Means to an End

by Lucy Gillen

  Not that it would do a great deal of good, she realised as she looked around at a big built-in wardrobe in one corner, they would be bound to look in all the cupboards if they were looking over the house with a view to buying it. But the thought of being caught on premises where she had absolutely no right to be, and with that open window betraying her means of entry, was too much to face, so hiding herself was the only alternative.

  She was in a state of near panic when she heard voices and footsteps downstairs in the hall, and dived straight for the big wardrobe, the rose she had been carrying with such care dropping to the floor in her haste to close the doors behind her.

  She had more than enough room to move, but she crouched in one corner, feeling a bit like a cornered mouse, holding her breath and with her heart in her mouth as she waited while the callers explored the lower floor. She could hear nothing while they were downstairs and very little as they came upstairs, but it seemed like only minutes before she heard them come into the room where she was, the old boards echoing to their tread.

  She drew in a involuntary breath suddenly when she heard the man’s voice, seemingly right up close to the wardrobe door, but it was not only his nearness that startled her. Even muffled by the intervening door she had no difficulty in recognising Stefano’s deep, slightly accented voice, and she put both hands to her mouth and held her breath.

  She expected him to open the door at any second,

  even hoped he would, for the anticipation was becoming unbearable, but the expected revelation did not happen. She knew that he was still right up close to the door and the handle was shaken once or twice, but it did not open, and she wondered why. Instead she heard him laugh, and it was easy to imagine the accompanying shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘It seems to be stuck,’ he said, and moved away again, across the echoing boards. She vaguely heard the tail end of a sentence that sounded like, ‘—have to pick up my passenger again,’ and he was gone.

  The woman’s voice had not been familiar, but it had sounded, as near as she could judge, like someone fairly young and rather bored, but even so Alison could not understand why she had not been more insistent about the wardrobe door being tried again. For that small mercy, however, she thanked heaven and, crouched there in the corner of the big wardrobe, sought for a reason why Stefano had not opened the-door and betrayed her.

  She could hear nothing, once they had left the room, but she thought she detected something that could have been footsteps going downstairs and, a little while later, the vibration of the front door slamming. For a while she stayed where she was, even though she was almost certain they had gone, then she ran her fingers over the inside surface of the door searching for the catch, and discovered something that she should have noticed in the first place.

  There was no catch on the inside of the doors, and no way of opening them from the inside at all. She was imprisoned inside the wardrobe quite

  securely, and with heaven knew how little hope of being freed.

  It seemed to Alison that hours had passed since Stefano and the woman had left, and she had achieved precisely nothing in the way of freeing herself. The house was old and the cupboard strongly built, and banging and pushing on the lock in the hope of breaking it had resulted only in bruised hands The doors stayed firmly locked on her, and it was getting increasingly stuffy and airless, especially after her exertions.

  A look at her watch showed that it was over an hour since Stefano had gone, and she could have panicked, had she allowed herself to, when she thought of how long it would probably be before anyone else came to view the old house. Somehow she must find a way out—no one else was likely, to rescue her.

  She sighed ruefully for the days of long hair and hairpins, running despairing fingers through her own short locks. There was nothing she could use and no one to hear no matter how hard she thumped, on the unyielding doors. Tired and frightened, she slumped down into the bottom of the wardrobe and tried to think coherently, although her mind seemed to be a complete blank and not one bright idea came into it.

  After two hours, she was feeling drowsy with the stale air and her head ached abominably. Great tears rolled down her face when she thought of Aunt Celia and Stefano being back at Greggan Bar by now and probably wondering where she was. It would

  never occur to them that she was a prisoner with little hope of being found, and the old house on the creek was the last place they would think of looking for her.

  She must have fallen asleep, she thought, for the next thing she became conscious of was someone lifting her up and carrying her down some stairs, although it took her some time to realise which stairs it was. There was something so reassuring about the arms that carried her, however, that she felt disinclined to take too much notice of where she was, content to simply keep her eyes closed and breathe in the blessedly cool air, even if it did smell rather of dust and aged wood.

