Wiles of a Stranger (22 page)

I fumbled until I discovered the ropes, but in the darkness it was hard to undo the tight knots. It was a fine cord, but very strong. It seemed an eternity before I managed to work the wrist bindings loose. “I will get the ones off my ankles myself,” Lucien told me. With my fingernails in shreds, I let him do it.

“The first thing we have to do is find the door,” he chattered on as he worked, speaking in low tones.

There were small, scrabbling sounds coming from the corners of the cave, suggesting the presence of rodents. My own instinct was to stay away from the corners, but as soon as he got his bonds loose, Lucien stood up and started prowling about, very softly.

“Don’t be afraid, Miss Stacey. I’ll take care of you,” he told me, in a reassuring way.

“You must be very quiet, Lucien. If you feel a door, don’t jiggle the handle.”

“I will listen at the keyhole first. There’s stairs here,” he said, excited. “I’ll go up. There must be a door.” I followed him to the foot of the stairs, waited with my heart pounding while he made his ascent, and came back down again. “There is a door, with a doorknob.”

“I’ll try the knob, very quietly,” I told him, and crept up the dark steps, feeling my way. First I listened, hearing nothing but silence beyond. The knob made no sound as I turned it. It was not locked, but it was bolted firmly on the other side. We were locked into a cellar somewhere in the pitch black, with no notion where we might be, and no means of escape. I went back down the stairs and sat on the floor with Lucien, trying to fight off the panic.

“I hope you are not frightened,” he said, his little hand finding its way into mine. His voice was beginning to show signs of strain.

“Just a little,” I confessed.

“Why do you think they kidnapped us?”

“For ransom money, Lucien. That is why people are kidnapped. You must not worry. Your uncle will pay them, and we will be allowed to go home.”

“He won’t pay much for you, Miss Stacey,” he felt obliged to inform me.

“No, I don’t suppose he will.”

“I will make him rescue you, after they send me home.”

“Thank you,” I said, biting back a worried smile.

“What should we do now?”

“Let us just sit here a moment and think.”

That is when we discovered the only thing in the room other than ourselves and the mice was a great pile of coal. I preferred to sit on the coal than on the floor, so that is what we both did. Lucien pretended to be chilly, to give him an excuse to cuddle up against me. I put my arm around him, and we sat together in the dark, thinking.

“How long will it be before I am rescued?” he asked.

“Not too long, I hope. A few hours—maybe tonight.”

“I am hungry already.”

“It’s not long since lunch. Why don’t you try to rest—sleep?”

“I think I should be making plans,” he countered.

He didn’t sleep, but he was quiet, which gave me the opportunity to cudgel my brains, and curse my stupidity at not thinking it might be Lucien who was kidnapped after all, as I had first thought. I wondered who the man was who helped Mrs. Cantor. Probably her husband. It wasn’t Wiggins at any rate. But it was Wiggins and Stella who had engineered it. They had not meant for me to see Mrs. Cantor. Lucien was to have been carried off alone. But Lucien knew Mrs. Cantor too. Without seeing her, he could not positively identify her, however.

“Did you see the woman who snatched you up?” I asked.

“No, somebody hit my head and when I woke up, it had a bag over it. It was dirty. When we were in the carriage, somebody tied up my arms and legs. I felt them do it, but I didn’t say anything. I wonder why they covered my head. Maybe to hide where they were taking us.”

“You have no idea where we are?” I confirmed, wondering if we were in the cellar of the millinery shop at the edge of the village.

“I know where we are not. I peeked up under the edge of the bag when the carriage jostled me. I got one look out the window, and I didn’t see anything I knew. I know all the houses on the way to the town.”

“What did you see?”

“Just bushes, growing close to the road.”

“No buildings at all?”

“No, but don’t worry, Miss Stacey. Major Morrison will rescue us.”

“I hope so,” I agreed, but a worse idea was taking root in my mind. It was Major Morrison who had suggested I take Lucien to the meadow in the first place. It was Morrison who had got my father involved in the whole mess, and was active every step along the way since, as I muddled deeper and deeper into it. For that matter, I had only Major Morrison’s word for it that Wiggins and Stella had ever kidnapped anyone. Only his word for it that he was Sacheverel’s son, mysteriously called Bertie, when the man’s name was Sheldon.

