The Toff and the Kidnapped Child Read online

  Caroline opened the door cautiously, saw the housemistress sitting in her armchair, with some sewing by her side, and realised that no one else was in the room; that was a good sign. She smiled; and she did not yet know how compelling that smile could be, and how even the most jaundiced and sceptical member of the staff was affected by it. She had a quality of naturalness, inherited from her mother, which made her popular with everyone. She had other qualities, only just beginning to make themselves apparent, which meant that before long men would be eyeing her. At sixteen, she was as mature in figure as many women five years older, and she walked with a long-legged grace which no one could fail to notice.

  “Oh, it’s you, Caroline. Come in and shut the door.” Miss Abbott, grey-haired, severe looking, very slightly faded, and dressed now, as she usually was, in a pale grey suit, always looked cool. There was no censoriousness in her voice, nothing to suggest trouble. “A rather unexpected thing has happened,” she went on, “and I want you to keep it to yourself no matter how tempting it may be to tell the other girls. May I have your promise, please?”

  “Yes, Miss Abbott,” Caroline answered; and she did not realise that the housemistress felt a warmth of affection for a child who would undoubtedly keep her word. She herself was more puzzled than ever.

  “Very well. You know that we make it a strict rule that none of the girls may be out of the school grounds after half-past nine, in any circumstances, but the Head has agreed that you are going to be the exception.” Abby seemed to be taking pleasure in being mysterious, and Caroline fought back her impatience with excitement. “Your father is passing through Hapley Station on the train which arrives from London at ten minutes to ten, and stays for ten minutes. He is very anxious to have a word with you, and I told him that you could be at the platform to talk with him.”

  Caroline’s eyes glowed. “Oh, wiz—” she began, and corrected herself almost unthinkingly: “Wonderful! Thank you ever so much, Miss Abbott.”

  “That’s perfectly all right, provided you keep your promise, and you come straight back,” Miss Abbott said. “I shall expect you at a quarter past ten. Tap when you’re in.”

  “Oh, I will!”

  “And put a coat on, there’s a chillier wind than there was this afternoon,” said Miss Abbott.

  Five minutes later, raincoat over her arm for it was warmer than Miss Abbott had thought, Caroline hurried across the front garden, then through a side gate and out of the school grounds. There was a certain excitement in being here so late; even on a dull evening although it was still daylight, and should be still quite light when she came back. It was twenty minutes to ten, and she had just time to get to the station. Now and again she broke into a run, she was so anxious not to miss a moment of this unexpected meeting. A little breathless, she hardly believed that she was going to see her father, and did not ask herself why he was travelling by train and not by car, as he usually did. She heard a train whistle, a long way off, as she turned towards the station. She knew that it was coming from London, and was almost certainly the one she was going to meet.

  She could go along the road, the long way round, or could take a narrow alley, flanked by the wall of a house on one side, and the wall of the station yard on the other. When the school exodus at holiday times was on, the alley was forbidden and the girls had to traipse round by the road, but nothing had been said tonight, and the shortcut saved several minutes. Caroline believed that she could hear the chug-chug-chug of the train, but was not quite sure that she would reach the station first. She needed some coppers for a platform ticket, and fumbled in a small purse in the pocket of her dark blue uniform dress. At the end of the alley was the station approach, with its cobbled yard, two or three old taxis almost certainly waiting, the grimy brick walls plastered with coloured posters advertising the glories of seaside resorts. She could even see the cobbles, but a car or taxi pulled up at the end of the passage, and a man jumped out. He stood for a moment looking along the alley towards her, and she hoped that he would not come along it; if he did, she would have to squeeze past him, and she hated pressing against men.

  A young woman got out of the car and stood beside him. She was rather short, with a big bust and a very small waist; that showed clearly, because in a way she was in silhouette. She stood peering, like the man. Her hair, dropping almost to her shoulders like Diana Dors’, was very fair; it seemed to shimmer.

  They didn’t come down there.

  As Caroline drew nearer, she heard the man say in a tone of deep satisfaction: “That’s her.”

  Caroline thought: ‘I’ve never seen them before.’ The train whistled, further off than she had realised, so she had plenty of time; but these two made her feel uneasy, for some reason she could not understand. Why should they have said ‘that’s her’? She drew almost level with them, and unless they stood aside she would not be able to get out of the alley.

  The woman smiled. She had a very pale face, and no lipstick or rouge; it made her look rather like one or two of the senior girls at school who had worn make-up for the weekend, and cleaned it off for the school week.

  “Aren’t you Caroline Kane?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Caroline. The woman did not trouble her, but she did not like the man at all. He was the type against which Miss Abbott had often warned her; short, rather dark, with heavily greased hair, very dark eyes, like black olives, a jacket with very wide shoulders and trousers that were very narrow, so that the big brown shoes at the bottom of them looked absurd. He was staring at her intently.

