by Ann Michaels
Chapter 9
The Man Lion
I was deep asleep, cocooned in my feather quilt, when I heard crackling sounds and the voice of the wee folk calling out to me. I felt myself swimming upwards, as though, through deep water. Then suddenly, I was awake and realising that, the voice was Alice, yelling out to me, on the walkie talkie.
‘Benny, Benny, wakeup, wakeup, wakeup’, she yelled.
I glanced at the nearby clock, which illuminated the time 12.30, in florescent green. I picked up the walkie talkie, which had been lying on my bedside table and put it to my ear, and said grumpily, ‘what are you doing calling me in the middle of the night?’
‘Hey Mister Grumpy Wumpy, get ya clobber on and we’ll meet you outside in 10 minutes. We’re going to Trafalgar Square, to look at those lions’.
‘What now!’ I shrieked.
‘Get ya rear in gear, Benny!’ She yelled. Then, her voice and the crackling suddenly cut off.
I was feeling woosy from sleep, and so, I didn’t even change out of my striped pyjamas; I just threw my cape over the top and rammed the deerstalker hat onto the old bean and rocketed down the stairs, and out the front door, into the cold night.
I stood out on the lonely footpath, in the icy breeze. But I didn’t have to wait very long, before I saw two figures, flying down Inverness road, at full throttle.
Owen and Alice, who had just run across Hyde Park, gathered me up, and set off again, to run back across the park, toward the city. And so, off we barrelled: a triumvirate of sleuths’, out to solve a mystery.
‘Let’s keep away from the Princess Diana drain’, yelled Alice, as we galloped along through the darkness, on the squishy, damp, acid smelling grass. ‘Mum makes me go there with her, at least once a week, so that we can meditate’.
‘Right ho’, I answered and continued to run.
It took us close to an hour to make it to Trafalgar Square, which was strangely quiet, deserted, and spooky at this hour. A soft misty rain had begun to fall now, and I was half wishing that I was home in bed.
‘Come along you pair’, ordered Alice. And like a pair of performing seals, we followed her out from under an awning, where we had been huddling, and walked over to have a squiz at the four lion statues’.
Each of us picked a lion to investigate, and then, we climbed up onto the plinth on which the lions sat and began to climb all over them and examine the statue for a secret door, or anything else.
So there I was, lying down on the plinth, looking around the lion’s metal mane and front legs, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and heard the clearing of a baritone throat.
‘Well, now, what do we have here?’ said the rumbling voice. I looked up and saw an enormous policeman, with a head like an English bulldog, wearing glasses, and shining a torch at each of us, in turn. Not missing a beat, Alice replied, in a lazy, easy manner, ‘We are doing a project for school, officer’.
‘What! At this hour’, replied the humongous man of the law, tapping his ginormous watch, menacingly.
But before any of us could add another word, a mature lady, with blonde wig, silver, platform shoes and a colorful kaftan, appeared out of the gloom, strolling along, swinging a Harrods bag. She called out to us, ‘Come along now children, don’t dilly and dally. The sooner you finish your measurements, the sooner you’ll get back to your beds.’
The policeman looked at us strangely, tipped his hat, and plodded away; throwing only one, very particular glance, back at us, from over his meaty shoulder. The lady, however, merely waved a gloved hand in our direction, and continued on her way, back to the palace. We stood, on the top of our respective lion plinths’: three gonks, left out in the rain, mouths open.
‘Phew! That that was close.’ breathed Owen.
‘At least it helps to have friends in high places’, added Alice happily, before hopping down onto the wet ground.
‘You know’, I said, in my usual swotish manner, ‘that police officer is probably going back to what is, one of the world’s smallest police stations. It is just over there, on that corner of Trafalgar Square’. I pointed into the hazy darkness. ‘This police station looks like an overweight lamppost, with a door, and only one or two people, can fit in there, standing up. But the police station does have a direct phone line to Scotland Yard.’ I added, nodding my head, donkey style.
‘Struth!’ bleated Owen. ‘Crikey! You’re a know-it-all! barked Alice.
We hadn’t found anything interesting so far, but we did have one more lion to examine. So, as Owen trundled off to have a drink at a water bubbler and Alice wandered over to see if the policeman had really gone, I got down to work, examining the remaining lion.
