by Carola Dunn
He drifted dizzily into nothingness.
3
What was that place Roman Catholics went to after death if they weren’t bad enough for Hell nor good enough to go straight to Heaven? Pur-something, Phillip thought dizzily. By Jove, they were right. He was damp and chilly, his head and his shoulders ached, his hands managed to be both sore and numb at the same time, altogether deucedly uncomfortable. Definitely not Paradise, but not the burning, fiery furnace, either.
Somewhere a cuckoo called. The air smelled of wild roses, like a promise of Paradise to come.
Something warm and wet slithered across his face. Startled, Phillip opened his eyes, and looked up into the grinning muzzle of a liver-spotted spaniel.
“Pepper, heel!”
The dog gave a short, sharp, self-satisfied bark and bent its head to lick Phillip’s cheek again.
Ye gods, was he alive?
He lay in long, dew-soaked grass under a hawthorn hedge wreathed with pink roses. Above his head, a spider’s web spangled with dewdrops sparkled in the slanting rays of the early morning sun. An insect crawled invisibly up his neck, a maddening tickle. He couldn’t brush it off. His hands were still tied.
He was alive!
“Pepper? What have you found there?” called the fussy, schoolmasterish voice.
“Help!” croaked Phillip.
The dog wagged its stumpy tail approvingly and uttered another bark.
Boots swished through the grass. A stocky man in his midforties, wearing tweed knickbockers, a deerstalker, and pince-nez, stood over Phillip. He looked vaguely familiar.
“A tramp,” he said, displeased, tapping his cane on his hand in a thoroughly schoolmasterly fashion.
“Help,” Phillip croaked again.
“My good man, if you’re hungry you may go up to the kitchen and tell them I said to give you bread and cheese. Then be on your way. Our local magistrates are hard on vagrants.”
By the time he finished, Phillip had both cleared his throat and recognized him. “I say, Lord Dalrymple,” he said, “I must look like the most frightful vagabond, but I’m Phillip Petrie. I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a spot.”
Daisy’s cousin—second or third, and once or twice removed—hitched the pince-nez lower on his nose and stared down at Phillip over the top.
“’Pon my soul! Petrie? So you are. My dear fellow, give me your hand and let me help you up. No, wait a moment.” Leaning down, he pushed his eye-glasses back up and peered through them. “That is, if I am not mistaken, the larva of Calothysanis amata on your neck. The Blood Vein moth’s caterpillar, you know.”
“Would you mind removing it?” Phillip asked with what patience he could muster. “I’ve lost enough blood lately, as a matter of fact.”
“Dear me no, it feeds on dock leaves, not blood. None of our native moths and butterflies is a blood-sucker—though some do, admittedly, feed on the juices of decaying meat—and I rather doubt whether even any tropical …”
“Please,” begged Phillip, who felt not unlike a piece of decaying meat himself. He was also suddenly aware of his own juices, long pent up, suddenly demanding egress.
“Yes, yes, let me rid you of it. There. Not a rare species, alas. But you don’t want a lecture on the Lepidoptera. Your hand, my dear fellow.”
“I can’t. My hands are tied behind my back.”
“Good gracious! Well, happily I always carry a pocket-knife, to collect the leaves fed upon by any larva I wish to try to hatch. If you will roll over, I shall see what I can do.”
Clucking in horror over the dried blood on Phillip’s head and hands, Lord Dalrymple efficiently severed the cords. Phillip’s hands stung like blazes as the circulation was restored, but his bladder insisted on more immediate attention. He clambered shakily to his feet and, with a word of apology, pissed long and satisfyingly into the hedge.
During this exercise, Lord Dalrymple politely turned his back, moved away a few paces, and hummed a verse of the Eton Boating Song. Phillip, amused, recalled Daisy telling him her cousin had taught at a very minor prep school before unexpectedly inheriting Fairacres and the viscountcy from her father.
Fairacres, presumably, was where Phillip now found himself. He had been dumped not ten miles from the site of the kidnapping, considerably less from his own home, and alive. At least half alive, he amended, as he struggled with smarting, tingling fingertips to button his fly.
