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Harry cast an impatient eye over the lawyer and his secretary who had finally arrived to complete the paperwork that would give Blanche the granddaughter she so desperately wanted. The old lawyer looked to be on his last legs, and the gray-haired secretary hovering behind him seemed to be in only marginally better shape.
“Such a shock,” the secretary muttered as she conducted the old man to a seat by the fire.
Mrs. Pearson looked at the secretary with a sour expression. “I don’t see—”
Lady Sylvia stepped in front of Mrs. Pearson. “I’m so sorry, Miss Clark, we certainly didn’t mean to startle you. We should have rung first before we sent the chauffeur.”
The housekeeper gave a spirited defense. “We did ring and no one answered.”
Miss Clark was not easily mollified. “Mr. Champion is naturally nervous after Mr. Alderton was murdered in his own office. I would have expected you to be more considerate.”
Harry pricked up his ears. Murdered! Who had been murdered? Why were this old coot and his aged secretary talking about a murder?
Lady Sylvia’s shocked expression was a second late in assembling itself. “I was not aware that Mr. Alderton’s death was being called murder.”
“What else would you call it when the man is battered around the head and his files are stolen?”
Files? What files? Harry’s mind was alive with suspicion, but before he would ask any question of his own, the old lawyer put his hand on Miss Clark’s arm.
“Not now, Miss Clark.”
The secretary retreated and took a seat on an upright chair. “If you say so, Mr. Champion.”
The old man cleared his throat and looked around the room, letting his gaze rest on each person in turn. His eyes were weary and bloodshot, but his faded gaze seemed to make an intelligent assessment of each person.
“Where is Mr. Whitby?” he asked.
Lady Sylvia sounded irritated. “Mr. Whitby is not here. We have been waiting for him and he has failed to appear. I assume you will require an explanation from him when next you see him, and we will require an apology for our wasted time. In the meantime, we would like to get on with the matter in hand. Mrs. Malloy would like to return to London tonight.”
Harry, well accustomed to boardroom politicking, recognized Lady Sylvia’s attempt at changing the balance of power with a frontal assault.
Mr. Champion’s head lifted slightly as he met Lady Sylvia’s haughty stare. “Mr. Whitby’s car is outside.”
Lady Sylvia hesitated. “I don’t think so.”
Harry admired the old man’s thin-lipped smile. “It is not like Mr. Whitby to be late, and so I had your chauffeur drive us to the back of the Hall, where I saw Mr. Whitby’s Morris Oxford with my own eyes.”
Lady Sylvia’s gaze flicked over to the housekeeper. If he had not been in a hurry to get the papers signed and thus cement his claim on the child, Harry would have enjoyed watching the contest of wills. He thought that the lawyer and the Countess were quite evenly matched when it came to keeping a cool head in a difficult situation. However, time was racing by, and the old man looked as though he could die at any moment. It was time to cut to the chase.
He rose from the embrace of a shabby armchair designed for a much smaller man; new furniture would be first on his shopping list. He nudged Lady Sylvia aside.
“Let’s get on with this. Someone get this gentleman a pen and paper. Mrs. Malloy can write what she needs to write. The lawyer can witness it, and it will all be done. That’s the way we do things in America.”
Mr. Champion gave Harry the benefit of a cool stare. “This isn’t America.”
Harry loved his wife, and his wife wanted to believe that the little girl in the nursery upstairs was Jack’s child. His frustration with the old lawyer reached boiling point. How long had he been hanging around in the shabby parlor, eating cucumber sandwiches and waiting for a simple signature on a piece of paper? He’d spent a fortune already getting the Malloy woman onto an airplane; he was going to spend another fortune propping up the moldering ruin of Southwold Hall; and what did it matter where the young lawyer had gone? The old one was here.
He reached into his pocket and took out his checkbook. “What do you want? You want overtime?”
The secretary gasped. “We do not require your money.”
“Well, you must be the only people who don’t,” Harry snapped. “Everyone else here is happy to see my checkbook.”
The secretary’s response was drowned out by a cacophony from the front hall. Nothing could be heard above the thunderous knocking on the front door and the clanging of the doorbell.
The housekeeper stood openmouthed for a moment before remembering that it was her job to open the door. She hurried away. The noise came to an abrupt halt to be replaced by the sound of urgent masculine voices.
Harry stood with his checkbook in his hand until he heard Blanche speaking softly beside him. “Put it away, dear. These people don’t want your money.”
“The hell they don’t,” Harry retorted.
Three men followed Mrs. Pearson into the room. Two were policemen, and Harry took note of their helmets and their silver buttons. They looked like extras from the British movies that were making their way to America. They didn’t even have guns. The other man was muffled in a dark overcoat with insignia on the shoulders. He had taken off his cap and carried it under his arm. Firelight glinted on the gold anchor embroidered on his cap badge, and the heavy application of gold braid.
“It’s the navy and the police,” Mrs. Pearson said, somewhat unnecessarily.
Lady Sylvia turned to face the newcomers. “What do you want?”
The naval officer inclined his head. “Good evening, Your Ladyship. Sorry to disturb you, but we have orders to evacuate this building. You are all to leave immediately.”
Lady Sylvia’s voice was cold as ice. “We will do no such thing. May I remind you that the war is over and no one is subject to evacuation orders? Southwold Hall is not available for your use.”
“Of course not.”
Harry sensed that the naval officer, with his upper-class voice and elevated rank, considered himself Lady Sylvia’s equal. Perhaps that was why he had been given this task, but why on earth was the old building being evacuated?
