The Trouble at Wakeley Court (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 8)

by Clara Benson

  ‘Yes, it is against the law at present,’ agreed the Grand Duke. ‘But there is nothing to say the law cannot be changed. If I can give the vote to every man in the country, then surely I can pass a law to allow two people to marry.’

  ‘Can you be serious, sire?’ said Count Paul in wonder.

  ‘Very much so,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘At present I wish for nothing more than to find her, bring her back safely to Morania and protect her for the rest of her life. I shall not be here forever, Paul—as I have been duly reminded these past few days—and it would set my mind at rest to know that Irina has someone to look after her when I am gone.’

  ‘But supposing she does not wish it?’

  ‘Irina is a good girl,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘If she knows it would make me happy, then she will do it. I should far rather give her to you than to any of these spoilt, effete crown princes one sees so much these days, and I know you will treat her well.’

  ‘I should be honoured, sire,’ said Count Paul, drawing himself up.

  ‘Then go and find her,’ said the Grand Duke. He clasped the Count’s hand and the younger man saw that there was great pain in his eyes. ‘Please, Paul, go and find my little Irina and bring her back safely.’

  ‘I will,’ said Count Paul.

  EIGHTEEN

  On Sunday evening at Wakeley Court, Mr. Hesketh was conducting a rather unsatisfactory interview with the local sergeant of police, who had come to make his report.

  ‘Then you have found no trace of them at all?’ said Hesketh.

  Sergeant Merrow shook his head. He was an alert-looking man with thinning sandy hair and a sharp nose, who had taken with admirable phlegm the revelation of the missing girl’s real identity.

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ he said. ‘Of course, we will keep looking, but we’ve seen no sign of them at all so far. We have searched all the way along the coast as far as Cromer and beyond—by which I mean to say we have stopped to ask people whether they saw or heard a large motor-car passing some time after three o’clock this morning.’

  ‘And nobody did?’

  ‘Not that they were willing to admit to,’ said Merrow. ‘We also searched some way inland, but as you probably know, the countryside hereabouts is such a maze of lanes that it would be easy for someone to disappear if they wanted to. Still, we won’t give up. We’ll keep on searching inland, and tomorrow we’ll begin looking beyond Cromer.’

  ‘Have you looked into my suggestion that they might have gone off in a boat?’

  ‘We have, sir, and that is certainly a possibility. As a matter of fact, we did speak to a couple of Swiss holiday-makers just along the road here, at Percham. They are staying in a cottage close to the harbour, and although they can’t swear to having heard a car, they did say that they were woken in the night—they can’t say exactly at what time—by the sound of a motor-boat putting out to sea.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ said Hesketh. ‘But can they be sure it was putting out to sea and not coming into shore?’

  ‘I didn’t ask them that, to be perfectly truthful,’ admitted the sergeant. ‘But does it matter? After all, if they escaped by sea then the boat would have to come inland first so they could get into it.’

  ‘True enough,’ said Hesketh. ‘I wonder if it was our quarry, then. I must get hold of some charts and see where they might have gone. We had thought they might have crossed to Germany.’

  ‘If that’s the case then we can’t get them back,’ said Merrow. ‘They might have put in at some other harbour in England, though, and we can certainly inquire as to whether anybody knows anything about that.’

  ‘Do,’ said Hesketh. ‘And please let me know as soon as you find anything.’

  ‘I shall, sir,’ said Merrow.

  The sergeant departed and Mr. Hesketh went to Miss Bell’s study to make a telephone-call to Henry Jameson. Normally very efficient at his job, Hesketh felt he had rather disgraced himself in this case, and he winced slightly at the memory of Jameson’s reaction when he had found out that his subordinate had been flattened by the Games mistress, of all people. Even now, Hesketh’s jaw ached and a splendid bruise was forming, and after a night awake he wanted nothing more than to go to bed with a cold compress and sleep for about twelve hours, but of course that was out of the question with the Princess yet to be found. Besides, Dick Fazackerley was still locked in the guest-room, and Hesketh could not go back to his lodgings in the village either, for he knew his landlady would bombard him with questions about Irina’s disappearance.

