The Outsmarting of Criminals: A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim (28 page)

She returned to the kitchen and began opening the cupboards. She gave a small yelp of joy when she found a key rack attached to the inside of the
door to the broom closet. Five keys dangled from the rack. She gathered them quickly and returned to the basement door.

N
one of the keys worked.

She returned to the kitchen and began
going through the cabinetry. A drawer filled with cutlery; a drawer filled with plastic bags; a drawer filled with dishrags and towels. A junk drawer filled with ladles, plastic spoons, and tools: a screwdriver, a wrench, a hammer.

Eyeing the screwdriver, Miss Prim
flashed back to the 1970s. At that time, Doctor Poe had stored pharmaceuticals in a cabinet in one of his examination rooms. When certain patients discovered its contents, that cabinet had experienced a rash of thefts. Doctor Poe had solved the problem by purchasing a latch, screwing it into the cabinet doors, and then padlocking the doors through the hasp. The system had worked marvelously until the office manager (Miss Prim’s precursor) lost the key. Everyone had wrung their hands helplessly, until Doctor Poe found a solution to save the day. He’d retrieved a screwdriver, unscrewed both sides of the latch, and removed it from the door, thus triumphing over the padlock.

Miss Prim grabbed the screwdriver and
returned to the door that kept Dolly a prisoner. Working slowly and cautiously, Miss Prim began unscrewing the screws from the latch. One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight. All the screws were removed, and the latch with its intimidating padlock lay on the floor.

Miss Prim unlocked the lock on the doorknob and swung the door ope
n. Contrary to her expectations, the basement was not dark; several light bulbs shone from below. She began walking down the stairs tentatively.

“Dolly?”

“Over here, Miss Prim.”

Dolly, looking pale and frightened, sat on the basement floor, her wrists and ankles bound with rope.

“Oh, Dolly,” Miss Prim cried, “are you all right?”

“I’m OK, Miss Prim. We have to get out of here.”

Miss Prim began working at the knotted ropes.

“Wait,” Dolly said. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Miss Prim had been working the ropes so frantically she hadn’t paid attention to anything else.

“
That
,” Dolly whispered.

Miss Prim listened as the basement door was slammed shut and the door lock was engaged with a sickening
click
.

*

Miss Prim rushed up the stairs. Yes, the door was sealed tight. She returned to Dolly and continued working the ropes.

“What are we going to do, Miss Prim? Now we’re both locked down here.”

“This is completely my fault,” Miss Prim said, enraged with herself for not having foreseen this twist in the plot. “I thought the house was empty. I should have been more careful.”

“He went out a few hours ago, M
iss Prim. I guess he’s back now.” Miss Prim thought she had never heard Dolly sound so bitter.

“Are you hurt, dearest?” Miss Prim asked, as the ropes bi
nding Dolly’s ankles came loose.

“I’m OK. I don’t think he wants to hurt me. He’s just using me to get to Benjamin. How did you find me?”

Miss Prim told her about finding Olivia Abernathy’s business card, about her interview with Greenfield’s premier real-estate agent, about locating the hidden key under the flowerpot and releasing the padlock by using a trick Doctor Poe had taught her.

“I’m impressed, Miss Prim,” Dolly said with awe. “You really
are
cut out for your new profession.”

“P
erhaps, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now. Dolly, why ever did you rent this house and give a phony name to Olivia?”

“He made
me do it, Miss Prim. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Who is ‘he’?”

“It’s such a long story. His name is Everett Mansour. He’s in the graduate program with Benjamin. It all started with a book.”

“Go on,
” Miss Prim said, working at the ropes binding Dolly’s wrists.

“One day, Benjamin and Everett stopped in a used bookstore on the Upper West Side
to kill some time. The way Benjamin tells the story, he and Everett began on opposite sides of the room and found their way to the middle at the same time. They were looking through a pile of dusty old books and they both reached for the same book at the same time. That’s where the problem started. Benjamin says he got the book first, but Everett says he had his hands on it and Benjamin grabbed it from him. Anyway, Benjamin started paging through it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The bookstore owner had no idea and sold it to him for five dollars.”

“What was it, Dolly?”

“Miss Prim, you won’t believe this. It’s one of the original copies of
Songs of Innocence
, printed by William Blake himself in 1789, with all of his original artwork. Benjamin felt pretty sure it was authentic, but he brought it to one of his professors to get his opinion and asked him to keep it a secret. The professor said yes, without a doubt it’s an original. Benjamin was overjoyed, but then the professor started gossiping and Everett found out. Everett thought Benjamin stole the book out from under him, and he started making threats. The book’s worth a lot of money, Miss Prim. It’s hard to make a living at magical realism, and Everett realized how much he could make by selling it. He confronted Benjamin and demanded that they sell the book and split the money, but Benjamin wanted to keep it. He said he’d found it and paid for it and it was his.”

“H
ow did Everett get you and Benjamin to rent a house up here?”

“Benjamin? No, it was Everett who
wanted to rent the house. I was posing as Everett’s wife when I met that awful real-estate agent.”

The ropes gave and Dolly’s hands were free. “But, Dolly,
Olivia Abernathy pulled up a photo of Benjamin on her computer. She said that he was the man you’d rented the house with.”

“That’s totally untrue, Miss Prim. It was Everett, not Benjamin. From what I can figure out, Everett broke into Benjamin’s apartment to find the book, but Benjamin had already hidden
it somewhere else. So Everett waited for me outside Doctor Poe’s office and he told me if I didn’t help him and keep my mouth shut, he’d make sure Benjamin was hurt really badly … or worse. So I did what he told me to do. He wanted me to rent this house with him, so I did. And now I know what he’s planning. He’s holding me hostage until Benjamin gives him the book. Then he’ll let me go. At least, that’s what he says.”

