Thomas took a deep breath, which appeared to hurt a lot. “Blasted ribs,” he muttered. “No, I wouldn’t have liked it if you hadn’t come,” he conceded, “and I am grateful. Thank you, Catherine, thank you Laura.”
His face became stern as he looked at his daughter. “I do appreciate what you’ve done for me and I admire your courage, but I still intend to take you out of here at the earliest possible opportunity.”
“Okay, Dad,” Catherine agreed meekly. “But first we’ve got to find out why they brought you here. I mean, rolling someone in a carpet and bringing them way up here to the shed? That’s a really strange thing to do.”
“And I want to know why you didn’t call,” Laura inserted.
Thomas considered. “Well, I was looking around in the barn and I guess someone snuck up behind me and coshed me,” he said. “Then Morris asked me questions but I was too groggy to understand, which really made him mad so I guess he hit me again. That’s about all I remember. I guess they wrapped me in a rug after that, though why a rug I can’t imagine, except maybe to hide me.” He managed a smile at Laura. “Hard to make a call when you’re knocked out and wrapped up.”
“What were you looking for in the barn? And why did someone hit you over the head in the first place?” Laura pressed, determined to get as much out of him as she could while he was in a confessional mood.
To her chagrin, Thomas was once again saved from answering, this time by Senator, who distracted all of them by poking his head through the door and eyeing them quizzically, as if he too wanted some answers.
“Look, Senator wants to come in!” Catherine chortled, running outside to join the horse and rub his velvety nose. Laura smiled, glad to see Catherine enjoying Senator’s antics after all that trauma.
Thomas’s voice brought her back to reality. “They hit me over the head because they don’t like me interfering, and I was looking for clues in the barn because I am paid to interfere,” he said quietly, so Catherine wouldn’t hear.
Laura’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He had actually answered her!
“And I believe they brought me here because this is Morris’s favorite spot for questioning,” Thomas added caustically. “Nice and remote. No interruptions.”
“Morris is an appalling man, and I am very glad he didn’t have a chance to question you again,” Laura agreed. “However, he was badly hurt when Senator came to Catherine’s rescue and he needs a doctor. Do you by any chance have a cell phone?”
Thomas rummaged in his pocket. “I did, but I don’t seem to now. I guess they took it. Cell phones don’t work well up here, or for that matter, anywhere in England except London, so they’re not much use anyway.”
His expression changed. “What’s that in your hand?” he asked, pointing to her makeshift weapon.
Laura looked at the object closely for the first time. “It’s a walking stick, I think,” she answered, pleased with her discovery. “It has carvings on it and some kind of metallic handle.”
Taking it from her, Thomas examined it carefully. His face was set in tight lines. “Where did you get it?”
“It was on the floor near you, and I grabbed it when Morris turned up,” Laura explained. “Why? Do you know something else about it?”
“I know the person who owned it,” he answered grimly. “She was a colleague of mine and she always had it with her. She had it made to her specifications. The top works as a club, and I believe there’s a retractable knife in the other end. Though how one would get it out in time I can’t imagine,” he added in a faint attempt at humor. “I’ve never been able to make gadgets like that work.”
Laura regarded the walking stick with renewed respect. Maybe she would keep it. It would be useful next time she encountered a sadistic fiend like Morris. Or even a bully.
“I’d better see what else is in this shed,” Thomas said wearily, getting to his feet. He swayed unsteadily and began to crumple.
“No, you won’t. I will,” Laura told him firmly, and helped him to sit down again.
Turning on her flashlight, she roamed around the shed. A pile of what looked like crumpled cloth caught her eye and she went over to examine it more closely.
“There are some clothes here, and some papers under them,” she reported in a low voice. “I’ll bring them over.”
She picked up a jacket and saw with a jolt of fear that it was dotted with rusty stains. Blood? Under it was an old manila envelope. It looked ready to fall apart with age, as if it had spent long years in an attic. The attic at Torrington Manor? She made a mental note to search it.
