Sheer Folly

by Carola Dunn

  “Darling, did you see the babies before you left?” Daisy asked on the way to the drawing room. “How are they?”

  “Blooming.”

  “I wish they missed me,” she said mournfully.

  In the drawing room, Pritchard introduced Alec and Gerald to Mrs. Howell, the Beauforts, and Charles Armitage. Predictably, Mrs. Howell gushed over Gerald and practically ignored Alec. Gerald let her gush. The Beauforts, having met Gerald in town, were more interested in Alec. They both managed not to reveal their knowledge of his profession, so Mrs. Howell and Armitage were the only two present to be left in ignorance. Unless, Daisy thought, Julia had told her beloved, in which case he was equally discreet.

  An elderly parlour maid brought in fresh coffee. Daisy went to the window to look at the sky. The high, thin haze had thickened and lowered.

  “Do drink up, darling,” she said. “We’ll have to go now to miss the downpour.”

  “How badly do I want to see this grotto?”

  “You mustn’t feel obliged, Mr. Fletcher,” said Pritchard.

  “Yes, you must,” said Daisy. “Come on. Are you coming, Gerald?”

  “Right-oh,” said Gerald, always obliging.

  Turning away from the window, Daisy caught a glimpse of someone moving in the garden below the terrace, just disappearing behind a yew hedge. Lady Ottaline? Surely not. But she was missing from the drawing room, Daisy realised. When had she left, before or after Alec and Gerald’s arrival?

  “Better take your umbrella, love,” said Alec.

  “Lucy, coming?”

  “Not me. Run along, children.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Armitage. “The more the merrier.”

  “Julia, you’ll come, won’t you?” Daisy asked helpfully.

  “Yes, I’d like to get some fresh air before the rain starts. Are you sure you won’t come, Lucy?”

  Lucy sighed and said, “Oh, very well. I’ll bring my Kodak and take a snap or two if there’s enough light.”

  Daisy was afraid Lady Beaufort would veto Julia’s going with them now that the party looked so like three couples, rather than simply a mixed group. Perhaps her ladyship failed to hear their plans. A smile on her plump face, she was listening to Pritchard, who leant with one hand on the back of her armchair, bending towards her and speaking in a low voice.

  “Sheer folly!” snapped Mrs. Howell. “You’ll all be soaked to the skin and my servants will be put to the trouble of drying all your things again.”

  “My servants, Winifred,” Pritchard reminded her. “My guests, going to admire my folly. At least, I hope you will admire the grotto, gentlemen, and let’s hope the rain will hold off till you return.”

  He shepherded them out to the hall, where the omniprovident Barker had enough umbrellas waiting for all.

  “Just in case it starts raining before you return,” he said.

  “Barker,” said Lucy, “do you know how to work a Kodak? It’s very simple. I can show you in a minute. Would you come out to the terrace and take a snap of all of us in our expedition gear?”

  Barker didn’t bat an eyelid. “Certainly, my lady.”

  Five minutes later the six were posed on the flagged terrace, with the butler peering gravely at them through the viewfinder. “Say ‘cheese,’ ” he instructed them.

  It was so unexpected that they all laughed as he pressed the button.

  At that very moment, as if caused by the action, came a huge boom. Behind them, windows rattled. All heads swung to stare towards the source of the explosion. The bare, grassy hillside to the southwest erupted in a shower of rocks. Daisy clutched Alec’s arm.

  And then, before her horrified eyes, a patch of the slope subsided into a sudden sink-hole. But a sink-hole surely wouldn’t throw up boulders, nor sound like a bomb?

  “What the deuce was that?” Gerald demanded.

  “The grotto,” Armitage said grimly. “It’s blown up.”

  “How could a cave blow up?” Alec asked in what Daisy called his “policeman voice.” “Pritchard surely didn’t store munitions there. An unexploded German bomb?”

  “Gas. Coal gas laid on for light and heating.”

  “Gas doesn’t ignite itself. Someone must be there. Daisy, ring for police and a doctor, and send able-bodied help. Come along, you two.”

  The men set off at a run.

