‘You’ll break your neck, Dan,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back and come round by the path. There will be others there already. Listen!’ Now we could hear faint shouts and then a sudden scream.
‘Hugh is in there,’ I said. Still he hesitated. ‘And Dorothea.’ I did not wait to see how he might react, but just turned away and went back to breaking through the undergrowth with my arm in front of my face against the thorns.
‘Let me through, my dear lady,’ came the booming voice of Loveday Merrick. He was right behind me. ‘Let me through. I have a cane.’
He pushed past me and began whacking a path through the bracken and brambles. I was at his heels. Someone bumped into me from behind and fell heavily. I did not even turn to see who it might be.
The flames were growing; I was sure of it. It was not just that we were getting closer. And I could hear the fire itself now, over the sound of shouts and screams. A roaring and rushing and then a great creak and crash and the sky was filled with a shower of sparks. The roof was falling.
Then all at once we were down out of the woods, Merrick, Alec, Grant, the gooseberry girl and I, and the garden wall of the Hydro was before us. We raced along the dark lane and in at the back gate to the servants’ area and stable yard. The place looked fine from here, locked up for the night, dark and quiet, but suddenly there was a squeak and a groan and then one of the windows by the back door blew out and shattered over the cobbles of the yard. Grant shrieked and pulled me back. Merrick had opened the gate to the lawns and we all rushed through, blundering in the dark under the cedars, heading for the light ahead of us, and when we got there we could see that it was the fire reflected on the pale clothes and white faces of the crowd who stood helpless, watching, on the lawns.
Every window on the west side was alive with leaping flames and the slivers of glass on the ground reflected the light and sparkled like rubies. I caught the arm of a woman in dressing gown and bedroom slippers.
‘Is everyone out?’ I said. ‘Is everyone safe?’
But she was too shocked to speak to me. Her lip trembled and she shook her head, turning back to look at the blaze. I began frantically darting through the crowd, calling Hugh’s name. At the other end of the house a Dennis engine was parked on the grass and I could see the gleaming helmets and the glittering buckles and buttons of the firemen as they scurried around with their ladders and hoses. One hose was spouting water already, straight into one of the dining-room windows, but it only served to increase the smoke while doing nothing to lessen the force of the flames. I turned away and kept calling. I was beginning to whimper when I heard someone answer me. I wheeled round. Alec and he were walking calmly towards me.
‘Good heavens, Dandy,’ Hugh said. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I was playing cards and heard the alarm. I strolled out of the nearest door and didn’t even have to hurry. There, there, my dear. Now please, pull yourself together, or you’ll upset the servants.’
What he really meant was that I would delight the servants and the other guests and be one of the highlights of the evening which everyone told and retold if I did not stop clutching him and weeping.
‘But you’re filthy with soot,’ I said. ‘How did that happen if you strolled out?’
‘Naturally when one found out it wasn’t a drill one went back in to help the women,’ said Hugh. ‘Now, I’m off to get the car if I can.’ He gave me a tight smile and left. I stared after him.
‘Don’t believe a word of it,’ Alec said. ‘I heard him bellowing your name. That’s how I found him.’
‘He went back in?’ I said and I knew that my voice shook as I spoke. Alec rolled his eyes. ‘Well, next time he lectures me about taking on dangerous cases when I have sons to think of I shall take great pleasure in reminding him. Is everyone out?’
‘They seem to be,’ Alec said.
‘Mr Osborne!’ It was Dorothea Laidlaw, white and shaking, standing like a ghost at our side. She had eyes only for Alec, not so much as a nod to me.
‘My dear Dr Laidlaw,’ Alec said. He took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she said. ‘Everything my father … his whole life. And all of my work.’ She turned and blundered off. She did not console any of the huddled groups of guests in their dressing gowns who stood around hugging one another and watching in helpless horror as another enormous section of the roof fell in with a sigh and a cascade of embers. She did not look twice at the groups of bright young things shivering in their beaded dresses or the young bloods who ignored them and stood smoking, watching the Hydro burn.
‘Drat,’ said Alec. ‘She’s gone off with my pipe in the pocket.’