Worst of all, Morrison had a place hired the size of whose cellar must approximate the size of this one, and whose access road was lined with bushes. He was involved with Miss Little, and I had seen him with my own eyes making love to Stella. He was one of them. He seemed genuinely fond of Lucien, but then the plan did not call for killing Lucien, only robbing him. Lucien had not seen his abductors—he could be set free when they had the money. I could not.

A longer perusal of the facts pointed out one startling inconsistency—Morrison had paid the money that was to be used for ransom, so what was the point in it all? What had he gained? The rose Jaipur? It seemed an unnecessarily involved plan, but to find him innocent was even more complicated, with so much evidence against him.

We remained in the cellar all night without food or drink, or anyone so much as coming to the door to see if we were alive or dead. Mercifully, Lucien fell asleep, and slept for what seemed to me like several hours. I walked all around the room, feeling the ceiling with my hands, in hopes of finding a trapdoor There was none—nothing but dirt and cobwebs.

When he awoke, we talked quietly for a while. He complained of hunger, and I assured him we would soon have food but my own greater need was for water. My throat was dry and cracked.

At some time during that long black afternoon and night, I too dozed off for a few hours. I was awakened by the sound of the bolt being drawn on the other side of the door at the top of the stairs. I looked, frightened to death, to see who it was, but saw no more than a pair of shoes and a skirt, with some light shining behind. I crawled closer to check that it was Mrs. Cantor, and saw a masked face.

The shock of it nearly killed me—to see a piece of sheeting with two holes cut for eyes. She was doing it so Lucien could not positively identify her, of course. She swung a lantern to and fro, examining us to see we were still alive, took advantage of the brief illumination to look around our cellar. All I saw was the extent of the coal pile, that nearly reached the ceiling. I knew well enough the futility of quizzing her.

“Who are you?” Lucien asked, his voice a pitiful squeak of terror. He was trembling, and I was not far from it myself.

“Breakfast,” the woman said, in a voice distorted to hide its true sound. She took a tray from a table, put it on the top step, banged the door and slid the bolt.

“I expect it is bread and water,” Lucien said, his voice quavering. He was familiar with the ways of villains, from his books.

It was slightly better than he prophesied. Two rough chunks of bread each, and a cup of tea, but we were hungry and dry enough to consume every iota of both, with never a thought until they were gone that they might contain poison, or a sedative.

“I am still hungry,” Lucien said in a small voice.

“Never mind, my dear, it is morning now, and soon we will be rescued.”

He talked on about the mask, and the reason for it, and finally accepted my opinion that she was trying to frighten us. I am convinced a child would find amusement in a flaming house. Before long, he was climbing up the coal pile and sliding down. He was at this when Mrs. Cantor, still masked, came for the tray. With her stage voice, she told me to leave it on the top step then return below, which I did, as she carried a butcher knife. As soon as I came down, she took the tray and bolted the door.

“Ouch!” Lucien exclaimed suddenly, in a loud voice.

“Be careful, Lucien,” I cautioned.

“There’s something sharp in here,” he said.

I ran forward to feel in the blackness with my fingers, hoping for a weapon—an axe, a shovel. There was a sharp edge of tin, but it could not be dislodged. It was attached to something. I pushed the coal aside, to follow the contours of the thing, a sort of large, rough tray it felt like. Its end was buried a foot in the coal pile, and above, it continued for several feet. I had to climb up the coal heap like Lucien to follow its path. It went right to the top of the wall.

I was confused as to what it could be, until I reached the end, at the outer wall of the house and realized it was a coal chute. The coal was put into the cellar from the yard beyond, to save carrying bags of coal into the house and down the steps. I was weak with hope as I considered there must be some opening, some covered hole to allow the coal down the slide. I explored carefully with my fingers, feeling a sharp, circular ridge of metal. Without too much effort, it slid softly out, to land on the ground outside. A weak ray of light penetrated the gloom.

