She had hoped that it would not be talked about, but the newspapers yesterday had revealed everything that they wanted kept secret.
‘Of course it has made John angry,’ she thought. ‘I suppose I should be angry too, but I am so happy to be here in the sunshine that I find it difficult to think of anything but how beautiful the place is and how Bracken is one of the most marvellous horses I have ever ridden.’
She crossed over the stream and then turned into the wood.
She was certain that it really was a fairy wood.
As the groom had just related, the fairies danced at night leaving their marks looking like small mushrooms on the ground.
‘If I had children, I would bring them here,’ Melita told herself. ‘I am quite certain that we would find traces of the fairies dancing and then perhaps see mermaids in the pool.’
Then, as she rode in the quietness of the wood, she thought that she heard a sound of someone moving ahead through the trees.
There had never been anyone here before.
She thought that perhaps she was just imagining it.
At the same time if there were trespassers she knew that John would be annoyed.
As he had said to her, when he was showing her round,
“We must make it very clear that we don’t want trespassers of any sort over our land. The people in the village are very loyal and always carry out my wishes. In fact I am told they are rude and disagreeable to strangers, who want to pick our wild flowers in the summer and in the winter try to shoot our pheasants.”
‘I must be imagining there are people here,’ Melita told herself.
But she felt that if she did find any trespassers she would just ask them politely to go back to where they had come from.
*
Sir John hurried, riding faster than he usually did when he visited the Lord Lieutenant.
He reached his grand house in what he told himself was record time.
The Lord Lieutenant, who was getting old, greeted him delightedly and said,
“It is so kind of you to come when I know that you are on your honeymoon.”
“I know you would not have asked me unless it was urgent,” Sir John responded. “Anything that happens in the County is very important to you and, of course, to all of us.”
“That is exactly what I feel,” the Lord Lieutenant answered. “I think this man will build something hideous and drive a lot of our best men away from the land.”
“Then we must certainly do everything we can to stop him. The land here is particularly good and we don’t want building on it, but more attention to the rotation of our crops.”
“Quite right,” the Lord Lieutenant agreed as he led the way into his study, where five others were waiting.
Sir John had only been there for five minutes when the man concerned with the new buildings arrived.
They had a somewhat fiery meeting with both sides being very positive as to what was required.
They had some difficulty in making him realise that what they were suggesting was in the best interests of the County as a whole.
Of course inevitably they came to no conclusion, but went away to think things over and Sir John could only hope that he and the Lord Lieutenant had made it perfectly clear that the buildings were not wanted.
After the man had left, the Lord Lieutenant asked all of them to have a drink.
However, to Sir John’s relief they were in a hurry to get back to where they had come from.
He also refused any hospitality the Lord Lieutenant offered him and rode away as quickly as he could.
He realised that he had taken much longer than he had told Melita he would.
She would be disappointed that they had missed so much of the morning together.
As he went onto his own land, there was no sign of anyone.
He thought that Melita, giving him up for being so late, had already returned to the house.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to go there first and find out where she was.
He rode up the drive and thought, as he always did, that the old oaks standing like sentinels on either side made it a perfect entrance to Gilmour Hall.
As he galloped up to the front door, he saw Bracken and two of the grooms with him.
He therefore imagined that Melita must have just gone inside.
As he then drew his horse to a standstill, the Head Groom hurried towards him and said,
“I’m that glad you’ve arrived, Sir John. We were worried because Bracken’s come back ’ere alone.”
“What do you mean?” Sir John asked sharply.
“’Er Ladyship weren’t with ’im,” he said, “and we thinks perhaps she’s ’ad a fall.”
This did not seem likely to Sir John for the simple reason that Melita was such a good rider and he could not imagine her having a fall from any horse.
“I will go now and see if I can find her,” he told the Head Groom.
Then, as an afterthought, he enquired,
“Has Bracken been hurt in any way?”
“No, Sir John, we were sayin’ we didn’t think ’e’d fallen,” the Head Groom replied.
Without saying anything more Sir John rode off to the orchard and from the orchard into the wood.
There was no sign of anyone there.
Although there were several marks of horses’ hoofs on the path, they might easily have been made two or three days earlier.
When he reached the end of the wood, he went out into the big field on the other side of it where they usually galloped.
But one quick glance told him that there was no one in sight and certainly no sign of Melita.
‘There must be some mistake,’ he said to himself. ‘Perhaps by this time, if she had fallen, she has walked back to the house.’
He turned his horse around and rode back until he found that Bracken was no longer by the front door and he had obviously been taken to the stables.
Sir John dismounted and told one of the footmen to hold his horse.
