"No word from Jenson?" Foyle asked Milner.
"No, sir. And no sign of the cab." Milner added: "Yet."
Foyle glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour now. He saw Milner follow his gaze, and from the younger man's drawn face Foyle guessed he, too, was thinking of how many terrible things could happen in less time than had already elapsed.
"I'm sorry, sir," Milner said. "This was my fault - I should have realized something was wrong earlier."
There were a range of things Foyle could think of in response to that, including Yes, you bloody well should have, but the presence of Sergeant Brooke and Constable Marksbury prevented him. Rebuking Milner in front of the men he commanded would be unforgivable. He settled instead for: "Sam gets herself into the most damnable scrapes, Sergeant," which had the advantage of being both tactful and entirely true.
"Yes, sir," Milner said, "but -"
The desk phone rang. Sergeant Brooke pounced on it. After a second's listening, he said: "Miss Stewart?"
"Marksbury," Milner said quietly, "Use the line in Mr Foyle's-" He caught himself. "In Mr Meredith's office. Get on to the exchange and find out where this call is coming from."
Marksbury ran down the corridor.
Foyle held out his hand and Brooke immediately put the receiver in it. "Sam?" he said. "Where are you?"
"Corner of George and Washburn," she said immediately. Trust Sam to know exactly where in Hastings she was, blindfold. The slurring of her voice troubled him, though.
"Are you alright?" he asked. "Are you safe?"
Her voice was very small as she answered: "I don't know."
Oh, Sam. "We're coming, Sam," he said, as firmly and confidently as he could. "Just hold on."
"Holding on, sir," Sam said.
He gave the receiver back to Brooke. "Keep talking to her," he said.
"Will do, sir," Brooke said, and into the phone. "It's me again, Miss Stewart, Brookie."
Marksbury came back at a run. "Phone box," he panted. "Corner of Washburn and -"
"George," Foyle said. "Get the car."
He and Milner were close behind Marksbury and soon they were driving through the darkened streets. Too slowly, Foyle thought. Lad's far too uncertain for police driving.
Sam would have us there by now.
He strangled that thought, and leaned forward in the back seat to say: "Constable, you could probably go a little faster."
Marksbury gave an audible gulp. "Yes, sir," he said, and increased the speed of the car by, Foyle judged, about one-eighth of a mile per hour.
Finally they approached their destination. Foyle was out of the car before it had entirely stopped, Milner a close second. Foyle heard the other man's uneven footsteps behind him as he reached the phone box and yanked open the door to see Sam, curled on the floor with the receiver still clutched in her hand, apparently asleep, Brooke's voice still audible on the other end of the line.
He prised the receiver from Sam's hand, said brusquely: "We've got her. Hang up and call an ambulance," and let the receiver dangle from the cord. "Sam. Sam. Open your eyes. Sam."
She stirred drowsily. Foyle found the pulse at her wrist and found it steady. No blood, her clothes aren't torn … Perhaps the worst he'd feared hadn't happened.
"Sam, wake up now. You have to wake up."
" 'llo sir," she said without opening her eyes.
"Are you all right?" Foyle asked. He searched her scalp carefully but found no abrasions, no signs of a head injury.
"Fine," Sam said. "Jus' tired."
The booth was cramped, but Foyle managed to get Sam under the arms and pull her out onto the cobbles. "Help me get her up," he said to Marksbury, and the young constable pulled Sam's arm over his shoulders and helped Foyle lift her to her feet. "Stay awake, Sam. You have to walk."
"Pilchard's Hardware," she said carefully and slowly.
"Sorry?"
Sam opened one eye and peered at him owlishly. "Pilchard's Hardware. One block east. Of it. Where they took me. The bartender 'n' the cabbie."
Foyle braced himself against her weight. "Take Marksbury," he said to Milner. "Get after them. I'll stay with Sam until the ambulance gets here."
"Yes, sir," Milner said, and a moment later, the two police officers were gone.
"It was th' bartender," Sam said in a tired thread of a voice.
