Cherry Ames Boxed Set 17-20

by Helen Wells

“That accounts for two burglaries you planned,” said the inspector to Hazard. “What about the Carewe Museum job?”

  “That took careful preparation and timing,” Hazard admitted. During his first day or two in London, he said, he saw on television the colorful Shah Liddy, who was an art collector, with his blond young English wife, arriving to visit England for three to four weeks. In less than three weeks the Carewe Museum would be opened to Martha Logan. Wasn’t it believable that the Shah and his wife might unexpectedly visit the Carewe Museum? Very well, Hazard decided, he would impersonate the flamboyant Shah. Egly would act as his chauffeur, and Ryder’s wife, young and blond, would pose as Lady Liddy. Assuming the identity of the Liddys was a risk—but a worthwhile one. He just had to take his chances that Carewe and the Liddys had never met.

  So he instructed Jessica Ryder, who stayed on in London, to go to The Cat and Fiddle Inn near the Carewe Museum, just a few days before the planned theft, using a false name, Meg Greene. She was to study the country roads and terrain around there, where to abandon a traceable car, how to make the fastest getaway, and other information. On her solitary walks she sketched a map of roads and woods for Mr. Hazard, made a duplicate for Egly, and mailed the maps to Egly in London.

  With his plans set in motion, Hazard had left London right after burglarizing the Selsam Gallery. He went to an obscure seaside resort, to think out the details of the Carewe plan, and to wait while the Ryders did their jobs.

  Rodney Ryder reported back to him that it would be impossible to steal the Shakespearean paintings in Stratford or from the train; they would have to be stolen in Edinburgh. Hazard then sent Ryder to Edinburgh, to find a hideout for them, and a go-between.

  The inspector addressed Ryder. “You telephoned from here to your wife at The Cat and Fiddle Inn, rather than phoning this information to Hazard—is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ryder said. “Because Hazard had returned to London and was keeping under cover. My wife relayed it to him.”

  In London, Hazard said under questioning, he rented a black Bentley as discreetly as possible, and obtained a false driver’s license. He bought disguising clothes, a white wig, and a false white beard for himself, some appropriate garments for Jessica Ryder, and a chauffeur’s uniform for Ben Egly. Egly, using a false name and a false driver’s license, bought for cash a secondhand, inconspicuous old sedan and changed its license plates. In this way Egly left no leads for the police later to trace the old sedan, which was to be the getaway car.

  By now Jessica Ryder’s maps arrived. Hazard had already instructed her to meet him on a deserted road at nine thirty on the morning of the projected theft.

  “Egly and I left London the day before the Carewe job,” Hazard said. “I wore my usual clothes, with a hat and sunglasses, and drove the Bentley. Egly was dressed as a workman and he drove the old sedan.”

  “Yes, the Windermere police have reported that you apparently drove all day, traveling separately,” the inspector said, consulting another report. “And you and Egly stayed overnight, separately, at two of the lodginghouses along the highway.”

  “Well, no one noticed us,” Hazard said with satisfaction. “Next morning we each started out early, and separately. Ben Egly drove the old sedan into the woods, put on the chauffeur’s uniform, and waited. I picked up Jessica Ryder on the road, in the Bentley, and we joined Egly in the woods. That’s where I put on the ‘Shah’s’ clothing and beard. Jessica changed from ‘Meg Greene’s’ tweed suit into ‘Lady Liddy’s’ fine clothes. And then—” Hazard shrugged.

  “Then the theft went off smoothly as planned,” the inspector supplied. “You abandoned the Bentley, and changed out of your disguises. I presume, Mr. Hazard, that Egly concealed the stolen Carewe paintings in the old sedan and drove them to London?” Hazard nodded. “And you traveled alone to Edinburgh?”

  “The three of us scattered,” Hazard said, “since the police would be looking for a couple and another man.”

  “Archie, if you tell where my wife is,” Ryder burst out, “I’ll make you regret it! Sooner or later!”

  “Mr. Ryder,” said Inspector Forbes, “it will go easier for you if you tell us where she is.”

  Cherry, Martha, and Peter watched Ryder as he hesitated, nervously biting his lips. “I can’t do it,” he said.

  “Mr. Hazard, you will cooperate and tell us,” the inspector directed.

