“Luten, you’re back.”
He bowed. “Corinne. Prance.” At closer range, she saw the excitement glowing in his eyes. For a brief moment she thought it was pleasure at seeing her, and her heart leapt. Then he spoke again. “The ransom note has come.”
“Oh, let us see it!”
“Our trips were for naught,” Prance said on a weary sigh. But of course, he was interested in the note and demanded to see it at once.
They went into the saloon. Luten placed the note on the sofa table so that they might all study it. It was printed on a sheet of plain white notepaper, not the very cheapest of paper, but not particularly fine either. It said:
Mr. Marchbank:
Miss Enderton is alive and well. If you want her back, bring twenty-five thousand pounds in bills to the split oak at the northern edge of the Ashdown Forest tonight at midnight. Come alone. If you do exactly as I say, she will be home unharmed by one o’clock.
They all read it and fell silent. It was Prance who broke the silence. “Anyone might have sent this. There is no proof he has Susan.”
Luten placed a little pearl ring on the table. “This came with it. It’s Susan’s.”
Corinne picked up the ring, a little flower of gold with a pearl in the center. She had seen it dozens of times. “Yes, this is Susan’s,” she said. “Thank God she is unharmed.”
“If we can believe that note,” Prance said doubtfully.
“We haven’t much choice,” Corinne said. “Of course, it is horrible to think of her losing so much money, but at least her life will be spared. She will still have Appleby Court, and ten thousand pounds besides.”
“But what if we turn over the money and Susan doesn’t come back?” Prance asked. “If there were only some way we could negotiate, tell the bleater he must bring Susan to the forest if he wants the money. How did the note arrive, Luten?”
“Otto was dozing in his study. When he awoke half an hour ago, the note was on his desk. He had left the door to the garden open to catch the breeze. The fellow had the gall to come right into the house.” He turned an accusing eye on Corinne. “If someone had been here, watching Otto, she might have caught him.”
“I was only gone for an hour,” she shot back.
“I hope you didn’t expect Corinne to tackle a bloodthirsty kidnapper!” Prance said, bristling in indignation. He put a protective arm around her and pulled her against his side.
“She might have seen him, is what I meant. Followed him, or seen which direction he took at least.”
“He would hardly have come prancing into the study if I had been there,” she said. “He would have chosen some other time when he was sure of not being seen. There is no point blaming me, Luten.”
“You’re right. It’s just nerves,” he said, flinging a hand into the air. “You don’t have to protect her, Reg. I wasn’t planning to strike her.”
Prance let her go. Luten began pacing to and fro in the shabby saloon. Corinne noticed that, unlike Coffen and even the dapper Prance, Luten showed not a whit of disarray after his trip. Iridescent rainbows gleamed off his smooth black hair as the sun streamed through the windows. His shirt points were stiff, and his jacket unwrinkled. How did he do it?
Luten interrupted his pacing to say, “What I particularly dislike is the demand that Otto go alone.”
“Could one of you not go in his place?” she asked. “So long as the kidnapper gets the money, surely that is all he cares about.”
“A disguise!” Prance exclaimed, leaping on the idea. “It would require padding, of course, and the loan of that article Otto calls a hat. Take his rig—as Corinne says, in the dark, who would notice the difference? The kidnapper won’t show his face. He’ll be hiding somewhere nearby. Does Otto know where this blasted oak is?”
“He says it’s near the northern edge of the forest,” Luten replied. “It came down in a storm this spring. All the locals know about it. It was one of the oldest trees in the forest.”
“But would a stranger know about it? Methinks not,” Prance said. “This confirms that the fellow is a local.”
Otto came out of his study, smiling in relief. “You heard the news?”
“Indeed we have, Otto,” Prance said. “We have just been discussing how to handle it. Fear not, we shan’t send you alone into the forest.”
Otto stared in consternation. “It is for me to go. The note says so. At midnight, alone, with the money in bills. Mrs. Malboeuf brought me a valise to hold the money.”
They argued, but Otto was adamant. He felt he was in some way responsible for Susan’s abduction, and he would go to rescue her. There was no point arguing with him. He announced that he would have a bath before dinner, and the others must help themselves to wine.
“Where did you put the valise?” Luten asked him.