  He made the call and was put through to his superior at home, for Henry Jameson was not one to sit in a draughty office on a Sunday when he might just as well deal with an international crisis in comfort.

  ‘What news?’ said Henry.

  ‘Not much, sir,’ said Hesketh. ‘We’ve drawn a blank so far. The only possible lead we have is two tourists in Percham who may or may not have heard a boat putting out to sea in the middle of the night. The police are instituting inquiries that way, but if they have escaped to sea then there will be no getting them back. It doesn’t look good, I’m afraid.’

  Henry sighed.

  ‘Then I suppose I shall have to inform the Foreign Secretary,’ he said. ‘I know the Moranians have been rather distracted by the shooting of their Grand Duke—which, I imagine, is the only reason they haven’t already declared war on us—but sooner or later they will undoubtedly want to know what has happened to their Crown Princess and why we’ve lost her. It looks as though this is about to blow up into the devil of a diplomatic incident.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Hesketh miserably. ‘I have failed, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Yes, you have,’ said Henry. ‘But so have I. I ought to have taken the thing more seriously and sent more people to watch the place. Of course one man and a woman amateur detective couldn’t have been expected to keep a princess safe by themselves.’

  Hesketh winced at the implied rebuke.

  ‘As a matter of fact, there were three of us,’ he said. ‘We had Everich too, don’t forget.’

  ‘Well, at any rate that will teach me in future never to underestimate a schoolgirl who is determined to do what she wants,’ said Henry. ‘I have daughters myself and so I ought to have known. Still, it may or may not comfort you to learn that I have had a telegram from Vorgorod to say that they are sending over the Princess’s cousin, Count Paul, to assist in the search. I only hope he does not arrive to bad news.’

  ‘So do I, sir,’ said Hesketh fervently.

  He hung up and went out into the passage, where he saw Angela Marchmont approaching.

  ‘There you are, Mr. Hesketh,’ she said. ‘I was looking for you and thought you might be here. Where is Miss Bell?’

  ‘Still at dinner, I believe,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ said Angela. ‘I’d forgotten. I’m afraid to say that three days of school meals have been too much for my system, and so when the dinner-bell rang my stomach instructed me in the strongest possible terms to run away and hide in my room.’ She saw he was not in the mood to laugh, and went on, ‘I take it there has been no further progress in the search. Have you spoken to Henry Jameson? What does he say?’

  ‘I spoke to him just now,’ said Hesketh. ‘He’s not especially pleased.’

  ‘I imagine not,’ said Angela. ‘I ought to have telephoned him myself, since it was my fault Irina got away. Have the police found any sign of her at all?’

  Hesketh told her about the possible clue of the motor-boat.

  ‘It does rather look as though they’ve got clean away, doesn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘The search has been a failure so far. And we don’t even know whether we are searching for a live girl or a dead body.’

  They both looked sober.

  ‘If she is dead, then I imagine she will be found soon,’ said Angela. ‘After all, if the purpose of the kidnapping was assassination, then there is no sense in hiding the evidence. W
hy, the whole point of it would be to create as great a disturbance as possible.’

  ‘That is true enough,’ said Hesketh.

  ‘So, then, as long as she remains undiscovered, there is still hope,’ said Angela, ‘and we ought to take comfort from that.’

  ‘I only wish I knew exactly what happened last night,’ said Hesketh.

  ‘As a matter of fact, that is what I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Angela. ‘What do you know about Mr. Everich?’

  ‘Everich? Why, he is the head of Moranian Intelligence, sent here to look after the Princess following the attempt on the life of her father.’

  ‘But are you quite sure he is who he says he is?’ said Angela.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Hesketh assured her. ‘There’s no doubt of that. His credentials are quite impeccable. Besides, I have met him once before, a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Yes, and Irina certainly seemed to know him,’ said Angela thoughtfully.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ said Hesketh.

