Castle Fear (4 page)

"My hair is auburn, not red. What are you doing here?"

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same question."

The young woman came into the living room, pushing the door closed with one leg. "I'm looking for Jillian Seabright."

"So am I. That could mean we're on the same side of whatever game's being played."

A thoughtful look came into the woman's eyes. "Who are you?"

"Joe Hardy. Sorry I didn't get around to introducing myself last night. And you?"

"You wouldn't have a brother named Frank, would you?"

Joe sighed. "Sometimes I wish I had a choice in that matter. But I have to admit I do."

"The Hardy brothers. You're sort of detectives."

"Sort of," Joe repeated, grinning. "And your name is . . . ?"

"Oh, I'm Karen Kirk." She pulled her right hand out of the bag, empty. "Really, I don't have a gun. But from the back you looked like you might be a burglar - or worse."

"Lots of people say that about me. You really are a friend of Jillian's?"

"Yes, I met her when I was in London last summer." Karen walked over to the sofa and sat down. "I interviewed her, in fact."

"You're a reporter?"

"Sort of." Karen grinned at him. "It was just an article on a promising young British actress for my high school paper back in Connecticut." Her grin faded. "This trip, though, I'm working for Teen Travel magazine in New York. It's a summer intern program, and I was supposed to stay with Jillian for the two weeks I'm in London."

"When did you arrive?"

"Two days ago. I came right here, but she wasn't around. I checked into a youth hostel, and I've been trying to find her ever since."

"How did you get in today?"

"I finally managed to track down an actress friend of hers who had a spare key to the flat. But she didn't know where Jillian had gone." Karen shrugged. "Anyway, I came here today just to look around her flat. Hoping, you know, to find some clue as to where she is. Do you think she's in trouble, or in some kind of danger?"

Joe straddled the desk chair. "First tell me what you were doing hanging around Jed Shannon's place last night."

"I knew Jillian was planning to see him when he came to London," she answered. "I was intending to ask if he had any idea where I could find her."

"How did you get his address?"

"Oh, I know some people working for one of the teen magazines over here. It wasn't too tough to get his temporary address."

"It wasn't tough for whoever pumped a couple of shots at us, either." Joe got up, remembering something, and headed for the phone table next to the sofa. "Why didn't you go ahead and try to talk to Jed?"

"I was right across the street when that man shot at you." Karen shook her head. "It suddenly didn't seem like such a safe place to be. I decided I wouldn't want anyone linking me up with Jed Shannon. So I ran and hid - and then I met you."

Joe raised his eyebrows. "You mean there isn't any Bozo?"

Karen sighed. "I made up the dog."

"What kind was he?"

She thought about it. "A Great Dane, probably."

"Did you get a look at the guy who shot at us?" Joe picked up the phone receiver and began unscrewing the mouthpiece. "Keep talking."

"Do you expect to find a bug?"

"I want to check it out. Tell me about the guy."

"Well, he was crouching down behind a car almost directly across from Jed's house. I was about half a block away on the same side of the street. But because of the fog, I didn't see the man till he popped up and took two shots at you. Then he took off, and so did I - in the opposite direction."

"So it was you I saw running off." Joe gave Karen a piercing look. "Can you describe him?"

"Big, wide shoulders, wearing a pea coat - like sailors in the movies. A knit cap - dark clothes. I didn't get a good look at his face, but I think maybe he had a broken nose."

"Young?"

"Not especially - maybe in his thirties."

Joe frowned in thought. Could have been the one who left us a note, he said to himself. He cut Karen off before she could bombard him with questions. "Somebody planted a threat in our car."

"Sounds like you should have locked the door."

"It was locked." Joe dug a small electronic listening device out of the phone and dropped it on the table. "This is how they knew about Jed Shannon." He picked up a heavy ashtray and smashed the bug.

Karen stared at the pieces as if they hid a great mystery. "This doesn't make any sense to me, Joe. Bugs in the phone, mysterious gunmen. It's like something out of a spy novel."

"More like someone with a very efficient staff is interested in Jillian."

"You didn't answer my question before. Is she in danger?"

"I'd say she is. But nobody's been killed so far."

"You don't know that for certain." Karen's voice rose. "Jillian might be dead right now."

