Locke gazed at her with astonishment. "My hat is off to you. I would not have thought of any of that. I hesitate to call anything a perfect plan, but this one is as close to perfect as a reasonable person could wish. I assume you'll put her to sleep to make her easier to handle?"
"Probably," Alison agreed. "I wouldn't even need to use a spell, if I didn't want to. A little chloroform on a sponge would do the trick."
"More reliably renewable than a spell, too," Locke murmured admiringly. "And costs nothing in power. You could even do it with your daughters; simply wait until the girl has gone to sleep, go up to her room, administer the sponge, and there will not even be a struggle."
She did not ask how he knew that. Presumably he had some experience in such matters.
"As I told you, I prefer simple plans," she replied, feeling so pleased with her own ideas that she was willing to be very pleasant to the man. "And it does occur to me that when this works, I'll be needing to find some place safe and secure to put the afflicted child. I scarcely intend to keep her at home; the present servant problem is bad enough without trying to find someone to care for and stand guard over a madwoman. I presume that you've been looking into such things?"
"Discreetly, I assure you, and mentioning no names," he responded immediately, and dug into his case for a file. "And here are the best places I found—quite discreet, very understanding about the need to keep someone alive and healthy, but once a patient is checked in, they don't ever emerge."
She smiled, and leaned over the table to examine the tastefully subdued brochures. On his own ground, Locke was knowledgeable and immensely helpful.
She would definitely keep him around a while longer.
Especially now that he realized she didn't need him to come up with better plans than he could. It would make him a little on edge, and anxious not to get on her bad side, because she was, after all, a most generous client.
July 18, 1917
Longacre Park, Warwickshire
Lady Devlin was a very old-fashioned hostess, and that meant she believed in doing things the old-fashioned way. She was writing out every one of the invitations for the ball herself, since she no longer had a secretary to tend to such things for her. The estate manager could probably have done it for her, but she claimed that she was enjoying it. After a while, out of sheer guilt, Reggie elected to help her. His once-neat copperplate handwriting was gone all to hell, of course, with lack of practice, but it was good enough to address envelopes.
Which was tedious, but saved his mother the effort of writing out the addresses and allowed her to concentrate on the aesthetics of producing the invitations. They couldn't be printed, alas; perhaps the middle-class found invitations where one filled in missing names and dates acceptable, but no one of Lady Devlin's stature would even consider resorting to such a stratagem. Besides, many of them required a certain level of personalization in the form of a note.
It did allow him to sit down without looking like a malingerer. It also gave him a chance to find out who the girls were that would be pursuing him at this little hunt disguised as a party.
Roberta and Leva Cygnet; not much of a surprise there. They were already coming to teas and tennis-parties. "Mrs. Regina Towner," though—"Regina Towner?" he asked, casually. "Do I know the Towners?"
"An old friend from school," his mother replied, just as casually. Right enough; mother's age, which means her daughter is probably my age . . . Mr. Robert and Mrs. Tansy, Esq., and daughter. So Ginger will be in the howling pack. Good gad, I hope some of my lads come through. I need all the distractions I can muster, and Ginger likes to dance. Some of the next few were innocuous enough. Then, "Lt. Commander Matthew Mann, the Hon. Mrs. Matthew Mann, Miss Mann." Ah, good gad. The Brigadier's granddaughter, and Mama is an "Hon." I've never seen an "Hon." that wasn't on the hunt for a title for the family. Well, the Brigadier warned me. "Vicountess Arabella Reed." One of Lady Virginia's friends, she was a chatterbox, but at least she didn't have any daughters.
Then, at last, the run of invitations that he hoped would save him—pilots-in-training at the school headquartered at Oxford, and lads he knew either were on leave or could get it. Even a cadet was a second lieutenant, and while Mamas were on the hunt for titles, daughters were easily distracted by officers' dress-uniforms.
Second Lt. Michael Freed, Second Lt. David Jackson, at Reading. Lt. Vincent Paul Mills, good gad, I hope he doesn't get shot to bits before this thing comes off; that handsome face will be even more of a distraction than his uniform. Captain Michael Dolbeare; good thing he's training the lads at Oxford; he's a got enough medals at this point to sink him if he fell in the river, and the girls can't resist the shiny. Lt. Allen McBain; arm in a sling, but even if he can't dance he's another handsome devil. That Scots burr, though; the girls will giggle over it and make him blush, which is entertaining as well as a distraction. Now the Oxford lot. Second Lt. John Oliver, Second Lt. Charles Goddard, Second Lt. Lyman Evans—at least they aren't losing a flying-student a day the way they were at the start of the war, or half my invitations would never get answered. Of course Turner had made sure that the names he had given Reggie were of the better students who had less chance of cracking up. That was a concern; ambulances were stationed at the students' fields because they were, by heaven, needed. The accident rate was appalling, the death-rate even more so. The Rumpetys killed more lads than combat did. Thank Cod for the Gosport system. Things had changed since he was a cadet; now there was a logical system in place for training. Still. Back in his day, there were always several dozen crashes a day when the weather permitted and the planes were up. Usually one cadet died a day, and several more .were injured. Not so bad now, though. Can't afford to lose that many in training, I suppose. Took those old men long enough to figure that out.
He shook off the shakes that threatened him as he remembered some of those crashes . . . fortunately, his sojourn at the school as a cadet had been mercifully short. He already knew how to fly, and didn't take long to prove it.
Captain William Robert Howe. Can't do without him. He's bringing the band— Thanks to the Brigadier; this was a regular infantry band, though they had played for the RFC. That would give some of the FBI a thrill, coming up to a country house to play. Captain Howe was the officer in charge and the bandleader, all in one. And, the Brigadier claimed, single. Another alternate target for the husband-hunters. FBI he might be, and less glamorous than a pilot, but he was a captain.
Captain Steven Stewart, and he'd damned well better get leave. Steve had pledged on his life he'd come. Tommy had sworn he'd see to it. Tommy had incentive; was getting a case of whiskey from the Longacre cellars if Steve did make it.
Lt. Commander Geoffrey Cockburn, and if he puts his auto in the pond again, I'll make him go in after it. Captain Christopher Whitmore, and he had better not bring all that photographic paraphernalia with him. Both had been chums of his at college. Geoff was a tearaway, Chris studious, both still single and not at all unhandsome. Yet more fodder for the husband-hunters. With luck, he'd get a word with them ahead of time so they could help keep the harpies off.