A Collector of Hearts

by Sally Quilford

  In the next instant, his hand caught her waist and he pulled her to him, covering her mouth with his. “Are you sure?” he said, when he let her go.

  Horrified by how easily she had given in, Caroline turned and ran away from him, stumbling up the cellar steps in the darkness. She fled to the safety of her room and locked the door behind her.

  It was only when she was lying in her bed, having left on all the lights, and had stopped her heart from pounding that something niggled at her. Something she should have realised, but which was just at the edge of her consciousness. She had almost dozed off when her eyes, heavy with sleep, opened. The realisation hit her like a freight train. Blake had not only known which drawer held the matches and candles in the kitchen, but he had also known where the door to the cellar was, and exactly where the gas taps were when they reached it. There had something else too. Something that niggled at her, but which lay just beyond her reach. Something someone had said. What was it? The more she tried to remember, the blanker her mind became. If only she could fight the dreadful tiredness that assailed her.

  She got out of bed and started pacing her room, determined not to sleep. How had he known all that? And why had he suddenly appeared she was talking to Stephens? She thought about him taking her down to the cellar, and wondered if he had done it to ease her suspicions, thinking she would not suspect him if he openly shared what he knew about the gas taps.

  Unable to sleep, Caroline went to get her book off the bedside table, thinking to sit in the chair and read for a while. She had left the book open, facing downwards on the bedside table, but when she went to get it, it was on the floor, closed. She supposed she might have knocked it off, but when she bent down to pick it up, she noticed that her suitcase was sticking out from under the bed. Normally neat and tidy, she felt certain she had not left it like that. Pulling it out, she checked it and found that the lock had been forced, and her clothes had been disturbed. She looked around the room, trying to remember how everything had been when she last left it. One of the drawers on the dresser was partly open, yet she had not bothered to unpack because they were staying such a short time and she had enough to do to sort out Mrs Oakengate’s clothes.

  What’s more, she had pulled the door to Mrs Oakengate’s room partially shut, as her employer had requested. Now it was wide open. Creeping into Mrs Oakengate’s room, and trying to see by the light from her own, she checked Mrs Oakengate’s luggage. That too had been disturbed, she was sure of it. However, Mrs Oakengate’s luggage had been unpacked and put into the wardrobes. A few drawers were slightly open, with articles of clothing sticking out, as if someone had been disturbed.

  Everything was becoming clear to her and she did not know why it had not occurred to her before. The only thing that she did not know was who or why. After a moment’s more deliberation, it became obvious to her why Blake had insisted she go with him to the cellar. It gave his accomplice, whoever that was, time to search their rooms whilst Caroline was absent and Mrs Oakengate slept soundly. They were looking for the Cariastan Heart.

  She crept back to her own room and pulled the door to, vowing to sit up all night if she had to and prevent any further violation of hers and Mrs Oakengate’s property. Taking a blanket from the bed, she sat in the chair with her book, and tried to read, whilst her mind played over the events of the evening. She was still not sure how Blake had persuaded Jack Henderson to let him join the house party, unless Jack was in on it. That seemed unlikely. Jack was already very rich, and the Cariastan Heart, though magnificent, would not be worth much more than half a million pounds. Henderson was reputed to be a millionaire several times over. No, it would have to be someone to whom that was a lot of money. Like a newspaper reporter.

  She felt tears prick her eyes and brushed them away impatiently. Why should she care if Blake were a crook? In her experience, handsome men were. Her father had betrayed his best friend, his wife and child and his own country. Why should Blake Laurenson be any different?

  “Stephens…” The voice came out of nowhere. Caroline came to, realising that despite her vow, she had dozed off. She looked up sleepily to see that the lights had dimmed again. “Stephens,” the voice said, and Lady Cassandra appeared in the darkness.

  “What? What about Stephens?”

  A shadow dashed by Caroline, before disappearing. At the same time the lights came up again. She ran from her room and down the hallway, towards the kitchen, looking for Stephens. She had no idea where in the house he slept, so she thought to try his sitting room. As she passed through into the rear passage, the clock in the kitchen chimed five o’clock. It was only when Caroline had opened the sitting room door to look in and then stepped back into the back hallway that she saw the door to the cellar was open.