How welcome it was! Columbus could not have been happier to spot America. I shushed Lucien, who was babbling excitedly, and clambering up the coal pile beside me.

We peered together through the hole, our tunnel of vision showing us a patch of earth where a few blades of grass had sprung up. Beyond the clearing there was a spinney, a rough expanse of thicket. If it was not the thicket surrounding Mr. Kirby’s house in the county, it was one very like it.

My first excitement died away as I realized the hole was too small to let us escape. And it was not likely anyone but our captors would walk within shouting distance of it. Still, it was good to see the light again, to feel a breeze fan our cheeks, to know the real world was still spinning out there, waiting for us. It gave courage to struggle on.

“I think I could squeeze out that hole. I am very small,” Lucien said.

“You’d never make it,” I said, measuring the space with my eyes against his shoulders.

“I know I could,” he insisted, pushing his head through the metal-lined       hole. It was about eight inches in depth, the thickness of the walls of the house.

“I don’t want you to get stuck,” I said, to dampen his enthusiasm, and pulled him back.

He again wriggled his way into the opening, bracing his feet against my hips. When he got his shoulders through, I knew the thing was done. To this day, I don’t know how he did it, though I have seen dogs wiggle their way through holes much smaller than they. There was a deal of wriggling and squiggling, as he hunched his shoulders into the smallest possible size, then edged through, his little feet kicking behind him, as I shoved gently, with a silent prayer to God above.

Soon he was crouched on the ground outside, smiling in at me, his face as black as the ace of spades from his confinement in the coal hole. His whole suit was grimed like a chimney sweep’s.

The next item was for him to go for help. Sending him to Glanbury Park was risky. If Stella or Wiggins saw him before he reached his uncle, he might end up back in the coal hole, or in some other prison. Major Morrison was a doubtful conspirator. The constable, I thought, was our safest bet. But where were we? How far had he to go, and in what direction? He might well be picked up as a runaway parish child, the condition he was in. All this had to be considered and a decision taken in a second, lest our captors glance out the window and see him.

“I’ll go and get the major,” he said.

“No! No, Lucien. Go to the police.”

“Major Morrison would do a better job.”

“I—I believe he had to go to London,” I said, to change his mind.

“Then I will go to the police.”

“Hurry. Hurry, and be careful. I don’t know which direction, but cut through the spinney and stop at the first farmhouse you come to. Tell them what happened, and to send for the police. Let the police tell your Uncle Charles.”

“I will be back soon. I’ll bring you some food, Miss Stacey,” he promised, and was gone, with the wits to crouch low as he darted into the concealing safety of the spinney. I rather thought the thicket Morrison’s country place was more dense, but then a chill was low to the ground, and the brush would be thinner there.

I watched until he disappeared, then sat at the open hole, wishing I had asked him to return the lid, in case anyone passing on the other side should see it, and suspect our trick. I tried to reach it by sliding my arm through the opening, but between the shifting of the coal heap beneath me and the distance to the ground, I had no luck. I marveled anew how Lucien had made it out that tiny orifice, then sat on thorns, worrying, and waiting for his return with a rescuer. My only hope of avoiding death was a six-year-old boy, who didn’t even know where he was, or where he was going.

Chapter Seventeen

I watched and waited at my lookout hole for hours. At least I knew what time it was now. As my watch showed twelve noon, I piled coal up in front of the hole, as I did not want Mrs. Cantor to see it open. Then I sat waiting, but she did not come. After a few hours, I realized lunch was to be omitted. I was hungry enough to gnaw on a chunk of coal, but again the thirst was worse.

No sound of coming or going was heard beyond the hole. It seemed probable the access route to the stable was on this side of the house, where the coal cart obviously came in. I couldn’t get my head through the hole to look. The eight-inch thickness of the wall defeated me. Only a giraffe could have done it, or a Lucien.

As the afternoon wore on, I became extremely worried that he had been captured. If he had got free, help would have reached me before now. I envisaged Lucien, locked up alone in some other place, or some other room of this same house. How frightened he would be, poor brave tyke. He wouldn’t have to disguise his fear if he were all alone. I couldn’t forget either that my own case was worse. I wondered in what manner they would dispose of me.