The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

Riversreade from her study, where Hetherwick supposed her to have been in consultation with them. And her first glance was directed on Hetherwick himself; she addressed him before Penteney could go through any hurried introduction.

“I’ve seen you before!” she exclaimed abruptly. “You were with my secretary, Miss Featherstone, at Victoria, Sunday morning. Are you engaged to her?”

“No!” replied Hetherwick. “But we are close friends.”

“Well, Miss Featherstone’s been run away with⁠—and so has my sister, Madame Listorelle,” continued Lady Riversreade. “That’s the long and short of it! You seemed almost incredulous when I rang you up,” she continued, turning to Penteney, “but there’s no doubt about it⁠—they’ve been kidnapped, under my very windows. And we haven’t a single clue, a trace of any sort.”

“So far, you mean,” answered Penteney coolly. “But come⁠—but let me hear all about it. What are the details?”

“Details!” exclaimed Lady Riversreade. “We don’t know any details! All I know is this⁠—my sister came here from Hampshire yesterday evening, to stay a few days. This morning, after we had breakfasted, she and Miss Featherstone set out across the park for the Home, leaving me here⁠—I meant to follow in a few minutes. I did follow!⁠—I wasn’t ten minutes behind them. But when I got to the Home, they weren’t there, and Mitchell, the man at the door, said they hadn’t come. They didn’t come! Eventually, I came back here, to find out if something had happened and they’d returned by some other way. But they weren’t here. Then I began to make some inquiry. One of the housemaids, who’d been looking out of a top window, said she’d seen a car go at a great rate down the middle drive in the direction of the high road soon after Madame Listorelle and Miss Featherstone left the house. And of course there’s no doubt about it⁠—they’ve been carried off in that! This is more work of that man Baseverie’s!”

“You said something over the phone about strange men being seen in the car,” remarked Penteney.

“Oh, that?⁠—yes, the same girl said she thought she could see two men sitting in the car,” answered Lady Riversreade. “Of course they’d be strange.”

Penteney turned to the policemen, at the same time tapping Hetherwick’s arm. “I think we’d better go across the park and see for ourselves if there are any signs of a struggle at any particular place,” he said. “I don’t think either Madame Listorelle or Miss Featherstone likely persons to be carried off without making a fight for it. Have you been across the grounds yet?” he added, to the elder of the two men. “I mean by the path they took?”

“Not yet, sir; we’ve only just arrived,” answered the man.

“Come along, then,” said Penteney. He lingered a moment as Hetherwick and the policemen left the hall, and said a few words to Lady Riversreade; then he hurried out and headed his party. “This way,” he continued, leading Hetherwick along the terrace, “I know the usual route to the Home⁠—plain sailing from here to there, except at one spot, and there, I conclude, whatever has happened did happen!”

Hetherwick paid particular attention to the route along which Penteney led his party. The path went straight across the park, from the end of the terrace at the Court to near the front entrance of the Home, and from the Court itself it looked as if there was no break in it. But about halfway between the two houses there was an important break which could not be seen until pedestrians were close upon it. Transecting the park from its southern to its northern boundaries was a sunk roadway⁠—the middle drive to which Lady Riversreade had referred⁠—gained from the park above, on each side, by ornamental steps. Whatever happened in that roadway, Hetherwick saw at once, could not have been seen from the higher ground above, save by anyone close to its edge. But two or three hundred yards or so from the steps, which made a continuation of the path, the embankments of the sunk road flattened out into the lower stretches of the park, and there the road itself could be seen from the top windows of the Court, and from those of the Home also.

Penteney paused at the top of the ornamental steps.

“If these two ladies have been carried off, as they certainly seem to have been,” he said, turning to his companions, “this is the spot! Now, just let me explain the lie of the land. The main road edges the park at the northern end, as you all know. But there is a good road at the southern extremity, and the sunk road runs down from it. A car could come down from there, be pulled up here, and kept waiting until the two ladies came along. They would have to descend these steps, cross the road, and ascend the steps on the other bank to get to the other half of the park. Now suppose they’re forced into a car at the foot of the steps⁠—the car goes off for the main road and gets clear away within a minute or two of the kidnapping taking place! There’s the difficulty! The thing would be easy to do⁠—granted force. Probably, the two captives were forced into the car at the point of revolvers.”

“That’s about it, sir!” agreed the elder of the policemen. “No choice in the matter, poor things! And, as you say, they’d be in and off⁠—miles off⁠—before they fairly knew what had happened.”

“Come down and let’s see the roadway,” said Penteney.

But there was nothing to see at the foot of the steps. The road, like all roads and paths on the Riversreade Court property, was in a perfect state of repair, and there was scarcely a grain of dust on its spick-and-span, artificially treated and smoothed surface; certainly there were no signs of any struggle.

“That’s how it’s been, you may depend upon it,” observed Penteney to Hetherwick as they looked about. “The men were waiting here with revolvers.