Vintage Love (82 page)

A yellow fog lay heavy over the entire scene and she could not tell where they were. Somewhere along the Thames, probably still well within the city. He walked along with her weight apparently giving him no trouble.

She said, “I’m going to scream my lungs out for help!”

He gave her a vicious look. “One sound from you and I’ll break that pretty mouth so that it will no longer be your pride!”

“Bully!”

“No matter,” he said. “If you behave properly and make no outcry this need not go badly for you.”

She did not believe him and yet she felt that for the moment she would be best advised to submit. Later she would somehow try to escape.

They reached a cluster of buildings and he went to one and rapped roughly on the door. It was opened after a moment and he carried her inside.

By the light of a candle in a holder on a barrel head, it looked like a stable. He took her over to a stall with a half-partition separating it from the rest of the room and put her down on the straw-covered floor.

“Not the sort of bed you are used to,
signorina
,” he said with a grim smile.

“Please let me go!” she begged. “I will make no charges against you!”

He laughed unpleasantly. “I promise you that you will not do that!”

A door from the other end of the stable opened and she heard someone utter a long preamble in a tongue which was known to her! Chinese! Someone else joined the first man and there was an excited conversation between the two in their native tongue.

She stared up at her captor in dismay. “Limehouse! You’ve brought me to Limehouse.”

“As good a hiding place for you as any.”

She knew it as an area set apart from the rest of the city. A place in which the population consisted entirely of Chinese, Lascars, Maltese and a few Japanese. A place foreign to all that was Western, where opium dens and fan-tan saloons were as frequent as in any underworld of the East. A place where, despite the vigilance of the police, it was not wise for strangers to intrude.

“Don’t keep me here!” she pleaded.

The swarthy man bent down and said in a low voice, “The price of your release is not too much. Just tell me what you have done with the jeweled Madonna!”

She frowned. “The jeweled Madonna?”

“Don’t pretend ignorance! It has been sent to you!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” she protested.

He nodded. “So. You need more time to think about it. I can give you all the time you need. I’m going to cut the binding at your ankles. But your hands will continue to be bound behind you. And if you make any move to escape because you’re able to walk, you’ll find it to no prupose. There are armed guards outside every door.” He removed the blanket from her nude body and then took out a knife and cut the thongs which had bound her ankles.

She said, “Let me have the blanket! It is not decent to expose me naked in this fashion!”

He shook his head. “On the contrary, I find you most attractive as you are!”

“Monster!” she said in a tremulous voice as she moved away from him. Leaning against the wall of the stall, she raised herself up to a standing position. She was weak and her head still light from the drugging.

“You have only to tell me where the Madonna is,” he said, staring at her with hungry eyes.

“I don’t know anything about a Madonna!”

“No?” he said, taunting her. “Soon you may be praying to her for help!”

Plaintively, she told him, “You are behaving like a madman and asking me about something of which I have no knowledge.”

“Lies will not help,” the man said. “It was sent from Italy to London. We know that. And it was sent to you!”

“Why? Who would send me a jeweled Madonna from Italy?” she demanded.

His smile was sinister. “I do not have to tell you. You know! You are playing a game and I am sick of games!”

“Go!” she said tearfully. “Let me be!”

“I will,” he said softly. “But not for a little.” And he methodically threw off his cloak, took off his hat and began removing his other clothes. She gasped at his audacity and huddled in a corner of the stall, forlorn in her nakedness.

“No!” she begged him. “No!”

He was stripped now, his hairy chest heaving as he came at her. There was a leering smile on his ugly face as his cruel hands reached out and dragged her from the corner to the middle of the stall.

There he pinned her down on the straw and despite her struggles, cries for help and moans, he cruelly took her. When he was sated he got up and stared down at her with contempt.

“You disappoint me,
signorina
,” he said. “I have had more pleasure in the brothels of Rome!”

She lay there sobbing as he dressed himself. She felt debased, beyond hope. She would never forget these nightmarish moments in which the act of love had been perpetrated in cruel parody.