  Angela explained about the train journey and Everich’s apparent lie on the subject, and about the bloodstain in the summer-house.

  ‘I am trying to remember what he told me about his being sent here when Barbara and I met him and Irina in Percham,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember his exact words, but he certainly gave us to understand that he had begun his journey after the attempt on the Grand Duke, and that he had been sent here precisely because of the attack.’

  ‘That is what I understood too,’ said Hesketh. ‘But of course, you are right. If the journey does take forty hours, as he said, then it is not possible that he could have got here by Saturday morning if he left on Friday. He must have been lying about when he set off, then—always supposing he wasn’t lying about the length of the train journey.’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ said Angela. ‘I have looked it up in the Bradshaw. He is quite correct.’

  ‘Then I wonder what his game is,’ said Hesketh. ‘Is he the man we are looking for, do you think? I don’t see how he can be—if he is, then why on earth is he still hanging about here?’

  ‘That was exactly my thought,’ said Angela. ‘If he already has the Princess, then surely he ought to be miles away by now. There’s no reason at all for him to stay here. I gather he has spent half the day wandering around the village questioning everybody about whether they’ve seen her.’

  ‘That’s when he wasn’t hiding behind pillars here, listening to conversations, presumably,’ said Hesketh. ‘I hear there have been a few complaints from the girls.’

  ‘I did ask him what he had done to his hand, but he just said he had cut it on a rusty railing in Percham yesterday,’ said Angela. ‘It might be true, of course. In fact, there’s no reason to suppose that the blood in the summer-house means anything at all, let alone that it belongs to Everich. Still, I don’t like it, Mr. Hesketh.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Hesketh, ‘but there’s nothing we can do about him at present. I’ll report your suspicions to Jameson, though. Perhaps he can dig up something about the fellow. In the meantime, we shall just have to keep a wary eye on him.’

  NINETEEN

  On Monday morning Barbara ran down to breakfast slightly late, having had trouble finding a pair of stockings without holes. She slipped into the dining-room, hoping not to be noticed by Miss Finch, then sat down at her place and looked across at the Fifth Form table.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ said her neighbour, Rosabelle. ‘I don’t think anyone saw you.’

  ‘Isn’t Florrie down yet?’ said Barbara.

  ‘I can’t see her,’ said Rosabelle. ‘She must be late. She’ll be in for it. Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ said Barbara. ‘I just wanted to speak to her, that’s all. Did you see her when she came back yesterday?’

  ‘No,’ said Rosabelle. ‘I haven’t seen her for days, as a matter of fact. Didn’t she go out with her people?’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Barbara, ‘although she didn’t actually say she was going. Did she say anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ said Rosabelle. ‘Well, she might have, I suppose, but I probably wasn’t listening. You know I never listen to anyone.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ said Barbara. ‘What about you, Violet? Have you seen her?’

  Violet, who was sitting across the table, calmly buttering some toast, shook her head.

  ‘I haven’t seen her since late on Saturday,’ she said. ‘We were sitting out in the Quad for a while, but then I went in because it was getting cold, and I don’t know where she went. Did she tell you she was going out?’

  ‘No,’ said Barbara. ‘But she must have told someone, since we’ve all been assuming she went out with her people. I say, you don’t suppose she’s been kidnapped too, do you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Rosabelle. ‘More likely she’s run away because she couldn’t bear any more of this wretched Virgil. Ugh! I shall never remember it. I may have to pretend to faint in the lesson. Don’t give me away, will you?’

  ‘If she has been away, then she won’t have learnt the Virgil,’ said Violet. ‘That’s probably what she’s doing now. I dare say she’s in the common-room, cramming like mad.’

  But Florrie was not in the common-room. Nor was she in the dorm or the Quad or the San.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen her,’ said Matron, shooing Barbara away. ‘Now, you’d better run, or you’ll be late for first lesson.’

  Barbara ignored the warning and wandered along to the Fifth Form dormitory, where she found a girl who had run up to fetch a hair-ribbon.