“Locked in the safe in the study, and the key right here,” he said, patting his watch pocket. Then he left.
“At least he is sober,” Prance said uncertainly. “Poor fellow. He is treating this transaction as if it were a wedding, or a funeral. I doubt he’s had a bath in a month. Such a tremendous undertaking will sober him up.”
They were still discussing the delivery of the ransom money an hour later when Coffen returned from the inquest wearing a heavy scowl.
“You’re in the soup not showing up to give your testimony, my lad,” he said to Prance.
“Egads! I forgot all about it.”
“You’d forget your head if it weren’t stuck on. I said you was sick and told them about your finding Jeremy’s body. They want a written statement, and you have to get it stamped by a JP. I thought you was going to change your duds.” He looked at Prance’s still wilting shut points.
“I was,” Prance said, thinking of the job of writing up his testimony and getting it stamped.
“Anyhow, it was a dead waste of time,” Coffen continued. “The idiot coroner says Jeremy was fatally shot while in the execution of a crime. If Soames was the highwayman, then I’m a Frenchman.”
“C’est vous qui le dit,”
Prance said airily.
“I wish you would quit that babbling in Italian.” Coffen scowled. “I spoke to Hodden. You might as well talk to a jug. Tarsome fellow. I’ve not had a bite for hours. I asked Tobin to bring some tea and bread and butter— Why are you all staring like that? It’s hours till dinnertime.”
“The ransom note came,” Luten said, handing it to him.
Coffen snatched it and perused it quickly for clues. “I’ve seen this sort of paper before,” he said, wrinkling his brow with the effort of thought.
“One sees it everywhere,” Prance informed him. “It is about the most common sort of notepaper. In fact, it is the same sort I used for my sketch of Blackmore’s dinner-ware.” He drew out his sketch and compared the papers, which were certainly similar.
“Anyone recognize the writing?” was Coffen’s next effort.
Prance sighed. “If you look closely, you will see it is printed, not written, done to disguise the penmanship.”
“He writes pretty well, wouldn’t you say? Not an illiterate fellow, is what I mean. The spelling and grammar and all that are right, ain’t they?”
“It’s hardly Shakespeare,” Prance said, “but literate, I suppose. Pretty straightforward, with no airs or graces about it.”
“Do we know anyone like that?” Coffen asked, pinching his brow.
“You are beating a dead horse, Pattle,” Prance said. “The note contains no secret clues. The matter under discussion was how we are to talk Otto into letting one of us go in his stead.”
“Why would you want to do that? It’ll only get the kidnapper’s back up.”
“Otto’s an old man and so eager to get Susan back that he won’t negotiate. If I could go in his place, I would insist that the bounder bring Susan to me before I handed over a penny.”
Coffen studied the note again. “He says he will send her home at one o’clock. We can wait one hour. He’ll do as he says. Honor among thieves.”
“You misunderstand the cliché, Pattle. We are not thieves,” Prance declared.
“True.” Coffen massaged his ear, then said, “Why don’t we follow Otto when he goes?”
“Or better,” Luten said, “go before him? Well before, say nightfall, and be there before the kidnapper arrives. If there’s more than one of them, we might even overhear where they have Susan and rescue her without handing over the blunt.”
Mrs. Malboeuf arrived with a tea tray and slammed it onto the table. When the china and silver had stopped rattling, Luten said with a glare, “Thank you, Mrs. Malboeuf.”
Mrs. Malboeuf turned to Corinne. “There’s a parcel come for you while you were out, milady. I put it in your bedroom so as you’d find it, in case I forgot to give it to you.”
“A parcel for me?” she asked. “I haven’t sent for anything. Who knows I’m here?”
“It was left outside the kitchen door. Peggy stumbled over it when she went to the garden for parsley. It might have been there since last night for all I know. I’d fetch it for you, but I have the roast in the oven, haven’t I?”
“Send Peggy for it, if you please,” Luten said at his most toplofty.
Mrs. Malboeuf snorted, but apparently did as she was told, for Peggy did arrive with the parcel a moment later.
Chapter Twenty
While they waited, Corinne poured tea and Coffen snabbled down half a dozen slices of bread and butter.
The parcel had not come through the post. It was just a brown paper bag, with the words “For Lady deCoventry” printed on the outside. Corinne opened the bag and drew out the blue kid reticule that had been stolen from her room two nights before.
