A School for Brides (26 page)

Miss le Strange let herself into the building by a door that opened up onto a terrace on the western side; Mr. Rasmussen crept in through a humbler entrance to the scullery. He was then forced to tiptoe through the kitchen behind the sleeping servant's back, skulking up the rear stairs, which creaked alarmingly. Miss le Strange, taking a more direct route, reached her destination several minutes before Mr. Rasmussen.

That necklace, both reasoned, had to be
somewhere
. Mr. Rasmussen assumed that the footman, Robert, had taken it, since that was what he himself would have done given the opportunity, and began searching the servants' rooms. Miss le Strange, who
knew
Robert had not stolen it, went straight to the chambers in the front, looking for the one that belonged to Miss Crump.

Neither had ever been in the private rooms of the house, and so had no certainty which one belonged to their quarry. Mr. Rasmussen had an easier job, as the servants' bedrooms were smaller and less filled with possessions than those belonging to the students and the teachers.

Both being methodical by nature, at least when it came to the pursuit of their own best interests, they took each room in turn, working slowly, one from the front of the house and one from the rear, gradually coming closer and closer to each other.

Down in the kitchen, sleeping beside the maid-of-all-work and oblivious to the invasion of his home, Wolfie was dreaming about sheep. The sheep were running, and Wolfie was running, too, running joyously in the sunshine, barking. Eventually his dream-self barked so loudly that he woke up.

Wolfie lay still for a moment, meditating. First he considered the question of whether or not he was hungry, and decided that, yes, of course he was hungry. Then he began to speculate on where Miss Pffolliott had got to, and why it was so silent in the usually busy household. Listening intently, his sharp ears began to note stealthy little rustles coming from above. He stood up, pleased. There was someone upstairs for him to go and greet.

MISS LE STRANGE
had her hand in the pocket of an apron she had found in the back of a wardrobe in one of the students' rooms when she heard the sound of toenails clicking on the stairs, approaching the third floor. Instinctively her hand closed upon the wrapped bundle she had discovered and she drew it forth, clutching it tightly as she stayed her breath, listening.

Miss le Strange had not forgotten the existence of her enemy, the dog. On the contrary, she had been surprised not to encounter him before this, and she had come prepared. She moved silently toward the hallway, still holding the bundle. With one part of her mind she had registered the fact that the cloth-wrapped parcel was identical in appearance to the one she had secreted in the old apple tree some weeks ago.

When she reached the darkened hallway she saw two things. The first was the enormous, hairy mass of Wolfie cresting over the top of the stair, filling the entire stairwell so that she could not pass. The second, which she had little leisure to consider, was another dark mass, this one human in shape, coming up the hall from the back of the house. This, of course, was Mr. Rasmussen, who had just experienced a sensation like the kick of a horse to his chest upon stepping out into the front hall and confronting Wolfie and the shrouded figure of Miss le Strange.

Mr. Rasmussen, a man of far lesser intellect than Miss le Strange, had forgotten about Wolfie, and had not considered how he should react if challenged by that singularly ferocious-looking animal. He stared, fascinated, as the cloaked figure held something up and tossed it in the direction of the dog.

The object thrown at Wolfie's head was in fact a bread roll that had been soaked in enough laudanum, or liquid opium, to fell an elephant. As Miss le Strange was not knowledgeable about dogs, she did not realize that most will swallow bread as willingly as a lump of beefsteak. She had taken the precaution of smearing it with a coating of mutton fat, which she believed would prove irresistible to any canine of normal appetites.

In this calculation, she was correct. However, to her consternation, instead of lying down to chew on the odoriferous, sticky sphere, he merely opened his jaws wide and swallowed it entire. And instead of his being halted by the consumption of such a large wodge of fat, bread, and soporific drugs, it did not even slow his advance. Having gained the upper hallway, he leapt ecstatically at Miss le Strange, anxious to extend to her the courtesies of the house.

Miss le Strange uttered a shrill cry—unheard by the maid-of-all-work in the kitchen, who, besides being asleep, was deaf as well—and lunged to the left. This had the effect of disconcerting Wolfie for a vital few seconds, and Miss le Strange was off like a shot, running down the stairs without the least precaution taken against noise. Her goal was to escape with the lumpy package she held in her hand back to the dower house, where she hoped to lie low until she and her maid and the neat sum of money she had won from Mrs. Westing could make a discreet departure.

