by Oisin McGann
“We’re dreadfully sorry to hear the news, sir,” he said, speaking in a staccato voice that was not unlike the machines he operated. “My staff are eager to do whatever they can to help.”
Nate told him to send a message to Berto in London. The Chief Operator immediately took over a booth and tapped it out himself.
“CONFIRM YOUR WIFE HAS BEEN TAKEN ILL STOP ALL EFFORTS BEING MADE TO RETURN HER TO FULL HEALTH STOP NO CONTACT FROM THIRD PARTY HERE STOP PLEASE SEND ON ANY DETAILS YOU HAVE SO WE CAN THANK THEM PERSONALLY STOP”
Nate wished he could wait for a reply, but there was too much to do. He thanked the Chief Operator and was walking out the door when the man called after him.
“Oh, sir! I’m sorry to bring this up, but if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you send Edgar back when he has a free moment? It’s just that he had yesterday’s code sheet for the confidential messages. He has to give it to me in person, and then I need to file it as soon as possible. These things get lost so easily, you know.”
Edgar … for a few seconds, Nate tried to remember the face that went with the name. It was impossible to recall all the staff’s names, of course, even if he had been inclined to try. But it just so happened that Nate remembered this boy because he had the same name as Nate’s father. Young Edgar was a talented operator who normally worked the night shift in the office.
“He was on last night?” Nate frowned. “I didn’t pull anyone out of this office until this morning, when you got in. You’re telling me he’s missing?”
“Why, yes, sir. We assumed he had joined the search.”
“I don’t think so,” Nate muttered.
It was very unlikely that Edgar had simply left his post. Absence from the workplace was not treated lightly in the North American Trading Company and Edgar did not seem the type anyway. With things as they were, anything out of the ordinary had to be treated with suspicion.
“Which booth was he working in?” Nate asked.
“Unless we’re expecting a lot of traffic, there would normally only be one Night Operator on duty. So he would have been on the key by the switchboard.”
Nate strode over to the booth, which was larger than the others, and gestured to the switchboard operator to move out of the seat. Peering very carefully at the desk, the wooden swivel chair and the floor, he found three small spots on the floor under the seat. Blood.
“Search the office—search the whole damn floor if you have to!” he barked at the Chief Operator. “I think young Edgar hasn’t gone far at all. No … hang on, wait. Everyone just stay quiet for a minute.”
He was obeyed immediately. Without the hustle and the bustle of the office, they were able to hear a muffled thumping sound. The Chief Operator identified where it was coming from at once—a stationary cupboard at the end of the room. The entire staff rushed across the room behind Nate, relishing the drama. Opening the door of the cupboard, Nate found a man only a little younger than he was buried under wrapped reams of paper. The lad was securely bound with twine wound many times around his wrists and ankles and had a shallow wound on the side of his head. They quickly dug him out and helped him up. He was gagged, and his rust-colored hair was matted with sweat, his pale face damp with it.
“I was jumped, sir!” he blurted out, as soon as the gag was pulled from his mouth. His apology was to the Chief Operator first, but then he realized who Nate was and turned to face him, eyes down. “I’m so sorry, sir! I don’t know what happened. Somebody clocked me from be’ind, trussed me up, and locked me in that there cupboard. I didn’t get a look at his face, but I swear it’s the God’s honest truth.”
“I believe you,” Nate assured him. “You were a victim of a much larger plot, lad. We have to assume that whoever it was knocked you out simply because you were here. Either you were in their way or … or they …” His voice trailed off. “Or they needed to send a message.”
“That they did, sir,” Edgar replied, a shy smile on his face. “Heard the blackguard tapping it out, didn’t I sir?”
“Is that right?” Nate stared down at him. “Good lad! And what was the message, exactly?”
“Well, after he’d got through to Dublin and sent the prefix, the message itself was just one word,” Edgar told him. “Helen.”
There was little else that Edgar could tell him, except that he had been assaulted at around eleven the previous evening, a little after the time Daisy was thought to have been kidnapped. Nate was already mulling over this as he walked toward the door. The sheer nerve of the act had him swearing under his breath. “Helen.” As in Helen of Troy, no doubt. The beautiful queen stolen away from a Greek king by a Trojan prince. The act that triggered the legendary siege of Troy. It was a message sent to his accomplices in London; a simple code for, “We have her.” The signal to contact Berto and demand a ransom.
Nate instructed the Chief Operator to contact the office in Dublin that had relayed the message and find out where it had been sent. The signal would have to pass through several staging offices to reach London or any other distant location. The kidnapper had left the secret network of passages and come out into the office floors to use the telegraph. Only a fool would do that unless he absolutely had to. And this man was no fool. If he had taken such a risk, it had to be because he couldn’t communicate with his accomplices outside in any other way—this was the only telegraph office he could reach.
“They’re still here, somewhere,” Nate growled under his breath as he strode out of the office. “The cur never left the damn house.”
Oliver, Gideon’s son, was coming in as Nate rushed out. The two nearly ran into each other.
