Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone Read online

  The next two compartments produced nothing more interesting than additional prospective sustenance for Uncle and a morning London newspaper. However, when I stepped from the rear platform of our carriage into the next, I was surprised to find a disheveled and sweaty Georgie Grimsley.

  "Why, Mr. Grimsley. Whatever are you doing here?" I asked as I circled around the young man and peered into the first compartment.

  "Didn't know I had a bicycle, did you?" he said. "Thought you'd get away."

  "Get away? I don't understand your meaning." I lifted a newspaper from the floor and shook it out. Nothing fell. I moved on to the next compartment, while Uncle searched the seat cushions for sustenance.

  Georgie Grimsley followed me. "You and your smarmy friends thought you could ditch me."

  "Ditch? Where do you come up with such words? You must be mistaken." My reply was made in an inattentive fashion because I had spotted another Colombian peso resting on the seat just where a trouser pocket would have deposited its contents. As I reached for the coin, however, Georgie Grimsley snatched it from beneath my fingers.

  I sighed. Really, he was being too tiresome. "Mr. Grimsley. Would you be so kind as to hand me that coin?"

  "Not until you look at me. You always ignore me."

  I looked at him. It was not a pretty sight, especially his overlong nose hairs. "Now, please give me the coin." I held out my hand and was appalled to have him grab it and hold on. "Mr. Grimsley. My hand and the coin, please."

  "Petronella, Pet. I may call you Pet, mayn't I?"

  "No, you most certainly may not."

  He pulled me closer. "You know I have loved you since I first set eyes on you. If we change trains in London, we can make it to Gretna Green in a few hours and be married. I know you'd like that."

  I struggled to disengage myself. The little fiend had a grip like a vise. "Is this about your impecunious family's debts? Much good marrying me will do you. I must tell you that I don't come into the majority of my inheritance until I'm twenty-one. Besides, I heard that you proposed to Jessalyn St. John last week."

  "How can you speak of money when I'm declaring my undying devotion?" he cried as he grabbed my other hand.

  At that moment, the train swayed and I was able to free one hand. Fortunately, that hand clasped the strap of my French crewel-embroidered handbag, which struck Georgie Grimsley in the eye with a satisfactory thwop!

  I was immediately released.

  "Ow! Ow! and I say ow again!" Clutching his eye, Georgie stumbled backward and flopped onto the seat, where he writhed rather like one of the earthworms Uncle had plucked from among the rocks in my garden.

  While he gyrated, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and fled back to the train car where I had left Uncle Augustus. I was followed by Georgie Grimsley's wailing, "You'll be sorry for this. I swear you will!"

  Chapter Thirteen

  In Which Sticky Buns Are Devoured

  AS I SCUTTLED BACK TO Uncle, I reflected with growing indignation that one's first proposal of marriage should be memorable because of pleasant associations, rather than sweaty hands and struggles with a repugnant philanderer. I was so intent on retribution that when Uncle Augustus abruptly emerged from a compartment, we collided.

  "There you are," he said, stuffing a bit of waxed paper into Insectile Creatures.

  "Oh, Uncle. I was nearly dragged off by that horrid Georgie Grimsley. He wanted me to go to Gretna Green with him."

  "That young rapscallion. He'll not treat my niece so," Uncle said as he pushed past me with a look that bespoke ill for Mr. Grimsley.

  I caught his arm. "Don't go, Uncle. The last thing we need is to give the police a reason to pay attention to you."

  "Oh. I suppose you're right. But that young pup should not get off scot free after such an insult."

  I remembered Georgie holding his eye while rolling around in agony and could not help but chuckle. "He did not get off scot free. I'm afraid he will be sporting a blackened eye for a while thanks to my rather sturdy handbag." I held up the bag to illustrate my point.

  Uncle guffawed. "Good show, Petronella. You have a bit of the Percival in you, after all."

  "I suppose I get it from both sides of my family. However, I'm afraid I have to report that Georgie Grimsley prevented me from acquiring another Colombian peso that was on a seat in the last car. It proves the man in the slouch hat is connected to the other peso."

  "No matter. We have the other coin."