"We know," Foyle told her. He had to put both his arms around her waist to hold her up as she sagged. "Come on Sam, you have to walk a little."
She leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh. " 'm tired," she complained.
"Hold on, Sam," Foyle said. "The ambulance will be here soon."
"'m fine," she said sleepily, nestling more comfortably against him. "Just need to rest a sec."
"You need to walk," he said. "Just a little, Sam. Come on. Try for me. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot, right foot."
She shuffled obediently.
"Good," Foyle said. "Left foot. Right foot. That's it. Left foot. Right foot." If there had been music, they would have been dancing, making a slow circuit of the street, his arms around her waist, hers draped about his shoulders. If not for the excuse of necessity, it would have been quite inappropriate between employer and employee. Former employee and former employee, Foyle corrected himself.
"This is nice," Sam murmured. "Y're nice."
"Walk, Sam," Foyle said firmly.
"Y' nev'r took me dancing b'fore," she said.
"I'm not taking you dancing now," Foyle said, a little startled to hear his thoughts echoed aloud. "You need to keep moving. Try to stay awake. The drink you had was dosed with chloral hydrate."
"I know," Sam said peevishly. " 'm not stupid."
You were damnably stupid tonight, Foyle thought, but he bit his tongue. Time enough to take her to task when the mickey's worn off.
"Cab-driver," Sam said. "Tha's how they worked it. Some poor chap jus' trying to be nice looks like the villain."
"I know," Foyle said. "Left foot, right foot."
She raised her head a little. "How do you know?"
"I worked it out," Foyle said with some asperity, "about five minutes after Constable Marksbury told me you were missing, last seen in the back of a cab."
"Wish you'd worked it out sooner," Sam complained, and nestled her head against his neck again. "Was quite horrid."
Foyle paused. But the hospital will need to know. "Did they … hurt you?"
"No," Sam said, and Foyle closed his eyes a moment in relief. "I jolly well kicked him and ran. Then Jen saved me."
"Jen?" Foyle tried to locate a Jen or Jennifer from the local area in the files of his memory. Jennifer Howard, but she's across town … Jenny Pollack moved home to her mother three months ago …
"Jen Chenard. Or Pawley. Or whatever," Sam said. "Secret Jen."
"Did you see her?" Foyle asked carefully. If she's hallucinating, there might have been something else in that drink.
"No," Sam said. "Not like that. I remembered what she did. With that plurry cad Standish. Pretending. So I pretended. That Milner and you were there. An' they ran away." She paused. "Was jolly clever, I thought."
"We-ell," Foyle said, relieved she was becoming more alert. "at least you did one clever thing tonight."
"More th'n one," Sam told him. "Poured m' drink in m' handbag. Can analyze."
"Two clever things," Foyle said, "and a dozen daft ones." Sam seemed steadier on her feet, and he turned so they were instead side-by-side, supporting her with one arm around her waist, a more appropriate distance between them.
"Will we catch them?" she asked.
"They will, yes," Foyle said. There might be areas of policework in which Milner could improve, but for dogged, patient, painstaking work he had no equal, and that was exactly what would be called for if the two men weren't arrested tonight. If it takes days, or weeks, or months, Milner will feel their collars.
"I wish it was still us," Sam said sadly. "I wish I was still useful."
"Sam," Foyle said, seeing the dimmed headlights of the ambulance at the end of the street, "you're still useful. I'd go so far as to say - "
The ambulance pulled up and the medic leapt out. With a mingled sense of relief and indefinable disappointment, Foyle swallowed what he had almost said, and turned Sam over to medical care.
"I'll see you at the hospital," he told her as the doors closed.
Foyle settled his hat more firmly on his head, and turned back to the phonebox to update Brooke as, with a crash of gears that Sam herself would never have committed, the ambulance pulled away.
Sam, you're still useful.
I'd go far as to say that to me -
You're essential.
It was indeed lucky the ambulance had arrived when it had, saving him from such impropriety.
Briskly, he lifted the dangling receiver, depressed the cradle, and dialed.