“Mind where you’re going!” Oliver snapped, then added with a sneer. “God’s teeth, man. How do you expect to find our missing damsel when you can’t find your way through a door without incident!”
Nate did not reply, pushing past his cousin instead and making for the elevator. He was already fretting over another problem. Barnum had sent a telegraph from their office to his accomplices; but how could they get a message back to him, to tell him the ransom had been paid? If Barnum was still in the house, he was surely cut off from any contact with the outside world. So, either the traitor who had let him into the house was doing the communicating for him … or the message did not matter, as they never intended to release Daisy. After all, any reasonable-minded villain would realize that it would make his escape a lot more expedient to simply kill her once he had his ransom money.
Nate broke into a run, reaching the end of the corridor and thumping the bell to summon the elevator. Somewhere in the dark maze of booby-trapped passageways riddling this massive house, Daisy could be dead long before any search party found her.
VII
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
Daisy let out a low moan. The sensation she was experiencing was not like waking up; it was more like passing into that state of dream where the dreamer can recognize that it is indeed a dream. Where reality and dream are swirling together and the brain is struggling to separate them. Then she opened her eyes and could see the room again.
The tracks of tears lined her face and her throat was raw and sore. She had lost the ability to scream after her voice had failed some time back, her strangled silence broken from time to time by rasping breaths grating up her throat. Barnum took the dream-catcher from her head and placed it on the table. Daisy realized there were strands of its web hanging off her shoulders. Produced in its excitement, no doubt. The engimal moved as if bloated and drunk from her nightmares.
“It will need to rest for a little while, before it can feed again,” Barnum said in a hushed voice. “How was that for you?”
“You bastard,” she coughed, barely able to speak as she winced at the pain from her abused throat. “You unbelievable bastard.”
“This device was of God’s making, not mine,” he said to her. “I am merely allowing it to
feed. Can any of His works really be evil? And speaking of God and his machines, do you remember my request? The healing engimal. I dare say you could do with its ministrations yourself about now. Tell me where it is or this will all begin again.”
Daisy’s inability to speak helped her now. She was tempted to just be done with it and tell him about the Wildensterns’ extraordinary blood. But a part of her, a savage part awakened by her pain, snarled and gnashed its teeth together at this idea. Her brittle voice gave her reason to hesitate a few moments to overcome the weak, frightened part of her and let this fury in her rise to the surface. Silently uttering a prayer to God, she lifted her eyes to meet Barnum’s.
“Mr. Barnum,” she croaked, “though you clearly know how to show a lady a good time, I must humbly request that you take your dream-catcher and shove it up your hole. I’m sure it will be able to tickle your brains all the better from there.”
Barnum gazed at her for a moment, then nodded, with a hint of a smile. He took a watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to keep,” he said. “We can resume our little tête-à-tête when I return. In the meantime, I will let you mull over this little morsel: My precious tormentor here can turn the screws with ever-greater precision the more it gets to know you. It can only get worse from here.”
Then he placed the dream-catcher in the travel case, closed the lid, and left, locking the door behind him. The trans-portmanteau stayed in its corner, watching her. Daisy let out a shuddering breath and sobbed quietly. The ropes that bound her gave no sign of being any looser. Barnum had tied the knots well. The chair was sturdy and she had no idea where she was. But there had to be a way out of this. There simply had to be.
VIII
THE HEART OF DARKNESS
Nate stood in front of the bookcase in Daisy’s bedroom. The one that led into the secret passage. He was alone. Gerald was coordinating the search of the house, checking every hidden passage that he could with the staff who could be trusted with the house’s secrets. But Nate was convinced that whoever had let Barnum into the house would have shown him the most obscure, least-known space imaginable in the enormous building.
Hardly anybody knew every corner of Wildenstern Hall. Some of the older generation— Gideon, Elvira, and their brood—perhaps. But not many others. Nate, Berto, Gerald, and Tatiana had explored the place extensively as children, getting lost and having to be found by loyal and diligent servants. Even with a map and directions, it was difficult to find one’s way around.
Nate began to undress. When he was clad in nothing but his undershorts, he packed his clothes and shoes into a small satchel and slung it over his shoulder, sliding it behind his back. He had undressed so that if he brushed against any of the fine threads that could trigger a booby trap, he would have a better chance of feeling it in time. Some of the hidden rooms higher up in the tower were soundproofed, but not many. He had already checked them all. The kidnapper would need to be sure that Daisy could not scream for help if she got the chance. They were more likely to be deep in the bowels of the building.
To get from the top of this tower to the bottom following the hidden passageways, in the dark, with a captive, avoiding the booby traps set outside the secret doors into the rooms of the various fiercely defensive family members, would be an amazing feat. And it would have to have been done quickly. Barnum could not have done it alone. Even a member of the family would have to plan the route in advance.
Nate picked up a small paraffin lamp and, opening the bookcase door, he stepped inside. Creeping slowly forward, he searched the walls and floor carefully. At the first junction, he found what he was looking for. A small arrow, less than three inches long, marked in chalk high up on the wall, pointing back the way he had come. At the next junction, he found another—again, it pointed back along the path he had just taken.