  “He’s ever so sorry, but your father couldn’t catch the train,” the woman said. “He’s very anxious to see you, though, because he has to fly to America first thing in the morning. He’s sent us to take you to see him.”

  Disappointment at the first words faded into doubt and surprise. Her father often travelled unexpectedly, and usually the first intimation Caroline had that he was overseas was a postcard from a foreign country, with just a few bright, casual words, which she had grown used to from him; he seemed to be able to say as much in a sentence as some people could say in a long letter. There was another cause for doubt: these were not the kind of people he associated with, not the kind she would have expected him to use as messengers.

  “It’s an emergency trip,” the man put in.

  He had an unexpectedly soft voice, and a surprisingly pleasant smile.

  “And he won’t be back for six months,” the girl urged.

  That decided Caroline; if this were such an emergency, and if he were going to be away during the school hols, she had to see him. She had vague thoughts that she ought to send a message to the school, and ought to ask how far away her father was. But the man was opening the door of the car and the girl helped her towards it. It did not occur to her that they were very anxious to make sure that she got in.

  “Just a minute,” she said, and held back. “I must tell Miss Abbott – that’s my housemistress – that I’ll be late. I can telephone over there.”

  “Your father’s sent another message to the school,” the man reassured her, and gripped her elbow and seemed to thrust her forward; she felt herself climbing into the car almost against her will, although the answer had come pat, and if it were true there was no need to worry.

  She sank down on a cushiony seat, and the blonde got in beside her. The man went to the wheel, moving very quickly, as if this were really a matter of urgency. Almost before she had accepted the situation, Caroline was being driven off, through the familiar streets which soon gave way to the wide country roads. A mile or so away there were crossroads where one could turn for London or for the north. She need not ask where her father was, for she would soon be able to tell which way they were going. Now disappointment because of the holidays was uppermost in her mind.

  The car swayed as it turned a corner, and she was thrown against the side; the man was
driving very fast, but her father often did, and speed did not worry her at all. As she recovered, she felt a sharp prick of pain in her right forearm, making her gasp. She glanced swiftly at the blonde, and saw that she was concealing something in her right hand; something which glistened.

  In sudden panic, Caroline cried: “What’s that? What did you do to me?”

  “Do? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did.” Caroline raised her arm quickly, and on the sun-browned skin just below the elbow there was a tiny globule of blood. “You pricked me! What was it?”

  “Don’t be silly,” the other said, rather sharply. “I’ve a pin in my sleeve, that’s all.” Whatever she was concealing was hidden by the folds of her full dress now. “Sit back and relax.”

  Caroline sat back, but could not relax. She wiped the blood off, and it smeared a little. She thought that there was a numb sensation around the spot, but told herself that it might be imagination. She pretended to look out of the window, and after a few moments she felt much more drowsy than she had. Suddenly, she darted her hand towards the folds of the blonde’s dress, took her by surprise, touched something hard, and pulled out a hypodermic syringe; she recognised it on the instant.

  “No!” she cried. “You’ve injected something into me. What are you doing to me? What—”

  “Keep her quiet,” said the driver roughly, and he swung the wheel again, pressing her against the door so that she was quite helpless. That awful feeling of drowsiness was worse than ever; she felt as if she were losing consciousness, and panic swept over her.

  “Let me go!” she cried. “Let me go!” She struck at the blonde, who was thrusting her hands towards her, and slapped her sharply across the face. The car swung in the other direction, and for a moment Caroline was pressed close against the woman, who was helpless. “Let me go!” she screamed, and then snatched at the handle of the door, heedless of the fact that they were travelling at great speed.

  The handle clicked, and the door sagged open. But before it swung wide, the driver turned round and struck her violently on the side of the head, while the blonde recovered and pushed her away, slammed the door, and said: “If you don’t keep quiet, you’ll really get hurt.”

  Caroline opened her mouth to scream, although screaming would be useless on these nearly deserted country roads. She did not scream, but then, with awful suddenness, she felt unconsciousness sweeping over her, felt numbness in her limbs, and sank back.

  The car hurtled on.

  Miss Abbott glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and thought: ‘She’s later than I expected,’ but did not let that worry her. It was not yet half-past ten, and although the train was usually punctual on its way from London to the north, it had been known to be late, even in the summer. She got up, pushing her sewing to one side, yawned, went into the little kitchen where she could make herself a cup of tea, and put on the kettle. Caroline Kane still hadn’t returned when she went into the living-room, and for the first time she began to feel a twinge of alarm. At a quarter past ten she put down a half finished cup of tea, and went to the telephone. As she lifted it and began to dial the station, she told herself that there was no need at all to worry; the train was still at the station, of course.

  “British Railways,” a man said, perkily.

  “I’m sorry to worry you, but can you tell me if the nine-fifty train from London is in yet?”

  “Been and gone long ago,” the perky man said. “Bang on time tonight, it was. That all?”

