Page 9 of Evil at the Essex House (Pippa Darling Mysteries #5)

Chapter Nine

“We should contact Tom,” I said.

Both Schlomskys looked politely inquiring, and Christopher explained, “We’ve a friend who’s a detective sergeant at Scotland Yard.”

“The note says not to involve the police,” Sarah Schlomsky protested, and Hiram nodded vigorously. “Now listen here, young man…”

I looked from one to the other of them. “How will they know?”

“They?”

“The kidnappers. How will they know if you’ve contacted the police?”

“If someone is watching…” Sarah Schlomsky said, with a nervous glance at the window.

“Do you think someone is watching?” If someone was out there with a pair of binoculars, there was no way to know. The sun glinted on glass and church spires all over the place. One of the latter might have been St. Olave’s, for all I knew. This was the first I had heard of it—I hadn’t ever spent much time on the other side of the Thames—although that was about to change, I imagined.

Although even if someone was out there with a pair of binocs trained on the Savoy, how would they know which window belonged to the Schlomskys? There are a lot of guests, and a lot of rooms, at the Savoy.

Besides, if anyone was keeping an eye on the Schlomskys, it was more likely that they were camped out in the lobby or restaurant, or in the street outside, rather than watching the windows with binoculars.

Had anyone paid more than the usual attention when Christopher and I had approached the concierge earlier? I tried to bring to mind the surrounding area, but came up with nothing out of the ordinary. And I had kept an eye out, since I had thought there was a chance I might spot Wolfgang. So if anyone had been there, they probably hadn’t been close enough to hear me mention the Schlomskys.

Sarah shrugged, somewhat helplessly, and I exchanged a glance with Christopher. “If you don’t want to involve the police,” he asked, “what do you want to do?”

“Pay the ransom and get our daughter back,” Hiram boomed.

“Is this…” I rethought what I’d been about to say and tried again. “This is the first time your daughter has been kidnapped, isn’t it?”

Kidnapping for ransom is not a common occurrence in Britain, but I had heard about a few cases in other parts of the world. Several of them in America, I thought, including the abduction of a business magnate’s teenage son not too long before I’d been born.

“There was an attempt to snatch her away from university a year and a half or so ago,” Hiram said. “That’s when we decided to send her abroad. You’re more civilized here, it seems.”

Not in light of recent events, clearly, although I was loath to say that. Although it certainly put a different complexion on the Schlomskys’ statement that Florence had come to England for her health. If she’d been in danger of being abducted at home, London must have seemed like a safer bet, even with its less than desirable climate.

“That’s terrible,” I said. “What happened?”

Two men had driven up in a motorcar, it seemed, and one had attempted to pull Flossie inside while the other had stayed behind the wheel, ready to take off the second the heiress was inside the vehicle. But somehow Florence had kept her head, and when the kidnapper shoved her into the backseat and tried to squeeze in behind her, Flossie kicked him in the teeth and scrambled out the other side of the car. She had apparently caused such a ruckus that the kidnappers had decided that retreat was the better part of valor, and had taken off with a squeal of tires.

“Were they caught?” Christopher wanted to know. His eyes were bright and interested.

Hiram Schlomsky shook his head. “It’s a deserted kind of area, up there north of New York City. Lots and lots of trees. They were long gone before the police could be notified.”

“That’s awful.” It occurred to me to wonder whether that event was related to what had happened now. Two kidnappings—or kidnapping attempts—of the same girl: surely there had to be a connection?

Then again, two kidnapping attempts almost two years apart, on two different continents… perhaps there wasn’t a connection after all.

“At any rate,” I said, “I don’t see how anyone is going to know that you’ve contacted Scotland Yard. If someone is keeping an eye on the hotel, and suddenly constables start swarming, then of course they’ll know that something is going on. But Christopher and I can go and talk to Tom, and no one will be the wiser. It’s not as if anyone’s keeping an eye on us .”

Hiram and Sarah exchanged a glance. It was a long one, communicating thoughts back and forth along an invisible line.

