I was busy going through some papers I found on the floor by the dining room table. “Well, we can pretty much guess who did this.”
“Your kidnappers.”
“Yes, or Sledge. We can’t forget Sledge. I just can’t figure out where he fits into this picture.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“How would I know? I don’t know what was here, so I don’t know what’s missing. I recognize some of Harry’s shirts, so this really is his apartment. Or he was using it. And some of these photographs I recognize. This one is his mother. Oh, and this frame held one of Bailey and me. It’s gone. Ripped out. Some of it is sticking in the frame.”
Minnie was in the kitchen. “Want some coffee? There’s a Mr. Coffee here.”
“I don’t think I could ever drink another cup again. Which reminds me. Where is the bathroom?”
“I’m going to make some anyway. It’s off the end bedroom. I think that must have been Harry’s. There’re more clothes strewn around back there. You know, Honey, if Harry left you this flat, it means we’re in your place, right?”
I left her question unanswered as I found the bathroom. I didn’t want to face the fact that if this was my apartment, it meant that Harry was dead. I washed my hands and looked around the wrecked bathroom. I picked up an aspirin bottle and put it in the medicine cabinet. As I closed the door to the cabinet, I saw the note taped to the mirror.
Minnie came down the hall. “There’s even a washer and dryer. Actually, it’s a combo thing. First it washes, then it dries. What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I handed her the note I’d taken from the mirror.
“Oh my: ‘First the girl then your mother give yourself up.’ Pretty much to the point, isn’t it?”
“I think I’ll have some coffee,” I said.
We took the note and the coffee into the living room where Minnie cleared a pile of junk off the couch. “Okay, we’ll just sit down and try to make some sense of all this. ‘First the girl.’ That’s got to be you, right? ‘Then your mother.’ That’s Harry’s mother, I bet.” She looked up from the note. “Honey, what do you know about Harry’s mother?”
“Nothing, really. I mean he has a mother. He called her Mother. I reckon she would be Mrs. Armstead. That’s it. He never talked about her other than sometimes to say my mother this or my mother that. You know. Just conversation things. His father’s dead, I do know that. And he is an only child.”
“This part of the note that says, ‘Give yourself up.’ I’m guessing that the note is a threat. Like give yourself up or we will kill the girl, then your mother. Wonder if Harry has seen this note? I mean, you can leave all the notes in the world, but if someone doesn’t read it, it’s like whistling in the wind. Harry may not know you’re in danger. Or his mother.”
“There’s no way of telling; but, Minnie, something has bothered me. If Harry intended me to have the apartment — the flat — if something happened to him, why would I get the key in the mail if he were okay?
“Honey, face it. This story may not have a happy ending. Harry may not be okay.”
“No, I don’t buy that. If Harry were dead, then I wouldn’t have been kidnapped yesterday. If they’d found Harry, they wouldn’t need to intimidate me. No, he’s out there somewhere; we’ve just got to find him.”
“Okay, I’ll go along with that. Where do we start looking?”
I picked up the frame from the table and looked at the picture of the woman it held. “With Mother, of course!”
TWENTY–NINE
There was a listing for a “Mother” Armstead or rather an Eleanor Armstead in the phone guide, but no address, and no one answered the ring. The other Armsteads we did contact never heard of our Harry. Instead of being stumped, Minnie brilliantly put in a call to a private taxi company. “I’ve driven with Edmund before. He was the driver on a shoot we did in Dover once. He’s an actor, drives when he’s not auditioning. He knows everyone. If anyone can find our Eleanor, Edmund can.”
She arranged for Edmund to pick us up at The Selfridges Hotel, which gave us a chance to change into some higher-class sleuth clothes; however, it didn’t matter what I wore, Minnie always outshone me. I watched as she swept her hair into a fashionable twist on top of her head, held in place with silver clips. “You look like you could go on a corgi run with the Queen,” I told her. “And I look like I could clean out their cages.”
“Pooh, you look great. Here, let me just fix that collar, and I’ll just loan you this pin for your jacket. There, see? I’ll run with the dogs, and you have high tea with Her Majesty.”