He took a few steps towards Dalrymple and found himself staggering. The bright morning blurred before his eyes, poppies, ox-eye daisies, and purple knapweed swirling in a vast kaleidoscope with the blue sky and green hedges. He sat down and buried his head between his knees.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he gasped, “but I seem to be a bit wonky. I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“You have been in the wars.” A comforting hand patted Phillip’s shoulder. “You just sit here, old chap. I’ll pop down to my gamekeeper’s cottage and between the two of us we’ll carry you up to the house.”
“Gad no,” said Phillip, revolted, “I’ll be able to walk in a minute.” He raised his head. The blood red poppies, as always, reminded him of Flanders, but at least they kept still now.
“Sure? Then I shall send him along to lend you a hand while I go ahead to warn Geraldine to expect a guest.”
“I don’t want to impose on Lady Dalrymple.”
“Nonsense! Fate has put me in Gervaise’s place, and the least I can do is welcome his friends as if he were still with us. Carlin will be with you in a trice. I’ll leave Pepper to keep you company.”
The spaniel, having drawn his master’s notice to his find, had gone off after rabbits, but he rushed back when called. Told to stay, he sighed and lay down with his head on Phillip’s ankle.
Phillip watched Dalrymple tramp off, noting that what he had taken for a cane was actually a butterfly net. He blessed the man’s apparent lack of curiosity. Before he told anyone at all about the kidnapping, he had to try to get in touch with Gloria’s father. The poor fellow must be quite frantic.
How Gloria was feeling, Phillip didn’t want to think.
The few minutes before Carlin arrived did much to restore his strength. As the stalwart, grizzled gamekeeper approached, Phillip stood up with only a touch of giddiness. With a growl, his stomach reminded him he had not eaten since lunch yesterday, and then no more than a slice of cold pork pie in a pub on the drive down from London.
He had been saving every shilling to buy Gloria chocolates and take her dancing. The hollow in his stomach was nothing to the hollow in his heart.
“Well now, Master Phillip,” Carlin greeted him, “what have ’e bin up to now?”
He spoke in just the tone of patient reproach he had used when Phillip and Gervaise got stuck up trees, or fell out of them or into streams, in early youth. Later he had taught the boys to shoot—and dug the shot out of Phillip’s retriever pup when she rushed ahead and Gervaise accidentally peppered her.
“Does Lord Dalrymple shoot?” Phillip asked with curiosity as they set off.
“Nay, sir, not he. Nor hunt, leastways nowt but butterflies. He don’t properly understand country life, if ’e’ll excuse my boldness. He don’t have much need for the likes of I, but he knows better than to turn off them as’ve served the Dalrymples time out o’ mind.”
“I’m glad you’re still here.” If Phillip had to be ignominiously helped up to the house, he’d as soon it was by Carlin as anyone.
All the same, he was pleased to find he needed little help. The combined effects of the blow to the head and the chloroform were wearing off, and his hunger would soon be satisfied, he trusted. Climbing a stile was an effort; he accepted Carlin’s hand to steady him. Otherwise he walked slowly but under his own steam, across a hayfield, already cut, through a plum orchard (scene of many a raid in the old days), and into the park.
The rear façade of the house rose above gardens and a balustraded terrace. Fairacres, though too large to be called a manor, was no vast du
cal mansion. The formality of its classical symmetry was offset by the patchwork appearance found in many local buildings. Pinkish sandstone, amber Cotswold limestone, pale grey stone from who knew where, placed at random blended into an attractive whole.
It was once Phillip’s home from home. The War had kept him away for four years. Since the death of Daisy and Gervaise’s father four years ago, in the great ’flu epidemic of ’19, he had called only two or three times, for politeness’ sake. He still thought of Edgar Dalrymple, ex-schoolmaster, and his wife Geraldine as intruders.
He could not blame Daisy or her mother for not accepting their offer of a home.
Dash it all, he had promised Daisy to drop in and see the Dowager Lady Dalrymple at the Dower House. Not a chance, not for the foreseeable future, not while Gloria suffered in the hands of those vile brutes.
