. “We have a happy house, and my staff at the office are all happy. Why, some of Lily’s friends practically live here! They adore Christopher. Her accompanist is like a second father to him. He’s always taking him out for walks with Lily and playing with him. It’s a very happy household.”
“Who are your most frequent visitors?” the inspector asked.
“You’d have to ask my wife or my mother to be sure,” Stephen said. “Madge Sweet, Mrs. Sarah Dent, Lady Blakelock has called several times recently. Charlie Smith—he’s musical director at the Kings—he comes almost every afternoon to play the piano with my wife. John Pascoe from the office and his wife, some friends of my wife’s from the theatre. We see a lot of people.”
“Anyone upset recently? Perhaps any of the ladies recently lost a child?”
“Good God, no!” Stephen said vehemently. “I can’t think that it would be anyone we know. Why, someone like Charlie Smith would lay down his life for the baby! Ask my wife! He loves him like his own child! I can’t imagine it being someone we know.”
“Are you acquainted with your neighbours at all? People who
overlook the garden?”
“We say ‘good morning,’ ” Stephen said. “Nothing more really.”
“We’ll start doing some house to house calls this afternoon,” the inspector said. “My feeling is that either it is someone who is near enough to the house to know the routine—an acquaintance or a neighbour—or else, and this is much worse, a passing stranger who took the baby on impulse.”
“Why worse?” Stephen asked. “They both sound absolutely bloody.”
“Worse because harder to trace,” the inspector said. “But you’re right. It’s two bad options.”
There was a brief silence.
“Telephone calls,” the sergeant said quietly.
“Oh yes,” Inspector Walker said. “You may receive a telephone call or a note demanding a ransom or giving information about your son. We have some very strict rules about the handling of such calls.”
Stephen nodded.
“If it is a telephone call then you are to keep the person talking as long as possible and get from them as much information as possible. Check with them that the baby is well, for instance, ask them what he is eating, ask them if they have clean clothes and so on. Everything you can hear—make a note of. Listen for background noise, listen for an accent. Listen for any information you can pick up. And if you can, write a note to someone else to alert them to the caller and get them to get a message to us. For the first twenty-four hours I think we’ll keep a constable on the premises. He’ll know what to do.”
Stephen nodded again.
“Do not make any private arrangements to pay,” the policeman said solemnly. “Whatever threats they make against the child, you endanger his life the moment you agree to keep it secret from us. Your safest and your best course is to trust us to get your child safely home.”
“You think it might be a kidnap for ransom?”
“It’s possible. Your family are well known, and your wife is often in the newspapers. Someone could well have thought that you would be good ransom victims.”
The inspector paused for a moment. “Alert your servants to any messages which might come. Make sure they take a note of any errand boys who come to the back door, and watch which direction they take when they leave here. Anyone delivering a note should be brought into the house at once, and the constable will deal with them. I’ll have the constable answering your front door for the first couple of days. Any note or demand which comes must be passed on to us at once. You put your child at risk if you delay.”
“I agree,” Stephen said. “We’ll play this as you say. You’re the CO here.”
The inspector nodded. “Will Mrs. Winters understand?” he asked.
Stephen thought for a moment. “My mother will do as she is asked,” he said. “But you’ve seen my wife. She’s very highly strung and her nerves are not reliable. I couldn’t trust her not to act on her own, especially if she thought any of her friends were involved. If she thought any of her close friends were implicated I can’t say what she’d do. She’s impulsive, and she adores the child.”
“We’ll keep an eye on her,” the inspector said. “I’ll try to explain the importance of keeping us fully informed of any developments.”
Stephen rose from the table and went to the door. “It’s such a damned coincidence!” he exclaimed, turning back to speak to the inspector. “Lily called in to the phone, and the baby taken in those few moments. It’s such an impossible thing to happen!”
The inspector nodded. “That’s what made me think of neighbours who overlook the garden, or a passing stranger,” he said. “Who was on the telephone?”
“I don’t know,” Stephen said. “You’ll have to ask my wife.”
They called Lily downstairs. She had gone to sit with Rory. Muriel’s controlled silence over the coffee cups was too much for her. She stole up to her bedroom and put on her stockings and combed her hair. Her face in the mirror was white and aghast. She could not meet her own eyes in the reflection for fear of their blank horror. She crept downstairs to Rory’s room, dismissed Nurse Bells and sat in the window seat where she could see the road in all directions. She kept watch, as if the little blue pram would trundle home of its own accord. Rory, seated beside her in his wheelchair, put out a hand and clasped hers in a comforting grip. They said nothing. There was nothing for them to say.