As I climbed up onto the remaining metal beast, I thought about how, the brass metal, of which these huge lions were made, had come from melted down canons of captured French and Spanish ships, from bygone days. I pictured those ships in my mind’s eye, as I sat upon the back of this last lion, which was cold and wet against the skin of my hands.
I slipped off the lion’s back and manoeuvred around to the front, and looked up into the lion’s snarling mouth; I poked my fingers in, and poked about inside the cold cavern. There’s nothing here, I thought; as I gave one last press into the lion’s palate. Then slowly, as though there was all the time in the world, a small door began to open. I was excited and yelled:
‘Come over here, Alice, Owen, I’ve found something!’
They both came speeding toward me, from opposite directions, like galloping horses at the Spring Darby, on a collision course, as I pulled a small piece of paper from the small cavity.
‘Hurry up! What does it say?’ demanded Owen and Alice simultaneously. I read out the words:
‘Lord Byron claimed that Nelson was ‘Britannia’s God of War.’ I read.
‘What? Is that it?’ Owen said, deflated.
‘This here is Nelson’s Column’, added Alice thoughtfully, gesturing to the soaring column, upon which the statue of Horatio Nelson stood, looking out toward Whitehall.
‘Wait, I said’, as I turned the paper over, ‘there are some more words here.’ I read out the cryptic words, ‘Fan, fan’ and 'drink, drink,’.
‘That’s plain weird’, said Owen.
‘It must be some kind of clue, though’, I offered.
‘Well, I just had a drink’, Owen added.
We raced over to have a look at the closest drinking fountain, from which Owen had just sipped. The fountain had been installed in 1960, according to the words inscribed above it. This was long after the war had finished, but my grandfather, Phineas, was still about at this time.
‘You know’, said Owen, musingly, ‘not only is this fountain a place to drink, but that design above the fountain, looks like a fan. Do you think that there could be a secret door here?’
I nodded, it seemed possible.
Then the rain stopped, and the clouds shifted; the illumined disk of the moon appeared overhead, and spread its reflected light around us, like a blessing. Alice began to jump up and down: ‘It’s a sign, to show that we are right!’ she pronounced.
‘Nah’, replied Owen, ‘that’s bull dust Alice. You know it is. It’s just a coincidence’.
Alice pouted, and with her lip out like a veranda, said, ‘whatever’.
I ignored both of them, as they bickered and set about examining the drinking fountain, as I thought that Owen may have been right: secret doors, so far, had been a predominant theme. And, this fountain, did indeed look like it could be opened, but how?
We hung around for another half hour in the cold, inspecting, probing and exploring the fountain, as the clouds returned, and the misty rain fell off and on. But we could find nothing which looked like it would open a doorway. In the end, we had to give up. We decided to go home and get some sleep, and as tomorrow was Sunday, and Owen and Alice were coming over to visit, we would think about our next move, then.
Alice and Owen were lucky, they did not have too fa
r to go, to return back home. I however, had to cross Hyde Park by myself, and I was not looking forward to it. So, what I did, as I entered the brooding, darkness of the park, was pretend that, I was Narasimha, the ‘man-lion’, who had come to save the world from great wickedness. I soon began to feel much braver.
Then I started thinking about how King Henry VIII, that, English king with the many wronged wives, confiscated the lands of Hyde Park, from the monks of Westminster Abbey, in the year 1536. The park was then fenced off, and became the king’s hunting grounds, where he could stalk deer, whenever he chose. I wouldn’t have been allowed here in those days.
As I plunged deeper into the heart of Hyde Park, my thoughts shifted, as it came to me that, the park becomes a very different world at night, when the sun has left. Not only is it so much quieter and drawn in upon itself, but different critters, rule this night world.
As I ran, I saw foxes, as I shot along the grass expanse; one was eating the remains of a discarded hamburger, and the other, slunk off shyly into the raw darkness. Various rabbits skipped by, their eyes glowing like laser beams, and an owl whooshed by on important business. Then there were the beetles, and other insects, which busily spun and buzzed, and got about their own employments and concerns.
However, the critters which caused the greatest concern to me were critters of the human variety. These I came upon, suddenly, as I neared the home stretch. There was about five of them, wearing baseball caps, slouching against a tree. As I flew past, I noticed that they appeared to be drinking some type of beverage, out of a large glass bottle.