  “Well, Egly drove the sedan south toward London. I—I figured the police could hardly suspect a workman driving an old car of having the Carewe treasures,” Hazard hedged. He avoided Ryder’s burning look. “Jessica Ryder was sitting on the floor in the back of the sedan so that she wouldn’t be seen. I’m not really sure where she—if she—”

  “Get on with it, Hazard!” the inspector commanded.

  “Egly was to let her out at Lancaster, the nearest big town,” Hazard said in a low voice. “From there she was to take a train to her mother’s house in—” He named a Midlands city as Sergeant Kerr restrained Rodney Ryder from hitting the older man.

  The sergeant moved Ryder to a chair on the opposite side of the room. Inspector Forbes resumed:

  “Describe your movements after the theft, Mr. Hazard.”

  “Well, I was dressed as myself again, and I left the woods on foot,” Hazard said. “I walked behind hedges down a country road, to where Jessica had told me I could hail a bus, at one of its pickup points. I changed to another bus at the nearest town, and kept changing buses and trains so that nobody would have much chance to notice me. I reached Edinburgh late Monday evening.” Hazard said regretfully, “Except that my wrenched ankle was beginning to swell and bother me, our plan was working out on schedule. I went to 26 Weir Street where Rod was waiting for me and—well, you probably know the rest.”

  “We know,” said the inspector. “Mr. Ryder, we will interrogate you later, privately. Both of you will be flown to London, under arrest. You ‘enterprising art collectors’ can now look forward to trials and prison terms.”

  The inspector asked the Americans if there were anything they wished to add to Hazard’s statements. They did not, but Cherry had a question:

  “What will become of Amy?”

  “The shopwoman’s ten-year-old daughter?” The inspector looked thoughtful. “We never suspected a child, did we? I expect that that unfortunate child will be taken away from her mother, and placed in the custody of foster parents who are fit to raise her.”

  “I understand from Mrs. Kirby’s neighbors, sir,” said Sergeant Kerr, “that Amy has grandparents and an aunt, on her deceased father’s side, who are good people.”

  Inspector Forbes said he was glad to hear that. So was Cherry. Martha and Peter looked relieved, too.

  “Another constructive fact,” said the inspector, “is that a third art theft has been prevented. I wish to thank our visitors for their role in that.” Hazard snorted. The inspector said to the guards, “Take the prisoners out.”

  Hazard was taken out one door, and Ryder, glowering at him, was hustled out the other door. Most of the detectives left except Mr. Cox and Mr. Kerr, who came to ask Cherry if she were quite all right.

  “I’m fine again, thanks,” Cherry said. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

  Inspector Forbes held out his hand to the visitors. Cherry said, “I wish Auntie Pru could receive a medal or something else spectacular.”

  The inspector looked amused. “Let’s say she will receive the equivalent of an honorable mention in the newspaper reports.”

  They all said goodbye. Peter escorted Martha and Cherry out of the building, and hailed a taxi. He suggested dinner together, but Martha said she and Cherry had better have a quiet dinner in their rooms, and go right to sleep. It was late, and even Peter admitted they all had had enough for one day.

  “But may I meet you both tomorrow morning?” Peter asked. “Tomorrow’s my last day here.”

  “It’s a date,” Cherry said, and Martha said, “Let’s not go chasing any thieves.
”

  The next day was sunny and fine. They drove up the historic rock to where Edinburgh Castle perched two hundred and seventy feet in the air. The rock fell sharply on three sides, a natural fortress. As they toured the castle, Peter paid more attention to Cherry than to the guide whom Martha Logan had engaged. The castle had a long, bloody history, said the guide. He took them into the stone-walled apartments where Mary, Queen of Scots, had lived, and into a very small stone room where she bore her son, James VI, who became King James I of England. They traveled still further back into time and history when they stepped into the plain, stony, little Norman chapel where Queen Margaret, who became Saint Margaret, had prayed during the wars and sieges of the eleventh century. On the altar were a few fresh roses, white and red, as if the lady herself had set them there while the castle was being captured and recaptured. Indeed, the guide said, the origins of the castle were lost in antiquity, but went back to the Bronze Age.

