* * *
—
When Stella’s devotion to the bathroom was deepening to passion, she began to grow jealous of her governess’s private hours.
“Do you go to the Pictures on Saturday?” she asked.
“No. I visit an old witch in a cottage in the wood.”
“Take me with you.”
“You’d be bored. It’s my old governess.”
“Your governess? I’d love to see her. Please.”
Ann had to promise a vague “someday.” Although she was sorry to disappoint Stella, she could not allow her to encroach on her precious liberty.
By this time, however, her time-table was an established fact to the brains of the Plot. Therefore, the next Saturday she visited Miss West she was followed by a new trailer.
She noticed him when she came out of the great gates of the millionaire’s mansion, because he aroused a momentary sense of repugnance. He was fair and rather womanish in appearance, but his good looks were marred by a cruel red triangular mouth.
He kept pace with her on the opposite side of the street, when she was going through the town, but she shook him off later on. Therefore it gave her quite a shock when she turned into the beech-avenue—now a green tunnel—to hear his footsteps a little distance in the rear.
Although she was furious with herself, she hurried to reach the cottage, which was quite close. The door was opened before she could knock, because her arrival was the signal for Maggie’s release. It was Ann herself who had suggested the extra leisure for the maid while she kept the old lady company.
Miss West, whose bed faced the window, greeted her with a question.
“When did you lose your admirer?”
“Who?” asked Anne, in surprise.
“I refer to the weedy boy who always slouches past the minute after your knock.”
“I’ve never noticed him….But I thought I was followed here today by a specially unpleasant-looking man.”
“Hum. We’d better assume that you were….How much money have you in your bag?”
“More than I care to lose.”
“Then leave all the notes with me. I’ll get the Manor folk to return them to you by registered post….And remember, if the man attacks you on your way home, don’t resist. Give him your bag—and run.”
“You’re arranging a cheerful programme for me,” laughed Ann.
She might not have felt so amused had she known that the whole time she was inside the cottage the man was not far away, crouched behind a belt of rhododendrons. Inside a deep pocket of his full belted coat was coiled something like a gigantic black slug.
It was a stocking stuffed with sand.
When nine struck, Miss West told her to go.
“Maggie is due now, any minute,” she told her, “and so is the housekeeper from the Manor. Good-bye—and don’t forget it means ‘God be with you.’ ”
Ann was not nervous, but when she walked down the garden path she could not help contrasting the dark green twilight of the woods with the sun-splashed beech avenue of the afternoon. Clumps of fox-gloves glimmered whitely through the gloom, and in the distance an owl hooted to his mate.
She passed close by the bushes where the man was hiding. He could have touched her had he put out his hand. She was his quarry, whom he had followed to the cottage, so he looked at her intently.
Her expensive bag promised a rich haul. Yet he let her go by, and waited, instead, for someone who was of only incidental interest to the Plot.
A few minutes later Maggie charged down the avenue like a young elephant, for she was late. She had not a nerve in her body, and only threepence in her purse. As she passed the rhododendron thicket, a shadow slipped out of it like an adder—a black object whirled round in the air—and Maggie fell down on the ground like a log.
* * *
—
The mystery attack was a nine-days’ wonder, for bag-snatching was unknown in the district. But while Maggie was recovering from slight concussion in hospital, Ann had the unpleasant task of mentally bludgeoning her pupil out of a “rave.” After the weekly visit of the hairdresser, Stella appeared in the school-room with her hair cut and waved in the same fashion as Ann’s.
“Like it?” she asked self-consciously.
“It’s charming.” Ann had to be tender with the inferiority-complex. “But I liked your old style better. That was you. Don’t copy me, Stella. I should never forgive myself if I robbed you of your individuality.”
Stella wilted like a pimpernel in wet weather.
“I’m not going to have a crush on you,” she declared. “Too definitely feeble. But we’re friends, aren’t we? Let’s have a sort of Friend’s Charter, with a secret signature, when we write to each other. Like this.” She scrawled a five-fingered star on a piece of paper and explained it eagerly. “My name.”
Ann was aware that Doris, the school-room maid, was listening with a half-grin, and she decided to nip the nonsense in the bud.
“You’ll want a Secret Society next, you baby,” she said, as she crumpled up the paper. “Now, suppose we call it a day and go to the Pictures.”
Stella especially enjoyed that afternoon’s entertainment, because the film was about a kidnapped girl, and she was excited by the personal implication.
“If a kidnapper ever got me, I’d say ‘Good luck’ to him. He’d deserve it,” she boasted as they drove home. “They wouldn’t decoy me into a taxi with a fake message.”
Ann’s private feeling was that Stella’s intelligence was not likely to be tested, since she ran no possible risk. Lady Williams was nervous on the score of her valuable jewellery, so the house was burglar-proof, with flood-lit grounds and every kind of electric alarm.
Besides this, Stella either went out in the car, driven by a trusted chauffeur, or took her walks with a positive pack of large dogs.
