Maggie (19 page)

“How do I know you are not lying?” demanded Maggie.

“Well, I thought you might not believe me,” said the
marquess, sinking into a chair and neatly crossing his ankles, “so I brought along a note from Colonel Delaney.”

He handed a piece of paper to Miss Rochester. The message was brief. “Please go with Handley. Strathairn and I will be waiting for you. Your troubles are over. Delaney.”

Miss Rochester stared at it doubtfully.

Surely a gentleman like the colonel would sign off with something like Your Obedient Servant.

But Maggie’s face had turned pink with excitement. “Do let us go, Miss Rochester. Just think! An end to the mystery at last.”

Miss Rochester studied the marquess closely and he returned her scrutiny with a limpid gaze. He certainly seemed harmless enough. Then neither she nor Maggie had seen the colonel’s handwriting before.

“We’ll take Roshie with us,” said Miss Rochester.

“I saw the earl’s manservant when I arrived,” said the marquess, “and sent him on ahead. I am sorry if you consider it a liberty.”

Miss Rochester studied him in silence and the marquess spread out his hands in a rueful gesture. “I know what you are thinking, dear lady. There sits the man who coerced my nephew into a form of marriage with Mrs. Macleod. Very well, I admit my bad behaviour. To make amends, I set myself out to discover the identity of the murderer. That is why Lord Strathairn has forgiven me so freely.”

“Who
is
the murderer?” asked Maggie.

“That is for Lord Strathairn to tell you. He felt it would come as a bit of a shock and he, understandably, does not consider me the right sort of person to break the news.”

“We’ll come with you,” said Maggie suddenly. She did not know that her one burning motive was to see the earl again, to hear his voice, and to hope that he might look at her in that warm, intimate way he had once done when they had walked at midnight through the London streets.

Miss Rochester sighed and put her feeling of foreboding down to the grim weather. Soon she and Maggie were hatted and booted and following the marquess out to his carriage.

“Where do you live, my lord?” asked Miss Rochester.

“Some little way outside the city,” he replied. “It will not take us long to get there.”

The journey took about an hour. Both women tried from time to time to elicit further information from the marquess, but he would only smile and say that he had promised the earl not to tell them anything, for the earl wanted to tell them everything himself.

The carriage stopped at last in front of a pair of imposing wrought-iron gates, waited while the driver jumped down and opened them, and then lurched up a short drive.

Miss Rochester and Maggie had only a faint impression of the outside of the house, for the rain was now being driven before a steadily rising wind, and the light, such as it was, was fading.

The marquess ushered them into a large, cold drawing-room.

“Our friends are obviously not here yet,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll get some tea and light the fire and you can make yourselves comfortable until they arrive.”

Both women took off their wet mantles, for they had been soaked in the short walk from the carriage to the house. The marquess made them a sketchy bow and left the room.

Maggie folded her arms about her shivering body, feeling a little twinge of dread. Why had they come so far, so readily, despite the colonel’s note, with a man who had proved himself to be cruel and malicious to say the least?

The room smelled of damp and dry rot. There was no gas and it was lit by the light of a few candles. Glass cases full of stuffed animals lined the walls, the candlelight winking strangely in their green eyes until it seemed as if so many distorted Marquesses of Handley were crouched about the
room, ready to spring.

The wind outside rose higher, a gust bringing on it the sound of children laughing and playing, a nostalgically normal sound to Maggie who began to feel she had left the real world behind such a very long time ago.

The door opened and a servant came in with a basket of logs. Both women watched in silence as he stooped to light the fire. He was a burly, ill-favoured fellow, more like an ex-prize fighter than a footman.

Having finished with the fire, he left and returned shortly with a tray of tea and biscuits which he set on a low marquetry table, urging them to “help themselves”.

“Where is your master?” demanded Miss Rochester sharply, but the footman only shrugged his beefy shoulders in their tight livery and shambled from the room.

“I don’t like this,” whispered Maggie. “Oh, I wish Peter would arrive.”

“Do you think the tea is drugged?” Miss Rochester picked up the teapot and stared at it, as if she could divine its contents from the outside. “I mean, they tried to get rid of Sexton Blake once, just like this.”