  SEVENTEEN

  Alec let Armitage take the lead. He hadn’t yet had a chance to take the measure of the young Canadian, but at least he knew the way to the grotto.

  “How far?” Alec asked as the three men crunched along the gravel path like a herd of stampeding buffalo.

  Armitage slowed his pace a trifle. “Half a mile? Thereabouts. Uphill.”

  They passed a yew hedge. The path curved to the right. Ahead were three stone steps going up. Armitage took them at a single leap. Mounting more conservatively one at a time, Alec hoped he’d never have to chase the man with intent to arrest him.

  The slope grew steeper. Bincombe, less fit, was already falling behind. Alec was glad he’d resisted the temptation to give up exercising when the twins were born.

  He summoned enough breath to ask Armitage, “Any ideas?”

  “Lord Rydal. Went off right after lunch. Smokes like a chimney. Doesn’t explain, though, sufficient accumulation of gas. That was a big bang.”

  “It was indeed.”

  No explanation for the accumulation of sufficient gas to cause a huge explosion? A leak was always possible, but in an open cave it should have quickly diluted to comparatively safe proportions. Rydal—or anyone else—ought to have smelt it as he approached. No explanation, either, of why Lord Rydal should have decided to go off, apparently alone, for a quiet postprandial smoke in the grotto, of all places. But perhaps there were perfectly obvious answers. Alec just didn’t have enough knowledge of the situation to begin to formulate theories.

  They galloped up more steps and thundered onto a wooden bridge. Armitage slowed to stare down at the brook below.

  “The water’s draining away! The stream must be blocked.” He came to a halt. “I don’t like the look of this.”

  Bincombe arrived, panting. “What’s the matter?”

  “The stream is drying up.” Alec looked at Armitage. “What does it mean?”

  “Its source is in the grotto.” His face was white, freckles standing out starkly. He took off his hat and wiped cold sweat from his brow. “The whole roof must have come down.”

  “Wasn’t that pretty obvious from what we saw from the terrace?” Bincombe asked.

  “I hoped. . . . The thing is, anyone who was in there must be dead.”

  “No hurry then. May I stop running?”

  “No,” said Alec. “People survive cave-ins. But not for long, if they’re injured or trapped in an airless space. Let’s go.”

  He started running again, taking the lead as the path rose above the dying stream. The footing was solid chalky limestone now instead of gravel—at least, he hoped it was solid. Cautiously he slowed as he rounded a steep bluff.

  He was concentrating on the path’s surface, here littered with rocks. For a moment the whimpering sound didn’t penetrate his consciousness, then he heard it and looked up. Ahead of him, a greyish-white figure slumped in a heap against the cliff wall.

  It stirred. Alive!

  “Great Scott—”

  “That’s not Rydal,” observed Bincombe, coming up behind Alec.

  Armitage arrived last. “Lady Ottaline!”

  “Lady Ottaline,” said Daisy. “I’m sure I saw her going after Rhino, down through the garden. I think I ought to go with them.”

  “I shall telephone the doctor and the police, madam.” Barker handed the camera to Lucy as he spoke. “I’ll inform Mr. Pritchard of this unfortunate occurrence—though he must certainly have heard the explosion—and send the gardeners and the chauffeur to help.”

  “Thanks.” Daisy hesitated. “I suppose you’d better tell the police Detective Chief Insp
ector Fletcher of Scotland Yard is on the spot. Though not in his official capacity!”

  “Very good, madam.” Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash did the butler betray whether this was news to him. He went off with his usual stately mien.

  “Coming, you two?”

  Lucy and Julia looked at each other.

  “Daisy, shouldn’t you leave it to the men?” Julia suggested.

  “It’s not as if you have any nursing experience, darling.”

  “No, but I know if I were hurt and frightened I’d want a woman with me. I’m going.”

  “She may be dead,” said Lucy bluntly.

  “She may not. Why don’t you go and make sure Mrs. Howell gets everything ready in case she’s alive and injured.”

  “Right-oh. That I can manage.”

  “I’ll come with you, Daisy,” said Julia.

