Wiles of a Stranger (23 page)

Would I be left here to starve, then rot? In some distant future, a skeleton in a navy blue gown would be found, sitting on top of a coal heap. Would anyone even remember the governess who had disappeared with Lucien Beaudel and connect her with my bones?

Weak from hunger, cramped from sitting, and fatigued with worry, I decided to sleep, and covered the hole with coal again, in case of a visitor. When I awoke, I shoved the coal away to see the hour. The sun was just setting, which told me my lookout faced the west. It was the direction Lucien had run to, but I had no idea in which direction Glanbury Park or Chelmsford lay.

With nothing else to do, I decided to try the door again, on the chance it had been left unbarred. As I approached the top of the stairs. I saw the dim outlines of another tray. She had come while I slept, and left it without awakening me. So I was not to be starved to death after all. I noticed two cups on the tray, and two bowls of perfectly cold stew, two spoons. Then they didn’t know Lucien had gotten out. She had seen me stretched out on the coal pile and thought he was with me, sleeping. Her lamp was dim enough to make that mistake, I realized, with a new rush of hope. But what was taking him so long?

My hunger welcomed the double servings. I ate Lucien’s stew and my own, drank our tea, grateful for the liquid, cold and unsugared though it might be. Then I placed the tray at the bottom of the step, and sat scheming how I could overpower her when she came for it. Maybe a large block of coal... But there was none large enough to knock her unconscious, so I took it up and placed it on the side of the top step, in case she asked Lucien to take it to her. I felt better after eating.

Back to my perch, to sit at the hole and watch the sun set. It was red and bright and beautiful, then it was suddenly gone. The shadows turned to purple, then by degrees to black space. Once it was dark, there was no worry about the hole being seen. I could just sit and listen and wait.

One loses all track of time, alone in the dark. I was not tired, and not entirely despondent. Lucien might yet bring help to me. Every night sound was magnified to my listening ears. I knew we were removed some distance from the main road, as I heard no noise of traffic passing. This made the sound, when finally it came, more significant.

In an anguish of waiting, I heard the fast clipping of a team draw near, saw a darker shadow in the gloom as it passed by, to stop a few yards beyond my listening spot. It would be a constable, or Mr. Beaudel, or some kindly farmer brought by Lucien. When at last a human voice was heard, my spirits sank. It was Stella Beaudel. The heavier tread that accompanied hers would certainly be Wiggins.

A light, teasing laugh wafted toward me, from above. “But however did you manage to steal it, Major?” Stella asked. “The Jaipur is worth a huge sum.”

“A trade secret, my dear Stella. I suppose you have the boy here too, have you?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies. What do you mean to do with her? Eventually, I mean, for I know your plans for the near term.”

“I can handle Miss Stacey. She won’t be any problem.”

Their footfalls stopped not more than a yard past my listening port. My heart stood still. One of them must have seen the hole cover, lying on the ground. Her gurgling laugh soon disabused me of this idea. “Tch, tch. Remember I am a married woman,” she said seductively, but her very tone was an invitation to forget it. The long silence that ensued indicated he had accepted her invitation. What else could they be doing in the dark, except embracing?

What sense was to be made of what I had heard? He was working with them, yet not entirely in their confidence. He did not know where they had taken Lucien. How then did he know I was here? And in what manner did he intend to “handle” me? Had it something to do with my father—my silence for his freedom? Or was it something more menacing than that?

They didn’t know Lucien had escaped. That was my trump card, and I figured how to play it. Forget that Morrison had stolen the Jaipur. Of course my father would never have lied about that diamond being glass. I shouldn’t have doubted him for a moment, or trusted Morrison for a second. I squeezed my eyes shut and uttered a brief, silent prayer.

They would be at the door in seconds. I slid down from the top of the coal pile just as sounds were heard at the top of the stairs. The lantern that was soon swinging there, waist high, showed the fawn-trousered legs and topboots of the major, and behind them a gleam of green satin that was Stella’s skirt. She stood back, to prevent Lucien from seeing her.

“Come up, Miss Stacey,” Morrison commanded imperially.