Maggie smiled. “Oh,
boys
’ stories.”

“They’re very good,” protested Miss Rochester. “I mean, I think Sexton Blake is a far better detective than Sherlock Holmes.” A dreamy look came into her eyes. “I see Sexton Blake as looking something like a younger version of Colonel Delaney.”

“Well, I don’t think the tea is drugged,” laughed Maggie. “I mean, it’s not as if we’re prisoners. We can leave any time we like.”

Both women smiled reassuringly at each other. Both were determined to believe that everything was normal and that the earl and the colonel would soon arrive, denying the evidence of their eyes and senses that everything was very far from normal.

No matter which stratum of society they hail from, most people are prepared to think the best of anyone with a title. Plain Mr. MacTavish of the Gorbals, say, might be capable of dire plots, poisoning and murder. But not the Marquess of Handley. He had played a nasty trick on the earl, but then it was an age in which society specialized in playing quite horrific practical jokes on each other. One group of young men had recently pretended to be white slavers and had abducted one poor debutante, getting as far as carrying her bound and gagged aboard a yacht. The fact that she went into a delirium of fear did not really trouble the participants. It just went to show, they said, that some people couldn’t take a joke.

And so Maggie and Miss Rochester, by mutual consent, returned to their chairs, prepared to take tea and cover their fears with social chit-chat.

And so they conversed about the weather while Miss Rochester poured tea.

Maggie was just raising her cup to her lips when Miss Rochester suddenly jumped to her feet.

“This is silly,” she said. “I haven’t the faintest idea where we are. I think it very odd that Handley should leave us alone so long. I’m going to find him and ask him what’s happening.”

Maggie put down her cup, untasted, and watched anxiously as Miss Rochester strode to the door.

Miss Rochester twisted and pulled at the handle of the door and then turned and faced Maggie, her heavy face almost ludicrous in its dismay.

“It’s locked!” she said.

“It can’t be.” Maggie walked forwards and seized the door handle. Despite all her efforts, the door refused to budge.

Meanwhile, Miss Rochester had returned to the tea tray and had raised the lid of the teapot and was sniffing its
contents, her heavy bulldog face wreathed in steam. “It smells funny,” she whispered. “Come here and have a sniff at it, Maggie. Now, what does that smell remind you of?”

Maggie bent her head next to Miss Rochester’s. “One of those laudanum mixtures,” she said at last. “But it’s too theatrical for words! Well, we won’t drink it.”

There was a silence while the wind roared about the house.

“I think we should pretend to,” said Miss Rochester in such a low voice that Maggie had to strain to hear her. “You see, if he thinks we’re drugged, he won’t tie us up or anything and we’ll have a chance to escape.”

“I’m scared,” said Maggie. “I’m frightened to death. Should we scream? We can’t be very far away from anyone. I heard children playing not so long ago.”

“The wind is very strong and carries sounds quite a distance,” said Miss Rochester. “I don’t think we’re very near another house.” She gave Maggie a quick hug. “See, we’ll empty our cups out behind that curtain over in the corner, and then we’ll lay ourselves down as if we’ve been overcome by the drug.”

Too frightened now to argue or hope that they might be the victims of a practical joke, Maggie did as suggested. Miss Rochester sat down in her chair again and hung her head over the side. Maggie lay down on the hearthrug as if she had fallen over.

And then they waited.

Ages seemed to pass. Maggie felt her heart was beating so loudly that anyone entering the room would hear it. Her foot felt cramped and she eased it gently. Her nose tickled. What if she should sneeze?

At last there came the gentle sound of a key being turned cautiously in the lock.

Then the Marquess of Handley’s voice, alarmingly brisk and loud. “Come here, Johnnie. They’re out cold. You know what to do with them.”

“Aye,” came the gruff voice of the servant. “I’ve tae take them doon tae the Broomielaw and gie them tae Captain Wheeler of the
Mary Jane
, bound for South America. He’s tae pay me fur them. I winnae get much for the old ’un. They won’t want anything as tough as that where she’s goin’.”