The swarthy man in hat and cape stood over her again. He warned, “I’ll give you a half-hour to remember where the Madonna is. If your memory fails you I’m going to turn you over to my Chinese friends. They shall have your favors one by one. They are not as choosy as I and will look on you as a rare experience!”

Della fainted again. When she came to and opened her eyes she found herself looking up into the wrinkled faces of two old Chinese in black caps and native coats and trousers. The two chuckled over her and jabbered to each other, their conversation mixed with bursts of shrill laughter. As one of the old men reached out a skinny claw to caress her breast, she cried out and moved away in disgust.

This set them on another round of hysterical laughter, after which they padded out and vanished somewhere beyond the stable door. Her horrified thought was that they were going for others to return and gang-rape her. She had heard of white girls treated in such a manner in these Chinese dens and losing their minds as a result!

The swarthy man, whoever he was, had carefully sought out this spot to keep her hidden. The kidnapping had been managed smoothly and there was no question that he was grimly desperate to find the jeweled Madonna of which he had spoken. The only trouble was that she knew nothing about it or why anyone should send it to her from Rome.

Could it have anything to do with her sister? The sister who had recently been found and whom she was going to visit? There was no one else in Rome who could have sent a precious gift to her. She was convinced this could not be and the criminal who had abducted her had somehow come to a wrong conclusion—had in fact mixed her up in a business of which she knew nothing.

Perhaps someone close to her sister, someone who knew her, had been mixed up in the theft of a valuable Madonna. And when it was suspected the Madonna had been shipped out of the country, the thieves believed it sent to her. If only she could convince this madman that he was wrong!

Terror struck her again when the rear door of the stable opened and a half-dozen Chinese of various ages and sizes came in, jabbering as they leered at her with almond eyes. She shuddered and turned her back to them, trying to shut their weird talk and chuckles from her mind.

Her head pressed against the wooden planks of the stable’s wall, she found herself truly praying for release. So desperate was her state that at first she did not hear the shouting from outside. The Chinese gathered in the stable were evidently aware of its meaning earlier than she, for they began to jabber louder and all scramble toward the rear door and then vanished through it. Heartened, she turned to hear more shouts and then the door sprang open.

Two of the river patrolmen led the way and following them was a man in plain clothes and Henry Clarkson still in the evening dress in which she’d last seen him at the party. The police ran on out after the fleeing Chinese while the man in plain clothes advanced to her, followed by Henry.

The detective draped the blanket over her and cut the heavy cords which had cut into her wrists. Seeing that the blanket served for modesty, he said, “We’ll get you to a hospital. Those wrists are in bad shape!”

Henry offered a sincere, “Thank God, you’re alive!”

She stared at the detective and then at him, and in a small voice asked, “How did you know?” Meaning how did they know where to look for her. But she did not hear the explanation if any came, because at that moment she became unconscious once again and remained so until she was in a hospital bed.

The broad, purple face of Dr. Walters, the family physician, loomed over her as she opened her eyes. He said, “Well, it is about time, Miss Standish.”

Weakly, she said, “Doctor.”

He took her hand and held it in his. “You must not worry. I knew you have been through a grim ordeal. But I’m convinced no permanent harm has been done!”

She noted that her ankles and wrists both pained, and saw that her wrists were bandaged. Her head ached wickedly and she had fits of trembling as she recalled her ordeal.

“Did they get him?” she asked.

“Who?” Dr. Walters wanted to know.

“The swarthy man! The one who kidnapped me!”

“No. He escaped,” the doctor said. “Inspector Hogan will tell you about it.”

“He attacked me,” she moaned. “Treated me worse than an animal!”

“I agree,” the bluff old doctor said. “But you are young and healthy. You will recover more quickly than you imagine. And I much doubt there will be any serious aftereffects.”