  It took every bit of courage she possessed to light and candle and go down there alone, terrified of what she would find. Hesitated with each step, she descended into the cellar; half wishing Blake was there with his cheery chatter, before reminding herself that he was up to something sinister. She found Stephens near to the gas taps. He was lying on the floor, with blood gushing from his head.

  She turned, ready to run and fetch help and bumped into Blake.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Stephens has been hurt. I was just about to go and get an ambulance. Someone knocked him out.”

  “What were you doing down here?” Blake stood with his arms folded, blocking her path.

  “You don’t think I’ve hurt him, do you?” Caroline did not want to have to explain about Lady Cassandra. She doubted Blake would believe her.

  “It’s very early in the morning and you’re in the cellar alone with a man who’s been knocked on the head. What should I think?”

  “You’re here too! Where did you spring from? Anyway, we’re wasting time here, suspecting each other. The man needs a doctor and I’m beginning to wonder why you’re stopping me from getting one.”

  Blake pursed his lips, and then stepped aside. “The number is on the pad in the hallway.”

  Caroline had just passed him, but turned back. “How do you know that? How do you know where everything is in this house for that matter? You only arrived yesterday.”

  “Stephens needs help. Go and call the doctor.”

  Caroline wrapped her thick coat around her, and walked through the grounds of the abbey. The mist had cleared to leave a dull, dank morning. She would have welcomed a little bit of sunshine to light up her troubled soul. Stephens had thankfully survived the attack and was in hospital, but his assault had left the houseguests feeling nervous. Inside the abbey people spoke in quiet tones, and avoided eye contact.

  “Caroline?”

  She turned around and saw Anna Anderson walking towards her. “Hello, Anna. Are you feeling as stir crazy as I am?”

  “It’s dreadful, isn’t it? Poor Stephens.” Anna caught up with Caroline and they walked aimlessly along the path to the abbey gates. “My employer – she’s that dizzy actress with the blonde hair, Carla Burton?”

  Caroline nodded. She had not seen much of Carla Burton, but what she had seen was enough to recognise Anna’s description. “The one the prince likes.”

  “Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” said Anna. “She’s talking about going home.”

  “I’m not sure the police will allow that.”

  “That’s what I tried to tell her, but she won’t listen. She’s … well, she’s going out with someone royal – not Prince Henri, but one of our royals, and is frightened the scandal will frighten him away.”

  “It must be interesting, travelling around the film sets with her.”

  “I haven’t had that pleasure yet. I only joined her about a month ago and, I believe the film roles are already drying up. I suspect she’s slept with all the directors she can.”

  Caroline laughed. “I’m surprised the masked ball is still happening. It seems a bit callous, what with Stephens lying in a hospital bed.”

  “The Hendersons want
ed to cancel, but the prince has insisted it go ahead, and one doesn’t argue with royalty.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Of course we’re all excited about seeing the Cariastan Heart too,” said Anna. “It must have been a real headache, keeping it safe these last few days.”

  “Oh, it isn’t here yet,” said Caroline. “It’s coming up by secure courier from London later today. There’s no way Mrs Oakengate would have travelled with it.” Caroline did not let on that Mrs Oakengate had planned to do just that, and that it was Caroline who talked her into having it delivered more securely.

  “Silly me, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I’d better go back,” said Caroline. They had reached the gates to the abbey, but despite Caroline’s longing to run away and go back to the safety of her Aunt Millie and Uncle Jim, she turned around. “Mrs Oakengate will want me to help her dress for lunch.”

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” said Anna, walking alongside her. “This idea of dressing for different meals. It must be nice to have enough money to do it.”

  “Yes. Meanwhile I have to make do with a couple of tweed suits and one black satin dress.”

  “Didn’t I hear that your mother’s novels earned you a lot of money? Oh, sorry, forgive me, that was incredibly intrusive and rude.”