Despite the fact that our mission was so serious, we were, after all, young and in London. We kept our good spirits as the darkly handsome Edmund drove us to Harry’s mother’s house. That the driver knew exactly where we wanted to go did not surprise Minnie, but I was in awe. “Millions of people here in London, and you know one address?”
“Right on, luv. Bred and born here, I was. Know these streets like the back of my hand. Yes, know the streets, know the houses, and know the way to the kitchen doors for a cuppa and a squeeze, if you get my drift.”
“And you know Eleanor Armstead?”
“Oh, right. She and her mister used to do a lot of entertaining. Keeps a great cupboard, or did. Haven’t heard all that much about her since he died. There’s a son, too. Or did he die?”
That put a damper on my good humor, which finding myself parked in front of an immense stone house surrounded by a high wall and black wrought iron fence did nothing to quell. “Harry lived here? Grew up here? I never knew. He never said.”
“You think this is grand, eh? Well, lass, you should see their country home. Drove some parties out there for a weekend several times. Now, it’s what I call posh.”
“And what do you call this? Never mind. Oh, Minnie, I don’t know if I can do this.”
She bustled me out of Edmund’s cab. “Of course, you can. Remember, it’s a matter of life and death.”
I was mumbling about living on the south side of Fort Worth and not knowing anything about grand houses and weekend parties when Minnie pulled the bell chime that hung by the front door. “Oh, can’t you do it gentler? That’s so loud.”
“Not loud enough to get anyone to answer, though, is it?” And she gave another tug on the rope. “This is a little much, I agree. A simple buzzer would work, in my opinion.”
“No one’s coming. Wonder if there’s a servant entrance? There’s bound to be. I can’t see the upstairs maid using the front door.”
We found another door, smaller and less intimidating, around the side of the house. There was still no answer, and we peeked in the bay windows near a little herb garden to no avail. “Face it, Minnie. There’s not a soul here. Should we wait awhile?”
Edmund joined us in the kitchen garden. “Chap next door, the butler actually, says the house has been closed for a couple of months. Mrs. Armstead is ill, he says. She’s in a sanitarium south of London. Haywood Heath — small town.”
“Sanitarium? She’s crazy?”
“No, Honey, here a sanitarium is like a nursing home back in the states. People go there to recover. Of course, she could be crazy, too.”
“Want me to pop you around there, then?”
“How far is it? We don’t want to miss Janie at the hotel.”
Minnie looked at her watch. “Her tour is due back in London around five-thirty. It’s only after one now. I think we can make it there and back with no problems. What do you think, Edmund?”
“No problem. Traffic is light today. Not as many tourists this time of year, and it’s not a weekend. If we’re off right now, we can motor there and back in two hours. That gives you plenty of time to talk to Mrs. Armstead. If she’ll talk, that is. I was right about the son. Fellow says he died, and that’s why the miss’s is in the sanitarium.”
Edmund’s statement hit me like a stake in my heart. “He says Harry died? Oh, no, I don’t believe that
for a minute. Let’s go. If Janie gets back before we do, she’ll just have to manage.” I led the way to the cab. I didn’t need to look back to know that Minnie and Edmund were shaking their heads and rolling their eyes.
Harry is not dead. These words in my head became my mantra for the drive to Haywood Heath. They carried me through the cheese and bread sandwiches Edmund picked up for us at a pub before we left London. I don’t even remember eating mine, but a faint taste of sawdust in my mouth assured me that I had. I drank my bottled water and watched suburban London through unseeing eyes. As long as I kept saying Harry is not dead, he wouldn’t be.
The sisters at the sanitarium assured us that Mrs. Armstead was feeling better today, and that they just knew she would enjoy seeing the daughters of her friends from the States. “So, this is like a religious place?” I asked Minnie as we followed a starched uniform down a hallway.
“No, they call all nurses in England sister. Oh, maybe it does go back to religious times. Funny how things stick. I can tell you one thing, what this place is . . . is expensive.”
