“What came over you, you stupid girl?” said Rose in glacial tones.
Daisy could only hang her head. Her wrists were so painful, she wanted to scream.
“I will set you up somewhere,” continued Rose, “and then never want to see you again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, my lady,” said Daisy. She wanted to cry, but she had cried so much during the night that she felt there were no tears left.
At Harry’s home in Water Street in Chelsea, Becket made tea for them. Daisy whispered to him, “Can I sit in the kitchen? And have you anything for my wrists?” She held them out.
“Come with me,” said Becket. He led her downstairs to the kitchen and searched in a first-aid box until he found some burn ointment, gently applied it and bandaged her wrists.
“How did this happen?” he asked. “Did that monster…?”
“Naw,” said Daisy wearily. She told him about burning the rope from her wrists.
“Lady Rose should be kissing your feet, not firing you,” exclaimed Becket.
“I can’t blame her. She’s had a bad shock. That’s why I’d better stay down here where I belong.”
¦
Billy Gardon nipped up the stairs to his theatre flat, dreaming of riches to come.
He stopped short when he saw the door hanging on its hinges. He rushed into the room.
A man stepped out from behind the broken door, swung him round and smashed a fist into his face.
Billy fell on the floor and, nursing his jaw, stared up into the blazing eyes of his attacker. He saw a tall well- dressed man with a handsome face. The glaring eyes were black and hooded. Billy thought he looked like the devil himself.
“On your feet!” roared Harry. “You blackmailing little worm!”
Billy crawled onto his knees and then stood shakily on his feet, nursing his jaw.
“It was only a bit o’ a joke, guv,” he whimpered.
Harry pulled a chair up and sat down. He looked broodingly at Billy. If he turned him over to the police, he felt sure it would leak out to the newspapers. It would come out that Rose had been working as a typist and consorting with an ex-chorus girl from one of London’s lowest music halls and her social future would be ruined. And surely a few more weeks at the bank and living in that dreadful hostel would bring her to her senses.
He came to a decision. “Pack up,” he ordered. “My man will call on you tomorrow with a steamship ticket to Australia – steerage. If he does not find you – let’s say at ten tomorrow morning – I will go to the police. At the least you will get a life sentence of hard labour for this. You will keep your mouth shut. You will not tell anyone. I have spies all over London,” lied Harry. “How do you think I found you so easily?”
“I’ll go, guv, honest. Just give me a chance.”
“Very well. But if any word of this gets out, I shall find you and kill you, and then, I think, report you to the police, who will bury you in quicklime. I do not see why the state should pay for your incarceration.”
When Harry returned home, Becket informed him that Lady Rose was taking a bath and putting on clean clothes. Miss Levine was in the kitchen – “But I think a doctor should be called to look at her wrists.”
“Why?”
Becket told him how Daisy had engineered the escape.
“Call a doctor. What is Daisy doing in the kitchen?”
“Lady Rose says she wants nothing more to do with her.”
“Let’s see about that.”
? Hasty Death ?
Three
Mrs C.E. Humphry,
Harry waited patiently until Rose reappeared, bathed and dressed. “Thank you for all you have done,” said Rose. “Have the police arrested that dreadful man?”
“I am making arrangements to ship him off to Australia and I have frightened him into silence. Otherwise society would be delighted to hear of your latest escapade.”
“Being kidnapped and tied up can hardly be described as an escapade.”
“Granted. But the daughter of an earl working in an office would most certainly be regarded as an escapade.”
“You are right,” conceded Rose. “But what was the point of bringing us here?”
“You need to present a respectable appearance before you return to that hostel. You will tell Miss Harringey that you were both the victims of a practical joke. I told her I was your brother, therefore it will seem perfectly in order for me to escort you back. Now to the problem of Daisy. I gather from Becket that you do not wish to have anything to do with her.”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “Of course not. How can you even ask such a question? She put my life at risk. I could have choked on that gag.”
“Nonetheless, you might still be choking on that gag if she had not severely burnt her wrists in helping you to escape. Becket has sent for the doctor. You did thank her, I hope?”
“I did not know her wrists were burnt,” said Rose. “I will see that she is amply compensated when my parents return.”
“Money solves everything, heh? And how will you explain the reason why Daisy must be paid?”
“They will be so glad that I am rid of her, they will pay anything.”
“You are at fault, you know.”
“How, sir?”
“You chose to step outside your class and befriend an ex-chorus girl from the East End. It amused you to do so. You educated her and introduced her to a better way of life and now you want to throw her back again like some toy that had failed to work.”
“That is not the way it was. We were friends.”
“A friendship easily broken.”
Rose’s lip trembled. “I have suffered an ordeal, I am abominably hungry, and yet all you can do is rail at me over a servant.”
“Aha! So Daisy is nothing more than a servant. I suggest we have her up here and ask her to explain what drew her back to her old haunts.”
Harry rang the bell. “Becket, fetch Miss Daisy. Is the doctor coming?”
“He will be here shortly.”
A few moments later, Daisy was led into the parlour. “None of us has eaten, Becket,” said Harry. “A late luncheon, I think, after the doctor has left. Pray take a seat, Miss Levine.”
Daisy sat down on the edge of a chair and Rose turned her head away.
“I am interested to know what took you back to your old neighbourhood,” said Harry gently. “First, some brandy for Miss Levine, Becket. She is looking extremely pale.”
He waited until Daisy took several sips of brandy.
“Now,” he prompted her.
Daisy gave a dry sob, like a weary child. Rose turned her head and looked at her, at the white face and the bound wrists.
“My lady and I were working in a room together, sir, typing out stuff from ledgers. We decided they were just making work for us. Then one of the bosses needed a temporary secretary and Ro – I mean my lady, got the job. So I was on me…my…own. Men kept dropping in for a bit, but when they saw it was only me they left.
“I began to feel that Daisy Levine was really nothing. I began to remember the old days in the theatre, where I was considered attractive. I thought I’d just go back to my own kind, as I thought of them. That’s where I met