“My reticule,” she said in bewilderment. “I wish he had sent back my new sprigged muslin and cashmere shawl along with it.” She peered into the bag.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Coffen said. “Is your blunt there?”
She drew out her money purse. “Yes, it’s all here. I can repay you the money I borrowed for stockings, Prance.”
“Oh, do let them be a gift,
cara mia!
I get so few chances to give a lady anything of that sort.”
“Pay him,” Luten growled.
“Thank you, Prance, I accept,” Corinne said, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She did not look within a right angle of Luten, but she knew that he was scowling at her.
She searched the purse and said, “Now, that is odd! The money is here, but my comb and mirror are gone. That lovely little mirror you gave me, Reggie. My handkerchief is missing.”
“Anything else?” Coffen asked.
“Nothing important,” she said with a little frown.
“Take a good look. You don’t know what might be important,” Coffen said.
“I had a little tin box of lemon drops. They’re gone. Oh, and a sketch I had cut out of a magazine for a new bonnet.”
“Aha! That sounds like a woman’s work. Sweets and bonnets, mirror and comb. If it were a man, he’d know enough to leave the rubbish behind and take the blunt.”
“The mirror was not rubbish! But it does sound like the work of a woman,” Prance agreed.
“Was there ever any doubt that the gown and shawl and silk stockings were taken for a woman?” Luten asked. “There is obviously a female involved. She took what suited her and sent the rest back, probably via her boyfriend.”
“But since they’re thieves, why didn’t they keep my money?” Corinne asked, still rooting through her reticule. “Now, this is
really
strange! There is something here that doesn’t belong to me.”
“What is it?” Coffen asked eagerly.
“A box of headache powders. Not even the sort I use.” She held the box up. Everyone looked at it in confusion.
“Then we’re looking for a woman who’s prone to headache,” Coffen said. “Possibly even with a headache, since she lost her powders in your reticule.”
“It is certainly very odd,” Luten said, “but we mustn’t let it distract us from Susan.”
Corinne felt a little sting of anger. Nothing must distract him from Susan! Of course, he was right, but it still hurt to hear him dismiss her little mystery as if it were no more than a nuisance.
“Which of us do you want to go to the forest?” Prance asked, and prayed that he would not be the one selected.
“I’ll go myself as soon as it’s dark,” Luten replied.
“You’ll be there for hours,” Prance objected. “Eleven o’clock is plenty early enough.”
“Well, say ten o’clock,” Luten said.
“If you’re as fagged as I am after that trip, you’ll fall sound asleep,” Coffen said. “I could swear the pillow was stuffed with wood chips. It scratched my cheek.”
“I’ll take a jug of coffee with me to keep awake.”
“And a bite to eat,” Coffen added. “If your stomach takes to growling, they’ll hear you. Give the show away.”
“A gentleman’s stomach does not growl,” Prance decreed. “And a lady, of course, does not have a stomach. Not in company at least.”
They soon parted to dress for dinner. Corinne reviewed the strange events of the day as she dressed. The ransom note’s arriving so late was odd enough, almost as if it were an afterthought, but oddest of all was the return of her reticule with a few trifles removed and the money still there.
She lifted the lid of the old Spanish chest with the flower carving and looked again at the lingerie stored in it. The unceremonious delivery of the ransom note through the study door suggested that the kidnapper was someone local, someone familiar with the house and the family. Perhaps someone who knew Otto would be asleep or drunk by late afternoon. The return of her purse to the back door also had an air of familiarity to it. Was it a local servant who had done it? It was even possible that Mrs. Malboeuf was involved, and/or her niece, Peggy.
How could she spy on them? There was a curtained arch at the bottom of the servants’ stairs, leading to the kitchen. The door had been removed as it knocked against the china cabinet. Corinne glanced at her watch. She had a quarter of an hour before dinner. She hurried along the hall, tiptoed down the dark, narrow staircase, and put her ear to the curtain. Mrs. Malboeuf s trumpeting voice could have been heard through six inches of forged steel.
“How are them potatoes coming along, Peg?” she asked in her gruff voice.
There was the rattle of a lid, then Peggy replied, “Coming along nicely, Auntie. Should I take the meat out of the oven?”