The swine had added insult to injury by pinching his wallet and all his change, as he discovered when he felt for a shilling for Carlin. Thank heaven they had not dumped him in the middle of nowhere!
“I must make a telephone call,” he said to the butler, new since Daisy’s time, who met him in the marble-floored front hall with its twin semi-circular staircases. “At once.”
“Certainly, sir.” The butler, no doubt forewarned by Lord Dalrymple, was not visibly perturbed by the arrival of a guest in his shirtsleeves, filthy and encrusted with dried blood. “If you will be so good as to …”
But Lady Dalrymple came hurrying down the stairs, followed by her husband.
An angular woman, an inch or two taller than his lordship, she looked Phillip up and down po-faced, but she said civilly enough, “Mr. Petrie, I am so sorry to hear you have had an accident. Edgar was not certain whether we ought to send for the doctor?”
“No, thank you, Lady Dalrymple. I’m much better already.”
“At least you must have some sort of dressing on your head.”
“And hands, dear,” said Lord Dalrymple.
“And hands. Let me see them.”
Reduced to a schoolboy, Phillip obediently held out his hands, himself examining them for the first time. They looked far worse than they felt. “I’m afraid I’m rather a mess,” he apologized.
Lady Dalrymple was too polite to agree, but she said, “I shall see to the dressings when you have bathed. Lowecroft, have Mr. Petrie shown to the Blue Bedroom, and a bath drawn immediately.” She glanced doubtfully from Phillip to her considerably shorter husband. “I suppose you have a change of clothes at Malvern Grange, or in your motor, if it was not too badly damaged to retrieve your luggage?”
So she assumed he had pranged his car. Wondering for a moment what had become of the dearly loved Swift, Phillip seized his chance. “At home, yes, but I don’t want to worry the mater by sending for clothes. Any old thing will do for the present. But if you don’t mind, before I take a bath I’ll make a ’phone call.”
“Yes, of course. Your parents will be worrying. Lowecroft, show Mr. Petrie to the telephone.”
Phillip didn’t explain that his parents, far from requiring notice of his visits, expected him when they saw him. His eldest brother, with wife and children, and his youngest sister all lived at Malvern Grange. One more in the house was neither here nor there. He had no intention of ringing them up.
The butler ushered him into Lord Dalrymple’s den. The deep leather chairs and red Turkey carpet were unchanged since the old days. Phillip had a vague, uncomfortable sense of being in a museum, though any major changes might have disturbed him equally.
“The instrument, sir.” Lowecroft crossed to the knee-hole desk, where the telephone still stood. Gravely he took a handkerchief from his pocket and spread it over the chair. “No offence, sir, but her ladyship is particular. Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you, and I would like a bath as soon as I’m finished.”
Phillip knew the Abbey Hotel’s telephone number by heart. He had spent enough ’phoning there in the past few weeks to condemn him to lunch daily at the A.B.C. instead of the Piccadilly Grill. Lifting the earpiece, he waited impatiently for the operator to answer.
The hotel’s number was engaged. “Will you ring back later?” the girl asked him.
“No, I’ll hold on. Please put me through as soon as you can. It’s urgent.”
“If it’s an emergency, sir, I can ask the other party to get off the line.”
“N-no … .”
He was tempted, but the instinct which had stopped him blabbing the whole story to the Dalrymples took over. Claim an emergency and people would require explanations. It was up to Arbuckle and the police to decide whether the kidnapping should be broadcast or kept quiet.
Which raised another question: Should he notify the police while he waited to get hold of Arbuckle? And if so, who?
He didn’t have much faith in the local bobby’s ability to do much more than move on a tramp or catch boys scrumping cherries. Call in the county force and his father would have the news within the hour, whereas if Arbuckle notified them, Phillip might manage to keep his own name out of things.
The best man for the job would be Daisy’s friend, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. Not that Phillip approved of the friendship. Daisy had a genius for picking the wrong sort. Just look at that conchie she’d been engaged to! Agreed, the Friends’ Ambulances’ work was not to be sneezed at, and the fellow had the grace to get himself blown up by a mine, just like any soldier, but it was the principle of the thing.