She closed her eyes. It was easy enough for this doctor, who saw little, if any, of the sort of violence she had just experienced, to be bland about it all. But she would never forget it. And she could only pray that her rape would not result in her giving birth to a child of the swarthy monster who’d attacked her.

When she opened her eyes again the doctor had vanished and a nervous, middle-aged man was standing by her bedside. She recognized him as the plainclothesman who had come to her rescue with Henry Clarkson.

“I’m Inspector Hogan, miss,” he identified himself.

“Thank you for saving me!”

He shrugged. “No more than my duty, miss. Though I was glad to do it. You can save some special thanks for the young man who was with me. That Mr. Clarkson.”

“How did he come into it?”

“He was the one who broke the case,” the inspector said. “Your aunt called Sir Roger Drexel and he sent Henry Clarkson to help.”

“I see,” she said, though she was still bewildered about it.

“Mr. Clarkson was questioning all the help when I arrived,” the inspector went on. “And it was a smart move, miss. For one of the scullery maids up and confessed to seeing the man who abducted you. He had been leading her on with promises to marry her and the rest. And he got her to let him in the house, hide in your room until he captured you, and see him safely out at the end.”

She said, “I knew there had to be someone on the inside to help him.”

“And you were right, miss,” the inspector said. “But when the girl realized she was caught and in trouble she told all she knew. She said the fellow was an Italian lately come to London. And a couple of times he’d taken her down to a boat at the Farrowgate Docks for lovemaking!”

“There was a small craft,” she said. “That is what he took me to Limehouse in!”

“Yes, miss,” the inspector said. “The girl also knew this Italian had friends in Limehouse. When we knew that, it was only a matter of going there and making a check of the buildings close by where the boat was docked. The girl had given us its description and name.”

“He got away?”

“The Italian?”

“Yes,” the inspector said with a sigh. “And we can’t seem to find him. The Chinese are no help and he doesn’t seem to have dealt with anyone else.”

“He must have had confederates,” she said.

“We can find none except the Chinese,” the inspector said. “The fellow had to be mad. What was the point of it all?”

“I can tell you that, Inspector,” she said bitterly. “He was looking for some kind of a jeweled Madonna which he claimed had been sent to me from Rome.”

“From Rome?” the inspector said, mystified.

“It’s a long story,” she said wearily. “I’m sure some error was made. Nothing was sent me. Though I have had an urgent message from Rome concerning a twin sister who was abducted years ago.”

Inspector Hogan’s thin face showed interest. “Would you be so good as to tell me all about this.”

She told him as much as she knew and all the while he made notes. She finished with, “It is possible Sir Roger Drexel can give you more information concerning this. He has the original letters sent us.”

“Thank you,” the inspector said, putting his notebook away. With a wry smile he suggested, “This is the sort of eerie case which I’m sure would be just right for Sherlock Holmes. But we have no Baker Street wizards at the Yard.”

“That man is dangerous,” she said earnestly. “I shall not feel safe until you find him.”

“We shall do our best,” the inspector said. “This story of a jeweled Madonna is puzzling. Apparently he was of the opinion you had this valuable item in your possession.”

“He seemed sure of it. I don’t know why.”

“Could it have anything to do with this Prince Sanzio who sent you the word about your sister?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It is most perplexing. I think some mistake was made. Wrong information given to the man who abducted me.”

“That often happens in the underworld.”

“But this man would not believe I knew nothing of such a Madonna. In addition he was sadistic and lustful.” She turned her head on her pillow and sighed.

“You must try to put what happened out of your mind,” the inspector urged her.

She gave him a grim look. “That is what my doctor told me. It will not be easy.”

“I’m fully aware of that,” the inspector said with a frown. “And depend on it we are following every lead in an attempt to locate the scoundrel.”

“Perhaps the maid—the girl he seduced—knows more than she told you.”

“We’ve questioned her thoroughly and have not been able to come up with anything new,” the inspector worried. “But I expect we can try again. She became hysterical and it was useless to prod her further.”

“I see.”