  “No!” exclaimed Miss Abbott, and felt suddenly breathless with the onrush of a kind of panic which was really born out of the fact that Caroline Kane was always so dependable. “I’m sorry, but I wonder if I could speak to someone who was on duty when the train came in.”

  “I was, lady.”

  “I wonder—I wonder if you saw one of the College girls go on the platform,” Miss Abbott asked, and immediately blamed herself for having put the question: it might start the man talking, might spread gossip through Hapley for no reason at all. The late return and the fact that the train had been punctual had combined to make her behave foolishly.

  “No, miss, there wasn’t one,” the man answered definitely.

  “Oh, but one of the girls went to the platform to meet her father!”

  “Surprise me if she did,” the man replied. “I was standing in for the ticket collector, and saw everyone on the platform and everyone off. There wasn’t one of the College girls here at all, miss. Sure she didn’t go to the bus station?”

  Miss Abbott clutched at this opportunity, and said as if laughing at herself: “Oh, yes, that must be it. Thank you very much for your trouble,” and rang off. For a moment she stood quite still, a hand on the telephone, and then she turned away and hurried out of the room, into the front garden and across the lawn to a smaller house, where the headmistress and others of the staff lived quite close to the road. The extensive grounds of Hapley lay in front of the main school building. These century-old buildings were massive and grey in the clear, strangely vivid evening light. There was a warm wind, rustling the leaves of beech, sycamore and plane tree. Two junior members of the staff were coming from the sports field, swinging racquets, and a smooth-haired terrier went haring across the lawn in front of her. She reached the smaller house, and hurried to the headmistress’s sitting-room, and went in. Miss Ellerby, younger by ten years, a rather heavily built and not very attractive woman, was watching television; she looked round almost with annoyance.

  “Why must—” she began, and then stopped short, and went on: “Maude, what is it?”

  Miss Abbott told her . . .

  After her visit to Rollison, Mrs Kane went into the small Knightsbridge hotel where she had booked for the night, and was stepping towards the little self-operated lift when the elderly man at the desk called: “Oh, Mrs Kane, there’s a message for you. Will you please ring Hapley 97?”

  “Hapley—” Caroline’s mother began, and immediately her thoughts flashed to the school, to the fact that this could only be about Caroline. Partly because she was already so worried, she felt a spasm of real alarm. If Caroline were ill – her thoughts darted to polio; to an accident; to appendicitis. She hurried to the lift. “Get the number for me, Jim, will you?” she asked, and thought she heard the bell ringing in her room when she reached the door; but it was in an adjoining room. She did not take off her hat but stripped off her gloves and stared at the window and then at the telephone, every thought of Rollison and his effect on her driven away by these tidings of obvious alarm. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she began, and then the bell rang, and she picked up the receiver.

  3

  NIGHT JOURNEY

  Rollison was getting out of his chair to go to bed when his telephone rang, at a minute or two before midnight. He stepped to his desk quickly, not wanting the bell to disturb Jolly, who did not look at all well; unless he was greatly improved in the morning, he must see a doctor. Rollison thought of Eve Kane, but did not expect this to be her; she hadn’t been gone much more than half an hour, after she had told him all – well, most – of her unhappy story. Since she had left, he had been thinking more about her than the story; she was a woman who left a deep impression.

  “Richard Rollison speaking.”

  “Mr Rollison—” Eve Kane said, and then paused, as if she had caught her breath. Her voice was quite unmistakable; so was her agitation. “I’m sorry to worry you again, especially so late, but I’ve just heard that Caroline has—” There was another pause. Then a single word seemed to be wrung out of her: “Disappeared.”

  She had talked a great deal about Caroline, and Hapley — a very expensive and fashionable school which catered especially for girls whose parents were often out of the country, many of them living abroad; and which also catered for girls from the Continent, here to put polish on to their English, and to learn English cus
toms. Mrs Kane had enthused on how happy Caroline was at this school, how well she was doing, how desperately anxious her mother was to conceal the estrangement from her.

  Rollison said: “Tell me exactly what happened,” but before he started, changed his mind. “You’d better tell me on the way to the school, that’ll save time.”

  “You’ll come?”

  “Of course,” Rollison said. “I think you’d better get here as soon as you can, and we’ll drive down in my car.”

  “Thank you,” Eve Kane said, chokily. “I can’t—”

  “Don’t try,” Rollison said. “Just hurry.” He put down the receiver, and stood by it for a moment, trying to understand his own emotions; for his heart was beating faster than usual, and that was not because the case was exciting itself, nor because he was really worried about a schoolgirl he had never seen. He glanced at the Trophy Wall, caught a glimpse of his reflection in a small mirror which had once been used by a murderer, now dead, and went towards his bedroom. There was a light under Jolly’s door. He opened this, and saw Jolly sitting up in bed, pale, and with dark patches under his eyes. By Jolly’s side was a telephone, and undoubtedly he had listened in. “Did you hear that?” Rollison inquired.