Nate allowed himself a smile. It could well be that the traitor had come up here days in advance and carefully marked out a path for himself in order to move quickly through the tunnels in the night. Edging forward with great care, Nate began to follow the arrows.
He was so busy studying the walls, he didn’t see the thread until he walked into it. It was just the faintest sensation brushing across the skin of his thigh as he took a step forward. He went instantly still, holding his breath and drawing backward with painstaking care. It took a few moments to find the thread in the light, even though he knew where it should be. It was tied to the firing pin on a spherical bomb the size of a cricket ball, hidden behind a supporting beam protruding from the wall. On closer examination, he could see it was wrapped in paper, packed with nails. Taking long, slow, gentle breaths, he disarmed it.
It was going to take a very long time to get to the bottom of the house.
IX
A NECESSARY CHANGE OF PLAN
The distant sound could have been made by something very heavy falling, or perhaps a small explosion of some kind. It reinforced Daisy’s feeling that she was underground. She knew something was wrong as soon as she heard Barnum’s footsteps approaching. Normally, he moved with quiet grace. Now, his breathing was labored, his footsteps heavy, hurried.
When he unlocked the door and opened it, she saw that he was covered in grey dust from head to toe. His eyes were wide and intense. The man barely spared her a glance as he left the door open, but gestured at the trans-portmanteau to guard it.
“Problems?” she asked, her voice coming a little easier now.
Barnum ignored her, pulling a revolver from under his jacket and breaking it open. He checked that the dust had not got into its workings and snapped it closed, tucking it back into his waistband. Opening the travel trunk, he took out a large Bowie knife in a sheath and another gun—a sawn-off, double-barreled shotgun. He also picked out what looked like a large spool of thread.
“Why, you seem quite agitated, Mr. Barnum,” Daisy observed, making no attempt to hide her interest. “Are we expecting company?”
He paused for a moment, glaring at his acid-tongued prisoner as if pondering what to do with her. Daisy felt a chill go through her, fervently hoping his array of weapons wouldn’t influence his decision.
“You might as well know,” he snorted. “I had an accomplice in Wildenstern Hall who left one of the secret doors open for me and marked a path leading up to your bedroom. I never met him, or her, face to face. All of our communication was indirect. But I was supposed to meet up with him or her in order to escape from here. When I arrived at the meeting place, there was only a small dagger stuck into a note on the tabletop. When I pulled the knife out, it set off a bloody bomb under the table. The fuse must have been damp—there was a short delay. Otherwise, I’d never made it out of there alive. But the explosion was big enough to collapse the tunnel. It was the only way out that I knew—and it seems I have a new enemy to boot.”
He opened the shotgun, checked the load and closed it again. His manner was calm now; faced with an unforeseen danger, he would confront it with steady resolve.
“We’re still in Wildenstern Hall,” Daisy guessed. When he nodded in reply, she went on: “Someone will have heard the explosion. They’ll come to investigate.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” he replied. “We’re pretty far underground. And the one person who will know about it for certain has no great love for you—they named you as a target, remember. No matter what you might be hoping, your situation has not improved.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But yours, sir, is considerably worse. You allied yourself with a Wildenstern and seem surprised that you have been betrayed. And here I thought you knew our family. If they catch you in their house, I dare say you’ll get to know them rather too well. You’re in quite the predicament, Mr. Barnum. Untie me and let me up. I can lead you out to the gardens—if you promise to let me go, of course. What you do once you’re out will be your own business.”
He stared at her suspiciously, as if weighing up her words. She returned his gaze, knowing that the tables had turned. Barnum was lost in enemy territory, hunted by a bloodthirsty family of killers, and his only ally had just tried to kill him. His operation had failed. Survival would be his only concern now.
“You know these passages?” Barnum asked.
“Not all of them, but certainly enough to find my way out,” she chirped, confident that God would forgive her this shameless lie. Lifting her hands as far as she could off the arms of the chair, she raised her eyebrows. “Shall we?”
X
THE UNSEEN ENEMY
Nate stood motionless, staring at this new thread. It was not like the others. He had discovered and disarmed five booby traps in total, all of which had used the engimal cord as either a tripwire or tie to a trigger. But this strand of thread seemed to have been strung the entire length of this passage. He had come across it at a right angle, a crossroads in the tunnels. The thread ran at the height of his shin, disappearing into the darkness in either direction.
He was down in the lower levels now, though where exactly it was hard to be sure. He knew the passage well enough, but it had been years since he had explored this part of the network. From the stuffy heat and the occasional sounds through the walls, he judged himself to be close to the boilers that fed the house’s central heating. Even dressed in nothing but his underwear, he was sweating. The boilers occupied the lowest cellars used by the domestic staff. Below this level were some of the oldest tunnels: the damp and disused passages and dungeons, some of which had been here since Norman times.
The lamp in Nate’s hand was getting lighter—the oil was perilously low. If it went out, he would have only his box of matches with which to find his way to the nearest exit. He could very easily end up trapped down here. Time was pressing; he must get on.
