With arms around each other’s waists, they went down the stairs as the door slammed above them.
‘I can’t see a thing,’ complained Daisy.
‘There’s a faint light below.’ Rose released Daisy and went ahead, feeling her way down. The staircase curved towards the bottom.
‘There’s a window, but it’s high up and it’s barred,’ said Rose.
Daisy followed her down and they both stood in the basement and looked around. ‘It isn’t a cellar. It’s a storeroom. Look at all this luggage. It must belong to the other poor creatures in this hellish place.’
‘We’ll never escape from here,’ said Rose.
‘I’ll try.’ To Rose’s amazement, in the dim light from the overhead window, she saw Daisy was beginning to take her dress off.
‘I’ve got files in my stays. The captain gave them to me.’
‘Oh, thank God. He knows of this.’
‘He’s outside and if we’re not out by morning, he’ll come for us.’
‘Why doesn’t he just bring a gun and blast his way in?’ said Rose bitterly.
‘Because it’s better if we get away quietly. If he shoots his way in, if the police are called, think of the stories in the newspapers. You’d be damned as Mad Rose forever after, no matter what nasty things about Dr McWhirter are uncovered. Here. Help me off with my stays.’
Daisy slid out the files and then put her dress on again. ‘Now, how do I get up to that window?’
‘We’ll need to stack up the luggage and climb up,’ said Rose. Heaving and panting, using a cabin trunk as the base, they put suitcase after suitcase on top of it.
Daisy scrambled up and got to work on the bars with one of her files.
‘Oh, Rose, this is going to take ages,’ she mourned.
‘I’ll look through the other suitcases,’ said Rose, ‘and see if I can find something to use as a weapon.’
Daisy worked away diligently while below her, Rose opened case after case. ‘Nothing I can use so far,’ said Rose. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Oh,’ wailed Daisy as the file she was using snapped. ‘I’ll never do this. I’ve only got one file left.’
‘Keep trying,’ urged Rose. ‘Wait, move away from the window a little. I need light. I think there’s a candle here.’ Daisy crouched down below the window.
‘Yes, and a box of vestas.’ Rose struck a match and lit the candle. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I can have a proper search.’ For a while there was no sound but the steady rasp of the file. Then Rose, her voice quivering with excitement, said, ‘Daisy, you can stop filing. Come and see what I have found.’
Daisy scrambled down the ‘ladder’ of cases and joined her. ‘It’s a gun bag with a shotgun and cartridges,’ said Rose, her eyes gleaming in the candle-light.
‘Do you know how to use it?’
‘Yes. I got one of the keepers to show me.’
‘But how will that get us through the cellar door?’
‘I’ll shoot a great big hole in the lock. Hold the candle high while I load this thing.’
Daisy watched, fascinated. ‘I never knew ladies had any useful skills at all,’ she said.
‘Some of us have. There! Now let’s cut bits off our petticoats to plug our ears. I don’t want to go deaf.
‘Now I will fire and reload quickly in case I need to use this on Philips. Believe me, Daisy, I never would dream of killing anyone, but I will kill that man if he gets in my way. It’s a double-barrelled shotgun. Let’s give that door both barrels.’
Rose hurried up the stairs. Daisy, holding the candle, followed her. ‘Back off,’ ordered Rose. ‘I’m going to fire.’
The resultant blast was tremendous. Not only was the lock shot but there was a jagged gaping hole in the door.
They rushed through. Philips came running down the stairs. Rose quickly reloaded the shotgun and turned to face him.
‘Open the front door,’ she ordered.
‘You’d never use that on me,’ said Philips. ‘That would be murder.’ Because of the ear-plugs, Rose could barely hear what he was saying but she took careful aim and blasted a hole in the step below the one on which Philips was standing. He fell backwards. Rose reloaded. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘open up.’
But he turned and rushed back up the stairs, shouting, ‘Helga!’
‘That bitch looks as if she might have a gun,’ panted Daisy. ‘Shoot the front lock.’
Out on the road, Harry exclaimed, ‘Becket, I heard shots, coming from the house. We’d better go.’
Becket cranked up the motor and raced along at top speed of thirty miles an hour and into the drive of The Grange.
Rose and Daisy came sprinting down the drive, Rose carrying a shotgun. Behind them came Philips and two other men.
They stopped short at the sight of Harry.
‘Get in the car,’ shouted Harry.
Rose and Daisy leaped in. Becket turned the car and they drove off.
‘I’ve left me stays,’ said Daisy, and burst into tears. Rose hugged her. ‘I’ll buy you a whole shopful of stays.’
Daisy scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve. ‘With roses on the garters?’
‘With anything you like.’
At first Rose’s parents were outraged by being summoned to Scotland Yard. Surely Scotland Yard should come to them. But when Jarvis told them it concerned their daughter, Lady Polly summoned Humphrey, who was packing up Rose’s clothes, and they set out.
When Lady Polly saw her daughter sitting in Kerridge’s office, she let out a shriek of dismay. Rose’s left eye was nearly closed by the enormous bruise on her cheek.
‘What on earth happened?’ she cried.
In measured tones, Harry described Rose’s ordeal. When he had finished, he said, ‘Did you not consider it odd that Lady Rose should be admitted wearing only the clothes she stood up in?’
‘They said to send her clothes the following day.’
‘And what was she supposed to do in the meantime for clean linen or a nightdress?’
Lady Polly rounded on Humphrey. ‘This is all your fault!’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Rose – much to Daisy’s disappointment. ‘It is you, my unnatural parents. To have me locked up in an asylum because I would not accept a proposal of marriage from a man more than double my age.’
‘Here, now. We thought it was a country retreat,’ protested the earl. He turned to Kerridge. ‘Have you had McWhirter arrested?’
‘He is being brought in for questioning and The Grange is being raided. But Lady Rose cannot give evidence in court unless you wish the whole world to know that you considered your daughter mad.’
‘This is your sort of job,’ said the earl, turning to Harry. ‘Cover it up and send me the bill.’
‘Were it not for my respect for your daughter, who had to shoot her way out of the place, I would gladly see you exposed in the press. It would be better for you and your daughter if you would accept the fact that she may never get married.’
Rose felt tears welling up in her eyes. She did not know why. ‘Don’t cry,’ said Daisy, pressing her hand.
‘I am very hungry,’ sobbed Rose. ‘We have had nothing to eat.’
‘I think you should take your daughter home,’ said Kerridge. ‘I will call on you this evening when I have found out more.’
That evening, before dinner, Rose met her parents in the drawing-room. Daisy sat quietly in the corner and listened in amazement. She had expected the earl and countess to apologize to their daughter, not realizing that such as the earl and countess did not apologize to anyone, ever.
‘We’ve been thinking, Rose,’ said the earl, ‘that Cathcart may have the right of it. We have decided to accept that you will probably remain a spinster. Good idea. Save us the expense of another season, what. You always were bookish and interested in odd things like this vegetarian caper. We don’t mind so long as you don’t go back to supporting the suffragettes or anything scandalous like that.’