  Then they crossed the open courtyard to visit the beautiful National War Memorial. Here, in quiet grandeur, were recorded the names of soldiers, and of nurses, Cherry noted, and working people, and even animals who had died in World War I in defense of their country. Feeling subdued, they went outdoors and stood near the barracks, looking down at the city. The guide pointed out to them the Royal Mile, which leads from the castle to Holyrood Palace. Cutting across the heart of Edinburgh lay Princes Street, with its elegant shops and teashops on one side; and on the other, its gardens, monuments, stately churches, and national art museums. “And there,” the guide pointed out at the far end of Princes Street, “is your hotel, at the Waverly Steps.”

  They left the castle. Peter had to pack, but since Martha wanted to shop, he took her and Cherry as far as Princes Street.

  Peter did not want to say goodbye. But he had to, “Right here and now, darn it. We have to fly back to the United States today,” he said, “if my students and I are to arrive on time for the opening of the fall semester.” He looked longingly at Cherry. “I don’t suppose you’re leaving today, too?”

  Cherry smiled and shook her head. Martha answered. “No, we’re going to see a little more of Scotland, the lochs and moors and the Robert Burns country. Then we’ll fly back to London, and from there fly to New York. Ah—excuse me. I want to send some butterscotch to my children.” She started to move away. “I’ll join you in half an hour at our hotel, Cherry…. Yes, yes, I’ll be perfectly all right by myself!”

  So Cherry and Peter had a last, short walk together. Peter unashamedly held her hand.

  “For once I can’t think of an appropriate quotation,” he said. “Do you think we’ll ever meet again?”

  “Well, a nurse moves around a great deal on various assignments,” Cherry said.

  “Sometimes professors transfer from one college to another,” Peter said. “There are vacations—and long weekends—Wait! I haven’t your home address.”

  They wrote down their addresses for each other. “Here’s hoping,” said Peter. “Here’s to travel.”

  “And no more art thefts,” Cherry said.

  They walked a while in silence. They reached the hotel and paused. Still Peter held fast to her hand. “I’d like to give you something to remember me by,” he said. “A souvenir bracelet—or a book of Robert Burns’s poems?”

  Cherry gently wriggled her hand free. “Thanks anyway, Peter. I’ll remember you, all right, without any souvenir. Just telephone me long-distance some time and see if I don’t.”

  “I will!” said Peter. “So help me, I will!”

  “It’s been nice. So long for now,” said Cherry.

  In case you missed Cherry Ames, Staff Nurse …

  CHAPTER I

  The Young Volunteers

  IN THE KITCHEN CHERRY HELPED HERSELF TO A TASTE OF the potato salad she and her mother had just made for the cookout. Today had been a hot, joyous Fourth of July, and by now, five-thirty P.M., Cherry had worked up quite an appetite. Mrs. Ames saw her and smilingly shook her head.

  “Cherry, you and your brother Charles always were great ones for ‘tasting’ every dish before it came to the table. If I don’t stop you, there’ll be a large hole in that platter of potato salad. What are we going to do with her, Velva?”

  Velva, the young farm woman who helped Mrs. Ames, laughed comfortably. “Oh, I’ll make us another batch of potato salad if we run short,” she said.

  “I don’t think we’ll run short on anything,” Cherry said, looking at the heaped-up platters of deviled eggs and salads and the big chocolate cake Velva had baked. Just looking at these made Cherry hungrier than before. “Shall I take some of these platters out to the yard now, Mother?”

  Edith Ames glanced at the kitchen clock. “Well, Charles should be back with the ice cream any minute now. Yes, take them out, dear. Velva and I still have to finish making the iced tea.”

  Cherry filled a tray with as many platters as she could carry at one time, and went out of the house. It was a big, old-fashioned house with a spacious yard and shade trees. At the rear of the yard, a safe distance away from Mrs. Ames’s cherished flower garden, a streamer of smoke rose from the brick grill Mr. Ames had built. He and young Dr. Dan Blake were working to get a charcoal fire burning.