  At that moment James and Jane came down the corridor toward us. "What ho! Did you find anything? We found nothing," said James.

  We settled into one of the empty compartments as I explained about Georgie Grimsley and the peso. Jane laughed at Georgie's black eye, but James's reaction was much more gratifying. He started up out of his seat, his fists balled up. "The scoundrel. He'll have more than a black eye when I'm through with him." Could it be that he cared?

  Both Jane and I leaped up to stand in his way. "Rather than worry about Georgie Grimsley, we need to develop a battle strategy for when we get to Charing Cross Station," I reasoned.

  "Yes," said Jane. "We should be getting there soon." Indeed, the clickety-clack of the train wheels came farther and farther apart.

  James sat back down, still muttering, but cooperative enough that by the time we arrived at Charing Cross Station, we had a working plan. I wished that in James's mutters there was something of the lover, but as far as I could tell, he was more worried about the slight to my good name than any danger I might have been in.

  Once we disembarked, Jane and I strolled arm in arm through the busy station, making our way from vendor to vendor while Uncle and James departed in different directions to question ticket sellers, guards, and bobbies. At the first stall, I bought newspaper-wrapped fish and chips. "Thank you," I said as the vendor, a plump little woman with cherries hanging from her straw hat, handed me the steaming, fragrant food. "I was supposed to meet my gardener here in the station to choose summer flowers for my estate. You haven't happened to see a man with a dark mustache and slouch hat, have you?" I gave the woman an extra sixpence and a smile.

  "Laws, no, dearie. Sorry to say, I ain't seen no one like that. 'Ope you finds 'im, I do."

  We proceeded from fish and chips to peppermints to the booksellers to the baker with no more to show for our troubles than several bags of sweets, some sticky buns, and a few newspapers and magazines. We devoured the fish and chips first thing, of course. There's nothing like a properly prepared bit of good old British fish and chips to fortify one, but I would have liked a tidbit or two of information as dessert.

  James joined us just in time to enjoy the sticky buns while they were warm. "Where is your uncle, old thing? The bobby over there saw our man heading east."

  "The suspect could be going anywhere. How are we going to find him?" asked Jane.

  "It is my guess that he is going to find Salas," said James.

  There was that name again. "Who is Salas?" Jane and I asked simultaneously.

  "If I am correct," said James, "he is Don Hernando Salas, a Colombian aristocrat supposedly exiled in England since their civil war started a few years ago. His estates run into southern Panama, so he would have a lot to lose if Panama declared independence."

  "If you know so much about him, where is he?" I asked.

  James flashed a smile that smote my heart. The dashed man is too handsome for his own good. "He has a suite at the Savoy."

  "Why, that's not far from here," said Jane.

  "What is not far from here?" asked Uncle as he approached.

  "The Savoy Hotel, Uncle Augustus. Where Don Hernando Salas resides." I noticed that several more bits of paper stuck out from Insectile Creatures and that Uncle looked as smug as James. I could only suppose that the insects we had seen on the train had their journeys cut unexpectedly short by Uncle's predations.

  "Then shall we go?" Uncle offered me his arm, and we sauntered out of the station and onto the Strand, fol
lowed by James and Jane.

  The Strand bustled with purposeful people striding this way and that along the sidewalk, while along the street itself flowed horse-drawn hansom and hackney cabs, tradesmen's wagons, the occasional motorcar, and hundreds of bicycles. In fact, the ching-ching of bicycle bells drowned out the clip-clop of the horses. Occasionally a motorcar sounded its hooter. The bustle was invigorating; however, crossing to the other side of the Strand would have been suicidal. Luckily we were on the same side of the street as the Savoy.

  The cacophony of London traffic was such that it took a few seconds for me to register that someone was bellowing behind us. The wild ching-chinging of a bicycle warned me to jump to my left. I nearly knocked Uncle off his feet. We both recovered our equilibrium just in time to have a bobby's hat thrust into my arms by the cyclist. I caught a glimpse of his face. Georgie Grimsley! His black eye only served to accentuate his malevolent smirk. He then disappeared into the crowd of bicycles in the street.