  The men were long gone by then. Daisy and Julia hurried after them along the familiar path. Daisy was vaguely surprised that the trees and shrubbery and sheets of daffodils looked no different from last time she had passed that way.

  “Do you think it’s dangerous?” Julia said worriedly. “I hope Charles will take care. And your husband and Lord Gerald, too, of course.”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. I suppose it depends just what they find there. It seems to me the roof, or whatever you want to call it, can’t have been very thick or it wouldn’t have blown bits and pieces up in the air, just collapsed. Don’t you think so?”

  “I suppose so. Then Rhino may not be buried very deep.”

  “You think it must be Rhino, too?”

  “Well, he didn’t turn up for coffee, which he usually does, and you said Lady Ottaline went after him.”

  “I didn’t actually see him go, and I couldn’t swear it was her I saw. It was only a glimpse. Alec’s always accusing me of speculating wildly.”

  “Not really wildly. Everyone else was in the drawing room, except the three who went to Swindon. Daisy, the awful thing is I have a beastly urge to tell them not to try to rescue Rhino.”

  “I know what you mean. But you wouldn’t dream of actually saying it, and if you did they’d take no notice, so you needn’t feel guilty. I—” She cut herself off as a strange figure appeared where the path curved round a large bush. “Good gracious, what on earth?”

  “It’s Charles! What’s he carrying?”

  Armitage had a large, grey burden slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

  “Lady Ottaline,” said Daisy, hurrying towards him. “She can’t be dead or he’d have left her and gone on to help the others look for Rhino.”

  “Charles, where did you find her?”

  “Just outside the grotto.”

  “Is the entrance blocked?” Daisy asked.

  “Not as far in as we could see.”

  “They’re going in, then,” she said resignedly. The thought made her feel nauseated, but nothing she could say or do would change matters. Stiff upper lip, she exhorted herself.

  “Yes. I’ve got to get Lady Ottaline to the house. Fletcher thinks she may be concussed. Something about her eyes not reacting properly to light.”

  “We’ll manage her, won’t we, Julia? Lay her down and get back to Alec and Gerald.”

  Armitage hesitated. Then, with obvious reluctance, he let Julia and Daisy shift Lady Ottaline from his shoulders and lay her on her back on the grass. She was not heavy. Daisy knelt beside her and started to wipe chalk dust from her face.

  “We can manage her, Charles,” said Julia, squeezing his hand. “Take care, won’t you?”

  He gave her a strained smile. “Don’t you think I should carry her?”

  “People will be coming. The gardeners and the chauffeur.”

  Still he didn’t leave. Daisy was puzzled. She wouldn’t have thought him so callous as to abandon even such an unlovely specimen as Rhino when there might be a chance of saving him.

  Lady Ottaline moaned, blinked eyelashes clogged with eye-black and chalk, and made a premonitory sound in her throat that reminded Daisy all too clearly of Nana about to be sick in the car.

  “Quick, Julia, help me turn her over.”

  While they were coping with ensuing events, Armitage departed. Daisy would have been more than happy to go with him.

  Inside the cave, the chalk dust was as thick as a London peasouper. Alec coughed in spite of having tied a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Peering forwards, he wished he’d taken the time to get hold of a torch, not that it would have helped much in this murk. He didn’t dare breathe deeply enough to try to detect gas.

  The floor crunched beneath his feet. He didn’t know whether he was stepping on debris or irreplaceable artifacts.

  “Fletcher?”

  Bincombe hadn’t wanted to stay outside, but he had sense enough to realise, without a long argument, that they mustn’t put all their eggs in one basket. If the roof came down . . .

  Better not to think about it, or only to remind himself that a shout might be enough to trigger collapse.

  Turning his head—mustn’t lose his sense of direction—he called in a low voice, “All right so far. I can’t see much.” He stood absolutely still for a moment, listening. No ominous creaking from the roof, nor clatter of falling rubble. No calls for help, no screams, no groans.

  Slowly he moved on, hands held out before him.

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed involuntarily as his knuckles met stone.

  He wished he could have sent Bincombe back with the woman, and kept Armitage, who knew the place. But it was no use asking the poor chap to come in here. He’d been willing to try, but he’d have been more of a liability than an asset.

