Hasty Death (12 page)

Rose, who was sitting on the bed, rushed into her arms and hugged her close.

‘How? How did you get here? I heard you singing.’

‘Never mind,’ whispered Daisy. ‘Pooh, it smells bad in here.’

‘They wouldn’t even let me go to the bathroom. I had to use the chamber-pot under the bed. I haven’t even been fed.’

‘Shh! Come along quietly.’

They crept together to the top of the stairs and began their descent, both of them glad the stairs were so thickly carpeted. They stood together on the bottom step.

‘Right!’ said Daisy. ‘Straight for the front door as fast as we can.’

But when they got to the door, it was locked and barred. Daisy slid back the well-oiled bolts. She was still clutching her skeleton keys in her hand.

‘I’ll soon get to work on this,’ she whispered.

‘Here, you two,’ shouted a voice behind them.

They turned slowly and found Philips glaring at them. ‘Helga!’ he shouted.

A female nurse came out of a side room. She was of the same build as Philips, heavy and menacing.

‘Two of our little birds were trying to escape,’ said Philips, ‘and the doctor’s just gone in to London.’

‘Lock them down in the basement till he gets back,’ said Helga.

Philips grabbed Daisy by the wrist and twisted the keys out of her hand. ‘A nasty little spy,’ he said.

‘I’ll have you in court for this,’ said Rose and slapped him full across the face.

He hit her on the cheek so hard that she fell to the ground.

‘Bastard!’ said Daisy, helping Rose up.

‘I’ll have some fun with you later,’ sneered Philips. He took a thick blackjack out of his pocket. ‘Now, move.’

‘Don’t protest,’ said Rose, holding her cheek. ‘He could crack your head open with that, Daisy.’

A heavy door was opened at the back of the hall. A steep flight of steps led down.

‘Get down with you,’ growled Philips, ‘or I’ll shove you down.’

With arms around each other’s waists, they went down the stairs as the door slammed above them.

‘I can’t see a thing,’ complained Daisy.

‘There’s a faint light below.’ Rose released Daisy and went ahead, feeling her way down. The staircase curved towards the bottom.

‘There’s a window, but it’s high up and it’s barred,’ said Rose.

Daisy followed her down and they both stood in the basement and looked around. ‘It isn’t a cellar. It’s a storeroom. Look at all this luggage. It must belong to the other poor
creatures in this hellish place.’

‘We’ll never escape from here,’ said Rose.

‘I’ll try.’ To Rose’s amazement, in the dim light from the overhead window, she saw Daisy was beginning to take her dress off.

‘I’ve got files in my stays. The captain gave them to me.’

‘Oh, thank God. He knows of this.’

‘He’s outside and if we’re not out by morning, he’ll come for us.’

‘Why doesn’t he just bring a gun and blast his way in?’ said Rose bitterly.

‘Because it’s better if we get away quietly. If he shoots his way in, if the police are called, think of the stories in the newspapers. You’d be damned as Mad Rose forever
after, no matter what nasty things about Dr McWhirter are uncovered. Here. Help me off with my stays.’

Daisy slid out the files and then put her dress on again. ‘Now, how do I get up to that window?’

‘We’ll need to stack up the luggage and climb up,’ said Rose. Heaving and panting, using a cabin trunk as the base, they put suitcase after suitcase on top of it.

Daisy scrambled up and got to work on the bars with one of her files.

‘Oh, Rose, this is going to take ages,’ she mourned.

‘I’ll look through the other suitcases,’ said Rose, ‘and see if I can find something to use as a weapon.’

Daisy worked away diligently while below her, Rose opened case after case. ‘Nothing I can use so far,’ said Rose. ‘How are you getting on?’

‘Oh,’ wailed Daisy as the file she was using snapped. ‘I’ll never do this. I’ve only got one file left.’

‘Keep trying,’ urged Rose. ‘Wait, move away from the window a little. I need light. I think there’s a candle here.’ Daisy crouched down below the window.

‘Yes, and a box of vestas.’ Rose struck a match and lit the candle. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I can have a proper search.’ For a while there was no sound but the
steady rasp of the file. Then Rose, her voice quivering with excitement, said, ‘Daisy, you can stop filing. Come and see what I have found.’