The marquess laughed rudely and said that in the part of South America to which the ladies were bound, the denizens would have intercourse with the house cat if there were nothing better around, and his servant gave a horrible guffaw while Miss Rochester burned with humiliation and rage.

“Put them in the cart,” went on the marquess, “but cover them with a tarpaulin. I don’t want the merchandise getting wet, let alone anyone seeing it. I’ll wait here for Strathairn.”

“Ye hate him, don’t ye?” came the sly voice of the servant.

“He should never have meddled in my affairs,” said the marquess in a conversational voice as if discussing the vagaries of the stock market. “I thought I had taught him a lesson once. He was preaching about the sordid property of Glasgow and saying piously that he was glad he didn’t own any of it. The man has the soul of a counter-jumper. Now he’s interfering. He’s found out about Salamanca Street, and so, like that fool Murdo Knight, he’ll have to go. I paid that idiot of a reporter to keep his mouth shut but he got greedy. After you’ve got rid of these women, come back and tell me that all is well. I will then pay a call on Strathairn and tell him he must keep his mouth shut if he wants to see either of them again. That will give me a breathing space to think what to do about
him
.”

Miss Rochester listened as hard as she could although the sound of her own heartbeats and the sound of the rising wind outside drowned most of the marquess’s words. But she
had
heard him confess to murder. He had distinctly said he had killed Knight and he had surely indistinctly confessed
to murdering Macleod. Surely he had said something about paying that idiot Macleod and Macleod getting too greedy?

Maggie felt dizzy and faint. It took all her small stock of courage to force herself to lie still and breathe deeply and evenly. All they had to do, she thought, was wait until they were carried from the house and then try to escape.

All they had to do was ‘play dead’ and wait for the right moment.

Miss Rochester made an odd little sound, something between a cough and a sneeze.

“What have we here?” demanded the marquess. He bent over Miss Rochester and thumbed open one eye. In vain did Miss Rochester try to roll it back in her head.

“Tie them up,” snapped the Marquess. Maggie leapt to her feet and ran for the door. The servant brought back his fist and struck her neatly on the point of the chin and she went down like a stone.

“Maggie!” wailed Miss Rochester, struggling to her knees. She bent over the unconscious girl, helplessly rubbing her wrists. The Marquess nodded briefly to the servant who quickly took a thick little blackjack out of his pocket. One neat crack on the back of Miss Rochester’s bent head and she slumped over Maggie’s body.

“If they’re clever enough to play games like that,” said the marquess breathing rapidly, “then they may get up to some other mischief. Tie them firmly and gag them both. I had better come with you to the Broomielaw.”

The servant, Johnnie, hesitated. “If Strathairn his foond oot about Salamanca Street, he’ll go straight tae the police.”

“Not he,” shrugged the marquess. “He will need definite proof and that takes time. As soon as we’ve got these women on board, I’ll call on him and tell him their safety depends on his silence.”

Johnnie looked at his master, a worried frown creasing his low brow. The marquess’s eyes were glittering with a
hectic light and for the first time Johnnie began to wonder whether he was mad.

“Don’t stand there glowering, man,” snapped the marquess. “Move the bodies quickly. We’d better call at the Dupont woman’s on the road.”

The servant brought twine and began to tie the ankles and wrists of both women. Then he gagged them.

For the first time since he had started work for the Marquess of Handley did Johnnie experience a shudder of fear. Coercing slum girls into a brothel was one thing, but murder and kidnapping was another. He decided to make his escape from the marquess’s employment that very day.

Colonel Delaney and Mr. Farquharson had decided that the earl should appear at Madame Dupont’s in the guise of a client. They told him they would wait in the pub opposite, and, with that, they left him on the doorstep.

Madame Dupont looked the epitome of respectability in black silk, black mittens, and a small black hat. The earl wondered if he had made some terrible mistake. The entrance hall looked more like a dentist’s waiting-room with its black marble fireplace and polished wood table and carefully arranged magazines.

“How can I help you?” asked Madame Dupont in accents that were more Fife than French.

The earl took the plunge. “I would like a young girl… er… as young as you can manage.”

There was a silence while Madame Dupont studied him thoughtfully, her small eyes assessing the price of his clothes from his boots to the silk hat on his knee.