“But why rent a house in Greenfield, of all places, Dolly?”

“I can’t figure that one out, Miss Prim. And I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, being tied up in this basement.”

“I don’t understand why
Olivia Abernathy should have lied to me about this,” Miss Prim said, puzzled and frustrated.

“I have to assume that Everett bribed her, Miss Prim. You know real-estate people. They’ll do anything for money.”

Miss Prim could not dispute the veracity of this assertion, though she supposed she understood the motivation. A real-estate agent must live in the very best neighborhood to have professional credibility, and living in the best neighborhoods costs a pretty penny.

“Did he kidnap you from the cottage?” Miss Prim asked.

“In a way yes, but in a way no. I left voluntarily. Everett waited until you were asleep and then he showed up at the cottage. He told me Benjamin was at the house and wanted to speak with me. He very specifically told me to take my purse with me, which I thought was strange. I told him I didn’t have a purse, but he didn’t believe me, and I was scared so I took yours. I
think
he believed I was holding a key to a safety deposit box, or something like that, for Benjamin. As soon as he got me down here, he opened your bag and shook everything out. When he didn’t find what he wanted, he just left everything on the floor.”

Miss Prim looked over her shoulder and saw her
favorite handbag upended, its contents spread along the floor: rain bonnet, change purse, cosmetics case, hair brush, even the bell she’d been using to train Bruno.
How had the bell found its way in there?
she wondered. She distinctly remembered leaving it on the credenza after her last training session with Bruno.

Delighted to have recovered her handbag and its difficult-to-replace contents, she began gathering the items and transferring them to her backup bag, which (due to the necessity of keeping the Laser Taser 3000 close at hand) remained firmly slung around her neck and shoulder.

“Do you know where Benjamin is, Dolly?”

“No, a
nd I’m starting to think Everett has other guys helping him. Oh, Miss Prim, how are we going to get out of here?”

Miss Prim pursed
her lips. “I wish I knew, Dolly.”

*

As day turned into evening, Miss Prim and Dolly exercised the few options available to them. They hoped Everett would leave the house, listening for the sounds of footsteps and closing doors, which they heard about two hours after Everett trapped them in the basement. Together they threw their weight against the basement door, hoping to break it or damage the lock, but their efforts were unsuccessful.

Like the basement of Rose Cottage, the basement of 50 Pierced Arrow Lane had no egress, so there was no hope of escape via such a route. Unlike Miss Prim’s basement, however, their current prison was only partially underground, and it had four small windows
—two on each side of the house—that allowed light to filter into the space. Dolly boosted Miss Prim up the wall, and Miss Prim used her dainty fist (which she’d wrapped in layers of old rags she’d found in the basement) to attempt to smash through the filthy windows. But the windows were made of sturdy plastic and seemed unbreakable.

By nighttime, the two women were feeling thoroughly discouraged. Everett and his henchmen had not returned. Miss Prim and Dolly listened carefully through the floorboards and the windows for any indicator that help was on the way, but no such aid was forthcoming.

Around midnight, as Dolly and Miss Prim were nodding off to sleep, Miss Prim thought she heard a noise: a car door slamming? A moment later they heard the doorbell ringing. Both instantly began screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to make themselves heard.

As they screamed,
Miss Prim saw a glow emanating from somewhere behind the basement’s dirty windows. And that sound—a gruff woofing—was that Bruno?

“Bruno,” she screamed. “Bruno, down here, boy. Bruno! Bruno!”

But Bruno did not appear to hear her. Based on the decreasing volume of Bruno’s woofs, Miss Prim thought he was moving
away
from the house rather than
toward
it.

“Dolly,” Miss Prim
shouted, “grab the bell from my handbag. Ring it! Ring it like a madwoman!”

It must have been quite a sight, Miss Prim reflected later, as she and Dolly screamed
like lunatics while Dolly rang the dinner bell with all her might. Then, magically, the sounds captured Bruno’s attention. The Boxer began barking loudly and furiously. Within seconds, several circles of light appeared outside the window.

Miss Prim heard a hard thud. She looked up at
a window to see it bulging as someone attacked it from outside. Two minutes later, one of the windows cracked. A black boot continued kicking at the window until a hole opened.

“Miss Prim, are you down there?”

Miss Prim recognized the voice immediately.

“Detective Dawes! Yes, Dolly and I are being held down here quite against our will.”

“Hold tight, ladies. We’ll be right down. Are you all right?”

“Yes, we’re fine. Please b
e careful, Detective. There might be unpleasant men around.”

“There’s no one here, Miss Prim. Just us.”

“Who is with you?”

“Me, and Spike, and Martin, and Lorraine. And Kit, Faye, Maude, Valeska, Josh, Jedediah Mason, Ethan Prothero, and a few others. And Bruno, of course.
Everyone was worried about you, Miss Prim.”

*

The door was unlocked and Kit came flying down the stairs, directly into Miss Prim’s arms. Bruno followed close on his heels.

“Jesu
—I mean, God, Miss Prim,” Kit said. “Don’t make us worry like that.”

Faye joi
ned their embrace, as did Valeska, Lorraine, Dolly, Maude, Josh, Jedediah Mason, and Spike.

“How did you find us?” Miss Prim asked.

“We have Kit to thank,” Dawes said. “Everyone started getting worried when we didn’t see you for a day. By nighttime, Kit decided something was wrong. He remembered you were going to see Olivia, so he came to see me, and we went looking for her. But she was out somewhere and didn’t get home until about an hour ago. She told us about your conversation. By that point half the town was out looking for you, and they followed me here even though I told them not to. Why doesn’t anyone in this town
listen
?”