The Plain Old Man by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

the ground was harder than she’d anticipated and she landed with a jolt that rattled her teeth. All things considered, though, her adventure had cost her little except a loss of temper and time.
    Wrong. She’d also lost the ransom note. Was the key in the lock? Yes, it was. She opened the door and went back in, not without a qualm. No, the note was no longer on the counter where she’d put it down. It wasn’t inside Mr. Hosbin’s bulb book. It wasn’t on the floor. It wasn’t anywhere here. Her assailant must have taken it away. But why?
    Because she was the wrong person to have found it? Because he’d found out how much Ernestina was worth and wanted to up the ransom? Because he’d remembered a trifle too late that paper can take fingerprints and that even calligraphy might be distinctive? Its very ineptness might be a clue. Suppose the one who did it was known to be starting a course, for instance, or had been seen buying the right sort of pen at a local stationer’s. Or suppose he happened to be an art student.
    Sarah wished she could be sure whether it had been one person who attacked her in the shed. It almost seemed as if there must have been two, one to drag that sack over her head and one to tie her hands. But it had been such a sloppy job. That business of spinning her around to make her dizzy so whoever it was could make a clean getaway hadn’t been so sloppy, though, amateur or not. As for the careless tying-up, perhaps it hadn’t been meant as anything more than another delaying tactic, to make doubly sure she didn’t escape from the potting shed until her assailant or assailants could get back to the house and mingle with the rest of the cast.
    It had been somebody from the house, Sarah was convinced of that. She must have been under surveillance while she was up on the ladder getting the note off the screen, maybe even earlier while she was prowling through the house. She didn’t think she’d been followed, though. It was far more likely somebody had been keeping an eye on the note from the sun parlor. Like most houses of its period, Emma’s had a good many nooks and jogs. From most angles the library windows couldn’t be seen, but there was one at the far end that gave a clear view, and having the buffet table out there provided a perfect excuse to hang around, or at least pop back and forth. If two or more people were involved, maintaining a lookout would be no great trick at all.
    She thought it would be safe to rule out the orchestra. Sir Arthur Sullivan’s scoring wasn’t complicated enough to allow for the musicians’ mysterious backings and forthings that used to bewilder Sarah when she was twelve and using up the remains of her mother’s last season’s ticket at Symphony. They simply came in together, sat down together, played together until there was nothing left for them to play, and then went out together.
    With the cast it was a different story entirely. Even a member of the chorus could be involved, Sarah assumed until she got back to the house and found Lady Sangazure and Sir Marmaduke just beginning their duet. That meant the entire chorus, both men and women, had been hard at work hailing the betrothal of Alexis the brave and the lovely Aline while she was skinning her wrists on that hoe and her back on the potting-shed windowsill. Aline and the girls would have come in first. Jenicot would have sung “Happy Young Heart,” then the male chorus must have ushered in Alexis so that the lovers could fling themselves into each other’s arms with whoops of rapture. Jenicot and Peter were still together, not embracing but standing quietly under the mock portrait waiting for their next cue.
    “Welcome joy, adieu to sadness! As Aurora gilds the day, so those eyes, twin orbs of gladness chase the clouds of care away,” Jack was informing Emma, who was taking it calmly. He wasn’t flushed or panting, either, not like a man who’d just been tearing across the back lawn locking