  “Not at all. Yes, they do still sell, though not as well as they did when she died. I think people bought them then to try to find clues to all her wrongdoing, and her relationship with my father. I’m not poor. But I’m not rich either, hence me having to work for Mrs Oakengate. It isn’t so much that I need the wages, but I couldn’t afford the travel.”

  “Your aunt and uncle are the Haxbys, aren’t they? I thought they were rich.”

  “Yes, they are, but I prefer to stand on my own two feet.”

  “I know what you mean. If I’m honest, Caroline, I hate this job. Pandering to the whims of a spoilt actress – especially one who can’t act her way out of a paper bag. One day I’d love to have enough money to just please myself, maybe even take up my own acting career again.”

  “You act?”

  “Not so anyone would notice. I played Juliet in a school play, and had a bit part in one of Jack Henderson’s films.”

  “Really? Which one?”

  “The one he’s just finished filming. I play Woman On Street Who Sees Hero And Heroine Have First Kiss. I say ‘Well, really, and in Brighton too’. It’s a bravura performance.”

  “I’m sure it is!” Caroline stopped for a moment and looked up towards the top floor of the abbey. “Just a minute. There’s someone up there.” A shadow passed across the window of Caroline’s room, then appeared again briefly at the window in Mrs Oakengate’s bedroom.

  “Mrs Oakengate perhaps?” said Anna.

  “No, the door is locked and only I have the key. If she wants anything she sends me.”

  “One of the servants then. I assume they have the key.”

  “It’s rather late for them to be in there.” Caroline looked at her watch. “They’re usually finished by ten o’clock. It’s eleven-thirty now. There’s something odd going on here. The last couple of nights, I think someone’s come into my room, and then last night I found that someone had been searching through our luggage. Perhaps like you, they think the Cariastan Heart is already here. Sorry to cut and run, Anna. I’d better get up there.”

  Chapter Six

  When Caroline reached her room, it was empty. She went to the window and looked down to see Anna waving up at her. She waved back, and started a search of both rooms. Things had been upset again, and this time not everything had been put back where it should be, suggesting the prowler had seen her coming and made a quick getaway. She thought of calling the police, but nothing had been taken, and it was hard to say for certain that things had been disturbed. The police, on seeing her suitcase on the bed would just assume she had left it there and forgotten. She did not want to make a fool of herself. Whoever had been there must have seen Caroline rushing back to the house and fled. But where to? The door had still been locked when she reached it.

  She checked around the walls of both rooms. All the walls in Mrs Oakengate’s room, apart from the wall that adjoined Caroline’s room, were stone built. But three of the walls in the vestibule were wooden panelled, with only the outer wall near the window made of stone. Caroline started tapping on each panel, finally finding what she was looking for at the end of her bed. When she rapped on the panel, it sounded hollow. She ran her fingers around the edges, until she found a small notch of wood that protruded almost imperceptibly. When she pressed it, the door clicked open.

  It led to a secret passage. With no torch or candle to light the way, Caroline was somewhat reluctant to walk the passageway alone, but she garnered her courage, and took the first steps in. She faltered a little when what little daylight came from her bedroom ran out and she was left in total darkness. The passage twisted and turned, she supposed running a circuit around the walls of the rooms. She wondered if there were doors leading to the other rooms, but first she wanted to know exactly where the passage began. Given the width of it, Caroline wondered if it were really a secret passage or just an old out of use corridor once used by the servants to go about their business discreetly and without being seen in the main part of the house. She felt up the walls, and sure enough found some old gas lamps. She wished she had some matches with which to light a few, assuming they were still serviceable.

  She almost fell headlong down a tight staircase, only just correcting her balance in time. She placed her right hand on the wall to steady herself, only to find that the wall gave way, opening into one of the bedrooms. Caroline stepped in, wondering whose room she should find, only to see that it was empty of all furniture, apart from about twenty freestanding mirrors set haphazardly around the room. As a child, whilst other children had loved the House of Mirrors at the funfair, Caroline had always hated them. The disjointed reflections were at odds with her sensible black and white view of the world. Walking into that bedroom was exactly like being in a House of Mirrors.