Wolfie paused, irresolute. On the one hand, the kind lady who had given him such a tasty treat was hurrying away, and he wished to catch her up. On the other hand, someone else lingered in the hall, who
also
ought to be given a greeting.

Mr. Rasmussen, whose wits had been sharpened by the crisis, used this hesitation to hurl himself down the stairway after Miss le Strange. Not only did he wish to avoid the attentions of Wolfie, but the cloth wrapped around the bundle in her grasp had been briefly illuminated by faint starlight coming in through a window, and he had jumped to a conclusion. Here was someone else in pursuit of the necklace, and furthermore, that someone else had found it and was preparing to make off with it.

Had that person seemed to be a large and muscular male, Mr. Rasmussen might, like the bard, have decided that the better part of valor was discretion, and retired from the fray. However, even though the figure was obscured by a long cape, there were several indications that this was instead a female, or at least a youth of slight build. He meant to follow and see if he could wrest it away from him or her.

Wolfie was delighted. If there was one aspect of his former life that he missed, it was the opportunity to run full-out, galloping over hill and dale. Now these two visitors were obviously inviting him to an exhilarating game of tag in the nighttime. As well as the pleasure of a romp through the countryside, Miss le Strange, since she had been carrying a ball of mutton fat in her pocket this past hour, smelled intoxicatingly both of sheep
and
dinner. He began to descend the stairs.

Now, large dogs do not descend staircases as readily as they ascend them. Their own weight renders them awkward and, fearing a fall, they tend to go slowly. This allowed both Miss le Strange and Mr. Rasmussen a good start, and they were well away from the school by the time Wolfie erupted through the side door, which they had left swinging wide in their hasty exits. However, Wolfie's nose was up to the task of tracking Miss le Strange's lovely scent, and he soon picked up speed on the flat ground.

On the horizon, a crescent moon was rising, and this, added to the starlight, made the landscape and the contestants in this race much more visible. Miss le Strange twitched at the hood of her cloak, the better to hide her features. The temperature was dropping, and a frost by dawn seemed certain.

To the east, the road that ran past the school went toward Crooked Castle and Gudgeon Park, and, to the west, toward Lesser Hoo. Miss le Strange was headed east, planning to turn off onto the drive to Gudgeon Park and its dower house before she reached the Castle. Taking a hurried glance over her shoulder, she saw no Wolfie behind her, and entertained the unkind hope that, with luck, she had fed him enough laudanum not only to disable but to kill him. What she
did
see instead was the masculine figure she had encountered inside the house, following her. Cursing under her breath, she redoubled her efforts.

In fact, the amount of opium Miss le Strange had provided was far greater than necessary for her purpose, either of insensibility or of assassination. Wolfie's organs of digestion responded to the receipt of such an overwhelmingly toxic morsel by rejecting it in an emphatic manner. He halted, made some terrifying noises, and then relieved himself of the contents of his stomach. Being of an iron constitution and, like most dogs, largely unmoved by the experience of vomiting, he resumed his former activity. With great leaps and bounds he closed the gap between himself and the two humans. Soon he was loping along at their sides, turning to regard them with eyes that glowed orange in the moonlight and a fiendish grin that exposed all his teeth and allowed gobbets of saliva to trail out in the wind behind him: in short, a creature born of nightmare.

Wolfie had caught up with them before the turnoff to Gudgeon Park, and, as he was keeping pace on their right side, he blocked the way to Miss le Strange's destination. Realizing this, and also that, should she make the turn, her human pursuer would inevitably guess at her identity, she resolved to continue on toward the Castle. There, she hoped to mingle with the crowd and thus escape detection until the time came to return home. How she came to have arrived alone and unaccompanied in the dark might be difficult to explain, but she was past being concerned about that now. The great thing, so far as Miss le Strange was concerned, was to escape from the horrible, apparently immortal, dog and to stop running, to ease the dreadful stitch forming in her left side.

Unfortunately for this plan, Mr. Rasmussen was gaining on her. Although not particularly fit, he was attired in far more practical footwear for running, and was not encumbered as she was by her skirts and the voluminous cloak that hampered her at every step.