  Cherry grinned at their attire. Her father sported a chef’s cap and apron. Dr. Dan wore a brightly, wildly patterned sports shirt over his trousers, probably in reaction to the whites he wore all week at Hilton Hospital. Dr. Blake was a new young M.D. from Colorado; for a year now he had been in this neighborly, middle-sized town of Hilton, Illinois. As a resident physician, he both worked and lived at the hospital, but this rather isolated him and he was a little lonesome on his first job. Cherry often saw Dr. Dan outside the hospital, as well as during her duty hours on Women’s Orthopedics. She was glad her family liked Dan, too.

  “Hi, you chefs!” Cherry called.

  Dr. Dan Blake turned, flushed from the heat of the grill. “Here, let me give you a hand—” He came to take her tray, and carried it to the picnic table. “Mm, look at all the home cooking!”

  Cherry smiled up at him. Dr. Dan had the same dark crisp hair and vivid coloring as Cherry; in a way he looked more like her than her blond twin brother did. “We expect you to do justice to our home cooking,” she said.

  Dr. Dan smiled back. “I just hope you like the way I grill beefburgers. Of course your dad is the master chef.”

  Mr. Ames shoved back his chef’s cap and mopped his forehead. “I am a real-estate man pretending to be a cook, and not doing very well at it,” he said. “Come back here, Dr. Dan. I need you.”

  Cherry set out the platters of food on the picnic table and returned to the kitchen to reload the tray. When she came outdoors again, Charlie drove up and parked the car in front of the house. A gallon container of ice cream sat beside him on the front seat. He got out of the car with it and called to Cherry:

  “I’m starving! When do we eat?”

  “Well, Dr. Fortune and Midge aren’t here yet,” Cherry said.

  “I saw Midge talking to some kids on the next block. Maybe she’s on her way here,” Charlie said, and disappeared into the house.

  Midge probably was trying to do her share, Cherry thought, in recruiting teenage volunteers to work in the hospital this summer. Extra help was badly needed in all hospitals, and especially in Hilton Hospital. It had no nursing school, hence no student nurses to help the overworked R.N.’s. Every one of its three hundred beds was now occupied, and every one of the hospital’s many departments needed helpers. The hospital’s limited budget required volunteers. With summer, most of the adult volunteers were going off on vacations with their families; they had to be replaced.

  Last summer Hilton Hospital had tried out, in a small way, training a few junior volunteers. Midge Fortune had been one of the Jayvees then, and that was why she was such an enthusiastic recruiter now. Last summer’s experiment had shown that the youngsters could bring real help and uplifting spirits to the hospital. The prog
ram had petered out over the winter when the teenagers had been busy with schoolwork.

  Well, that often happened, Cherry thought. She hoped Midge, in her enthusiasm, would not invite anyone too young. The American Hospital Association required that a junior volunteer must be at least fourteen to serve in the hospital. To be a ward aide, and work with the nurses and patients, the junior must be at least sixteen.

  Cherry walked across the lawn to see whether the chefs needed an assistant. They did not; everything was ready. Mr. Ames sat down on the picnic bench and helped himself and Dr. Dan to a “sample” of potato salad, while they waited for the Fortunes.

  “How’s your schedule coming along?” Dr. Dan asked Cherry. “Wish I had some way to help you.”

  “Thanks. It’ll work out,” Cherry said.

  At her head nurse’s request, she had been figuring out a temporary schedule—a schedule by which she could teach some of the incoming juniors, and still do her full share of nursing for her patients. Cherry had offered to teach, since she had already done so the previous summer.

  Midge came running into the Ames’s yard. “Hi, you kids!” she said. She hugged Mr. Ames, grinned at Cherry and Dr. Dan, and popped a pickle into her mouth.

  Midge was practically a member of the Ames family. Her father, Dr. Joe Fortune, had been the Ames’s doctor from the time Cherry and Charlie were born. Midge’s mother had died when the girl was little, and she had grown up as much in the Ames’s house as in her own. She was sixteen now. She pushed her light-brown hair off her moist forehead and said:

  “Whew! I got three more promises—Oh, before I forget! My father said to tell you he’s pretty tired from watching the parade with me this morning and treating an emergency case this afternoon, so would you all please excuse him if he comes over later? He’s taking a nap now.”

  The others nodded. Dr. Joe was not very strong. Cherry said she had better tell her mother and Velva, so the cookout could begin now. The two chefs very seriously put the first round of beefburgers on the grill.