Eleanor Armstead wasn’t in her room — a light and airy place with flowers and linen curtains blowing in the breeze from an open balcony — but after a hurried consultation with a lesser sister, she was located in a garden nearby in a gazebo surrounded by wheelchair-sized paths and wood ferns. We found her stretched out on a white wicker chaise reading a book. Her white hair — dressed in a casual knot—still bore a trace of Harry’s auburn color. When she looked up, it was like looking into Harry’s blue eyes.
I nodded to Minnie. It was the right woman.
“Mrs. Armstead?”
“Yes? The sister said you’re daughters of friends of mine? I don’t believe I know you, though.” Mrs. Armstead smiled a gentle smile and seemed relaxed and open to our confrontation. Not like someone who was recovering from the loss of her only son.
But as soon as I said, “Actually, I’m a friend of your son, Harry,” she closed the door to her face. Tense lines formed around her eyes, tearing away at the carefully tended face. Her complexion went from a healthy glow to ashen parchment. We watched as Eleanor Armstead aged twenty years right before our eyes.
Tears spilled over the pale blue eyes and ran down the new wrinkles on her cheeks. “Harry? Harry’s dead.”
THIRTY
We arrived back at the hotel just after Janie did. We found her munching more cucumber sandwiches from a fresh tray and enjoying a pot of hot tea.
“You really like those sandwiches, don’t you?” asked Minnie as she snatched one up on her way to the bathroom.
“I do. I do. May I pour you a cup? I’ll be the mama. I learned today that the one who pours is always the mama. I think I can even get the mixture right.”
“What else did you learn today?” Minnie handed me a cold, wet towel, which I draped over my sore and tired face.
“Poor Honey,” Janie commiserated. “Here, here’s your cup. I could hardly enjoy the tour, knowing you were so banged up.” She raised the towel to look at my face. “Hmm, your eyes are both swollen, but only one is black. The knife scratches are doing okay. Are you using the Neosporin like I told you to? Have you been crying? What’s happened?”
I took a sip of the hot tea and said, “Give me a minute, and I’ll fill you in. What about you? Did the kidnappers follow you around Stratford? And did you know that Sledge Hamra was following you also?”
“Your Masud and his men took off toward London the second they saw that it wasn’t you and Minnie wearing the hats. I hope that gave you two enough time. What was at Wigmore Street?” She didn’t wait for an answer but went right on, “And, no, I never saw Sledge Hamra, but then I didn’t know he was following me, too. I guess I let my guard down after the kidnappers drove off. We went to Shakespeare’s home and the Gildhall. My favorite stop was Anne Hathaway’s cottage. Now I know what they mean by an English garden. I’ve never seen the likes. And . . . let me see . . . oh, yes, we stopped by Warwick Castle on the way back to London. It’s modernized. You know — they have a bathroom right where an old guardhouse stood. They even have peacocks on the lawn, and one came right up to the window in the rest room and yelled at me.” She finally ran down. “Oh, but I guess you don’t want to hear a tour guide version, do you? Bottom line, the blue car left as soon as we reached Shakespeare’s house, and I never saw Sledge.”
Suddenly, Janie looked concerned. “I’m not a very good sleuth, am I? I got caught up in the tour and all”
Minnie fetched me another cup of the reviving tea, and I roused to tell Janie that she had done a splendid job. “We would never have been able to cover as much ground as we did if you hadn’t tricked our followers out of London. I feel like we’ve been through a forty-eight-hour day.”
“Tell,” she demanded.
Minnie and I both began to relate the day’s events to Janie, starting with the tea cakes at The Breakfast Scene, when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. Minnie cautiously opened it and admitted our driver Edmund. After introductions to Janie, he said, “I went right back to the Armstead house, like you said, and talked to that chap next door again. He said Harry Armstead died in the States about two months ago.”
“That’s not possible,” I declared.
“Well, now, that’s what he said.”
“Oh, Edmund, I’m not doubting your report, but if Harry died in the United States, then why did I find his stuff, things I know he had in Padre, at Wigmore Street?”
