“Yes, I’m afraid that’s the whole point.” Cecily sighed. “It’s all very puzzling. I just can’t seem to pinpoint a motive for all this. It all seems so senseless. None of the victims have anything in common. They are young and old, married and unmarried. Two were known for their bad temper, the other two were gentle as lambs according to the people I spoke to, and they came from all walks of life. It’s quite the most challenging crime I’ve ever come across.”
“Ah, but you have a great reputation for catching criminals, Mrs. B.” Collins raised his glass. “I have great faith in you. You’ll find him. I’m sure of it.”
“Hear, hear!” Samuel said, raising his glass.
Cecily stared at her sherry. “I’m not so sure. I have a horrible, hopeless feeling that this time a madman will go on killing innocent victims and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him.” She looked up into Barry Collins’s worried face. “If that’s so, God help us all.”
CHAPTER 12
Panting and gasping for breath, Gertie stumbled up to the sleigh. Clive waited for her, clutching Lillian in his arms with James tugging at his coat.
“Get in,” he said, as she reached him. It was an order, not a request. Normally Gertie would have told him what to do with his orders, but something in his voice scared her so much she scrambled up onto the seat without a word.
Clive thrust Lillian onto her lap and picked up James, tossing him onto the other seat like a sack of grain. Before she could draw breath to protest, the janitor leapt up onto his seat and flicked the reins.
Stamping its feet, the chestnut snorted, then took off, sending Gertie back against the cold leather seat. The jolt snapped her teeth on the tip of her tongue.
Eyes watering, she yelled, “What the bloody hell is the matter with you? Why are you in so much of a blinking hurry?”
Clive said something over his shoulder, but she couldn’t hear what he’d said. Lillian had started crying, and James was hanging over the edge of the sleigh, shouting at Clive to go faster.
Gertie hugged Lillian closer and yelled at her son. “Sit back! You’ll fall out and break your bloody neck!”
“No, I won’t!” Still hanging over the side, James turned his head to grin at her. Just then the sleigh hit a bump.
Gertie cried out and clutched Lillian tighter as she felt her seat rise up in the air. Clive called out something, but at that moment the sleigh thumped down hard on the ground.
Gertie looked around just in time to see James disappear over the side. She screamed, making Lillian yell louder.
Clive shot a startled look over his shoulder and reined in the horse. The sleigh came to a sliding halt, and before it had stopped, Gertie was scrambling off it.
She landed on her knees in the snow and struggled to her feet. Clive jumped down and came slipping and sliding toward her. Together they ran back to where a huddled heap lay on the side of the road.
“James!” Gertie’s desperate cry scared the seagulls. They fluttered up from the beach, screeching their indignation as Gertie dropped to her son’s side.
To her soaring relief he had his eyes open, and the moment he saw her he started crying-quiet sobs that tore at her heart. “Are you hurt, luvvy? Tell Mama where you hurt.”
“My-my arm hurts!” His sobs grew louder.
Clive bent down by her side and ran his hands over the boy. When he touched James’s right arm, the boy let out a scream. “It looks like it’s broken.” He looked at Gertie and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “I’m so very sorry.”
Struggling against tears herself, she said roughly, “It’s not your fault. I told him not to hang over the side.” She shuddered as the wind whipped her scarf against her cheek. “What do we do now?”
“Give me your scarf.” He unwound his own scarf and held out his hand for hers.
She gave it to him, aware of her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t bear to see her little boy in so much pain. She would give anything to take his place. It was her fault. She should have been more strict with him. She was a rotten mother. Daisy would never have let this happen.
Somehow Clive must have sensed what was going on in her tortured mind. He put an arm about her shoulders and hugged her against his big body. “Cheer up, luv. We’ll get him to the doctor and he’ll take care of him.”
He let her go and turned to the boy. “Now, James, this is going to hurt a little, so I want you to be really, really brave, all right? Let’s show your mama what a brave boy you are.”
James gave him a scared nod, tears still running down his cheeks.
Gertie watched in awe as Clive eased the broken arm against her son’s chest and tied the two scarves tightly around him to hold it in place.
Apart from a whimper or two, James hardly made a sound, though he couldn’t stop the tears from soaking the collar of his coat.
Gertie ached to hold him, but she was afraid of hurting him more. Instead, she stood back and let Clive pick him up. Stepping carefully through the slushy snow, he carried the boy to the sleigh and sat him down next to his sister.
Lillian was shivering and crying, and Gertie quickly scrambled onto the seat and put her arm around the little girl. Being careful not to touch her son’s injured arm, she hugged him close, and held on to them both as Clive drove the sleigh carefully down the path to the town below.
Luckily, Dr. Prestwick was in his surgery when they arrived. He gave James some medicine to dull the pain and set the arm in a plaster cast-a procedure that seemed to take forever and made poor James cry out in pain. Gertie felt sick by the time it was all over.
Dr. Prestwick assured her that the fracture was a simple one and that James would heal in time. “Thanks to Mr. Russell,” he added, as Gertie thanked him. “If he hadn’t bound the arm just the way he did, it might have been a different story.”
Still drowsy from the medicine, James fell asleep on the ride back to the Pennyfoot. Anxious to get the children back to the comfort of their room, Gertie had little time to express her thanks.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there,” she said, as Clive carried James down the kitchen steps. “You saved his life.”
Clive shook his head. “It wasn’t that bad, though I know you must have been terrified. I feel responsible for what happened.”
“Please, don’t.” She took James from him at the door. “It wasn’t your fault. James was being a bloody twerp and I wasn’t firm enough with him.”
“Well, I hope his arm doesn’t give him too much pain.” He started to move away, then added, “I’m so sorry the afternoon turned out so badly. I know how much the twins were looking forward to the sleigh ride.”
Gertie smiled. “It was a lovely sleigh ride. And your sleigh is beautiful. Thank you, Clive.”
He looked at her for a long moment, making her feel self-conscious. “It was my pleasure, Gertie.” With a swift wave of his hand, he walked briskly away from her and up the stairs.
It wasn’t until he disappeared that she realized she’d forgotten to ask him two things. One was about his past. The other was why he’d acted as if the devil was after him in the woods.
Pansy dumped a pile of serviettes onto the nearest dining room table and grabbed up a silver serviette ring. Here was her one chance for doing something really exciting and old Chubby had to go and spoil it all. It wasn’t fair.
She snatched up one of the white linen squares and rolled it into a thin sausage before shoving it through the ring. Throwing it down on the table, she was about to reach for another ring when Gertie’s voice spun her around.
“Whatcha doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Pansy waved the ring at her. “I’m playing Ring a Ring o’ Roses with the serviettes.”