  She must have stirred slightly, for her rescuer spoke to her, his breath close enough to warm her cheek. ‘Alison ‘ There was no mistaking that accented second syllable, and she opened her eyes only very reluctantly, and looked up in to Stefano’s anxious face.

  ‘Hello,’ she whispered, and thought she smiled.

  He did not smile, but looked quite a bit older, she thought, than the last time she had seen him, his black eyes searching her face as if seeking reassurance that she really was all right. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

  ‘I—O.K., I think,’ she told him. The light made her head ache worse than ever and she wanted to close her eyes again.

  ‘Do not try to talk yet,’ he said, taking her out in to the ripe, golden evening sunshine.

  Out here the air smelled wonderful and she could even distinguish the scent of the roses at the side of

  the house, wondering vaguely what had happened to the bloom she had plucked and cherished so briefly. The roses,’ she said solemnly, as he put her carefully into the passenger seat of the car. ‘They smell lovely.’

  He glanced at her, as if he feared she might be rambling, then smiled, reassured by her expression. ‘If it had not been for one of those roses,’ he told her quietly, ‘you might not have been found so soon.’

  She turned heavy-lidded eyes to look at him enquiringly as he took his place behind the wheel. ‘A rose?’ she asked vaguely, and he nodded, reaching into the glove compartment and showing her a wilted, but still perfumed, dark red rose.

  ‘I found it by the wardrobe,’ he told her. ‘That is what made me come back here. You probably owe your life to that rose, bella mia.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AUNT CELIA had been very nearly in tears when Stefano carried her into the house, and Alison felt a momentary flick of panic when she thought how much worse the outcome could have been if she had not been found. Doctor Fison had declared her to be in much better shape than she had any right to expect, and told her she could get up the next day only if she felt well enough. In the meantime she was to stay where she was.

  Only a slight headache remained next morning, to remind her of her narrow escape, and it was such a lovely bright morning again that she decided she would get up regardless of anyone else’s opinion. An earlier visit by her aunt with a cup of tea had brought a doubtful frown when she announced her intention, and an observation that Stefano would think she was being rash clinched her determination.

  ‘I’m perfectly O.K. except for a slight headache,’ she insisted, when Aunt Celia shook her head. ‘And I’d much rather get up, Aunt Celia.’

  ‘I know, dear,’ her aunt said, a worried look in her eyes when she remembered again how close tragedy had been. ‘But you really should rest for a bit, you know.’

  ‘Don’t worry ‘ Alison patted her aunt’s hand reassuringly. ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘I shudder every time I think about it,’ her aunt

  confessed. `If it hadn’t been for Stefano’s powers of observation and deduction, you might never have been found—or not until much too la
te, anyway.’

  Alison looked at her curiously, thinking about her rescue for the first time. ‘How did he realise I was there?’ she asked. ‘I’ve not given it much thought until now.’

  A rather ironic smile crossed her aunt’s face and she sat on the edge of the bed, evidently prepared to linger for a while. `No,’ she said, ‘one does rather tend to take Stefano’s omniscience for granted.’

  Alison was prepared neither to support nor deny the theory, but she was curious to know how her solitary walk and its ultimate destination had been discovered. ‘How did he guess where I’d gone?’ she asked. ‘I remember he said something about a rose, but I was much too fuzzy at the time to take much notice of anything anyone said. What was he doing there, anyway?’

  `Did you realise he’s in the property business?’ Aunt Celia asked, and she nodded, a gesture that brought a momentary flick of an eyebrow from her aunt.

  ‘I didn’t until a few days ago,’ Alison said. ‘It was quite a surprise, I’d always pictured him as the gentleman of leisure, somehow.’

  `It was a surprise to me too,’ Aunt Celia admitted, rather surprisingly to Alison. ‘I had no idea he was a property tycoon until yesterday.’

  `You hadn’t ?’

  Her aunt looked at her a bit strangely, but she made no comment on her surprise, for the moment. ‘None at all. Then he told me he was meeting an

  old friend who was also interested in the old Barmon house. That’s how it came out.’