As I took a step forward, he came down one step, knocking the tray askew. Stella handed him the lantern, then stepped back further. “I might as well see if the boy is all right while I’m here,” he said nonchalantly. There was a low murmur of disapproval from Stella, but he advanced. “How is he? Is he awake?” he asked.

He held the lantern up toward my face to examine me. “Good God!” he gasped, giving me some idea what the coal hole had done to my appearance. His eyes were wide, his mouth open in shock. “Where’s Lucien?” he asked, when he had recovered.

“Lucien? How should I know? He’s not here,” I answered blandly, tossing the cat amongst the pigeons, to see what would transpire. Morrison’s free hand grasped my upper arm, squeezing it.

“Not here? What are you talking about? Of course he’s here!” Stella proclaimed, and flew down the stairs to see for herself that he was not. Shock and dismay robbed her of caution.

Morrison looked at her with a sharp frown, then made a quick tour of the basement. The merciful shadows obliterated the small hole through which he had escaped. Even the breeze conspired by dropping, so as not to betray its presence.

“What have you done with him?” Stella demanded, her eyes accusing.

“Don’t he ridiculous! What could she have done? There’s no place to hide him,” Morrison said.

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon,” I declared without a tremor.

“Mrs. Cantor!” Stella turned and fled up the stairs.

“Where is he?” Morrison demanded.

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“He was with you in the meadow. Didn’t they bring him here?”

“No, certain]y not.”

Stella and Mrs. Cantor came pelting down the stairs, both swinging lanterns, to walk the few paces that took them from end to end of the room.

“She’s killed and buried him. That’s what it is,” Mrs. Cantor decided. “See—see the tray up there with two cups and bowls on it.”

“But one is from breakfast,” I reminded her helpfully. “You didn’t take the breakfast dishes away.”

“You lying hussy! The wench is a witch!” she said to Stella, and backed a step away from me, lest I cast a spell on her.

“What have you done with the boy?” Stella demanded of Mrs. Cantor. “If you think you and Cantor are going to hide him and claim the reward for yourselves alone, think again. Wiggins will kill the pair of you. This is our operation. We found Beaudel, and I have lived with the old fool, sharing even my bed with him for six months. You’ll not get away with this.”

“He was here, I tell you. I saw him with my own eyes this very day. She’s buried him in this coal. It’s the only place he could be.”

“Start shoveling then,” Stella ordered. There was no shovel in the room, however.

“The poor woman must be insane,” I said to Morrison, but in a loud enough voice for Stella to hear.

“Insane, is it?” Stella snorted. “A lying bitch is what she is.” On this forthright speech, she gave the poor woman a hard clout across the head. The dame was too bewildered to reciprocate.

“He was here,” she insisted, but with a doubtful sound beginning to tinge her words now.

“I suppose this is some trick of yours,” Stella said next, turning her wrath against Morrison.

“It is no trick,” he answered reasonably. “Let us be sensible, think for a minute. Cantor and his wife snatched him from the garden. You haven’t seen any of them since. Clearly, Cantor has taken the boy somewhere else. He must have asked his wife to lie for him, in case you came to check up. What we have to find out is where Cantor is.” He turned to Mrs. Cantor. “Where is he?”

“He just went into town for a drink at the tavern. Don’t worry he’ll get drunk, Stella. You know he is as close as a jug. He won’t say a word.”

“Idiot! I told you both to stay here, not to take a step beyond the house. You bungled up the last job, letting Kersey’s brat escape, and now you’ve bungled this one. If Cantor is running off at the mouth in a public tavern…”

“We’ll go and find him,” Morrison said. With a hand on my arm, he turned towards the airs.

“Not her,” Stella said, in the accents of a commander. “Not till I get the diamond, Major.”

“I don’t have it with me.”

“You had it in your pocket when we left the Park. Give it to me if you expect to walk you of here with the girl.”

“In that case, it looks like we leave the girl behind,” he answered, with total indifference.

Stella looked at him, her brow furrowed with scheming. “What are you up to, Major? Why did you bother coming here if... You never intended to give me the diamond at all. The girl was just an excuse to discover where Lucien was.”

There was suddenly a small pistol in her hand. I think she whipped it out of a skirt pocket, although it might have been hidden in her fingers all the time. “You’ve outsmarted yourself,” she continued, glaring at Morrison.