So it was rather a shock to Ann when the girl lowered her voice.
“I’ll tell you a secret. They’ve had a shot for me. They sent one of our own cars to the dancing class; but I noticed Hereford wasn’t driving, so I wouldn’t get in. I wouldn’t tell them at home because of Mother. She’s beautiful and sweet, but she’d go to a Queen’s Hall Concert expecting a Walt Disney Silly Symphony.”
Ann, who was still under the influence of the Picture, was horrified.
“Stella,” she cried, “I want you to promise me something. If ever you get a note, signed by me, take no notice of it.”
“I promise. But if you signed it with our star, I’d know it was genuine. And if you were in danger, nothing and no one would stop me from coming to your rescue.”
“Single-handed, like the screen heroines, who blunder into every trap?”
“Not me. I’ll bring the police with me….Isn’t that our school-room maid coming down the drive? Isn’t she gorgeous?”
Doris, transformed by a Marina cap and generous lip-stick, minced past the car. She had to be smart, because she was meeting a fashionable gentleman with a cruel red mouth.
When she saw him in the distance, she anticipated his question by shaking her head.
“No good swearing at me,” she told him. “I can’t get what isn’t there. But I’ve brought you something else.”
She gave him a sheet of crumpled paper on which was the rough drawing of a star.
* * *
—
The next time Ann went to the cottage in the wood the door was opened by the new maid—an ice-cold competent brunette in immaculate livery. There was no doubt she was a domestic treasure and a great improvement on Maggie; but Ann was repelled by the expression of her thin-lipped mouth.
“I don’t like your new maid’s face,” she said to her old governess when Coles had carried out the tea-table.
“Neither do I,” remarked Miss West calmly. “She’s far too good f
or my situation—yet she’s no fool. My opinion is she’s wanted by the police and has come here to hide. It’s an ideal spot.”
“But you won’t keep her?”
“Why not? She’s an excellent maid. There’s no reason why I should not benefit by the special circumstances, if any. After all it’s only my suspicion.”
“What about her references?”
“Superlative. Probably forged. The housekeeper hadn’t time to enquire too closely. The place isn’t popular after the attack on Maggie.”
“But I don’t like to think of you alone at her mercy.”
“Don’t worry about me. She’s been to the cupboard and found out it’s bare. I’ve nothing to lose.”
Ann realized the sense of Miss West’s argument, especially as she was in constant touch with the Manor. Not long afterwards she wondered whether she had misjudged the woman, for she received a letter by the next morning’s post which indicated that she was not altogether callous.
Its address was the cottage in the wood.
“Dear Madam,” it ran. “Pardon the liberty of my writing to you, but I feel responsible for Miss West in case anything happens sudden to her and there’s an Inquest. I would be obliged if you would tell me is her heart bad and what to do in case of a sudden attack. I don’t like to trouble her ladyship as I am a stranger to her and Miss West bites my head off if I ask her. I could not ask you today because she is suspicious of whispering. Will you kindly drop me a line in return and oblige, Yours respectfully, Marion Coles.”
Ann hastily wrote the maid a brief note saying that Miss West had good health—apart from the crippling rheumatism—but recommending a bottle of brandy in case of emergency. She posted it, and forgot the matter.
* * *
—
Meanwhile, Miss West was finding Coles’s competency a pleasant change after Maggie’s slipshod methods. On the following Saturday, when she carried in her mistress’s lunch, Miss West looked, with approval, at her spotless apron and muslin collar.
After she had finished her well-cooked cutlet and custard, she lay back and closed her eyes in order to be fresh for Ann’s visit. The cottage was very peaceful with a flicker of green shade outside the window; there was none of the noisy clatter from the kitchen which used to advertise the fact when Maggie washed up—only the ticking of the grandfather’s clock and the cooing of wood-pigeons.
She had begun to doze when she heard the opening of the front door. Her visitor was before her usual time.
“Ann,” she called.
Instead of her old pupil, a strange woman entered the bedroom. Her fashionably thin figure was defined by a tight black suit, and a halo hat revealed a sharp rouged face.
As Miss West stared at her, she gave a cry of recognition.
“Coles.”
The woman sneered at her like a camel.
“Here’s two gentlemen come to see you,” she announced.
As she spoke, two men, dressed with flashy smartness, sauntered into the room. One was blond and handsome except for a red triangular mouth; the other had the small cunning eyes and low-set ears of an elementary criminal type.
“Go out of my room,” ordered Miss West. “Coles, you are discharged.”
The men only laughed as they advanced to the bed.
“We’re only going to make you safer, old lady,” said the fair man. “You might fall out of bed and hurt yourself. See?”
Miss West did not condescend to struggle while her feet and hands were secured with cords. Her wits told her that she would need to conserve every ounce of strength.
“Aren’t you taking an unnecessary precaution with a bedridden woman?” she asked scornfully.
“Nothing too good for you, sweetheart,” the fair man told her.
“Why have you come here? My former maid has told you that there is nothing of value in my cottage.”
