by Carola Dunn
Springing forward, Alec cried, “Police! Come out one by one with your hands raised.”
The door started to close. Alec thrust his torch into the gap. As he leaned his weight against the splintery wood, someone shouted.
The girl screamed.
Petrie and Bincombe arrived neck and neck. Brushing Petrie aside, Bincombe charged the door, an irresistible force Alec only just managed to dodge. He burst into the hut, Alec and Petrie on his heels.
Two scruffy villains faced them, hands reaching for the roof. Behind them, visible between them, a well-dressed, pudgy man with oiled-back hair had his arm around Miss Arbuckle. His other hand held a pistol to her bedraggled blond head.
“Get out or I’ll kill her,” he said, quietly vicious. “Now!”
“Oy!” One of the Cockneys swung round. “You said she wouldn’t come to no ’arm!”
The American was staring at Petrie. “You!” he exclaimed with loathing, and turned on his henchmen. “You said you’d disposed of him!”
“We got rid of ’im, but like we told you, we don’t ’old wiv murder. Let the girl go.” The man took a step forward. “We’re done for anyways.”
“You dumb yahoos, if we’re done for it’s your fault!”
“Come on, mate, let ’er go. Least we done nuffing to dangle for.”
Crawford shot him.
His shriek cut through the reverberation of the shot as he fell. Miss Arbuckle wrenched herself away from Crawford, who cringed back, his gun dangling, looking sick.
“Oh God,” he babbled, “I didn’t know it would be … . I’ve never seen … .” He turned away and vomited in a corner as Petrie caught the girl in his arms.
An amateur crook, Alec thought in disgust. Often more dangerous than the pros, because they didn’t know what they were doing. He left Crawford and the uninjured Cockney to the others and dropped to his knees beside the wounded man.
Blood welled from his shoulder. His face was deadly pale. “’Ave I ’ad it, guv?” he asked faintly. “Din’t know ’e ’ad a shooter, honest.”
“I believe you. Don’t try to talk now.” Alec pressed his handkerchief to the wound. It soaked through alarmingly fast.
He needed help. He looked round to see what the others were doing, just as Daisy burst into the hut.
“Alec … Oh, thank God it wasn’t you!” She glanced down at the victim and gulped. “Wait just half a mo and I’ll take off my petticoat. Luckily it’s a waist one.”
She dashed out again, to return with a wad of white cloth. A glimpse of lace edging brought a twinge of untimely desire as Alec took it and exchanged it for his blood-soaked handkerchief.
“Can you hold it while I take off my shirt to tie it in place? Press hard.”
Pale but game, she took his place. “Who shot him? Crawford?”
“Yes.” He took off his raincoat and jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, glad he had put on a clean vest this morning. “You feel all right?”
“I can manage. It’s not like in Occleswich, when I’d hit that dreadful man and you were hurt.”
Alec smiled at her. “I seem to remember you coped very competently then, however frightful you felt. Here, let’s tie it round as tight as we can. There’s not much else we can do, I’m afraid.”
“He’ll be in shock. We must try to keep him warm.”
As he helped Daisy bind the man’s shoulder and wrap him in both their coats, Alec spared a fragment of his attention for the goings-on around them. Pearson was competently directing the rounding-up of the prisoners. Petrie still had his arms around Gloria Arbuckle and appeared to be whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
“Petrie!” Alec grinned as the young man started and blushed.
“Oh, er, by Jove, let me introduce …”
“Later. I’d like you to take Crawford’s motor and send us a doctor. Then notify the police, and Mr. Arbuckle. You’d better take Miss Arbuckle with you.”
“Gosh, thanks. I mean, yes, of course, old man. Police? Local or the Yard?”
“Scylla or Charybdis. It hardly matters,” Alec clarified as Petrie looked blank. “I’m in hot water either way.”
“The Chief Constable,” said Daisy. “Sir Nigel—at least, let’s assume we’re still in Worcestershire, though it could be Gloucestershire. We must be right on the border. A Dalrymple and a Petrie, and throw in Lord Gerald Bincombe for good measure, and between us we should be able to talk Sir Nigel Wookleigh round.”
“Right-oh,”said Petrie. Tenderly supporting Miss Arbuckle, he moved towards the door.