Thus it was that first Miss le Strange, then Mr. Rasmussen, and finally Wolfie burst into the Crooked Castle ball, racing over the open drawbridge, through the portcullis, and under the heavily carved archway into the great hall. Their impetus carried them past the small groupings of guests who stood near the door and into the center of the enormous room, colliding with an elderly local dignitary in the act of performing a graceful allemande in the dance known as Lord Nelson's Hornpipe and depositing him in an undignified heap on the floor.

Miss le Strange and Mr. Rasmussen managed to skid to a stop, but Wolfie kept on, gamboling about the room, alternately baying and barking, half out of his mind with excitement. It was possible to follow his path through the crowd by tracking the screams and shouts of panic as he lumbered into new clusters of revelers. Eventually, having made a full circuit of the room, he returned to his former companions in the middle of the dance floor.

Miss le Strange, seeing him approach, flung up her hands in an instinctive effort to ward him off. This caused her to lose her death grip on the white parcel she had removed from the schoolhouse. It flew out to land on the floor; the force of the impact was such as to tear asunder the loose stitching securing the cloth around its contents.

Onto the polished oaken floorboards slid the Ramsbottom necklace in all its glory. The pendant stone, large as a quail's egg and cut so as to make the most of every ray of light, glittered like a miniature bonfire. The guests shifted their gazes from Wolfie to the barbaric splendor of some six hundred carats of rubies winking up at the great central chandelier.

Miss Franklin and Miss Asquith, who had been conferring about the latter's newly engaged status, drew near, gaping like everyone else. Miss Quince also advanced and looked at her old antagonist, who was panting hard and pressing one hand to her side, her eyes slewing this way and that, seeking an avenue of escape.

“So you found the necklace after all, Miss le Strange,” said Miss Quince in a flattened voice.

“Yes,” gasped Miss le Strange, “I did.” Her eye fell upon Robert, who was peering out from behind the baize door to the kitchen. She lifted her arm and pointed an accusing finger in his direction. “I found it in
his
room. I knew you would not search it properly. I
knew
you were swayed by a foolish fondness for that—that common serving boy. So I made it my business to look in his room, and I found it!”

Miss Quince shook her head. “You are wrong, Miss le Strange. All the servants' rooms in the school were closely searched at the time the necklace went missing. We were anxious to clear them, and especially Robert, of any suspicion.”

“And, in fact, you did not find it there,” agreed Miss Franklin. “You could not have. I now realize it was in
my
room these past few days. I saw you hide a cloth-wrapped parcel in the old apple tree at the school some weeks ago—
this
cloth-wrapped parcel. Quite recently, I recalled seeing you do so and had the curiosity to remove it. I had intended to examine it, but put it away and forgot about it.”

Miss Mainwaring spoke up, remembering a conversation with her aunt. “But . . . if the necklace belongs to Miss le Strange, why would she steal it from herself?”

At this, Miss Crump found herself to be wretched. She knew she should speak; she knew that it was the right thing to do, and possibly the only way to protect poor Robert, who was most certainly innocent. Yet to make a loud assertion about her ownership of the necklace in front of this crowd of people . . . How could she do it? Her former governess stood there, defiant and scornful, a figure of terror.

Yet . . . She was to be married soon, and to have her own damp, algae-encrusted home, where Miss le Strange would not be allowed entry unless Miss Crump—Mrs. Hadley!—willed it. Yes, she could be brave. She could do it.

She tugged on Miss Mainwaring's sleeve. Miss Mainwaring bent close to listen, and Miss Crump whispered in her ear. Miss Mainwaring's lips parted and her eyes rounded in surprise. She patted her friend's arm and lifted her voice so that it could be heard through the chattering, buzzing sound of the crowd.

“This necklace does
not
belong to Miss le Strange, whatever she may say,” she said. “It belongs to the Honorable Miss Jane Crump, daughter of Lady Baggeshotte. These rubies are handed down through the female line,
not
the male line. They came to Lady Baggeshotte from her mother, and on her death they became the property of her daughter, Miss Crump. Miss le Strange claims they were given to her by Viscount Baggeshotte, but,” she finished triumphantly, “he was legally unable to dispose of them in any such manner.”