As I thundered past them in the dark, one of the brutes struck out at me; this person, who I did not know, nor had ever met. He then began chasing after me, calling out abuse and threats and grabbing my shoulder; he tried to tackle me to the ground. I ducked down, and threw him off, as I struggled forward. I knew I was a goner, if the others in the group, caught up.
Then, I added turbo to my running power; I put every bit of my energy resources into getting away, as I heard the yelling and swearing, directed at me, fade into the distance. Without really thinking about it, my pounding feet led me toward Cogwhistle’s tent, which was hidden in shrubbery, nearby.
Throwing more effort into my run, blood and breath thumping in my skull, and ears, I came to the familiar shrubs that, I had recently visited with Cogwhistle. I flung myself down, and catapulted through the scratching branches, and hurled myself into the tent. All was quiet. I sat there, on the smelly, sleeping bag, for some time, listening hard; body tense; adrenalin flowing. Finally, completely exhausted, I slipped inside the sleeping bag, and fell asleep on the hard ground.
The pounding of joggers’ feet and the whizz of bicycle wheels, woke me early in the morning, before the sun had even got up. I rose stiffly and stumbled off back home, and went straight back to bed. It was late morning, before, I opened my eyes again, and Polly was at my door, garbling some message.
I got up, pulled some leaves out of my hair, which I noticed as I passed the mirror, on my way to open the door. And stood, half asleep still, as Polly informed me that Alice and Owen were in the kitchen, eating my carrot pancakes, with mango yoghurt, which she had made me for breakfast.
I flew into the bathroom, and had a quick shower. Then, I scanned the contents of my wardrobe. My eye fell upon the Kurta pyjama outfit, that my aunt, Aria, in India had recently sent me. It was red, with lots of embroidery and rather dashing; I had never worn it before. I plonked it on and brushed my hair. Then I sailed into the kitchen, and claimed back the remains of my breakfast.
‘Where’s Uncle Crispy?’ I asked Polly, between mouthfuls of pancake.
‘Oh, he’s gone out to Blackstock Hall,’ replied Polly, as she sipped a milky cup of tea. ‘That woman, Millie, called late last night, and said that, as the air had cleared between them both, Mr. Crispin could resume restoring the land and animal populations there….he just couldn’t wait’.
‘That is wonderful!’ I added. And it was.
We decided over breakfast that, we resume our search for the lost shipment, of what was possibly uranium, from under the city of London. We would go back through the trapdoor, in the secret room, and see if we could get to Trafalgar Square from underneath.
Firstly, we gathered together torches, snacks and a few bottles of water, and threw them into a backpack. Then we trundled down to the small library, opened the bookcase door, walked down the stairs, moved the mat and opened the trap door, and one by one, with Alice leading the way, we journeyed downwards.
As the stairs went down, frayed spider webs rushed our faces, and water dripped and ran more than it had done last time, lending the fetid air a funky, musty smell.
When we came to the bottom, we saw the building that we had explored before; it looked silent and abandoned, as though it now had nothing more to tell us. I thought about my grandfather’s office in that building, and his desk where I had found the key; I thought of all those people who had spent years there, during those frightening times of the war, when everyone and everything you knew, and loved, was threatened. And I wondered, just for a moment, if all the people who lived on this planet could come together as one, if we were threatened by forces beyond our planet’s shores.
We continued past this building, steadily walking. We swept past the abandoned train carriage, where we had found those disguises and spying devices; we proceeded past the room where the chocolate box was found, one leg going down after another. After a time, we saw the monumental statues of the lion and unicorn and Alice and I watched, as Owen swept ahead and hugged the unicorn’s lower legs, as he had done once before. As Alice and I neared Owen, our eyes fell upon a wicker picnic basket, sitting near the unicorn, in front of the door that led to the basement, where we had searched for the dog soap.
Alice surged ahead, ignoring my protests and plucked the basket from the ground, and shone her torch upon it.
‘It’s really light’, she said, ‘I don’t think that there is anything in it.’
Then she shook the basket and we could hear a rustling sound of something small, skidding along the wicker bottom of the basket. Owen swung around, grabbed the basket from Alice, and threw the lid open. Inside we could see a small envelope. Alice grabbed the envelope, and tore the paper in two. Out fell a key, with a lion and a unicorn in the bow.
None of us said anything, but I had this feeling that we were puppets and that there were others around us, who knew much more about what, was going on, than we did.