Pearson stopped him. “Just a minute, old fellow. There’s no need to tell Wookleigh that Fletcher was in charge of the operation. Say he’s here, by all means. That will make the man sit up and take notice. But try to contrive to give the impression that he arrived at the last minute and was dragged along willy-nilly.”
“Right-oh.”
“Hurry, Phillip,” Daisy urged. “This chap needs proper medical attention. Toodle-oo, Gloria. See you later.”
Not for a fortnight did the entire cast of characters—minus the villains—meet again. The occasion was a double engagement party thrown by Mr. Arbuckle at Claridge’s Hotel.
The millionaire had not only asked Daisy, Alec, and Phillip for guest lists, he invited everyone who had anything to do with rescuing his daughter. Thus, in the true democratic tradition, the Dowager Lady Dalrymple rubbed shoulders with her gardener, Owen Morgan; Colonel Sir Nigel Wookleigh, Chief Constable of Worcestershire, with Detective Sergeant Tring of Scotland Yard; Lord and Lady Petrie with their neighbours’ gamekeeper, Carlin.
Nonetheless, Daisy was not a little startled when her cousin Edgar came up to her and announced, “I’ve seen a chimney sweeper, black as the ace of spades.”
“A chimney sweeper?” she enquired cautiously, trying to resist craning her neck and peering around.
“Not uncommon, but they turn brown a day or two after emerging so one rarely sees one sooty black.”
“Butterfly or moth?” said Alec.
“Moth, my dear fellow. Odezia atrata. Next time you come down to Fairacres, you must stay longer and see whatever specimens I have on hand at the time.”
Daisy’s family had accepted Alec as a future member—her mother and Geraldine with reluctance, Edgar and her sister Violet with equanimity, Vi’s eldest boy with sheer joy. His chums at prep school, the nine-year-old confided to his aunt, were bitterly envious of a prospective uncle who was a Scotland Yard detective.
He and Alec’s daughter Belinda, the same age and allowed to attend the first hour of the party, were soon thick as thieves. The Dowager Lady Dalrymple and Mrs. Fletcher, though loath to abandon suspicion of each other, at least found common ground in mutual censure of marriage between the classes.
As for the Petries, they were so relieved that Phillip was to be an engineering adviser, not a motor-mechanic, that they welcomed Gloria and endured Arbuckle with gratitude.
Gloria, Daisy decided upon better acquaintance, had not much more sense than Phillip. However, once recovered from her ordeal, she proved a cheerful, good-natured girl, and her father’s money would shield them from the world.
Half-way through the evening, Daisy and Alec, Lucy and Binkie, and the Pearsons came together by chance.
“Darling,” Lucy drawled to Alec, “I’ve been wondering what’s become of the villain Crawford shot.”
“He survived,” Alec assured her, “thanks to Daisy’s first aid. That’s all I know.”
“He’s recovering,” said Tommy.
“Mr. Arbuckle has retained Tommy to represent him,” Madge explained.
“He’ll get off lightly then,” Alec said with a grin. “Pearson’s eloquence is wasted in a solicitor’s office. He belongs at the Bar.”
“Tommy persuaded the Assistant Commissioner to forgive Alec,” said Daisy. “Without ever telling an outright lie, he gave the impression that Alec didn’t even know a crime had been committed until he reached Brockberrow Hill. I shall
never again believe anything a lawyer says.”
“He did an excellent job of putting the A.C. in the right frame of mind,” Alec confirmed, “though if anyone can see through legal verbiage, the Assistant Commissioner for Crime is the man. What really saved my bacon, however, and led to complete forgiveness, was his discovery that Daisy was involved. Living in terror of her unorthodox methods of ‘helping’ the police, he relies on me to restrain her.”
“Beast,” said Daisy, but she didn’t really mind. Tonight she felt as light as the bubbles in her champagne glass, with only her hand tucked under Alec’s arm to anchor her to the earth.
The Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries:
Death at Wentwater Court
The Winter Garden Mystery
Requiem for a Mezzo
Murder on the Flying Scotsman
Damsel in Distress
DAMSEL IN DISTRESS. Copyright © 1997 by Carola Dunn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Production Editor: David Stanford Burr
eISBN 9781429931434
First eBook Edition : April 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dunn, Carola.
Damsel in distress : a Daisy Dalrymple mystery / Carola Dunn. p. cm.
ISBN 0–312–16806–3
I. Title.
PR6054.U537D35 1997
823’.914—dc21
97-16102
CIP
First Edition: October 1997