More clothes lay in a pile nearby, contemporary ones – jeans and a gray t-shirt and similar items. Laura took them wordlessly to Thomas. She had little doubt that they had belonged to the missing cook.
“That could be blood on the jacket,” she said, wanting to prepare him. “Doesn’t look good for whoever owned it.”
“The aforementioned colleague, I expect,” Thomas told her tersely. “She came here posing as a cook.” His face twisted with grief and anger. “Bastard,” he muttered. “She didn’t deserve this.”
Laura shuddered and tried not to not to think about what her fate must have been, especially if Morris had her up here. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, feeling helpless in the face of his obvious distress.
She turned with relief to the envelope and undid the clasp, anxious to see what was inside. There wasn’t much, just a photograph and an old newspaper clipping. It seemed a pathetic bundle of clues.
“A newspaper clipping,” she reported. “An old one. And a photograph. Do you think your colleague was collecting clues about whatever was going on at Torrington Manor?”
“Could be,” Thomas replied absently. He picked up the clipping and frowned over it, perplexed.
Intrigued, Laura trained her flashlight on it and began to read. Her bewilderment grew as she scanned the article. It was about a long-ago society wedding in France. How did that fit into the puzzle? There were no photographs of the bride and groom and no names either. The whole top of the article, where presumably photos and names would have been, had been torn away, which was interesting in itself. The article did say that the groom was a Baron, though, and she immediately thought of the grande dame. Was this how she had become a Baroness? But why would the art detective posing as cook want to know about that?
She turned to the photograph. That made more sense. Three paintings were lined up side by side, and they were exactly alike.
“Three photos of the same painting or three paintings?” she asked Thomas.
“Three paintings,” he answered with only a cursory glance. He didn’t sound surprised, and Laura wondered whether that was because he already knew making forgeries was part of this scam or because he was part of it. She still couldn’t quite get that thought out of her mind.
“How does someone make such exact copies?” she asked curiously. “And surely the fakes don’t fool the experts.”
“They can and they do,” Thomas answered, perking up at the prospect of a discourse on art. “In one easy lesson, there are three major types of forgeries. The first is a copy of a masterpiece sold as the original. If the techniques are right it can and often does fool the experts. The second is a pastiche, a painting of typical scenes copied -”
A loud whinny and the sound of pawing hoofs cut off his words. Catherine’s agitated voice followed. “Come quickly! Morris is talking and he’s got Senator all upset. He wants to go down there and I’m not sure I can hold onto him. Hurry!”
Grabbing the walking stick, Laura ran outside. Senator really was upset. His eyes were rolling wildly and his big head jerked up and down as he tried to pull away from Catherine’s tenacious hold on his reins.
Gathering her courage, Laura walked slowly toward the agitated horse, murmuring soothing words as she went. Senator seemed to calm a little, and she put her hands on the reins just below Catherine’s. Together, they managed to haul Senator up the hill away from Morris.
“You stay with Senator and I’ll go to Morris,” Laura instructed. “If you keep the horse calmed down, I’ll calm Morris down. He hasn’t got four lethal feet,” she added in an effort at humor. Catherine looked much too pale and strained.
She was rewarded with a weak smile. “Sounds like a good deal to me,” Catherine agreed, rubbing her face against Senator’s neck.
Laura walked cautiously toward Morris. “Knife, need knife,” he muttered viciously. “Get them, I’ll get them.” He started to sit but fell back, gasping. “Damned horse. Get him too.”
Laura tried to soothe him. “Lie still,” she ordered. “I’m going to send for the doctor. He’ll take care of you soon.”
“No doctor,” he said distinctly. “All right.”
“No, you aren’t all right,” Laura replied firmly. “You are badly hurt and you must not move or try to talk.”
Morris opened his eyes. They stared up at her malevolently. “The bossy lady. Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Laura soothed. “You need to rest.”