“No police,” Hiram said eventually, turning back to us. “I won’t risk anything happening to my little girl.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Christopher elbowed me in the ribs. “That’s your prerogative,” he told Hiram, smoothly. “What can we do to help?”

Sarah shook her head. “Nothing.” Her voice was firm. “We’ll spend the day today and tomorrow arranging for the money. Then we’ll take it to the church tomorrow night, and by Sunday morning, Florence will be restored to us.”

I opened my mouth again, but closed it on my own this time. The Schlomskys had made up their minds, and there was nothing I could say that would change them. Nor was it my place to try. It was their money and their daughter—and for that matter their ransom note—and the whole thing was out of my hands. If they didn’t want my help, I couldn’t force it on them.

Although it did beg the question of why they had involved me, or us, in the first place.

I thought about asking, and then I thought better of it. I glanced at Christopher. “We’ll just be on our way, then.”

He nodded, and so did the Schlomskys. “Thank you for stopping by,” Sarah said politely, as if we hadn’t shown up here by direct request.

“Nice to meet you, young man,” Hiram added. “Nephew of the Duke of Sutherland, was it?”

Christopher nodded. “Nice to make your acquaintance as well, Mr. Schlomsky. Please let us know how it goes.”

“If there’s anything we can do to help…” I added, leaving it open-ended.

The Schlomskys smiled pleasantly, but didn’t come out with anything they wanted us to do, and on that note, we left.

The hallway outside the suite was empty, and so was the lift once it arrived, but even so, Christopher shook his head when I opened my mouth. “It’s a nice day,” he said instead, blandly. “Do you fancy a walk before luncheon?”

I didn’t, particularly, as it was in fact somewhat warm, and we would likely work up a sweat making our way to Southwark. (That we were going there was unspoken but obvious to both of us.) I did fancy a look at Tooley Street and St Olave’s Church, which I assumed was the point of what he was suggesting, so I nodded anyway. “Certainly.”

Perhaps the wind blowing across London Bridge would be nice once we made it that far.

“This way, then.” As the lift doors opened into the lobby, he put a hand against my lower back and nudged me forward, towards the doors into the Strand.

I slowed my pace, just enough that I could take a surreptitious look around the lobby. Not blatantly enough that it would be noticeable, but just in case I happened to see anything interesting.

I didn’t. There was no Wolfgang von Natterdorff, for one thing. There were also no other familiar faces. Not that I had expected there to be. The only person I had ever seen in connection with Flossie Schlomsky was a young woman with a somewhat plain face, wearing blue chiffon with polka dots, and although she hadn’t been terribly memorable—I remembered the frock and hat better than I did the face—I saw her nowhere in the lobby. Nor did I see anyone else who looked particularly nefarious, although admittedly it can be hard to tell.

Then we were outside on Savoy Court, and a few seconds later, took a left onto the Strand.

“This isn’t—” I began, since—if we were walking to Southwark, London Bridge was in the opposite direction—and Christopher shook his head.

“Let’s just get on the train, and then we can talk.”

The train. Of course. He was headed for Charing Cross, and the train to London Bridge.

“I assumed you meant to walk,” I said, trotting to keep up along the pavement.

He slanted me a look. “In this weather?”

“It is a lovely day.”

“Hot, though. And it’s at least a forty-five minute walk, perhaps more.”

“It’s not as if we don’t have the time to spare,” I pointed out, and Christopher shook his head.

“I’m not walking to Southwark. Not when there’s a train every half hour.”

“Is there?”

“I imagine there must be.”

We walked in silence another minute before he glanced around. “Hard to imagine anyone being able to drag someone else, kicking and screaming, into a motorcar in this.”

‘This’ being the usual pedestrian and vehicle traffic going on all along the Strand. It’s one of the busier thoroughfares in London, between Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Bridge. There were people and motorcars everywhere, as well as cab drivers and constables and the like. Christopher tugged me out of the way of a bobby in full uniform who was ambling down the pavement with no regard for anyone coming in the opposite direction, and I made a face. “That’s true.”

