“You might as well know, Lizzie. Martin disappeared again last night. He hasn’t slept in his bed. I looked in there half an hour ago and he wasn’t there.”
Elizabeth laid down the newspaper with cold hands. “Where can he be? Where can he possibly go that would keep him out all night?”
“I’d like to know how he gets to where he’s going,” Violet said, thumping the teakettle down a little too hard on the stove. “He can’t walk any faster than a tortoise with lumbago. By the time he gets to the end of the driveway he’s on his knees. He can’t ride a bicycle or drive a car, even if he had one to drive.”
“What about the raffle ticket lady?” Elizabeth frowned. “I can’t remember her name.”
“You mean Beatrice Carr?” Violet poured tea into a cup, then carried it in its saucer to the table, where she put it down in front of Elizabeth. “I haven’t seen her in ages. What about her?”
“Well, she was always asking Martin to go with her somewhere. I just wondered if perhaps he was spending time with her.”
Violet’s laugh was pure scorn. “Frightened to death of her, he is. He’d never go anywhere with that hussy. Besides, she rides on the bus from North Horsham. Martin wouldn’t be able to walk that far to the bus stop in the village.” She shook her head. “Blinking mystery it all is, I tell you. Why won’t he tell us where he’s been? He must know we’re worried about him, the silly old goat.”
“Well, either he’s spending the night at the end of the driveway or someone is meeting him there in a car and taking him somewhere.”
Violet’s hands jerked, spilling her tea down the sides of her cup. “I never thought of that. Who do you think it is, then? Who does he know that has a car?”
“I have no idea,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But one way or another, I intend to find out.”
“How many pairs of knickers did you bring?” Polly muttered as Sadie piled the underwear in the kitchen sink. “They can’t be all yours.”
“They’re not.” Sadie turned on the tap and filled the sink with cold water. “Some are mine, some are her ladyship’s, and some are Violet’s. I grabbed every pair I could find.”
Polly gasped. “You really went through Lady Elizabeth’s drawers?”
“Why not? She’ll thank me when we catch the thief. These are all clean, so all we have to do is get them wet, wring them out, and peg them on the line. They’ll dry before your mum wakes up, unless the thief takes them, in which case, when we catch him, everyone will thank us.”
“Why do we have to get them all wet, anyway? Why can’t we just hang them on the line dry?”
“Because the thief might be watching us hang them up and if he grabs them right away and finds them dry he’ll know we’re setting a trap for him and he’ll scarper, won’t he.”
“Well, Ma won’t thank you for waking her up so keep your bloomin’ voice down.” Polly sent a nervous glance at the door. Her mother was asleep in the bedroom at the top of the stairs. If she woke up and saw what they were doing there’d be hell to pay.
“All right,” Sadie muttered. “Here, help me wring these out.” She held out a dripping pair of navy blue bloomers.
Polly took them, wrinkling her nose. “These have to be Violet’s. They must come down to her knees.”
“They do. I’ve seen them when she bends over.”
Polly giggled. “Go on. Whatcha doing staring at Violet’s bloomers, then?”
“Can’t miss them, can I.” Sadie took a pair of pink lace-trimmed drawers and twisted them in a knot.
“Don’t you think we should put other washing on the line as well?” Polly squeezed with all her might. The wool bloomers were heavy and hard to wring out. “Won’t the thief think it strange that there’s only knickers on the line?”
Sadie shrugged. “Those kind of men don’t think straight, do they. All he’ll see is knickers and he’ll grab them.”
For the first time Polly felt a stab of fear. “Here, what if he’s barmy and he goes after us with a blinking knife or something?”
“That’s why we have to make sure he don’t see us.” Sadie laid the drawers on the draining board and reached for another pair. “We’ll just follow him until he stops somewhere and we can see where he lives. Then we can tell George and Sid to bring him in.”
“What if-” Polly broke off as a faint voice called out from upstairs. “Polly? Is that you?”
Polly shook her head fiercely at Sadie, then opened the door. “It’s all right, Ma, it’s only me.”
Her mother’s voice drifted down the stairs. “What are you doing home this time of day?”
“I had to collect the rents, Ma. I just stopped in to get a woolly. It’s a bit chilly at the manor this morning.”
“All right, then.” This was followed by the soft sound of a door closing.
Polly waited a moment longer, then shut the kitchen door. “Let’s get this lot outside,” she whispered, “before Ma comes down to see what we’re doing.”
Sadie gathered up the wet washing. “You get the pegs,” she whispered back. “I’ll take these.”
Polly followed her outside and breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the back door behind her. Grabbing the peg bag off the clothesline, she muttered, “I hope we’re not wasting our blinking time. What if he won’t come out in daylight? I don’t want to sit here all night waiting for him.”
“Neither do I. I’m hoping Joe will be back from his mission so we can go out again tonight. We had such a good time last night. He’s really beginning to loosen up now. He even kissed me last night without me having to kiss him first.”
Polly started pegging the wet clothes to the line. “You really like him, then?”
Sadie smiled. “He’s a really nice boy. Got really nice manners, too. Knows how to treat a lady, he does.”
“But what about when he goes back to America? Aren’t you going to miss him?”
“Well, of course I am.” Sadie stuck a peg between her teeth and hooked another one over the line. “That’s why I won’t let myself get too fond of him. He’s not really my type, anyhow. He’s just fun to be with, that’s all.” She looked at Polly over the line of washing. “Don’t worry, Pol. It’s not like it was with you and Sam. It’s not going to break my heart when Joe goes back.”
Polly felt a pang at the mention of Sam’s name. “I still miss him sometimes,” she said wistfully. “I know one thing: I’ll never get that silly over another Yank. I don’t even want to go out with another Yank. I’ll be sticking to the English from now on.”
“Like the boy you’re writing to in Italy?” Sadie grinned. “When’s he coming home, then?”
“I dunno. He’d be going home to Surrey, anyway. That’s where he lives.”
Sadie shook her head. “You do pick ’em. That’s miles away, near London. How’re you going to see him if he lives all that way away?”
That was something Polly didn’t want to think about right then. “It’s a lot closer than America,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but-”
Deciding she’d had enough of the subject, Polly interrupted her. “What if Ma sees all this washing on the line? She’ll wonder where it came from. What am I going to tell her? What’s going to happen when Lady Elizabeth goes looking for her clean knickers? What’s Violet going to say if she finds you missing all day?”
“Would you stop worrying!” Sadie stuck another peg on the knickers on the line. “In the first place, think about when our drawers got stolen-it was daytime, wasn’t it? He didn’t take them at night.”
“Yes, but-”
“If he doesn’t come by the time your mum wakes up, we’ll take them all off the line and I’ll take them back to the manor. Then we’ll try again tomorrow, all right?”
It sounded all right, Polly had to admit. Even so, she couldn’t help the niggling feeling deep in her stomach that they were asking for trouble. Somehow, whenever she did things like this with Sadie, something always went wrong. She just hoped that this time, something would go right.
CHAPTER 9