Janie choked on her sandwich. “Harry’s dead?”
So, we told her the story of the afternoon — how we had gone from Wigmore Street to Haywood Heath, how Harry’s mother Eleanor had broken down when we mentioned Harry’s name, and how we had called one of the sisters for aid.
“They took her back to her room, and we never got a chance to ask her anything else,” Minnie said as she picked up the story. “The sisters made us leave, and so that’s why we sent Edmund back to the Armstead house to find out more information. That’s all you learned, Edmund? That Harry supposedly died in the U.S.?”
“No, he said we weren’t the first to come looking for your Harry. From the description, I’d say it was your kidnappers who were looking for him, too, but that was weeks ago.”
“Honey refuses to believe that Harry is dead,” Minnie told Janie.
“Well, me either,” she said.
“Because . . .?”
“Think logically, Minnie. It’s what they do in the books. Look at the facts. If Harry was really dead and, let’s say the kidnappers killed him, why, they would be the first to know. Right? And so, they would have no reason to take Honey yesterday.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” I agreed. “Janie, you’re a wonder. Now, see, I told you I needed you on this trip. I just wasn’t standing on my head to figure it out. Minnie, you’ve got to agree. Harry’s not dead, after all.”
Minnie still disagreed. “I don’t know. His mother convinced me. I’ve been around a lot of actresses, and I don’t think you could fake that kind of grief.”
Edmund chimed in, “And that bloke next door was dead certain that Harry is dead.”
“Let me think. Let me think,” I implored them. “There’s an answer in here somewhere.”
“Are you going to stand on your head?” asked Edmund, who obviously took my earlier statement literally.
“Order another pot of tea, and I’ll show you,” I laughed.
“Better yet, Edmund. You go around to the liquor store and get some Bell’s and I’m ordering something from room service more substantial than these finger sandwiches,” ordered Minnie. “A little scotch and a few hamburgers, and we’ll have a real think feast here.”
It was hours later when we came up with our new plan. Janie was asleep on the couch, and Edmund was about out of it, too. Minnie and I were invigorated with our current idea and still churning out scenarios. She told Edmund, “You go on home now and come back about ten tomorrow morning. We’ll all be fresh then, and w
e need you to help us in case the kidnappers become violent.”
The driver looked startled when Minnie mentioned violence but agreed to return the next day to help work the plan. I think he would have followed Minnie through fire, but he said as he left, “You could just go to the coppers, you know.”
“We could, you know,” Minnie said. “Edmund may be right.”
“How do the British say it? Sorted out? No, Minnie, it’s not all sorted out yet, but I promise you, if this doesn’t work, I’ll be the first in line at Scotland Yard tomorrow.”
THIRTY–ONE
My assignment was the Golden Triangle, the area that tourists visit most in London. My route began at Trafalgar Square right at Lord Nelson’s stone feet.
Janie’s was touring the same area in a double-decker red London bus, and Minnie got the tube route.
“I’ll take the high road and you take the low road,” Janie sang to us as Edmund put her on the correct bus that would take her around the triangle.
Minnie shouted after her, “Well, if you get to Scotland before me, order me a whiskey.” She headed off in the direction of our Oxford underground station. “Actually, I like the tubes,” she said as she waved good-bye. “They’re what the New York subways should be. I’ve just never spent the day doing nothing but riding them, though.”
Edmund was to be the semi bodyguard and runner between the three of us. We had hired him for the day. He drove me to Trafalgar Square and wished me luck.
In our straw hats with the bobbing roses, we were sitting ducks for whoever would be watching us. Which was the plan.
“Now, whoever is approached by Masud first is to tell him that Harry is dead. And that he can leave us alone. That his vengeance is served, or whatever,’’ I had instructed the three.
“You’re sure they’re still watching you?”
“Oh, yes, Minnie. Masud was not one to give up. Remember, he said he had been after Harry for years. He’ll quit when he finds that Harry is no longer with us. Of course, not that I believe he’s dead. That’s immaterial. The one we have to convince is Masud.”
The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set Page 47