Especially so if Flossie had been a victim of an attempted kidnapping in the past, and had thwarted the evil-doers on that occasion. She wouldn’t have become placid and tractable suddenly.

The constable moved past, and I took a step to the side again. “Perhaps she didn’t kick and scream. Perhaps it was someone she knew. Or knew well enough not to be concerned about.”

“She was on her way to see her parents,” Christopher pointed out. “She made Crispin drop her off on the corner two blocks away because she didn’t want to be seen arriving with him. I can’t imagine that she’d want to be seen arriving with anyone else, either.”

Likely not. If the Viscount St George, heir to the Sutherlands, wasn’t exalted enough for Mummy and Daddy Schlomsky, it was hard to imagine who might have been.

“None of this makes sense,” I grumbled, as we made our way up the pavement towards Charing Cross station. “If she didn’t want Crispin to drive her to the Savoy, she isn’t likely to have accepted anyone else’s offer of a lift, either. Especially since she only had about two blocks to go. But unless she got into the motorcar willingly, there would have been a ruckus, and someone would have noticed that.”

Christopher nodded. “Unless there were two of them—like last time—and one of them… bear with me here, Pippa?—”

He snagged me by the waist and moved me in front of him, and then poked me in the back with a finger, “—one of them walked behind her with a syringe that he jabbed into her, and then, when she got woozy, he maneuvered her into a waiting car.”

He quick-stepped up to walk beside me again, and I tucked my hand through his elbow as I thought about what he’d just suggested.

It was a more likely scenario than some of the others we had batted about, certainly. “That might have done it. If they were the same two people who tried to grab her in New York, they may have learned something from the last time they tried it on, and decided to do better this time.”

“And if they were somewhat circumspect about it,” Christopher said before turning onto the cobbles in front of the Clermont, “no one may have noticed what was going on. If it happened fast enough.”

“It’s possible.” Perhaps even likely.

I glanced around. “There are plenty of Hackneys and motorcars around here, picking up and dropping off passengers. Lots of people coming and going. Lots of noise and confusion. If it was quick and easy, no one may have noticed.”

We stepped off the cobbles in front of the Clermont and onto the ones lining the parking area in front of Charing Cross, where we headed for one of the arched openings into the station.

“It at least makes more sense than that no one noticed a woman being shoved into a motor against her will,” Christopher said.

I nodded. Yes, it did.

“There’s another explanation, you know,” Christopher said a few minutes later, after we had boarded the train and it was picking up speed across the Hungerford Bridge.

I took my eyes off the view—to the left we could see Waterloo Bridge, and to the right the Westminster ditto, while below us, the Thames rippled, murky even in the bright sunshine of a hot August day. The South Bank loomed ahead, closer with every second that passed. “What’s that?”

He shot me a look. “Nobody snatched her on the walk from Charing Cross to the Savoy. She made it up to her parents’ room, and something happened to her there. Then they wrote the note and pretended it had been delivered with breakfast, when really, they’d just written it themselves to hide the fact that they killed their own daughter.”

I thought about it. “I suppose that’s possible. We didn’t ask the staff whether they’d actually delivered the note.”

Christopher shook his head. “I thought about it, but for one thing, I’m not sure they would have told us if we had asked— we’re not the police—and for another, if she truly was kidnapped, I didn’t want to draw any attention to it.”

I nodded. “It would explain a few things.”

“Such as, why no one saw her being shoved, kicking and screaming, into a waiting car on a busy street with lots of people around.”

“Precisely. And why the note asked for American dollars instead of British pounds.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Christopher said, and looked like he was thinking about it now, blue eyes distant. “If I had, I suppose I would have assumed that it was because the Schlomskys, and their fortune, is in American dollars.”

“Of course. And that’s possible, too.”

I leaned back in the seat and added, “I can’t imagine how they’ll gather fifty thousand dollars in London in a day and a half, to be honest. I suppose they’ll have to calculate how many pounds fifty thousand dollars is, and bring that instead. I doubt even the Bank of London keeps fifty thousand American dollars sitting in their vaults.”