“Antonia,” Morris ordered. “Bring Antonia. Have to talk to her. Important. Very important.” His eyes were apprehensive now as well as threatening.
“As soon as I find a doctor I will look for Antonia,” Laura promised. “She can come to the hospital, I’m sure.”
Morris shook his head, which made him wince in pain. “No hospital,” he gasped. “No bloody hospital. Antonia. Just Antonia.”
“You must have known Antonia a long time,” Laura ventured, trying to understand his insistence.
Morris frowned. “Your idea of a joke? Not funny.”
This wasn’t getting her very far. Laura decided to try a more direct approach. “Not a joke,” she assured Morris. “I have no idea why you have known Antonia for a long time.” A new thought came to her, and she gave a muffled gasp. “Is she your sister? Is that it?”
Morris gave her a contemptuous look and closed his eyes. “Leave me alone,” he said. He didn’t speak again.
He didn’t need to. Laura was certain she was right and wondered why she hadn’t seen the resemblance before. Antonia and Morris looked very alike, with their blondness and their classic features. She didn’t much like Antonia but having a brother like this must have been a sore trial.
In the meantime, however, she seemed to be stuck with Morris. Somehow, she had to find a doctor for him. He could be bleeding to death in front of her eyes. Thomas needed medical attention too, but there was no way to get help because phones didn’t work up here even if she had one, and she didn’t know who to call anyway because she didn’t know who to trust.
She whirled at an unexpected sound, and her heart began to beat hard with panic. A vehicle was coming! She could see its dark bulk straining slowly up the track. It sounded exactly like the van Stewart and Morris had used. She could see the lights now too. What if Stewart was coming back? He might have heard her screams earlier and wondered what was going on. He might even bring reinforcements in case there was trouble.
A cold frisson of fear crawled up Laura’s spine. Now what was she to do?
The walking stick. She had to figure out how it worked, quickly. Laura bent over it, straining to see.
There was no time. The vehicle ground to a halt and she heard the sound of someone jumping out. Only one person? Excited yaps came next. Dogs! Had Stewart brought the dogs?
Laura clutched her stick with both hands, raised it high and waited.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Might I help?” The polite voice came out of the darkness below. Laura jumped; then her body sagged with relief. Dr, Banbury! It was only Adrian Banbury. What was he doing here at this time of night?
She lowered the stick and realized that she was trembling all over. The art-loving veterinarian might make her uneasy, but he was definitely her savior. This was the second time he had appeared exactly when she needed him.
“Good heavens, it’s Laura!” Adrian exclaimed when he was close enough to see her. “But what are you doing up here alone?” He closed the remaining distance between them. “I am so sorry if I startled you,” he went on apologetically. “When I took the dogs out for their last walk of the day, I thought I heard someone scream. We don’t usually get screams on the moor, so I put the dogs in the truck and came up to investigate.
“But I’m rambling. Are you all right? That’s the main point. It simply isn’t safe for a woman to be up on the moor by herself at night. And was it you who screamed?” He came up to her and took her hand, looking genuinely distressed by her plight.
Laura almost laughed. How courtly he was! Despite what had happened tonight, the moor was probably a great deal safer at night than the city she routinely traversed to teach. “I’m fine,” she assured him, aware that her hands were still shaking, belying her words, and that he must feel them. “I’m afraid I was the one who screamed, though. And I’m not up here by myself. I’ve got two wounded men and a young friend with me.”
She stopped, wondering how on earth she could explain why she and Catherine were up on the moors with a horse that didn’t belong to either of them which had injured a man who had gone after them with a knife, as well as a man who had been rolled up in a carpet unconscious and brought to the shed to be tortured for information by the man with the knife.
The task was clearly impossible. “It’s a long story,” she apologized, “but I really could do with some help. That’s the most important part right now. We need a doctor for this man, for one thing.” She pointed at Morris.