"I don't think so." Joe responded. "The bad guys - whoever they may be - are working too hard to keep us from looking for her."

"That doesn't mean she's not dead."

"Forgive my being blunt, but if she were dead, she couldn't tell us anything about her captors. So the fact that people are trying to stop us is a good sign." Joe picked up the news magazine, which he'd left on the desk. "Does this mean anything to you?"

Karen studied the marked story. "Not much, I'm afraid. As far as I know, Jillian didn't know this Emily Cornwall." She started to hand the magazine back, then stopped. "But there is one thing."

"What?"

"Well, this girl in the picture - Emily Cornwall, I mean. She does look incredibly like Jillian. Of course, she's a brunette, and Jillian's blond. And she doesn't look anywhere near as healthy as Jillian, but the resemblance is amazing."

"When's the last time you and Jillian talked?"

"Two weeks ago. I phoned to confirm the details of my visit."

Taking the magazine back, Joe folded it under his arm. "Did she mention a big movie role that was coming her way, or maybe a nice part in a new play?"

Frowning, Karen answered, "Yes, she did. She wasn't full of details, though. All she said was that there was a good possibility she'd soon be as rich as I was."

"You're rich?"

"Not me, actually, no." Karen looked down at her hands. "But my father happens to be a millionaire."

"That's a nice sort of father to have. How was Julian planning to get rich?"

"It was from an acting job. But, as I say, she was reluctant to talk about it."

Joe gave Karen a skeptical look. So Jillian had a big acting job coming up - that seemed like a pretty poor time to disappear on a vacation. "Was she usually that closemouthed?" he asked.

"No, not Jillian. This time, however, I had the impression someone had cautioned her not to talk about this particular job. Show business people can be very secretive at times - 'Don't tell anyone about this, or it might spoil the deal.' "

Joe shook his head. This whole situation made no sense. Threats against Jed, warnings not to look for Jillian. Jillian's disappearance - which might or might not be wrapped up with a secret acting job. Karen Kirk's appearance on the scene right after her friend disappeared. And where did the magazine article in his pocket fit in? There were altogether too many questions here, and far too few answers.

He checked his wristwatch. "I'm due to meet Frank for lunch in half an hour," he said. "If you came along, we could pool what we know."

"Are you inviting me to lunch?"

'Yeah, in a purely businesslike way, understand," Joe said with a wide grin.

A quick ride on the London Underground brought them to the Bloomsbury area and the restaurant where Joe was supposed to meet Frank. A huge sign in the window read Real American-style Burgers. They grabbed a white Formica-topped table and settled in to wait for Frank. After fifteen minutes, Joe went ahead and ordered sodas and burgers for Karen and himself.

They took nearly half an hour to arrive. And after one bite, Joe stared at the shriveled-up beef patty in his bun. "American burgers, huh?" He glanced at Karen. "Does this taste like a Connecticut burger to you? It sure doesn't taste like a Bayport burger."

Karen put her bun down, too, giving Joe a lopsided smile. "Maybe it fools the British, but not two hungry Americans."

"Right now I'm more worried about lost Americans." Joe looked at his watch, frowning. "Frank should have been here when we arrived. Now he's almost forty-five minutes late."

He dug some money out of his pocket to pay for the almost-untouched burgers.

"Something's wrong here, very wrong. I think Frank's in trouble - and I know the first place to check."

The world was faded, woolly, and full of dust. At least, that's how it seemed to Frank Hardy as he came to. He sneezed on the dust and regretted it. Sneezing isn't smart when you're dizzy, sick, and have an awful headache.

Frank was just getting his face out of the old carpet when he heard footsteps approaching. He struggled to his feet.

Ian Fisher-Stone - or whoever it was - wasn't going to get away with it a second time. Catching a blurry glimpse of legs, Frank lunged into a tackle.

"Hey!" a voice burst out.

"Nice play, Frank," said another voice.

Frank was down on the rug again, where he discovered he'd just tackled a young woman wearing jeans.

His brother, Joe, stood just beyond the tangle, grinning. He helped Karen up and said to Frank, "Glad to see you're conscious. Let me introduce you to Karen Kirk."

"Sorry about that," muttered Frank as Karen helped him up.