And now Daisy had taken up with a middle-class copper, a widower with a child at that. Still, he was no conscientious objector—he’d been an officer in the Royal Flying Corps—and there was no denying the man knew his stuff. Clever was the word; he’d even gone to one of those new provincial universities where they only took swots. He wasn’t a bad chap, either, when he wasn’t fixing one with an eye like an eagle’s, sharp as a bayonet, enough to convince a fellow of his own guilt.
But Phillip had a feeling there were all sorts of obstacles to bringing in Scotland Yard. Was it worth a try?
“Hullo, caller, I’m connecting you now.”
The hotel receptionist was not at all keen to fetch Mr. Arbuckle to the telephone. “It’s only just after eight,” she said crisply. “We don’t disturb our guests so early unless they request a call the night before.”
Phillip glanced at the brass clock on the mantlepiece. Five past eight it was. He was dashed lucky Dalrymple was an early riser or he might still be lying under that hedge.
But nothing was more certain than that, if Arbuckle had slept at all with his daughter in peril, he would want to be roused for news of her. That was assuming he was actually there. Phillip had assured Gloria her father must be safe. It had seemed logical at the time, but kidnappers might not be logical.
There was only one way to find out. “I promise you,” Phillip asserted, “Mr. Arbuckle won’t kick up a dust if you wake him, but he’ll very likely have you shot out on your ear if you don’t.”
“I’ll take a message and give it to him when he comes down.”
“No soap. Just tell him my name and he’ll come running.”
The woman put up a fight but eventually was persuaded to send a page-boy for the American.
“Petrie?” The tense, slightly breathless voice came over the wire so soon, either Arbuckle had run downstairs in his dressing-gown or he had been already dressed. “Is she okay? Where in all tarnation are you?” He sounded worried, but not as frantic as Phillip had expected.
“She was all right when I last saw her. At least, not hurt. Sir, I’d have given anything to …”
“Not on the telephone. There’s no knowing who’s got an ear to the wire. She’s not with you?”
“No.” Phillip swallowed the lump in his throat. “I don’t know where she is.”
“Then just tell me where you are.”
“At Fairacres. Lord Dalrymple’s place. I expect his chauffeur would run me into Great Malvern.”
“This
here lord, what have you told him?”
“Nothing. He didn’t ask any questions, though, believe me, a few would have been justified.”
“Can he be trusted?”
“Of course!” The idea of the kindly but stuffy ex-schoolmaster getting mixed up in any shady business, let alone kidnapping, boggled Phillip’s imagination.
“You know the guy? He won’t spill the beans?” Arbuckle persisted.
“Oh, that!” Discretion must go with schoolmastering, he thought vaguely. Not upsetting the parents and all that. And he hadn’t mentioned Phillip’s bonds to his wife. “No, I should think he’s pretty good at keeping mum.”
“Then I’ll come to you. How do I get to this place?”
Phillip gave directions. “I’ll tell them to expect you.”
“Don’t tell ’em why,” Arbuckle said sharply. “Okay, I’ll be right over.”
A click as the line disconnected left Phillip with his mouth open, about to ask what he should say. He had to give his host—and still more his hostess—some explanation for the imminent arrival of an American businessman at an ungodly hour of the morning. Hanging up, he cudgelled his brains for some story to satisfy the Dalrymples without saying more than Arbuckle would like.
Come to think of it, all this secrecy twaddle was dashed queer. Shouldn’t they be rousing the countryside to hunt for Gloria? Yet he himself had instinctively held his tongue when he could already have had search parties sent out.
His head was too muzzy still to work out his own reasons. Heaving himself to his feet, he returned to the front hall, where a youthful footman awaited him.
“Lor,” gasped the stripling, all agog at the sight of the battered gentleman. “Your motor must be smashed all to bits.” Recollecting himself, he straightened into rigidity. “If you’ll please to come this way, sir, your bath’ll be ready by now.”
“Look here,” Phillip said, following him up the stairs, “an American gentleman by the name of Arbuckle is going to be popping in to see me in about half an hour. We don’t want to disturb anyone, so just park him somewhere out of the way and drop me the word, will you?”