Browning came to fetch Lily and showed her into the dining room where the inspector was seated behind the table. Lily wondered where Muriel would order lunch to be served, and what she would do with the sergeant and the constable. The inspector could eat with them, Lily thought, Muriel would class him as a gentleman. But how would Muriel get around the difficulty of the two other men? Could a sergeant eat in the kitchen like a visiting servant?
“Are you listening to me?” Inspector Walker asked.
Lily jumped. “Yes,” she said.
He thought she looked like a child herself with her eyelids red and swollen from weeping and her nose red and shiny. Her hands were shaking and when he looked closer he saw she was trembling all over.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
She shook her head.
She was in shock then. He looked at her more carefully. She was not the woman to handle this sort of crisis. They would have to keep her well away from the telephone or the door if the kidnappers attempted to make any kind of contact. They would have trouble keeping her under any sort of control if the baby was not returned within a few hours. She looked brittle and near hysteria.
“Excuse me one moment,” he said.
He stepped out of the dining room and went to the drawing room. Stephen and his mother were sitting in the room in low-voiced conversation. They looked up when the inspector knocked on the door and put his head around.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “I’m just interviewing Mrs. Winters and she seems to me in rather a bad way. I was wondering if you had thought of calling your doctor. She may need something for her nerves later on today—and if this goes on overnight . . .”
“Of course,” Muriel said. “I should have thought. I’ll call him at once. She was always highly strung and she has been enormously distressed by this.”
The inspector nodded and went back to the dining room. Lily was staring into space, seeing nothing. Her hands, laid loosely on the table before her, were trembling and trembling.
“Just a few questions,” the inspector said. “Who comes to the house most often, Mrs. Winters?”
“Charlie Smith, Madge Sweet, Jane Dent,” Lily said in a thin distant voice.
“And who are these people? Charlie Smith, for instance?”
“Charlie’s the musical director at the Kings Theatre. He’s an old friend of mine from when I was on the stage. He is my accompanist when I sing. He teaches me the piano.”
“He comes here—how often?”
Lily looked blankly at the inspector. “Every day I suppose. Won’t you go out and look for Christopher?”
“Whoever has him will have taken him to their home by now,” the inspector said gently. “So he’s out of the rain and safe and dry. We’ll find him quickest by working out who it might be who has got him. D’you see?”
Lily shook her head. “It’s no-one we know,” she said. “Who could do such a thing?”
“Well, that’s what we have to find out,” the inspector said gently. “Have any of your friends recently lost a baby, perhaps?”
Lily shook her head.
“Or have any of your friends been angry with you? Have you any enemies who would want to hurt you?”
Lily looked reproachfully at the inspector. “Nobody could hate me so badly,” she said. “Everyone knows that I love Christopher more than anything in the world. I’d rather die than lose him. Nobody who knows me could do this to me. Nobody who knows Christopher could separate us.” She choked on a sob. The sergeant shifted uneasily in his chair. Even Inspector Walker felt himself uncomfortably moved by Lily’s naked grief.
“Let’s think this thr
ough,” he said gruffly. “What time did you put him out this morning?”
“Nanny Janes puts him out,” Lily said. “And then I go down and sit with him. She put him out at nine o’clock. I sat with him until he fell asleep, and then Sally called me to the telephone. It must have been about half past nine or quarter to ten. I talked on the phone and when I had finished I saw that it was about to rain. The pram was gone. It was about ten o’clock.”
“Who was on the phone?” the inspector asked casually as if it were of little significance.
“Charlie Smith,” Lily said.
“Does he usually ring in the morning?”
“No. He usually comes round to see me in the afternoon. He was ringing up because he’s going to London today. He was ringing to tell me.”
“You talked for a long while.”
Unaccountably Lily blushed deeply. “Yes,” she said. “He was telling me about this job he may get in London. I was interested.”
“He kept you talking for about half an hour then?” the inspector confirmed.
Lily shot a quick surprised look at him. “Yes,” she said. “But that’s not unusual. We often talk for a long time.”
The inspector hesitated. “I am sorry,” he said. “I must have misunderstood. I thought he usually came to see you. I thought it was unusual for him to telephone you in the morning.”
“It is,” Lily said. She was slightly flustered. “But once we’re on the phone together we do often chat for a while.” She hesitated. “There’s nothing suspicious in that.”
“No,” Inspector Walker said. He gave her a small smile. “Of course not. Is he an old friend of the family?”
“I worked with him when I was on the stage,” Lily said. “Before Christopher was born. He met my husband when Stephen and I married. He’s a family friend now. He comes round most afternoons. We often walk out with Christopher on the prom.” She broke off, choking, and then swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she said.
The inspector nodded. “Where does Mr. Smith live?”
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