“I should say you do,” Adrian agreed, bending over the prone body. “What happened to him?”
“I’m afraid it was the horse,” Laura explained. “He was defending my friend. The man, his name is Morris, came after her with a knife. I guess that’s when I screamed. It all happened so unexpectedly, you see.”
Catherine appeared beside her and took over smoothly. “You see,” she explained, “the horse, Senator, got loose, and we saw him heading up here. Maybe the groom forgot to latch his door, or something like that. Laura and I followed him as fast as we could, but it’s quite a long way. I guess this man must have frightened Senator – he’s normally very gentle, but he doesn’t like people who lunge at him unexpectedly. Anyway, he must have been terrified, or he would never have lashed out like that.”
“Lord Torrington’s horse, I see,” Adrian observed, stroking Senator’s neck gently. “I know him well, and I don’t consider him dangerous, not at all. What do you think frightened him so badly?”
“I wondered if the man had been drinking,” Laura contributed since Catherine seemed to have no ready answer this time. “We saw him come out of the shed just before this happened, and he seemed almost demented. He was running around with a knife in his hand, and then he started chasing us,” she added, warming to her story. “The horse felt threatened, I guess, or maybe he felt we were being threatened. Anyway, he reared and lashed out, and the man was right in front of him, trying to get at Catherine.”
“I see,” Adrian answered thoughtfully.
“Well, let’s have a closer look at the man,” he went on briskly. “Could you shine my torch on him while I examine him?”
Recalling that “torch” was British for flashlight, Laura took it and shined it obligingly on Morris. “Looks remarkably like the fellow who posed as butler up at the manor,” Adrian murmured.
“You mean he was a butler there?” Catherine was astonished. Laura was even more surprised. Morris must be the butler Lord Torrington had fired. She had never thought of that. Adrian’s choice of words was striking, too. Posed as butler, he had said. How interesting.
“Yes, I saw him at the manor a couple of times when I came up to look at the horses,” Adrian replied. “Didn’t last long, though, not even as long as the
last one.” He gazed searchingly into Morris’s face and then began to examine him with professional-looking fingers. Morris groaned.
“Dr. Banbury is the local veterinarian,” Laura informed Catherine hastily to distract her. She was looking rather green. Probably she hadn’t seen Morris clearly until now. He wasn’t a pleasant sight.
“Nasty,” Adrian commented, and Laura had the odd feeling that he was talking about Morris as well as his injuries. “Not a good idea to get in front of a frightened horse, is it? We’ll have to get him to hospital as soon as we can. I’ll put in a radio call to the hospital and they’ll send someone out.”
“That would be wonderful,” Laura agreed. “I’m very glad you came up to investigate. This is the second time you’ve rescued me and I’m grateful.”
Adrian bowed graciously. “I am delighted to be of service to such a lovely lady. It is indeed my pleasure.”
He turned to Catherine. “Well, young lady,” he said genially, “I think I should take you and Laura back to my housekeeper, who adores looking after people. You’ve had quite a shock, you know. The horse can come too. We’ll stable him at my place until morning. I’ll let Lord Torrington know so he won’t worry.”
He frowned. “It seems strange that Senator is saddled,” he commented. “Do you suppose Lord Torrington meant to ride him later?”
“He must have, I guess,” Catherine replied, all innocence.
Laura decided to change the subject. “I’m afraid we have another casualty to see to,” she reminded Adrian. “He’s in the shed. I think Morris must have hit him over the head.”
“He’s my dad,” Catherine explained. “We found him already up here.”
“Well, let’s have a look at your father, too,” Adrian said agreeably. “One day, however, I would appreciate hearing the real story,” he added. “You two seem to have had some astonishing adventures.”
Laura could think of no response, so she started up the hill for the shed. “This way,” she told Adrian loudly, hoping Thomas would hear and have the wits to hide the evidence they had found. How would she possibly explain the bloody clothes?
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