  "Ere, ere! Young lady, I'll ave you know that stealing bobbys' hats is illegal." A red-faced, hatless bobby planted himself in front of us, panting as he rested his hands on his knees.

  The hat burned in my grip. I thrust it at the bobby. "I am not accustomed to stealing hats from officers of the law. This hat was thrown at me by a passing cyclist."

  "Likely story. Probably a well-planned snatch. Young people of your set ave been taking great delight in just such larks of late. I'll wager you know the thief. Wot's 'is name?"

  "I do know him, unfortunately, although I am most assuredly not in league with him. His name is Georgie Grimsley." I drew myself up to my full height and attempted to mimic Great-aunt Theophilia, but was woefully short of her aplomb and lacked her lorgnette. I really would have to purchase one soon.

  The bobby stuffed his hat onto his head. "Well, I won't ave it—this larkin' about by rich young fings taking no account of the law. I'm going to make an example of you. Come along now to the station."

  I gawked.

  Uncle stepped forward and bowed slightly. "My dear sir. This young lady is my niece and—"

  "Then you should be taking better care not to let her get into scrapes." The bobby thrust his jaw out as he glared at Uncle Augustus, who appeared quite speechless at the officer's pugnacity.

  I became aware that a large crowd had gathered around us.

  "For shame. Wealth brings privilege is what she thinks," said one woman, shielding her little girl with her skirt from my wickedness. Others in the crowd muttered agreement so vehemently that they sounded in danger of turning into a mob.

  "Excuse me. Lord James Sinclair here. I saw it all, and the young lady was a victim of the depravity of the perpetrator. She had nothing to do with the theft," James said as he and Jane pushed their way through the throng to stand by my side. James withdrew a card from his wallet and presented it to the bobby.

  The bobby studied the card. "All right, sir. 'Ome Office, is it? Oi suppose Oi must believe you. Oi'm Officer Dudworth." There were exclamations of surprise from the crowd at the revelation that James was connected with the Home Office.

  James indicated Uncle and me and his sister. "Officer Dudworth, would you be so good as to escort us to Scotland Yard? We are on our way to speak to Inspector Higginbotham on a matter of some urgency." He glanced at me and I nodded agreement.

  "Well, if you're going to Scotland Yard, you're eading in the wrong direction. It's that way." He pointed his nightstick in the opposite direction down the Strand from where we'd been going.

  James tipped his hat to the officer. "Thank you for setting us to rights, Officer Dudworth. We just emerged from Charing Cross Station, and I'm afraid I got my senses mixed up."

  Jane smiled up at the bobby. "You will help us find the Yard, won't you? If our nation's future rested on my brother's sense of direction, we'd all be in the soup."

  Chuckles rumbled through the crowd at Jane's comment.

  One man called, "Good fing we got coppers to set fings straight, then, ain't it."

  Another said, "Aw, take 'em to the Yard. It ain't every day one of them swells admits e needs elp from a copper."

  Officer Dudworth stuck out his chest proudly at the comments. He swaggered as he swung his nightstick in front of him and strode ahead of us. "Clear the way. Oi've got more important fings to do than be a rubbishy tourist guide all day."

  We walked willingly in his wake like ducklings following a mother duck, although Uncle harrumphed a bit. I could tell that his dignity was wounded.

  "Thank you for rescuing me," I whispered to James and Jane.

  "My pleasure," said James. His voice was warm. For a moment I reveled in the illusion that he cared for me as more than a connection of his sister's, before he commented, "Can't have my sister's bosom friend arrested." Oh, well. My hopes had been dashed before, but they would rise again.

  "I'm almost sorry you weren't arrested. I've never visited anyone in prison before," Jane whispered, and then burst out laughing at my indignant expression.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In Which the Horde Hinders

  BEING MARCHED THROUGH THE STREETS of London for several blocks by an officious bobby may not be good for one's dignity, but it does have the effect of allowing one to marshal one's thoughts. Upon further contemplation, I decided it was probably for the best that we had been circumvented in our attempts to confront Don Salas. What would we have said or done in the middle of the Savoy? I could not see us inviting him to tea in order to demand the return of the dame and the generalissimo. Should we have revealed our suspicions of espionage over cucumber sandwiches or requested information about his plans for retribution while partaking of petits fours? I think not. On the other hand, it was our duty to show the tiara and peso to Inspector Higginbotham— probably sooner than later. Hopefully, he would listen to us this time.