Then he ran into the house.
Bates, the butler, was in the hall and Sir John asked him,
“Has her Ladyship returned?”
“No, Sir John,” he replied. “When we heard the horse had come home without her, I’ve been looking out of the windows expecting to see her Ladyship come walking through the garden.”
“What could have happened?” Sir John asked more to himself than to Bates.
Then Bates said,
“That just reminds me, Sir John, a letter was found outside the kitchen a few minutes ago and I puts it on the tray ready to bring to you when you returned.”
Sir John was hardly listening.
But, as the butler held out the letter for him, he saw that it was addressed to him.
It was not in an envelope as he might well have expected. It was on a piece of folded paper tied together with a small piece of string.
He could quite understand why the butler had not thought it of any significance.
He had obviously decided to give it to him when he was less worried than he was at the moment.
However, as it looked so strange, Sir John opened it.
As he read the first two or three words, his whole body stiffened.
At the top in a child-like hand was written,
“Sir John,”
Then underneath he read,
“If you want to see your wife again, you will have to pay for her.
We’ve taken her to a place where you’ll not find her and she’ll be unharmed if you gives us ten thousand pounds.
If you fail to do this you’ll never see her again.
The right amount of money is to be delivered to us before six o’clock tonight.
If you don’t obey us tonight, you’ll never see her again.”
There was no signature at the bottom of the page and the writing was ill-formed and very untidy.
Finding it hard to believe what he had just read, Sir John read it through again.
When he had done so, he drew in his breath and knew that this was entirely as a result of what had appeared in the newspapers.
Then he told himself that he now had to use all his wits if he was to rescue her.
The price of ten thousand pounds could have been regarded as complete rubbish if it was not contradicted by everything that had been written about both he and Melita in the Press.
Of course people would believe the newspapers and from the way the article had been written, ten thousand pounds was of little importance to two people who were so immensely rich.
Bates was watching while Sir John read the note.
Then he asked,
“Is it bad news, Sir John?”
“It certainly is,” he replied. “Now we have to use our brains quickly to rescue her Ladyship, who has been kidnapped.”
“I don’t believe it!” Bates exclaimed. “How could such a thing happen to us?”
Sir John thought for a moment that he could say it was very easy.
Instead he walked to the door and stood looking out.
Then almost as if he was inspired he knew that he would have to be very clever in what he would have to do now.
He had read about a case recently where a man was blackmailed. Although he eventually gave the blackmailers the money that they had asked for, they had taken it and got away before it had been possible to stop them.
He was quite certain that, if he sent for the Police or made any angry sort of gesture against the captors, they would disappear taking Melita with them.
It would then be impossible for them to be found and Melita.
He realised then that the letter he was reading was doubled over.
He had only read the front piece.
So he opened it more carefully and found what he had missed earlier.
“If you sends for anyone to capture us,” he read, “your wife’ll die, but no one will find out where she’s hidden.
Leave the money on the bridge and a short time later your wife will be returned to you.”
Again there was no signature.
Sir John could only stare at the badly written note in silence.
“What’s happened?” Bates asked. “What can we do to find her Ladyship?”
For a moment Sir John did not answer.
Then he said,
“Send for every man in the stables and the farms and I want you and all the footmen in the house to come here as quickly as possible.”
Bates stared at him, but he knew that it would be a mistake to ask questions.
He merely sent one footman hurrying to the stables, another to the farms and a third to the kitchen quarters.
Sir John walked slowly into the study.
He was praying for help.
Praying that he would do the right thing and Melita would not die a gruesome death.
He was certain in his own mind that the men who had kidnapped her would be very clever in hiding her.
At the same time they had made it clear that, if they did not have the ten thousand pounds they wanted in their hands, she would suffer.
He had heard in many countries of the violence that took place when there was a robbery.
He had known that in London there were gangs of what used to be called highwaymen and robbers of every description.
And it was dangerous to walk in certain parts of the City at night.
There were continual reports in the newspapers of men and women being forced at the point of a gun to hand over everything they had on them.
Sometimes they had to pay, as he was expected to pay, for the victim to be set free.
The real question was, even if they received the ten thousand pounds, they still might not give up Melita.
‘I have to find her,’ he told himself. ‘After all they cannot have gone far.’
As the men Bates had sent for started to appear in the sitting room, Sir John waited patiently until they were all there.
Then he asked for the door to be closed.
“I want to read to you what I have just received,” he said. “I want you all to think carefully of anything that might help us find and rescue her Ladyship. As you know, Bracken came back alone and I cannot believe that she is very far away.”
He read them the note from the kidnappers.