“No, no. The diamond is in my carriage.”

“I’ll have a look for myself,” she informed him, backing toward the stairs, the pistol leveled at him, whom she considered the most dangerous of her adversaries. Thus protected, she began backing up the stairs, carefully, one at a time.

“You’ll never find it, love. Better let me go with you,” he said, coaxingly.

“If it’s there, I’ll find it,” was her reply. “And if it isn’t, I’ll come back and put a bullet through your head, and search your pockets. I know you had it when we left home. You’ll be left here to rot with the rest of the garbage.”

She reached the top step, flung back the door, and spun around into Mr. Mullins’s waiting arms.

“I’ll just take the weapon, miss,” he said calmly, as he lifted it from her fingers.

“You took your sweet time getting here,” Morrison grumbled, walking toward the stairs, pulling me behind him by the hand.

“Holy Faith and the Angels!” Mullins exclaimed. “What pickaninny is this you’ve found in the coal hole?”

“I have some hope it is Miss van Deusen, hiding under the dust,” he answered, taking Mrs. Cantor by the arm to urge her up ahead of us. “Are you all right, Anna?” he asked, turning to gaze at me when we reached the top.

Stella was raising a noisy clamor, Mrs. Cantor countering with accusations and exclamations of her own; but I was hardly aware of it. I only knew the look Major Morrison turned on me was not the look of a murderer, or a vile person. There was worry, concern and love in his look. Also some shocked amusement at my condition.

“I don’t know what could have happened to Lucien!” I said, and burst into tears of relief. He put his arms around me and made comforting sounds, as I destroyed his jacket with coal dust and tears, that were perfectly black.

There were other police than Mullins present. He had called in some reinforcements, probably local constables, who were full of self-importance to have real criminals to contend with, and only sorry they were women, who could not be treated as roughly as they would have liked.

“Someone is watching Wiggins?” Morrison asked over my shoulder.

“He’s locked in a closet back at the Park, with a footman on guard outside with a pistol, dying for a chance to use it,” Mullins told him. “He might be at the roundhouse by now.”

“Send someone down to the pubs in Withamo to look for Cantor. He’s the one who has Lucien,” Morrison explained.

I had to correct this impression. Scant attention was paid to my babbling at first, but after Mullins had been to the cellar to see for himself the hole in the wall, he “deduced” I might be telling the truth. Between Morrison and Mullins, I had such a barrage of questions fired in rapid succession that I became incoherent, but at least they learned when he had left, in what direction he had been headed, and what his instructions had been.

“I’ll have to go after him at once,” Morrison told me. “One of the men will take you back to the Park. You’ll be safe there. You weren’t hurt, other than the unfortunate surroundings below?”

“Not bludgeoned or anything like that.”

“Good. I don’t know how long we’ll be, but from your appearance, a few days soaking in a tub will do you the world of good. I’ll go to you as soon as possible.”

“Yes. Be careful—Bertie?” I asked, with an excusable question in my voice, but the man did not notice any doubt in my choice of name for him.

He patted my cheek, with a half-distracted, worried sort of a smile, then lifted my fingers to his lips. When they came away, coal dust decorated his own fingers, and probably his beard too, though its color hid it.

A constable, not Mullins, drove me back to Glanbury Park, via such a circuitous route, over bumpy lanes and narrow roads, that I had no more idea where I had been than before being rescued. I did know it was not the cottage hired in the name of Mr. Kirby though. The constable mentioned a village called Withamo as being the nearest settled area.

Chapter Eighteen

Even before I had time to wash my face or brush my hair, Mr. Beaudel asked me into his office. He had been hanging about the front door, wild with worry and apprehension for Lucien.

“It is true then,” he said, sighing, when I told him my story. His first spate of questions was for Lucien’s safety, but the dispirited sigh, I believed, was for his wife’s complicity in the plot, for the final conviction that he had been a foolish old man, duped by a cunning, criminal woman.

“I feared it must be so when they came and took away Wiggins. They were always so close, my wife and Wiggins.”

Of course I did not tell him just how close they were, but he knew it. “You think the boy came to harm?” he queried next.