  While these thoughts passed through Alec’s mind, he had been running his hands over the obstacle in front of him. It was not a disordered heap of broken stone but carved marble, smooth except for a few nicks and a groove gouged by some hard object hitting it from above. He glanced up, uselessly. As well as the dust in the air, it was darker here.

  The statue was large and surely would have told him where he was if he were familiar with the grotto. Three linked caves, Armitage had said. Was Alec near the end of the first, or had he already passed unknowing into the second, or had he scarcely begun to penetrate the depths?

  He felt his way round the statue. Beyond, empty space began again, but he had taken no more than three tentative steps when once again his knuckles hit a solid mass. A rough wall, a more or less right-angled protruding corner—he reached up and felt the curve of an arch. The way through to the second cave, he guessed.

  Behind him stone clunked on stone. He stiffened, arms raised to protect his head.

  “Fletcher?” Bincombe’s voice was nearby, but muffled, as if he, too, had masked mouth and nose with a handkerchief.

  And his feet must have knocked the loose stones on the floor against one another, Alec hoped.

  “I told you to stay outside.”

  “I’m not one of your bobbies, old man. Armitage came back. Met Daisy and Miss Beaufort, left Lady Ottaline with them.”

  “Daisy!”

  “She’s not one of your bobbies, either.” He sounded as if he was grinning. Though laconic, he seemed to have lost his customary taciturnity. “Lady O will keep ’em busy. I told Armitage to stay outside, poor devil.”

  “Poor devil—assuming his story’s the truth.”

  “You don’t believe him? He’s in a real funk, I’d swear.”

  “Has it occurred to you that he may be responsible for this mess? Inadvertently, or on purpose. He wouldn’t want to find Rydal, alive or dead.”

  “If Rhino’s in here.”

  “If he’s in here,” Alec agreed. “I’m afraid we could easily pass him by without noticing. We need more men. But not Armitage. At least he’s more likely to obey you than you are to obey me. Right-oh, now you’re here, stay here, please! I’m going ahead. I wish we had a rope.”

  “Hold on a moment.” He sneezed. “Phew, dust up my nose. Here, Lucy makes me
wear one of these new-fangled belts. Catch hold of the buckle and I’ll hang on to the end. Dammit, where are you? It’s not very long, though, in spite of my adding a pound or two.”

  “Got it. Tell Lucy braces would have been much more useful. We could have tied yours and mine together.”

  “And both lost our trousers.”

  “You won’t lose yours, will you? Fat lot of help you’ll be if you trip over your turn-ups at every other step.”

  “My tailor’s lost a customer if I do. Ties!” Bincombe exclaimed, inspired. “Yours and mine. Tie them together.”

  “Good idea.” A bit miffed that he hadn’t thought of this expedient first, Alec pulled off his tie and knotted it to Bincombe’s. The tight knot wasn’t going to do either much good. He was glad he hadn’t worn his Royal Flying Corps tie. “Here, tie your end through the buckle of your belt. That’ll make it even longer. Not that it’s going to be strong enough to pull me out with if something happens, but at least we’ll be able to find each other.”

  “Hope so. I’d hate to have to face Daisy if I lost you. Keep one hand on the wall.”

  “Here goes.” He took a tentative step under the arch, and a second. The wall here was masonry, hewn stone with mortared joints, not the natural sides of a cave. There seemed to be much less rubble underfoot. On the other hand, it was dark. Not that visibility had been much better in the first cave, but the diffuse daylight had given an illusion of sight, of belonging to the outer world.

  Another step, and another. With one hand on the wall and the other clutching the necktie, he wished for a third to feel ahead for obstacles. He took his hand from the wall and reached forward. Nothing. Fingers found the wall again. Another step—

  “Damn!”

  “Fletcher, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Overconfident. I stepped on something and. . . . But I’m all right. Half a mo—” Alec’s next step met an immovable obstacle. “I’m going to have to let go of my umbilical cord. I’ll lay the end right by the wall so I should be able to find it if you don’t pull on it.”

  “Right-oh. What—”

  “Hang on. I think this is the end.”