Alice-Miranda on Vacation (21 page)

“Did you find Daisy?” Hugh asked his daughter and Millie as they reappeared in the doorway.

“No,” Alice-Miranda replied. “And I’m afraid that Granny Bert wasn’t making any sense at all. She said that Daisy had gone with her boyfriend. When I asked her who he was she said that he was Rupert—a lovely man—and she was looking forward to the wedding.”

Cecelia brushed a tear from her eye. “Oh dear. I think Granny may have mixed up her medication. There was something she said to me earlier in the night—about that man with Daisy. I think she called him Mr. Blunt.… That’s right, she said something about him writing a history of the Hall. Do you know anything about that, Hugh?”

Her husband shook his head.

Alice-Miranda explained that when they had seen Daisy out on the veranda earlier she looked upset. “Golly, you don’t think Daisy has anything to do with Aunty Gee’s kidnapping, do you?” she wondered out loud.

“Blunt was just awful,” Millie added. “And if he’s Daisy’s boyfriend, there’s no telling what he might have convinced her to do.”

“Maybe
he’s
in cahoots with Mr. Ridley?” Jacinta surmised. “He’s up to something for sure. In fact, I saw him just now—he was outside pacing up and down the veranda talking to himself when I went to find Heinrich and Mr. Greening.”

Alice-Miranda disagreed and said that she didn’t think Mr. Ridley had anything to do with Aunty Gee’s disappearance.

For a moment silence descended on the group.

“I think we’ve got to find Daisy first,” Alice-Miranda decided. “Mr. Greening, why don’t you take the Land Rover and head over to Rose Cottage. See if she’s there.”

“All right, lass, I’ll telephone if I find her.” Mr. Greening nodded and left.

“Cee,” said Hugh, turning to his wife. “Do you know of any passageways that lead from the cellar here?”

“No, darling, I heard stories about them when I was a girl, but after years of exploring I never managed to find anything,” said Cecelia, still sniffling into her handkerchief.

“All right, everyone—let’s take a good look around the walls. Check for anything that looks like it could
be a lever or a latch,” Hugh instructed the group. “They had to get her out of here somehow.”

Alice-Miranda was lost in her own thoughts. “Plans, plans, where to find another set of plans?” she muttered under her breath as she paced up and down beside the bench. “Oh!” She drew in a sharp breath. “Of course!” She ran to her father.

“Daddy,” Alice-Miranda began. “I’ve got an idea—I’m going to my room, but I’ll be back soon.”

“All right, darling—but take the back stairs,” he replied.

“Jacinta, do you want to come with me? And Millie, can you stay here and help Daddy?” Alice-Miranda asked.

The girls nodded. Alice-Miranda and Jacinta scurried out of the cellar and then raced through the kitchen and up the back stairs toward her bedroom.

As they passed by the second-floor drawing room they spied Mr. Ridley. He was on bended knee talking to a life-sized bronze statue of Venus.

“Did you see that?” Jacinta puffed as Alice-Miranda pulled her along the hallway.

“What?” Alice-Miranda asked.

“Mr. Ridley—did you see what was he doing?”

“Rehearsing, I suspect,” Alice-Miranda offered.
“Come on—there’s no time. We’ve got to find Aunty Gee.”

The girls reached the bedroom and Jacinta caught her breath. “What are we looking for up here? Shouldn’t we go back and tell your father where Mr. Ridley is? I’m sure he’s part of all this.”

Alice-Miranda ignored Jacinta’s hysterics and stood beside her doll’s house. She began to take the roof apart and placed the pieces on the floor beside her.

“I don’t think this is any time for us to be playing house,” Jacinta said impatiently, her hands on her hips.

“I’m not,” Alice-Miranda replied. “Remember, the doll’s house is a model of the Hall. I just thought perhaps because it’s so accurate it might have the cellar too.” She continued lifting the pieces out. Soon there was a jumble on the floor.

“
Oh
. Here, I’ll help.” Jacinta began removing furniture and taking the rooms apart. It didn’t take long before they had demolished the upper floors.

“Look, there’s the kitchen and the dining room and the sitting room—it’s amazing,” Jacinta gasped.