  ‘Hallo, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Florrie, have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Sarah distractedly. ‘Is she back, then? She wasn’t here last night.’

  She then went off, leaving Barbara deep in thought.

  The Latin lesson went rather better than might have been expected—from the girls’ point of view at least, since Mr. Hesketh’s mind was not on his task, and he absent-mindedly gave full marks to the whole class for the Virgil passage, even though Barbara’s pronunciation was execrable and Rosabelle forgot the entire middle section and in desperation conjugated the verb iacere instead.

  At break-time there was still no sign of Florrie.

  ‘But where can she be?’ said Barbara to Violet.

  ‘Why don’t we ask someone?’ said Violet. ‘Look, there’s Miss Finch.’

  They ran over to speak to the Classics mistress.

  ‘Miss Finch,’ began Violet.

  ‘Not now, Violet,’ said Miss Finch impatiently. She was looking at something down by the lake. The girls followed her gaze and saw three or four men loading something into one of the rowing-boats.

  ‘Oh,’ said Barbara. ‘What are they doing?’

  Miss Finch said nothing, but set off down to the lake, to ward off any curious inquiries from the girls.

  ‘They’re going to drag the lake,’ said Violet quietly.

  Barbara stared in dismay.

  ‘But that must mean they think Irina is dead,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid it does,’ said Violet.

  Just then, Angela came out.

  ‘Angela,’ said Barbara. ‘They’re dragging the lake. They don’t really think Irina’s dead, do they?’

  ‘Of course they hope she isn’t,’ said Angela. ‘But they must find her, wherever she is, and the lake is as good a place as any to start searching, don’t you think?’

  The girls stared in horrified fascination as two men climbed into the boat and pushed off from the shore, and another stepped into the shallows and began wading out with a net.

  ‘Do you think she’s dead, Angela?’ said Barbara.

  Angela looked at the white faces of the two girls and pitied them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said kindly. ‘If she is, then it seems odd that they haven’t found her yet.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Barbara. ‘I must say, it was rather silly of her to go wandering about at night. And now Florrie’s go
ne missing too. Or at least, we think she has.’

  ‘Has she? I dare say she’ll turn up sooner or later,’ said Angela vaguely, and followed Miss Finch down to the lake.

  Very little work was done by anyone in the school that afternoon, for everybody was far too fascinated with the search for Princess Irina. No matter how much the teachers scolded, there was no stopping the girls’ eyes from turning towards the window and watching the dark shape of the little boat in the distance as it proceeded methodically back and forth across the lake, one man leaning over the stern with the dragging hook.

  By five o’clock the light was fading and the men stopped for the day, having found nothing. The girls all watched as the men trooped across the grass towards the school building and were met by Miss Bell, who could be seen pointing to various parts of the grounds, including the woods. Perhaps she was suggesting they begin a search there, too.

  Barbara button-holed Violet in the entrance-hall.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Miss Devlin,’ she said, ‘and she says as far as she knows Florrie didn’t go out at the weekend.’

  ‘But the Fifth had Games today,’ said Violet. ‘Didn’t Miss Devlin notice she was missing?’

  ‘I don’t believe anybody is thinking about anything but Irina,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Then we must report it to Miss Finch or Miss Bell,’ said Violet firmly.

  ‘But I can’t get anyone to listen,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Then we must make them listen,’ said Violet.

  They went along to the staff common-room and knocked on the door. Miss Finch answered. Barbara could see all the teachers gathered together in the room behind her. They were evidently discussing that day’s events.

  ‘Why aren’t you doing your prep?’ said Miss Finch. ‘Run along, now.’

  ‘But—’ said Violet.

  ‘Never mind “but,”’ said Miss Finch. ‘It will have to wait until later, I’m afraid. We have important things to discuss, and quite frankly I’m surprised at you, Violet. I expected you of all people to have the good sense not to bother the teachers with your childish nonsense at such a time. Now, run along.’