“Your employee, Mr. Sam Ruddle—”
Lady Sylvia interrupted immediately. “He is not my employee.”
The officer ignored her interruption. “Mr. Ruddle reported that he had seen a mine.”
Harry’s head was spinning. A mine! What kind of mine? A gold mine? A coal mine? A land mine? He looked around the room. Apparently, he and Blanche were the only people who attached no fear to the sighting of this mine.
“It’s German,” the officer continued.
“What’s German?” Harry asked. “What the hell’s going on?”
The naval officer turned to him. He could almost see the gears grinding in the man’s aristocratic head. An American! He doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand.
“It’s a German sea mine,” he said patiently. “We still find them. They were anchored to the seabed, but now they break loose. It will explode as soon as it hits a solid object. Mr. Ruddle reported it this afternoon when he regained consciousness.”
Harry thought that he heard a sigh of relief from Mr. Champion, but he kept his attention on the officer. “So where is this mine? How big is it? How much damage will it do?”
One of the policemen spoke up. “It’s a five-hundred-pounder. You don’t want to be around when that goes up.”
“I don’t intend to be,” Harry replied. “Where is it now?”
“Well,” said the officer, “I would say that it’s just below this house.”
He raised a hand to silence Harry’s questions and the exclamations of surprise from Lady Sylvia and her housekeeper.
“We spotted it from the air just before sunset. With the tide coming in and the current the way it is, we think it will be carried onto the shore. It won’t be so bad if it hits the beach, although it might blow a chunk out of the cliff, but, as the Countess knows, the smugglers’ caves come right under this house.”
Harry thought of the old cellars, the crumbling foundations, and Clowes showing him the dark mouth of the cave. No wonder the police were here to evacuate the house. If the tide brought that mine into the cave, nothing would be left of Southwold Hall.
Lady Sylvia abandoned all signs of dignified restraint and turned her panicked attention to Mrs. Pearson.
“Hurry up! Fetch my jewels and the deed box and my fur coats. I suppose you should also bring Daddy’s medals.”
Mrs. Pearson nodded, turned on her heel, and left the room.
Mr. Champion struggled to his feet. “How long do we have?”
The officer looked at his watch. “High tide in an hour, but it could come in before high tide.”
The old gentleman turned and offered his arm to his secretary. “Come along, Anthea. We must go at once.”
The secretary took his arm. Their slow exit was interrupted by Lady Sylvia and Vera Malloy pushing past them. Harry turned to Blanche. “You want me to get your jewels?”
Blanche shook her head. “No, of course not. Let’s go!”
They had reached the front hallway when Blanche stopped abruptly.
“Harry!”
“Keep going.”
“No, I won’t. What about Celeste? No one has gone to fetch Celeste. Mrs. Malloy didn’t mention her and neither did Her Ladyship. No one cares what happens to that child.”
“No one except you,” Harry said. “I’ll get her.”
He passed Mrs. Pearson on the stair. She carried a leather jewel case, and a heavyset young man followed behind her with an armful of fur coats. They both shoved past him without speaking.
Harry sprinted along the wide hallway that led to the nursery where the child was housed. He tried not to think about the mine. He knew what it would look like; Germany had not hesitated to anchor mines off the coast of the United States. He had seen the propaganda films. The mine would be round and massive and covered in spikes. The tips of the spikes would contain the detonators. All that would be required for the detonators to do their work was a glancing contact with a solid object.
He flung open the nursery door. He had become accustomed to Celeste and her strong-willed protests, but he would take no nonsense this time. If he had to carry her over his shoulder, so be it. He would do whatever it took to rescue her. She was just a child. He thought of Lady Sylvia making her rapid exit along with her box of jewels, and Vera Malloy, who had hustled past him on her way out of the door. He was quite certain now that neither of these women had given birth to the little girl.
He flicked a switch by the door. Light flooded the room. Her bed was rumpled, and the pillows had been thrown to the floor, but the child was not there.
He abandoned the name that Lady Sylvia had insisted on calling the child. She was not Celeste Blanchard, and she was not Anita Malloy, but he thought she would probably prefer to answer to Anita.
“Anita!”
He kept his voice calm. Perhaps she was hiding in a closet.
“Anita, you have to come with me.”
No response.
“Anita, come with me now. I’m going to take you home.”
It was a lie. The child had no home.
He opened the wardrobe, searched under the bed, and looked behind the drapes, all the while picturing the massive spiked mine drifting with the tide.
“Harry.”
He turned to see Blanche standing in the doorway.
“Have you found her?”
“No, she’s not here. I don’t know where to look.”
Blanche stepped into the room. Her face was twisted with emotion. “It’s all lies,” she said. “It’s like losing Jack all over again.”
“I know.”
“But she’s just a little girl. None of this is her fault.”
Harry spread his hands in an unusual gesture of helplessness. “I don’t know where to look. This house is enormous. It’s like a rabbit warren.”
Blanche moved with measured calm. Harry knew that the emotional storm would soon break, but for the time being, she was keeping it at bay. He watched as his wife opened the closet and examined the dresses arrayed on padded hangers.
She nodded her head and turned back to Harry. “No hat, no coat, no outdoor shoes. She’s gone outside. Maybe Mr. Whitby has her. Perhaps that explains why he can’t be found. She’s not here, Harry, I’m sure of it. ”
Harry grasped his wife’s arm. “We need to leave.”