Crime and Carpetbags by Julie Berry

Author:Julie Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

I knew my mother and sisters would have a thousand questions for me, and that no good would come of me trying to explain what had happened. Either way, my mother would have hysterics, and either way, Polly would be devastated. The time would come when they would learn what they needed to know. That time didn’t have to be right now.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered to Tom on the landing. “We can empty any clothes out of our carpetbags, but bring anything we might need to rescue your dad. Meet me here in a minute.”

The first glimmer of hope I’d seen in too long flickered across Tom’s face. “Be right back.”

I dumped out my bag and grabbed a few things that might be helpful. A pair of scissors? A bit of paper? A pencil, a spool of string? What tools did one use to break into a home and rescue a man held prisoner? It wasn’t as if I had many tools anyway, and I certainly didn’t have much time.

I raided all my stash of money, which wasn’t much, and stuffed it into my coin purse. Tom and I crept down the stairs and managed to get out of the house without anyone noticing.

“Now what?” Tom asked. “Do we fly to Dunstable?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Let’s get to the post office. We need to talk to Alice.”

I wonder what people in Luton who knew me thought to see me walking down the street, bold as you please, with a tall youth with shocking carrot-colored hair, both of us carrying shabby carpetbags. Word would get back to Mother, without fail, and there would be questions. I didn’t care. We found the post office, which was still open, but barely, and I learned, after some careful calculating, that I had more than enough money to put a call through to Grosvenor Square. I handed it over to the clerk behind the counter, then gave my instructions to the operator.

After a long wait for Mr. Linzey to locate “Miss Alice,” I finally heard her voice over the line.

“Maeve!” she cried. “Is that really you?”

“It’s really me,” I told her. We’d never spoken over the telephone before, though I was practically an expert, now, with two telephone calls to my name. “Alice, I don’t have much time, so I need you to listen carefully. I have good news and bad. We went to the, er, place. We found a handkerchief there belonging to…you-know-who. And a calling card. And one of those pictures of Tom.”

“But that’s wonderful!” she cried. “Hand those over to Inspector Wallace, and he’ll have to take this more seriously now.”

“I can’t,” I said. “He’s in London, and I’m here. It’s Saturday afternoon, and I don’t know how to reach him. Even if I did, I doubt he’d believe me.”

“But your father was with you, wasn’t he?” asked Alice. “Wouldn’t the inspector believe him?”

“Um,” I said. “Yes. He was with us. That’s the bad news.” I looked around to make sure no postal clerks were within hearing range, then whispered into the receiver.

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