Dorothy Eden by Afternoon Walk

Author:Afternoon Walk
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“LOR, ALL THEM FLOWERS!” exclaimed Mrs. Ingram. “Whatever did Mr. Simpson say?”

“I felt like picking them,” Ella said airily, not intending to discuss that little contretemps with Mrs. Ingram.

“Ever so gay,” Mrs. Ingram murmured, but thinking something else entirely, Ella was sure. “That’ll give Mr. Partridge a surprise.”

“They aren’t his flowers, Mrs. Ingram.”

“No, but he thinks so. Did you get some coffee, Mrs. Simpson, like I told you?”

“Yes, and there’s some on the stove if you can bear to drink hot coffee in this weather.”

“Good! I’m ravaged for it.”

Sometimes Mrs. Ingram’s malapropisms made Ella smile. But not today. It was very unsmiling weather. Or should one say climate? A climate of violence, of strikes, of protests, of greed, of deceit, of fear…A truly unsmiling climate.

“Well, cheer up, Mrs. Simpson. At least you ain’t held in duress.”

“In what?”

“Like Mrs. Gibson. That’s what the paper says.”

Ella snatched up the paper, seeing in her action an exact similarity to Max’s earlier.

Had he been looking for news of Mrs. Gibson whom he swore he didn’t know?

There it was, a small item, but on the front page.

“It is now almost certain that Mrs. Daphne Gibson, wife of wealthy industrialist Bernard Gibson, missing from her luxury Surrey home since Sunday, is being held under duress. Police are urging anyone who may have seen or heard anything significant on Sunday afternoon, especially in the vicinity of Collingham, Surrey, to get in touch with their local police station. They would particularly like to trace a gray 1966 4.2-liter Jaguar which is known to have been stolen. There have been several telephone calls demanding ransom, but these are believed to be hoaxes.”

“They wouldn’t talk about the one that wasn’t a hoax,” said Mrs. Ingram, with her surprising insight into the ways of the police. “They’d work on that quietly, wouldn’t they? Lure the kidnappers into a trap.”

“I should think they’d be too clever to be caught.”

“Not after they get cocky. And they will get cocky when they start feeling safe. If it isn’t too late, of course.”

“Too late?”

“Stands to reason they can’t keep a lady like her fed and quiet for too long. She looks the kind that’d put up a fight, don’t she? Not like a baby that can’t say a word. Even someone as old as your Kitty would be potential dynamite.” Mrs. Ingram liked the sound of those words. “I don’t see as how they can ever let Mrs. Gibson go, while there’s breath in her body, ransom or not.”

Partridge arrived then, clumping down the paved path to the garden, and Mrs. Ingram, to whom all men were a welcome diversion, bobbed out of the back door to speak to him. Ella saw them looking at the denuded garden, and then toward the house, as if the walls were invisible, and they were staring at her standing guilty and defenseless in the living room surrounded by the bowls of plundered flowers. Partridge’s large red face wore a look of baffled astonishment. Mrs. Ingram said something, gesticulating, and he slowly nodded, then slowly shook his head, as if in deep concern.

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