Karen looked at Frank and said, "That's okay. I'm getting used to being jumped by men I've never seen before. You take after your brother in that respect." Then she asked, "What happened? When you didn't show up for lunch, your brother and I hurried over here. Why were you on the floor?"

Frank touched his head carefully. "I was dumb," he answered. "So I got rapped on the skull because of it."

"By Fisher-Stone?" Joe asked.

"By a guy who wasn't Fisher-Stone but tried to convince me he was."

Joe looked carefully at his brother. "You'd better see a doctor. Maybe at the hotel ... "

"I'll be okay."

"You could have a concussion," said Karen.

"I've been hit on the head before, and this doesn't feel like a ... Hey, what's that?"

Lying on the rug where he'd been sprawled was a crumpled piece of paper. "Looks like a railroad timetable - whoa!" Bending to pick up the paper, Frank suddenly felt woozy.

Joe caught his wobbly brother and guided him to a chair. "Even if you don't have a concussion, sit down for a while."

Karen gathered up the fallen timetable, straightened it out, and leafed through it. "This might mean something." She pointed to one of the station names - circled in pencil.

Joe squinted. "Whoever bopped you noted down the train departure times for Beswick."

"That's down in Kent, I think. About a hundred miles from London," Karen said.

"Beswick ... Beswick," murmured Joe. He snapped his fingers, grinned, and tugged out the news magazine he'd slipped into his back pocket. "That's the town where Emily Cornwall is supposed to go - No, by now she's living there, at the Talbot estate."

"Maybe I'm groggier than I realized." Frank gave him a look. "I don't seem to know what the heck either of you is talking about. And who is this Karen Kirk?"

"Oh, she's the redhead - urn, the auburn-haired young woman I met last night," Joe said. "You know, the one who was walking a dog - except there was no dog."

"Oh, sure, that's clear so far."

"I'm a friend of Jillian Seabright's," Karen told him. "I'm looking for her, too."

"Karen's a reporter from Connecticut. She was supposed to room with Jillian while she's over here on vacation."

Frank rubbed his forehead. "How long was I out? You learned her entire life story, and - "

"A good investigator asks the right questions," Joe told him. "You can get a lot of information quickly that way."

"Fine - so now suppose you tell me who Emily Cornwall is. And why Beswick is suddenly the hottest town in England."

"Read." Joe set the open magazine on the edge of the cluttered desk. "That's Emily Cornwall in the picture - the thin one."

"I can read the caption." Frank glared at his brother. "So?"

"If you bothered to keep reading ..." Joe said, pointing at another paragraph in the story. "See here? Emeralds. Heiress. Emily Cornwall seldom seen. Returns to England."

"And?"

"We found the magazine, with that particular story marked, in Jillian's apartment," Karen said. "This Emily Cornwall person looks quite a lot like Jillian."

Joe looked at Frank. "Does that fact suggest to you what it suggests to me?"

"It's a possibility," Frank said.

"Let's cut the mumbo-jumbo," Karen said. "You think Jillian may be impersonating Emily Cornwall?"

"I think it's worth looking into," Frank said.

"There's the big money Jillian was hoping to make," Joe pointed out. "But I'm not sure where the man in the Rolls-Royce fits in."

Frank rolled his eyes. "What man in the Rolls-Royce?"

Joe ran through what he'd learned from Mrs. Farnum. "So that's the whole story. Whatever's up doesn't sound very legal."

Karen cut in. "I know Jillian - she'd never do anything that was against the law."

"This Emily Cornwall business is just one possibility." Frank frowned. "It might even be some kind of curve ball to throw us off - pitched by the people who kidnapped Jillian." His frown deepened. "If, of course, she was actually kidnapped."

"I think that knock you took has put all sorts of weird ideas in your head," Joe said. "Maybe you should take the afternoon off."

"No, I can handle it. Besides, we have an appointment at the theater this afternoon." Frank tested his sore head again and winced. "There's a matinee of 'Tis a Pity She Won't Be Woo'd, and we'll be able to talk to most of the people who worked with Jillian."

Karen picked up the news magazine. "Let me show this to some friends in the magazine biz. I won't give away anything, and I may be able to find out more about Miss Cornwall and her fortune."