  ‘An old friend?’ Alison frowned curiously, remembering how she had thought the woman with Stefano had sounded fairly young and rather bored, and she wondered just how close a friend she was of Stefano’s.

  Aunt Celia nodded, her expression non-committal, so that Alison could not even guess what her reaction was to the ‘old friend’, or even if she was reacting at all. ‘He picked her up in Skarren when he dropped me off,’ she said. ‘A rather blasé-looking blonde girl with very expensive tastes, if her clothes were anything to judge by.’

  Alison could not help wondering if jealousy had tinged the rather tart description, but she was interested to hear more about the prospective client for the old house. ‘That’s just about how she sounded too,’ she told her aunt. ‘Although I couldn’t actually hear the words of anything she said. Her tone of voice was unutterably bored.’ She smiled a trifle maliciously. ‘Not at all what Stefano’s used to, I imagine.’

  Aunt Celia smiled wryly. ‘Darling,’ she admonished gently, ‘that’s very unkind in the circumstances.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Alison admitted. ‘But she didn’t sound at all the type of person who would want to buy that lovely old house.’

  One of Aunt Celia’s brows elevated in comment. ‘I thought you described it to me before as scruffy,’ she said.

  ‘So I did, but it isn’t. Not when you get closer to

  it and really look at it. It has great possibilities—I agree with Stefano.’

  `I never thought I’d live to see the day,’ Aunt Celia remarked. ‘You and Stefano in agreement about something.’

  `But I just can’t imagine that woman being the type to like it,’ Alison said, determinedly ignoring the remark.

  `Actually I gathered it was for her mother,’ Aunt Celia said. ‘So Stefano told me.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ That, Alison thought, explained the lack of interest in the wardrobe. ‘But you were going to tell me how Stefano came to know I was there. It must have been a fabulous stroke of luck.’

  `It wasn’t entirely luck, I should say,’ Aunt Celia told her, and eyed her curiously for a moment. ‘It was very unlike you to go prowling around empty houses, darling, wasn’t it? I can’t for the life of me think what possessed you. And as for climbing in through a window—well! Did you have a sudden urge to take up housebreaking, or are you catching on to some of Danny’s more anti-social ideas?’

  Alison flushed resentment of the jibe, and she knew her aunt already regretted having made it. `That wasn’t very kind either,’ she told her.

  `No, darling, it wasn’t, and I’m sorry, but I still can’t visualise you as a housebreaker.’

  Alison smiled ruefully. `No, neither can I,’ she confessed. ‘It must have been a sudden rush of blood to the head, I suppose. Anyway, I certainly shan’t be doing it again in a hurry, I can promise you that.’

  `Apparently Stefano noticed that open window

  when they were looking at the ground floor rooms,’ Aunt Celia told her. ‘Then he found a rose in one of the bedrooms — it all sounded most unlikely, but he swears it’s true.’

  ‘It is,’ Alison told her. ‘I picked it when I went round the side of the house. There’s a beautiful Ena Harkness on a trellis there, and I couldn’t resist taking one.’

  ‘Well, in the circumstances, it’s as well you did. It puzzled Stefano for a bit,’ her aunt went on. ‘He could see it was a freshly picked bloom, so he knew whoever had picked it and dropped it had either not long gone, or was still there.’

  ‘Brilliant deduction ! ‘ Alison remarked, a smile taking the edge off the words.

  ‘I thought so,’ her aunt said.

  ‘But he didn’t try to find out who it was?’

  Aunt Celia shrugged. ‘Evidently not. You know Stefano, he’s not averse to a bit of romantic intrigue.’ ‘Isn’t he?’

  Aunt Celia shook her head. ‘He says he thought it might have been a young couple with ideas bigger than their pockets, and who’d taken advantage of the open window. And when the wardrobe door was stuck he was convinced they must be still hiding in there.’

  Alison stared at her. `Do you mean that door really was stuck?’

  Her aunt shrugged. ‘So he says. Anyway, he thought that whoever it was would come out as soon as he and his client were gone and leave via the front door with no one any the wiser.’