He thought as he was doing so that it was almost a hopeless task to find Melita.
Perhaps it would be best to pay the money and then make sure that she was returned to him.
But every instinct in his body fought against giving in to this appalling blackmail.
At the same time it was so important that Melita should stay alive and not be injured.
“Now have any of you here any idea where she might be?” John asked the men facing him.
There was a murmur.
Then one of the grooms said,
“I saw ’er Ladyship goin’ into the wood, but they are not likely to hold ’er there.”
“Why not?” Sir John asked sharply.
“Because, Sir John, it be too easy as it’s a small wood. Them who’s written that letter to you would know that.”
Sir John thought that this was good thinking.
Then he said,
“Of course I could pay the money, but even then we cannot be certain that they will hand her over.”
He paused before he went on,
“I was reading only the other day in the newspaper of a man who paid one hundred pounds for the return of one of his pictures. The burglar took the money, but there was no sign of the picture coming back to him.”
“But her Ladyship must be hidden somewhere near here,” Bates said. “Because she couldn’t have gone a long distance before Bracken returned.”
“That be true enough,” the Head Groom agreed. “She couldn’t have been away more than three quarters of an hour when he comes into the stables.”
“I think that makes it easier for us,” Sir John said. “Equally if we find her they might out of sheer evil injure her before we are able to take her away.”
Several of the older men nodded to this.
Sir John next said rather helplessly,
“Then what can we do?”
There was a poignant silence.
Then an older man who had come with the others moved forward.
He was only employed out of kindness because he was too old to do very much except water the flowers in the greenhouse and bring in what was required from the kitchen garden in the way of vegetables.
“When you was readin’ the note, Sir John,” he said in a rather quavering voice, “I noticed there be a strange mark on the back of the paper.”
“Is there?” Sir John queried.
He had put it down on his writing desk and now he picked it up again so that they could all see the bad writing of the kidnappers on one side.
He turned it over.
There was little to be seen except for two or three smudged marks on the back of the piece of paper.
“Well,” the old man said, “you know what they be!”
“No,” John replied a little impatiently, “I have no idea.”
“It be sunflowers,” the old man said, “as you know them sunflowers always leave marks of yellow pollen on anythin’ that comes near ’em.”
John stared at the marks.
Then he exclaimed,
“You are absolutely right! So that is where they have hidden her Ladyship.”
“Then let’s go and get her back!” one of the grooms cried out.
Sir John put out his hand.
“With men like that they may kill her out of pure anger that we have discovered where they have hidden her. We have to be clever, very clever if we are going to bring her Ladyship back without her being injured.”
“How can we do that?” one of the footmen asked.
“That is just what I am thinking about,” Sir John replied. “And I am extremely grateful to Potter for being so observant.”
Potter s
miled at the praise.
Then rather slowly Sir John said,
“We have to be very astute about all this, otherwise anything might happen to her Ladyship. Now the first thing we have to do is to send someone to the Bank to fetch the ten thousand pounds.”
“You’re not going to give it to them, Sir John?” Bates asked in horror.
“But we may have to eventually,” Sir John replied. “But we are not making the mistake of putting money in front of anyone’s life, especially her Ladyship’s.”
He looked round and his eyes rested on one of the footmen.
Then he said,
“I want them, if they are watching us, to think that I am going to the Bank. So I want you, Brian, to take the chaise and drive to the Bank in the town.
“I’ll do that, Sir John,” Brian said.
John looked round again and then he said,
“Now I think that James looks more like me than anyone else. I want you to go upstairs and put on one of my coats and a hat. Don’t look around you when you are driving to the Bank so that anyone seeing you passing will think that you are me and at the Bank you will draw out exactly ten thousand pounds.”
He paused before he added,
“I will give you the instructions and you must leave as soon as we have finished here. Now I want about five of those who are left who are handy with a gun to come with me. I know that most of you were in the Army, and Boyden was in the Navy, so that you can use any small gun or pistol if needs be.”
The five men who Sir John had named nodded their heads.
“Go into the gun room and choose a weapon that you think you will be the most proficient with. Then come back here and don’t go near a window in case anyone sees you.”
As he finished speaking, he went over to his writing table and sat down.
The men he had named moved rapidly out of the study and he knew that there was every sort of weapon they required in the gun room, as it had been one of his father’s pet hobbies.
He himself had the most up to date revolver it was possible to buy, which he had taken with him on his last journey abroad.
He sat down at the writing desk and wrote a letter to the Bank Manager informing him that he needed ten thousand pounds immediately, but he hoped that he would be able to return most of it within a few days.
Their Search for Real Love Page 12