Alice handed the key to me and I slipped it into the pocket of my trousers, and zipped it closed. Then we kept walking.
‘I was wondering if we have a plan?’ asked Owen worriedly. ‘I mean, what if we do find this uranium or whatever it is…I mean, who will we tell?’
‘We’ll tell Millie and she’ll know what to do with it’, stated Alice confidently.
‘I’m not sure if I thrust her’, returned Owen.
Just then, I noticed a type of vehicle, become visible in the spreading light of my torch. It was sitting patiently on the train track, as though waiting just for us. ‘Look!’ I said excitedly. We ran toward it, and then, just stood there on the platform, staring at an old railway handcar’
‘It’s a Kalamazoo!’ Alice trumpeted happily. ‘Let’s get on it’.
We clambered on to the three-wheeled, railway car and stood there for a moment, trying to work out how to operate it.
‘You get off for a tick, Owen, and me and Benny will push down on this see-saw thing, until we get it going. Then, you can run and jump back on.’
Owen with a hang-dog face, like he was going to the gallows, slid off. Alice and I got into position, and began to push down on the lever. Slowly we began to move, and pretty soon, Owen had hopped back on, and was helping out with the pump action, as we whooshed along.
Now we were travelling through the darkness much faster, but we couldn’t really hold our torches too well, because we had to push the see-saw
lever, to keep the railcar moving along. It was exhausting work!
‘I’m not really enjoying myself’, stated Owen flatly, as Alice laughed wildly, in a bushy-tailed manner.
After a time, we saw a few random rays of sunlight, cutting into the darkness, like laser pointers from up above, and then we came to a dead-end; a brick wall. A very high, brick wall, which, had obviously been designed to keep people like us out.
‘What we need is a sledgehammer to break down this here wall’, Alice pronounced, as she ran her torch around the place.
‘Settle down Al!’ responded Owen. ‘We don’t know why this wall is here. Maybe it is holding up the roof or something’.
Alice wasn’t really listening, as she was busy looking about. But there was nothing to see. It was plain empty.
‘Look, I’m hungry’, Owen said; ‘let’s have something to eat and then we can have another look about, or just go home’.
‘What! are you nuts?’ Alice shrieked. ‘I’m not going anywhere, until we find out what is really going on here.’
As we ate, sitting on the hard seats of the railcar, I shone my torch up along the walls and up toward the ceiling, where I noticed flashes of glass, glinting here and there. What these glass things might have been, I did not know, as they were too high up for me to see properly in the dark.
I jumped down and went toward the wall, to examine it more closely.
‘What if this key from the basket, opens a door in this wall? It could be a skeleton key’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘A key that can do the job of all those other keys combined.’
Owen and Alice must have liked that idea, as they came stampeding toward me and demanded that I take the key from my pocket. Which I did. Then we all examined the wall, finding many small holes, which could have served as key holes; except that, they didn’t.
Then we found it. The key hole was almost indistinguishable from other small holes and pits on the brickwork, but when I slipped the key in, and turned it around, a narrow doorway opened and we slipped through into a room, which smelt of fossilised air and dust, and which contained a mammoth sized safe, on the far wall.
But it was a strange room, with a decaying desk and a chair in one corner, and a tall, thin, carved wardrobe, standing quietly at attention, against the wall. I opened this wardrobe, but all I could see, was a coil of thick rope, resting on the bottom. I turned around, and saw that the room also contained two floor lamps. I watched, as Alice and Owen moved forward, as though on wheels, and switched on the lamps. And the room was suddenly flooded with an orange glow.
I rushed over to the desk and found a stack of files with my grandfather’s name written at the top. But then, I noticed a map, which had Trafalgar Square circled. I squinted more closely and I could see another pencilled mark, where Nelson’s Column stands. I could also, just make out, some small, handwritten words:
Nelson’s Column is of the Corinthian Order.
I had to believe that we were in the right place; the place that, my grandfather had intended that I find, all those years ago.
‘Well, well, well. What do we have here?’
We swung around; standing there, like a creature from a nightmare, was a man blocking the doorway, which we had just entered. He was dressed in a black suit, and had a familiar, unpleasant voice. My brain cells fired, and I realised that it was Rupert Bloodworth.