Alice-Miranda lifted the final floor out and there before them was a maze of cellars under the house. There were even labels indicating where the tunnels headed out into the garden.

“Look—it’s all there. Could you grab a piece of paper and a pen from my desk and draw a plan? Look where the tunnels are! Goodness, there’s at least seven of them.”

Jacinta read out the signs. “This one says ‘smokehouse,’ and this one says ‘river’ and this one says ‘gatehouse’ and this one says ‘walled garden’ and this one says ‘stables’ and look, this one says ‘Rose Cottage.’ ”

“Maybe they haven’t taken Aunty Gee very far at all!” Alice-Miranda exclaimed. “We’ve got to get back downstairs and show Daddy.”

Just as the girls were about to leave the room, a voice stopped them in their tracks.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

They turned around to see Mr. Blunt—and this time he was sporting more than a menacing look. In his hand, pointed right at them, was a shiny silver pistol.

“
Really
, Mr. Blunt—it is Mr. Blunt, isn’t it?—that’s no way to behave,” Alice-Miranda scolded. “I can’t imagine why you would be pointing that at us. It’s not very friendly at all.”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” he began, “I’m not
trying
to be friendly, you idiotic child.”

“Now, now, there’s no need for name-calling.
Obviously you’re upset about something, but waving that gun around is not going to get you very far,” she continued.

He studied Alice-Miranda as one might look at a road map written in a foreign language.

Jacinta began to cry.

“Stop that blubbering,” he demanded. “Okay—both of you—in there.” He thrust open the bathroom door and there sitting in the middle of the tiled floor was Daisy. Her hands were tied in front of her and she had a large silk scarf shoved into her mouth.

“Goodness me, Mummy won’t be happy about that,” Alice-Miranda tutted. “She loves her silk scarves, and that Hermès one is a particular favorite. No offense, Daisy, but she’ll have to get it dry-cleaned.”

“Shut up, Pollyanna,” Mr. Blunt demanded.

“Mr. Blunt, you must have me confused.” Alice-Miranda scrambled up onto the toilet lid to look him square in the eye. “As I tried to tell you earlier, my name is Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones, and up until a few moments ago I would have been very pleased to meet you.”

“Arghhhhhh!”
He clasped his hands to his head, obviously forgetting that he was also holding a loaded weapon. The pressure of the movement caused the gun to discharge and a bullet ricocheted loudly
around the marble bathroom. All the girls could do was duck and cover their heads.
Ping, ping, ping
, the bullet shot from wall to wall to wall before glancing down off the brass light fitting and straight into the middle of Mr. Blunt’s foot.

“Oooowwww!” he screamed, and began to leap about on one leg. Jacinta stopped crying long enough to push him into the empty bathtub. He landed with a thud on his head. Alice-Miranda quickly untied Daisy and pulled the scarf from her mouth.

“Here,” she instructed. “Tie his hands, and we’d better do something about that foot.” There was blood oozing through the top of his sock. “Quick, pull his shoe off and pass me a towel, Jacinta.” Alice-Miranda leaned in and wrapped the towel around Mr. Blunt’s bleeding foot. “Oh, stop that fussing,” she instructed, “I have to put pressure on it, you silly man.”

“I’m dying,” Blunt wailed.

“No, you’re not.” Alice-Miranda was very firm. “It’s just a flesh wound and I’ve bandaged it properly. I have very good first-aid skills, sir, and I can promise that while you might experience a bit of pain, you are more likely to die from the bump on your head than that gunshot wound.”

“Oh, Alice-Miranda, thank you.” Daisy hugged her
tightly. Tears ran like rivers down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have told someone about Blunt and his wicked plan. It’s just that he said he’d … he’d kill you all if he had to,” the young woman sobbed.

“Come on.” Alice-Miranda held Daisy’s hand tightly. “We need to get back downstairs to give Daddy the details about the tunnels. Do you know where they’ve taken Aunty Gee?” Alice-Miranda asked.

“What? They’ve taken Aunty Gee?” Daisy gulped. “I thought they must have been after Mrs. Oliver.”