  Her own reflection came back at her from one of them, only it was distorted, making her appear at least a foot shorter than she really was, and a good two feet wider. She moved among the mirrors, finding that they each changed her in a different way. Longer, shorter, wider, thinner. One gave her a strange hourglass shape, as well as swelling her head to twice its normal side. The reflections disorientated her, even though her common sense told her they were obviously mirrors taken from an old fun fair and, she supposed, part of the coming entertainment. Just as she reached the last mirror, nearest to the bedroom door, saw the distorted outline of Lady Cassandra looking back at her.

  “Lady Cassandra,” she said, spinning around. The image also spun away, reflected on all the other mirrors, before disappearing completely. She searched the room, seeing brief glimpses of a very disjointed Lady Cassandra, before they appeared to be snatched away from her. She eventually came back to the bedroom door, which came out a few doors away from the galleried landing. Looking up and down the corridor, she could see no one.

  Rather than go that way, Caroline hastily made her way back to the secret passageway and the back of the room, finding herself once again at the top of a staircase. She pressed her heels against the back of each step, before moving down onto the next, until she reached the bottom and breathed a sigh of relief. The passage smelled mouldier nearer to the bottom and she hated to think what she might have stepped in. At one point, she felt something brush past her leg, and had to stifle a scream. “Rats,” she muttered. “I hate rats.” The passage extended for several yards again before there was another staircase. She descended that one as carefully as the first.

  A couple of yards on from those steps, in the lower passageway, she hit a solid object in front of her, before realising it was not so solid. It was flesh and blood, and smelled of expensive cologne.

  “Hello, Caroline. It is Caroline isn’t it? I r
ecognise your scent.”

  “Blake? What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to work out what happened to Stephens. I figured that if you hadn’t knocked him out, someone else must have, but I couldn’t work out where they might have gone. Then the idea hit me. I’d heard there was a secret passageway here, but had never found it. I’ve just found out that it starts in the cellar.”

  “It leads to my room,” said Caroline. “And at least one other, that’s full of strange mirrors.”

  “So no Lady Cassandra’s ghost then?”

  “Probably not.” In truth Caroline had her own ideas about that, having seen the Lady’s reflection and had a couple of nocturnal visits, but she kept them to herself.

  “Pity, I always liked that story. I didn’t know about the secret passageway though. But I think old Stephens knew and that’s why he was knocked out. Because he guessed what was happening and came down here to check the gas, as we did. Except he walked in on our villain.”

  Caroline wondered why she had not realised it before. “It’s your house,” she said. “That’s how you knew where everything was and why Jack Henderson couldn’t really refuse to let you stay.” She sighed heavily. “Last night there was something niggling me, and I know now it was that. Only he said it so casually I missed it. Stephens called you Master Blake instead of Mr Laurenson.”

  “Yes, the old man slipped up a bit there, but he has known me all my life and some habits are hard to break. And it’s my grandfather’s house actually, though I suppose it will be mine one day.”

  “But why the subterfuge? Why not just say you lived here?”

  “I wanted to know what was going on and I was afraid the presence of one of the owners might put certain people on alert.”

  “I was certain it was to do with politics,” said Caroline. “I thought someone was trying to assassinate the prince. Perhaps I should have gone for the more basic idea. Simple greed. Someone is trying to steal the Cariastan Heart. But how did you know something was going on? I’ve only just worked that out myself, and I had good reason. You only met me in the lane and what? You decided something was going on. Is it me you don’t trust? Because of my parents?” Caroline felt her heart drop. Despite everything Aunt Millie had taught her, she realised that the fear had always been inside her. That she would be judged on her parents’ behaviour. She had simply pushed it aside, trying to be sensible about it. Unfortunately she was quickly coming to realise that other people were not sensible about such things. They mattered. Or, she thought to herself, perhaps only Blake’s opinion mattered. It was true that she did not care a jot what Mrs Oakengate or others thought. She despised herself for needing Blake’s approval, yet realised sadly that she did.