  ‘But—but what made him think I might be there?’

  ‘Heaven knows,’ her aunt said. ‘Intuition maybe, but whatever it was, thank heaven he was inspired. When the time went on and you still didn’t come, we began to get fidgety about you being so long, so he went down to the village to see if Danny had seen anything of you, and

  ‘Danny?’ Alison gazed at her unbelievingly. ‘Do you mean he called on Danny?’ It was something she could not easily imagine, although she could imagine Danny’s reaction easily enough.

  ‘Well, not on Danny himself, as it happened,’ Aunt Celia said. ‘He wasn’t there, but Mrs. Clay said she’d seen you earlier, when she was talking to a neighbour of hers, and she thought she’d noticed you going across the field towards Creek Lane.’ She shrugged. ‘That was enough for Stefano—he put two and two together again, and prayed he was right. As it happened his gamble paid off, thank heaven, and he found you locked in that wretched cupboard.’

  ‘Thank heaven,’ Alison echoed fervently. ‘It was pure Sherlock Holmes stuff, wasn’t it?’

  ‘He’s pretty sharp,’ her aunt agreed blandly. ‘Stefano’s not short on brains.’

  ‘Apparently not.’ Alison frowned curiously when something else came to mind. ‘There’s one thing, though, Aunt Celia—how did he get back into the house? Did he use that window like I did? Surely he didn’t still have the keys, did he? Didn’t he take them back when he took his client back?’

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘Well, to the agents or wherever he had them from.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Aunt Celia informed her blandly. ‘He bought the house several days ago.’

  Danny was rather unsympathetically matter-of-fact when Alison relayed her near escape to him the following evening, and she felt that at least he might have shown a little concern at how close she had come to suffocating in that dark and dusty wardrobe. Danny, it seemed, could be disappointingly ungallant.

  ‘Of all the stupid things to do,’ he said bluntly. ‘What in the name of heaven possessed you to go climbing in windows and locking yourself in cupboards?’

  ‘One window, and one cupboard,’ Alison corrected him defensi
vely, ‘and that was a wardrobe. I can see,’ she added, ‘that I needn’t have bothered about you worrying about me, even if I had stifled to death in the wretched thing.’

  Danny hugged her, dropping a casual kiss on the top of her nose. ‘Oh, you pie-eyed little goof, of course I’m concerned when you take leave of your senses,’ he told her. ‘But the fact remains that it was a damned stupid thing to do.’

  ‘Stefano was very worried about me.’ She looked at him from under her thick lashes and was surprised to find herself being so deliberately provocative.

  The muscles in his jaw tightened ominously and his mouth was a tight straight line. ‘That practised

  continental charm, no doubt,’ he said acidly. ‘Rescuing fair damsels in distress is all part of the act, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alison retorted swiftly. ‘Is it?’

  He said nothing for a moment, then he hugged her again and kissed her with a little more enthusiasm this time. ‘You could say I’m a bit green-eyed,’ he admitted frankly, with a wry grin. ‘He seems to have quite a lot of your time lately.’

  ‘With a purpose,’ Alison reminded him. ‘Or had you forgotten?’

  ‘Not forgotten,’ he said gloomily, ‘given up hope.’ ‘Oh, Danny, you haven’t, have you?’ She eyed him anxiously, and he smiled.

  ‘Not altogether,’ he confessed. ‘But you don’t seem to be doing very well in that direction, do you, darling?’

  ‘I’m trying—whenever I can.’

  ‘You’d better try a bit harder, my sweet, or we shall run out of time, or garages.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She walked along with him, his arm round her shoulders, a small worried frown between her brows when she thought of the marathon task she had been set—to try and persuade Stefano to release enough money to buy Danny his garage and, at the same time, enable them to get married.

  He smiled down at her, his light eyes speculative as he studied her. ‘You are really trying, aren’t you, darling?’ he asked, and she looked up at him with wide eyes.

  ‘Yes, of course I am ! ‘ she said indignantly. ‘I just wondered.’