Christopher nodded. “So if the Schlomskys didn’t write the note, perhaps the kidnappers are American.”

“Or perhaps the Schlomskys wrote the note.”

“Or,” Christopher said, “if they didn’t and the kidnappers are English, perhaps they thought it would be better to ask for a ransom amount the Schlomskys would immediately understand.”

Yes. This didn’t really prove anything one way or the other. Although for what it was worth, if it had been me writing the note, I would have asked for the currency I was familiar with, which would have been British pounds. I wasn’t even sure exactly how much fifty thousand American dollars was.

“If the Schlomskys wrote the note themselves, do you suppose they would have involved us?”

“I’m not sure why they involved us either way,” Christopher said, as the bridge gave way to the docklands on the South Bank. “They didn’t actually ask us to do anything. We weren’t able to contribute anything useful.”

No, we hadn’t been. “Do you think they may have done it to establish some sort of an alibi? Or an impression of goodwill or innocence or something, when inevitably Florence turns up dead?”

That was if they had killed her, of course. But if they hadn’t, why would they bother with the kidnapping ruse in the first place?

“I’m not certain what kind of goodwill or innocence you and I would be able to provide,” Christopher said, “when they won’t let us contact the police. Innocence and goodwill to whom, exactly?”

I shook my head. “I wonder if we shouldn’t ring up Tom anyway. Unofficially, you know. You see him regularly; what do you think?”

Christopher flushed, a dusting of pink on his cheekbones. “I haven’t seen him since he stopped by the other night.”

“Two days ago? That’s regularly, isn’t it?”

“He was only there to tell us about Hughes,” Christopher muttered.

“And that’s another thing. Strangely coincidental, isn’t it, how people we know—or somewhat know—turn up dead?” Or in Flossie’s case, missing.

Christopher nodded. He looked relieved to be able to stop talking about Tom Gardiner, and I let him get away with it without comment. Instead, I added, “Although I don’t see what that could have had to do with this. Hughes died in Bristol, not Southampton, and there’s simply no way that she could have been the maid the Schlomskys sent from America last year. Not when Hughes had been with Aunt Charlotte since Crispin was a baby.”

“Not to mention that she’s one hundred percent English,” Christopher agreed. He shook his head. “Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence, Pippa. I don’t see how Hughes being mugged in a dark alley in Bristol can have anything to do with Florence Schlomsky going missing in London, or her parents landing in Southampton. Those things didn’t even happen at the same time.”

No, they hadn’t. The Schlomskys had been at sea when Hughes had been killed, and Hughes had been dead when Flossie had disappeared. Any connection was in my own mind, and only there.

“At any rate,” I said, as the train continued on, “you haven’t seen Tom in a few days. Perhaps you’d like to change that once we’re done here.”

Christopher muttered something, his blush intensifying.

“And while you’re doing it,” I continued, “you could casually drop into conversation the fact that our neighbor seems to have been kidnapped.”

“Are you certain that’s wise, Pippa? The Schlomskys were adamant that they didn’t want to involve the police.”

“But that’s just it,” I said. “We wouldn’t have to involve them, per se.”

He tilted his head to look at me. “How do you reckon that?”

“Well, Tom didn’t insist on involving the full force of Scotland Yard when he found us driving around London with Freddie Montrose’s dead body in the back of Crispin’s motorcar two months ago. I think he’d be willing to keep this on the down-low too, if you asked. Don’t you?”

In fact, if the Schlomskys went to Scotland Yard themselves, the powers that be would surely keep things very quiet in an effort to smoke out the kidnappers and rescue Florence.

In my opinion, the Schlomskys could do worse than letting us contact Tom. But if they weren’t going to, at least they couldn’t stop us from doing it on our own. Flossie may have been their daughter, but she was my friend—or at least she was an acquaintance, and a neighbor, and someone I wasn’t willing to give up on without making an effort to rescue her. Let the Schlomskys play along with the kidnappers, and gather the ransom. Christopher and I could handle the investigative part, even if Mr. and Mrs. Schlomsky didn’t know we were doing it.