‘Thank you children for performing this small service for me’, Bloodworth said, in his oddly grating voice. ‘I found out some years ago that, the uranium had been stored here, but I could not get through the door, as all five keys we needed to do that. Those five keys only became available recently, but I thought, I would just bide my time, and see what your next move was. After all, there are cameras everywhere about.’ Bloodworth taunted, in a greasy, friendly, but sinister manner.
‘But we don’t have all the keys’, Alice countered.
‘You seemed to have acquired the only skeleton. I see you have friends in high places’, replied Bloodworth.
He then looked about the room and his gimlet eye fell on the huge safe. His face darkened. I hope that you know how to get in there boy’, Bloodworth growled at me.
‘No I don’t’, I replied coolly. I didn’t like the way he called me boy. It was insulting and sneering, in its manner of delivery.
‘Get over here, all of you’, Bloodworth ordered.
‘What if I don’t feel like?’ Alice challenged, cheekily.
‘Now! Girl!’ Bloodworth thundered.
Not knowing what else we could do, we all shuffled closer to the old vampire, moving as slowly as possible.
‘Now’, he said, aiming his soulless eyes at me, ‘I want you to open the safe. But I warn you, it might be booby trapped. However, as I do believe that, I have the combination, things should go smoothly’. He shoved a paper at me, with a few numbers on it: 4, 29, 5, 30, 18, 62.
‘But where did you get these numbers?’ I asked, in puzzlement.
‘Your grandfather, as it happened, gave the same book to Clementine, Crispin, and Millie; a slim volume about a particular battle of the American Civil War, known as the First Battle of Corinth. This battle was fought from April 29 to May 30, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. When I found these volumes: two of them at your uncle’s house, in fact, I noticed that these dates had been underlined in pencil. Later, after much searching, I found Millie’s copy, and the same dates were marked. Phineas was most helpful in providing the lock combination, you see.
‘What I want to know’, I said, forcefully, surprising myself, ‘is what you intend to do with this uranium?’
‘Well boy, there is a very lucrative black market for the stuff, you know. Riches that you never dreamed about will soon be mine’.
‘But you will be caught. You yourself said that there are cameras here and many people know your name, and what you look like.’ I put to him.
‘It is true that we should, perhaps, hurry, but I am not worried about being caught. I know a very good plastic surgeon, and I already have a few false passports set up. Now hurry up’.
The last bit was hurled toward me with great aggression, so I made a few steps toward the door of the safe. What could I do?
Slowly as I could, I walked toward the safe, slow as slug full of cement, and set about dialling the numbers, into the old combination lock, as he barked the numbers out into the room.
I cracked the massive door open, slowly. Inside I saw two gold cylinders. I have to admit I was scared and very troubled by how all this had turned out. Also, I didn’t know much about uranium, or its storage, so, I hoped that we were not in danger from radiation.
‘Get a move on boy!’ Bloodworth shrieked.
So I picked up the two cylinders, which were marked U-235 on the side and handed them to bloodworth, who had produced a leather bag from somewhere, and placed the cylinders in it.
‘I have waited a long time for this day. Since the war in fact. You see, I was posted to a manor house near Cambridge, where I was sent to set up microphones and a surveillance system, to listen into the conversations of German scientists detained there. Our top brass wanted to know how close their lot were to creating nuclear weapons. I already knew that we had uranium squirrelled away somewhere, and I was even one of the agents who held a membership key to the nuclear operation. But I did not know, how, I could get my hands on the stuff. But, you know, I never give up and I have always kept up contacts with those who are willing to buy. Those groups have changed significantly over the years, of course. That, however, is another story. In the intervening years, I have kept busy, selling off Millie’s ideas, before she gets a chance to sell them herself. She never understands, why, no one wants to buy her discoveries, the fool.’
He laughed dryly and then he turned to leave. We had failed to stop him. It looked like Bloodworth would get away and make his fortune and perhaps bring great disaster and destruction. I shuddered when I thought about this uranium falling into th
e wrong hands. I didn’t dare think.
As Blood worth raised his foot to step outside, like a bat out of hell, through the doorway, with a rat in her mouth, flew my lost cat, Esmeralda. She jetted, rocket style, through Bloodworth’s legs, causing him to stumble.