Daisy scrambled down the ‘ladder’ of cases and joined her. ‘It’s a gun bag with a shotgun and cartridges,’ said Rose, her eyes gleaming in the candle-light.

‘Do you know how to use it?’

‘Yes. I got one of the keepers to show me.’

‘But how will that get us through the cellar door?’

‘I’ll shoot a great big hole in the lock. Hold the candle high while I load this thing.’

Daisy watched, fascinated. ‘I never knew ladies had any useful skills at all,’ she said.

‘Some of us have. There! Now let’s cut bits off our petticoats to plug our ears. I don’t want to go deaf.

‘Now I will fire and reload quickly in case I need to use this on Philips. Believe me, Daisy, I never would dream of killing anyone, but I will kill that man if he gets in my way.
It’s a double-barrelled shotgun. Let’s give that door both barrels.’

Rose hurried up the stairs. Daisy, holding the candle, followed her. ‘Back off,’ ordered Rose. ‘I’m going to fire.’

The resultant blast was tremendous. Not only was the lock shot but there was a jagged gaping hole in the door.

They rushed through. Philips came running down the stairs. Rose quickly reloaded the shotgun and turned to face him.

‘Open the front door,’ she ordered.

‘You’d never use that on me,’ said Philips. ‘That would be murder.’ Because of the ear-plugs, Rose could barely hear what he was saying but she took careful aim and
blasted a hole in the step below the one on which Philips was standing. He fell backwards. Rose reloaded. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘open up.’

But he turned and rushed back up the stairs, shouting, ‘Helga!’

‘That bitch looks as if she might have a gun,’ panted Daisy. ‘Shoot the front lock.’

Out on the road, Harry exclaimed, ‘Becket, I heard shots, coming from the house. We’d better go.’

Becket cranked up the motor and raced along at top speed of thirty miles an hour and into the drive of The Grange.

Rose and Daisy came sprinting down the drive, Rose carrying a shotgun. Behind them came Philips and two other men.

They stopped short at the sight of Harry.

‘Get in the car,’ shouted Harry.

Rose and Daisy leaped in. Becket turned the car and they drove off.

‘I’ve left me stays,’ said Daisy, and burst into tears. Rose hugged her. ‘I’ll buy you a whole shopful of stays.’

Daisy scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve. ‘With roses on the garters?’

‘With anything you like.’

At first Rose’s parents were outraged by being summoned to Scotland Yard. Surely Scotland Yard should come to them. But when Jarvis told them it concerned their daughter,
Lady Polly summoned Humphrey, who was packing up Rose’s clothes, and they set out.

When Lady Polly saw her daughter sitting in Kerridge’s office, she let out a shriek of dismay. Rose’s left eye was nearly closed by the enormous bruise on her cheek.

‘What on earth happened?’ she cried.

In measured tones, Harry described Rose’s ordeal. When he had finished, he said, ‘Did you not consider it odd that Lady Rose should be admitted wearing only the clothes she stood up
in?’

‘They said to send her clothes the following day.’

‘And what was she supposed to do in the meantime for clean linen or a nightdress?’

Lady Polly rounded on Humphrey. ‘This is all your fault!’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Rose – much to Daisy’s disappointment. ‘It is you, my unnatural parents. To have me locked up in an asylum because I would not accept a
proposal of marriage from a man more than double my age.’

‘Here, now. We thought it was a country retreat,’ protested the earl. He turned to Kerridge. ‘Have you had McWhirter arrested?’

‘He is being brought in for questioning and The Grange is being raided. But Lady Rose cannot give evidence in court unless you wish the whole world to know that you considered your
daughter mad.’

‘This is your sort of job,’ said the earl, turning to Harry. ‘Cover it up and send me the bill.’

‘Were it not for my respect for your daughter, who had to shoot her way out of the place, I would gladly see you exposed in the press. It would be better for you and your daughter if you
would accept the fact that she may never get married.’

Rose felt tears welling up in her eyes. She did not know why. ‘Don’t cry,’ said Daisy, pressing her hand.

‘I am very hungry,’ sobbed Rose. ‘We have had nothing to eat.’

‘I think you should take your daughter home,’ said Kerridge. ‘I will call on you this evening when I have found out more.’