  Once we were inside the entrance of the New Scotland Yard, the bobby's bellicosity deflated somewhat, since he was confronted with an equally officious representative of that venerable institution, who demanded, "And just what do you think you're doing here, Officer?"

  Officer Dudworth puffed himself up long enough to say, "Oi'm deliverin' these 'ere culprits to Inspector Igginbotham."

  James stepped forward and presented his card to the Yard officer. "Please be good enough to let Inspector Higginbotham know that Lord Sinclair is here with additional information."

  "Yes, sir." The representative of the Yard sent James's card with a boy who had been sitting nearby, nearly asleep on a chair.

  While we waited, the bobby stared at us watchfully, as if we were about to make a break for the doors. He seemed quite disappointed when the messenger returned and reported with great disinterest, "The inspector said to wait 'ere and e would be available shortly." Then the boy plunked down in his chair and promptly fell asleep.

  James reached to shake the bobby's hand. "Thank you so much, Officer Dudworth, for delivering us safely. I hope we have not kept you too long from your duties."

  The bobby harrumphed a bit, but looked only too happy to leave, now that we'd proven to be respectable.

  We sat upon the hard wooden chairs reserved for visitors. As I arranged the flounces of my skirt attractively—and might I add, daringly—about my ankles, I commented, "Well, James. I'm seeing you in a new light. Somehow I'm having a spot of trouble reconciling the image of you as a diplomat with memories of the boy who hung the ostler's trousers on the weathervane or the time you switched the salt for the sugar in your cook's larder."

  "Or the time, not two years ago, when he wrote messages on the eggs and put them back under the hens. The kitchen maid nearly had hysterics when she read that the world would end the next day." Jane giggled.

  Uncle chimed in, "James, this is a side of you I had not suspected."

  James faced forward, a blush infusing even the tips of his ears. "Yes, well, it is a side of me that is in the past."

  Jane slid her arm into his and rested her cheek against his shou
lder. "Don't be cross, brother dear. It's just that I had not seen you in an official capacity before. I'm really rather impressed."

  I held out a bag of sweets to him. "Here. These might help."

  "Help what?" said James as he took a few peppermints.

  "Cheer you up."

  "Sweeten me up, don't you mean? The two of you are dashed lucky that I'm such a gentleman, or I might mention a few of your escapades, such as how the ducks got into the wash tubs in the laundry not less than a year ago."

  Jane placed a gloved hand over her brother's mouth. "Stop! You're not supposed to know about that one. You were away on holiday."

  I stifled a yawn. "I do hope the inspector does not keep us waiting too long, or we shall have aired all our dirty laundry, and Uncle Augustus will have an entirely different view of us. Although I'll wager that Uncle was not above a little clandestine mischief in his time. Am I right, Uncle?"

  "A man my age should not have to answer questions about youthful follies," said Uncle Augustus. "Read your newspapers, children, and I shall peruse my book." He tapped Insectile Creatures.

  We obediently divided up our various newspapers and magazines and set to reading. I was anxious to see if the papers contained anything else about the kidnappings, but they had nothing more than what we knew already. Every few minutes, I glanced at my watch. I sighed. I read some more. I checked my watch against a clock on one wall and adjusted my watch by two minutes. I read some more. Did the inspector mean to make us wait so long? Did he not care that we had information, or did he think we would not have anything of importance? I began to run out of patience, and when I shook the sweets bag, I found I was also out of peppermints.

  "Lord Sinclair and party. The inspector is ready to see you now," called the man at the front desk.

  After going up some stairs and down a hall, we found Inspector Higginbotham's office. He sat behind a businesslike desk, but there were no chairs for us to sit on, which I am quite sure was a conscious effort on his part to make him seem kingly while visitors played the peasants.