“I think there’s been a case of mistaken identity,” Alice-Miranda replied.

Jacinta stepped back, looking satisfied. She had tied Mr. Blunt’s bound hands tightly to the towel rail.

Alice-Miranda locked the bathroom doors and put the key under her pillow. Just for good measure, she and Jacinta dragged chairs over and wedged them under the handles in both bedrooms that had access to the room. They would come back and see to Mr. Blunt later.

“Let’s go and find Aunty Gee.” Alice-Miranda led Daisy and Jacinta into the hallway.

“T
ell you what, you’re a stubborn old cow,” the taller man grouched. “It’s funny, though—you do remind me of someone a bit. I can’t think who it is.”

“The Queen?” Aunty Gee asked through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, that’s it. You look a bit like the Queen. Has anyone ever told you that before?”

“Yes, they have, and that’s because I
AM
THE QUEEN, you imbecile!” she roared.

“Yeah, and I’m the prime minister,” he laughed.

Aunty Gee shook her head.

“You’d better start writing, love,” the man said,
still chuckling. “Soon as the boss gets here he won’t be so friendly.”

An outer door clanged and there was the sound of a bolt sliding back into place.

A voice drifted through from the other room. “Is she in there?”

“Yeah, and she’s not being very cooperative at all. I think you might have to put some
pressure
on her—if you know what I mean.”

The inner door creaked open and a large man with a rather enormous belly entered the room. He was wearing a clown mask over his face. Through tiny eyeholes he stared at the prisoner and pressed a voice-altering device against his throat.

“Hello, Dolly,” he wheezed. “Time to get busy with the formula.” He could hardly see through the mask at all.

“What did you say?” the Queen asked.

He pressed the device to his throat again. “I said it’s time to write out the formula. You know what I’m talking about. There’s someone who’s very interested in FDF and they’re going to pay me a lot of money for it.”

The Queen was staring at his shoes. She then looked up at his wide girth.

“What are you staring at?” he wheezed.

She stood up, took her reading glasses from her purse and popped them onto the end of her nose. “Percy Gisborne,” she reprimanded. “That is the most ridiculous disguise I have ever seen.”

“I’m not Percy,” he rasped.

“And I am not Dolly Oliver, you idiot,” she snapped.

“Oh,”
the fat man mouthed, finally taking note of who he was talking to.

“Yes, you know perfectly well who I am, and if you don’t stop this preposterous nonsense at once I can guarantee you will never see your allowance again,” she threatened. “And I believe that rat-infested castle of yours was in line for some considerable renovations. Well, not anymore, you cretin.”

The balance of power had turned completely. Percy made a hasty exit.

“What do you mean you’re not Dolly Oliver?” the tall man asked her.

“As I told you before, I am the Queen, and you had better take me back to the Hall immediately.”

In the other room, the short man was having a rather loud argument with Percy. The tall man joined them and the yelling became even more thunderous.

“You got the wrong woman, you idiots!” Percy stormed.

“We did just what you told us to. We waited until we saw her disappear downstairs and then we grabbed her. We never saw anyone come out again,” the shorter man protested.

“Yeah, I did, Clarry, but I didn’t think much about it,” the taller man confessed. “They were both wearing black.”

“You dunderhead,” Clarry ranted. “What are we goin’ to do now?”

“Get out of here, that’s what we’re goin’ to do!” The tall man made a start for the door with Clarry on his heels.

“Get back here, you pair of numbskulls,” Lord Gisborne demanded. “What am
I
going to do with her?” He began to weep.

In the next room, Aunty Gee studied the walls. She wondered how she had arrived in this place. The idea that there might be a secret passageway from the Hall entered her mind and she began to feel along the bricks for any unusual bumps. Her own homes had plenty of tunnels, so she couldn’t imagine that this one would be any different. Her hand came to rest on a loose block—she pulled on it and suddenly found herself on the other side of the wall. Inside the
tunnel there was a row of rickety electric lights—most likely prewar, she thought. Aunty Gee set off through the passage as fast as she could manage in her heels. Through cobwebs and dust centuries thick she scurried on, wondering what on earth she should do about silly old Percy and his mad plan.