That evening, before dinner, Rose met her parents in the drawing-room. Daisy sat quietly in the corner and listened in amazement. She had expected the earl and countess to
apologize to their daughter, not realizing that such as the earl and countess did not apologize to anyone, ever.

‘We’ve been thinking, Rose,’ said the earl, ‘that Cathcart may have the right of it. We have decided to accept that you will probably remain a spinster. Good idea. Save
us the expense of another season, what. You always were bookish and interested in odd things like this vegetarian caper. We don’t mind so long as you don’t go back to supporting the
suffragettes or anything scandalous like that.’

‘We always try to do what’s best for you,’ said Lady Polly.

‘Such as having me locked up in an asylum?’

‘That was Humphrey’s fault. I’ve fired her. Ordered two lady’s maids from that new agency. Haven’t got time to search around.’

‘Humphrey was with you for years,’ protested Rose.

‘I’ve given her a good reference and some money to tide her over. More than she deserves.’

‘Mama, have you thanked Daisy for saving me?’

‘No, but thank you, Levine. Shall we go in to dinner?’

Harry called at his office before going to Eaton Square to hear from Kerridge if McWhirter had been charged.

Miss Jubbles was still there. For the first time, Harry saw the obsessive adoration in her eyes.

He came to a decision. ‘Miss Jubbles,’ he said, ‘you should not be here so late, but I am glad you are. I have something to say to you.’

‘Oh, sir!’ Miss Jubbles blushed.

I think she expects me to propose to her, thought Harry. This is dreadful.

‘Miss Jubbles, I regret to tell you that I have too many overheads and may have to wind up the business. I regret that I do not need your services any longer.’

Miss Jubbles turned as white as she had been red a moment before. ‘I will work for nothing!’

‘No, I cannot have that. I will pay you three months’ wages. That will allow you time to find another position.’

Miss Jubbles looked around in a dazed way at what she had always thought of as ‘her room’.

‘Becket will drive you home.’ Harry opened the window and called down to Becket, who was sitting in the car outside, to come up.

‘Becket will call at your home tomorrow with your three months’ pay,’ said Harry.

Miss Jubbles stood up. She collected her hat and coat from the hat stand and put them on. Then she suddenly fell to her knees and held her hands up as if in prayer.

‘Don’t send me away. I
love
you!’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ said Harry. ‘Ah, Becket, will you please drive Miss Jubbles home?’

Then he turned away and walked into his office and shut the door behind him.

Rose sat silently throughout dinner, her brain in a turmoil. To tell a rebellious spirit like Rose that she was no longer expected to marry made her long to do the opposite.
For all her scorn of the season being nothing more than a cattle market, she did nourish romantic dreams of some intelligent man who would sweep her off her feet. Her thoughts strayed to Harry. He
never seemed to regard her as a woman. She had a good mind to flirt with him and see if she could break his heart.

L
ady Polly had just risen as a signal to Rose and Daisy to join her in the drawing-room and leave her husband to his port when Brum, the butler,
announced the arrival of Superintendent Kerridge.

‘We’d better all hear what he has to say,’ said the earl, getting to his feet.

Both Kerridge and Inspector Judd were waiting in the drawing-room. ‘This is a bad business, my lord,’ Kerridge was beginning when Harry was announced.

‘Ah, Cathcart,’ said the earl. ‘Come in. Kerridge was just about to start his report.’

Harry stole a glance at Rose. He thought she was looking remarkably beautiful in a dinner gown of oyster satin with white lace panels, despite the bruise on her check.

Kerridge waited until Harry was seated and began again. ‘We raided The Grange and found eight people there, all female. They were in a dreadful condition. Most were full of drugs. There
was one, a Miss Callum, who had been admitted only the week before. Turns out her parents died and she inherited a considerable estate. Her cousins conspired with McWhirter to have her committed.
All ladies have been transferred to Saint George’s Hospital for observation. Some were half-starved.

‘When we called at Dr McWhirter’s consulting rooms, the place was ablaze. There was no chance of recovering any files. The good thing is that if the relatives of the ladies want them
to be re-committed somewhere, they will need to apply to me first. A warrant is out for McWhirter’s arrest and the ports are being watched.’

He turned his grey gaze on the earl and countess. ‘Your daughter is very lucky that she has friends such as Captain Cathcart and Miss Levine or you might never have seen your daughter
again.’