Like a flash, Owen whipped the bag from Bloodworth’s hands and I dashed to shut the door, to stop Bloodworth from making his escape. Meanwhile, Alice had fetched the rope from the wardrobe. And Before Bloodworth could even work out what had happened to him, the three of us, pounced on top of the bony old geezer and threw him into the chair. Alice first tied his hands behind his back, as Owen and I held the kicking old skeleton down, as she finished the job. It was at this point that, I realised how old Bloodworth, actually was. He was old and frail and crazy, and if he had got away, he would not, I am sure, have many years, to enjoy his riches.
After we had secured Bloodworth to the chair, we stood back and tried to get our breath back, as Bloodworth, simply glared at us, like a malevolent Prince of Darkness.
Esmeralda meanwhile, gingerly emerged out from under the carved wardrobe and minced toward Bloodworth, and dropped the half chewed rat at his feet. I like to think that, she was telling him something about himself.
‘So, what do we do now?’ Owen asked.
‘One of us should go and tell someone, don’t you think?’ I said with great uncertainty, and then added, ‘though, maybe the police are already outside, after all, we all must have been seen on the cameras’.
‘There are cameras, that is for sure, but who will be viewing the film from them?’ Bloodworth snarled. ‘Very few people know about this place under London; certainly the general police no nothing of it. Someone, perhaps from Scotland Yard, will look at that film, but when? After some weeks, I would hazard a guess.’
‘But someone very high up left us a key in a basket’, Owen countered loudly.
‘Ah, yes, but they cannot interfere directly’, Bloodworth muttered.
Alice dashed toward the closed doorway, in the brick wall. It was locked.
‘Give me that key, Benny and I’ll see if I can open it’.
But we could not find a key hole from this side; it looked like we were locked in here.
‘Let’s search the room’, Alice suggested.
We went over the room carefully; all the while, I was wishing that we had at least thought to bring the walkie talkies. But we didn’t. Finally, we came to the wardrobe, where Esmeralda the cat was resting, with her head on her paws, looking at us with one eye.
‘There is a strange carving in the back of this wardrobe’, Owen pronounced.
I looked over his shoulder and stared at the shape, which looked a bit like a cross with a rose shape on it. It then dawned on me that, this carved shape, looked very much like the medallion, on the necklace, I was wearing around my neck; the one from my grandfather, with the medallion of a lion’s head, on a cross.
I unclipped the necklace from around my neck and pressed the medallion into the carved cavity, at the back of the wardrobe. Immediately, an electronic beep sounded and the back of the wardrobe swung open. We could see a spiral staircase twirling upwards.
I scooped up Esmeralda, as Alice checked if the ropes tying Bloodworth were secure. They were, as back in Australia, Alice had been in the Brownies, where she had learned to tie very good knots.
We took out our torches and began to climb the staircase, which shuddered and shook, as we stepped upon its dusty steps. And even though rats scampered by us now and then, Esmeralda, remained calmly in my arms.
By the time we came to the top of the staircase we were really beginning to puff and pant. Then we noticed two things. The first was a carved lion and unicorn, surrounding a crown, stuck on the cement wall, with the words, And fell the statues from their niche, written over the top. The second thing was that, there was a corridor, leading in the opposite direction, which went who knows where.
‘The lion and the unicorn are kind of like statues’, Owen said, as he looked at the strange looking coat of arms closely.
‘Let’s see what happens if I try to push one down’, Alice said gleefully, as she put her hand behind the statue and tried to push it over. My mouth dropped to the floor, as a door opened in the wall, making a beeping sound, as though on a timer.
On the other side, we could see the strange painted face of a lion, on the white tiles.
‘See ya’, Alice called, as she flew through the opening, which immediately swung closed behind her.
Owen and I looked at each other with eyes like poached eggs. ’You better have a go at the other statue’, Owen whispered in a choking manner.
‘No, you should go’, I replied, as I put my hand on Owen’s shoulder and gave him a gentle push. I had noticed that there were only two statues and I did not like to think about Owen being stuck here alone, looking for another way to get out.
Owens face was strained and white as he walked forward and pushed the unicorn over. The door again beeped and flew open, and as neither of us had any words, at this moment, I just gave Owen a smile of confidence, which I did not feel. Owen flipped his hand, in a funny little wave. Then he was gone, and the door closed.
I hung about for a bit, fiddling with the statues and pushing the place where the door had opened in the wall, but the wall did not move. Time to move on I decided. So I turned around and looked down the black tunnel of the corridor, and shone my torch down there. After swallowing hard, and trying to breathe slowly, I put one foot in front of the other, and began to walk down that passage.
