The Toff and the Kidnapped Child Read Online Free

numbness in her limbs, and sank back.
    The car hurtled on.
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    Miss Abbott glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and thought: ‘She’s later than I expected,’ but did not let that worry her. It was not yet half-past ten, and although the train was usually punctual on its way from London to the north, it had been known to be late, even in the summer. She got up, pushing her sewing to one side, yawned, went into the little kitchen where she could make herself a cup of tea, and put on the kettle. Caroline Kane still hadn’t returned when she went into the living-room, and for the first time she began to feel a twinge of alarm. At a quarter past ten she put down a half finished cup of tea, and went to the telephone. As she lifted it and began to dial the station, she told herself that there was no need at all to worry; the train was still at the station, of course.
    â€œBritish Railways,” a man said, perkily.
    â€œI’m sorry to worry you, but can you tell me if the nine-fifty train from London is in yet?”
    â€œBeen and gone long ago,” the perky man said. “Bang on time tonight, it was. That all?”
    â€œNo!” exclaimed Miss Abbott, and felt suddenly breathless with the onrush of a kind of panic which was really born out of the fact that Caroline Kane was always so dependable. “I’m sorry, but I wonder if I could speak to someone who was on duty when the train came in.”
    â€œI was, lady.”
    â€œI wonder—I wonder if you saw one of the College girls go on the platform,” Miss Abbott asked, and immediately blamed herself for having put the question: it might start the man talking, might spread gossip through Hapley for no reason at all. The late return and the fact that the train had been punctual had combined to make her behave foolishly.
    â€œNo, miss, there wasn’t one,” the man answered definitely.
    â€œOh, but one of the girls went to the platform to meet her father!”
    â€œSurprise me if she did,” the man replied. “I was standing in for the ticket collector, and saw everyone on the platform and everyone off. There wasn’t one of the College girls here at all, miss. Sure she didn’t go to the bus station?”
    Miss Abbott clutched at this opportunity, and said as if laughing at herself: “Oh, yes, that must be it. Thank you very much for your trouble,” and rang off. For a moment she stood quite still, a hand on the telephone, and then she turned away and hurried out of the room, into the front garden and across the lawn to a smaller house, where the headmistress and others of the staff lived quite close to the road. The extensive grounds of Hapley lay in front of the main school building. These century-old buildings were massive and grey in the clear, strangely vivid evening light. There was a warm wind, rustling the leaves of beech, sycamore and plane tree. Two junior members of the staff were coming from the sports field, swinging racquets, and a smooth-haired terrier went haring across the lawn in front of her. She reached the smaller house, and hurried to the headmistress’s sitting-room, and went in. Miss Ellerby, younger by ten years, a rather heavily built and not very attractive woman, was watching television; she looked round almost with annoyance.
    â€œWhy must—” she began, and then stopped short, and went on: “Maude, what is it?”
    Miss Abbott told her . . .
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    After her visit to Rollison, Mrs Kane went into the small Knightsbridge hotel where she had booked for the night, and was stepping towards the little self-operated lift when the elderly man at the desk called: “Oh, Mrs Kane, there’s a message for you. Will you please ring Hapley 97?”
    â€œHapley—” Caroline’s mother began, and immediately her thoughts flashed to the school, to the fact that this could only be about Caroline. Partly because she was already so worried,