“Nothing but you, Beautiful.”
“How dare you be insolent to me? Take off your hats in a lady’s presence.”
The men only laughed. They sat and smoked cigarettes in silence until a knock on the front door made them spring to their feet.
“Let her in,” ordered the ringleader.
Miss West strained at her cords as Coles went out of the room. Her black eyes glared with helpless fury when Ann entered and stood—horror-stricken—in the doorway.
“Don’t dare touch her,” she cried.
The men merely laughed again as they seized the struggling girl, forced her down on a bedroom chair, and began to bind her ankles.
“Ann,” commanded the old governess. “Keep still. They’re three to one. An elementary knowledge of arithmetic should tell you resistance is useless. But I forgot. You were finished at Oxford.”
The pedantic old voice steadied Ann’s nerves.
“Are you all right, Miss West?” she asked coolly.
“Quite comfortable, thanks.”
“Good.” Ann turned to the men. “What do you want?”
They did not answer, but nodded to Coles, who placed a small table before Ann. With the deft movements of a well-trained maid, she arranged stationery—stamped with Miss West’s address—and writing materials.
Then the fair man explained the situation.
“The Williams kid wot you teach is always pestering you to come here and see the old lady. Now, you’re going to write her a nice little note inviting her to tea this afternoon.”
* * *
—
Ann’s heart hammered as she realized that she had walked into a trap. The very simplicity of the scheme was its safeguard. She was the decoy-bird. The kidnappers had only to instal a spy in the Williams household to study the habits of the governess.
Unfortunately she had led them to an ideal rendezvous—the cottage in the wood.
“No,” she said.
The next second she shivered as something cold was pressed to her temple.
“We’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind,” said the fair man, glancing at the grandfather’s clock. “Then, we shoot.”
Ann gritted her teeth. In that moment her reason told her that she was probably acting from false sentiment and a confused set of values. But logic was of no avail. Like the intellectual youth of the Nation, who went over the top while probably cursing the insanity of War, she knew she had to sacrifice herself for an Ideal.
She could not betray her trust.
“No,” she said again.
The second man crossed to the bed and pressed his revolver to Miss West’s head.
“Her too,” he said.
Ann looked at her old governess, in an agony, imploring her forgiveness.
“She’s only fifteen,” she said piteously, as though in excuse.
“And I’m an old woman,” grunted Miss West. “Your reasoning is sound. But you forget someone younger than your pupil. Your unborn son.”
Ann’s face quivered, but she shook her head. Then the old governess spoke with the rasp of authority in her voice.
“Ann, I’m ashamed of you. What is money compared with two valuable lives, not to mention those still to come? I understand these—gentlemen—do not wish to injure your pupil. They only want to collect a ransom.”
“That’s right, lady,” agreed the fair man. “We won’t do her no harm. This will tell the old man all he’ll want to know.”
He laid down a typewritten demand note on the table and added a direction to Ann.
“When we’ve gone off with the kid, nip off to the old man as fast as you can and give him this.”
“With her legs tied to a chair?” asked the deep sarcastic voice of the old woman.
“She’s got her hands free, ain’t she? Them knots will take some undoing, but it’s up to her, ain’t it?”
“True. No doubt she will manage to free her
self….But suppose she writes this note and the young lady does not accept the invitation? What then?”
The fair man winked at his companion.
“Then you’ll both be unlucky,” he replied.
Ann listened in dull misery. She could not understand the drift of Miss West’s questions. They only prolonged the agony. Both of them knew they could place no reliance on the promises of the kidnappers. The men looked a pair of merciless beasts.
If she wrote that note, she would lure her poor little gilded pupill to her death.
She started as her governess spoke sharply to her.
“Ann, you’ve heard what these gentlemen have said.” She added in bitter mockery of their speech, “Gentlemen what keeps their hats on in the presence of ladies, wouldn’t never break their word. Write that note.”
Ann could not believe her ears. Yet she could feel the whole force of her vitality playing on her like an electric battery. It reminded her of a former experience when she was a child. Her uncle, who paid for her education, was an Oxford don, and he raised an objection against Miss West because she was unqualified.
In the end he consented to give his niece a viva-voce examination, on the result of which depended the governess’s fate.
Ann passed the test triumphantly, but she always felt, privately, that Miss West supplied the right answers as she sat staring at her pupil with hypnotic black eyes.
Now she knew that the old magic was at work again. Miss West was trying to tell her something without the aid of words.
* * *
—
Suddenly the knowledge came. Her old governess was playing for time. Probably she was expecting some male visitors from the Manor, as the Earl and his sons often came to the cottage. What she, herself, had to do was to stave off the five-minute sentence of death by writing a note to Stella which was hallmarked as a forgery, so that the girl would not come.
As she hesitated she remembered that she had extracted a promise from her pupil to disregard any message. The question was, whether it would be obeyed, for she knew the strength of her fatal attraction and that Stella was eager to visit the cottage.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 118