Slowly, the scene was changing. Some young men from the casino crowd were setting benches together in the quiet dimness just beyond the heat of the flames and I saw Regina and Mrs Cronin help an elderly lady over to one and lie her down with a blanket under her head and a robe to cover her. Another of the maids was ripping towels into strips and dipping them in the fountain, then passing them out to be laid on people’s blistering faces for relief. Before long, I was sure someone would find a way to make tea and the world would begin to turn on its axis again. I was just beginning to calculate how many we could fit into Hugh’s Rolls-Royce and how many we could give comfortable lodgings to at Auchenlea, when I felt someone seize my arm.
‘The doctor’s in the mud bath room.’ It was Loveday Merrick. His great, handsome face was drawn up in horror and his sonorous voice was cracking. ‘Someone saw. Someone just told me!’
‘Alec,’ I cried. ‘Dr Laidlaw’s gone back in. To the mud room!’
‘Damn it, Dandy,’ he said, rushing up. ‘We should have known she’d do something like this. I’ll tell the firemen. Perhaps they can get to her.’
But I was furiously thinking. The whole of the Turkish and Russian baths was made of marble and the corridor which led to it was stone.
‘Come with me,’ I said, grabbing his arm and leading him to the garden door where the mud bath had been brought outside.
‘Madam,’ said Grant. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Dr Laidlaw went back in,’ I said.
‘I know,’ said Grant. ‘I saw her.’ She pointed to the gap in the wall which led to the servants’ yard and the garden door. ‘I was just …’ She held out her hand to show me the dripping wet handkerchief she held there. I snatched it up and tied it over my face.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘I know where she’s gone. Tell Mrs Cronin and Regina to have wet towels ready.’ Then, before I could change my mind, I dashed to where the garden door stood open, with Alec behind me.
‘Sorry there’s only one hanky,’ I said as we darted inside. I turned the corner from the offshoot to the passageway proper and sprinted for the stairs.
‘Not too bad in here, anyway,’ Alec said.
There was a faintly acrid smell in the air and I thought I could see a light haze of drifting smoke, but it wasn’t until we got to the top of the stairs that my eyes began smarting and I heard Alec start to cough, but we were heading away from where the smoke was thickest and with a great rush of thankfulness I saw that the door to the Turkish and Russian was closed. I tested the handle – not hot – wrenched it open and hustled myself and Alec through. In here the air was clear and all was as ever. It was warm, but not any warmer than when the baths were open. I took Alec’s hand and pulled him along the cubicle corridor, through the resting room, up the side of the plunging pool and through the round room where the spray baths were. The mud room door was closed and I prayed that she had not locked it behind her.
Alec grabbed the handle and pulled it open and I did not have time to think what he meant by his yelp of pain before we were in the room, choking on smoke and looking up through the hole in the ceiling at the flames raging and crackling above us.
‘Dr Laidlaw,’ I shouted, retching at the smoke.
‘Help me!’ came a man’s voice. I stumbled forward, came up hard again
st the solid wooden side of the mud bath and screamed to see Dr Ramsay’s head, shining with sweat and twisted with terror.
‘Help me!’ he screamed again. Alec was struggling with the fastening and when the top trapdoor burst open he hauled the doctor out by his armpits then together we dragged him clear.
‘Thank God it’s empty,’ Alec said, grimly, ‘or we’d never have shifted him.’
The doctor was dressed, dinner jacket and black tie, and his patent shoes scraped on the tiles as we lugged him outside and closed the door. Back in the marble spray-bath room everything had changed, even in the moments we had been away. The walls were running with condensation as the temperature rose and the plaster ceiling was bulging and darkening even as we looked at it. We dragged the doctor into the plunge pool room, but things were worse there. A brown bloom was spreading over the ceiling and a few wisps of black smoke were beginning to curl away from the surface of the plaster. Suddenly, at the far end, the door to the corridor blew open and we could hear the fire crackling and roaring beyond it.
‘Oh God,’ Alec said. Dr Ramsay was unconscious, hanging from our shoulders, slack and helpless.
I looked around desperately. There was no other way out. Just the solid marble walls and the long empty pool of cold water. A thought struck me and I dropped down and stuck my hand into the water. It really was still cold.
‘Quick!’ I said. ‘Into the pool.’ We dragged the doctor over and let him drop into the water. He came up spluttering and choking but wide awake again. I stepped up on the edge and jumped in beside him, feeling the same sharp slap and then the ache of the cold. I put my arm across Dr Ramsay’s back and held him up. ‘Come on, Alec,’ I said. ‘Jump in!’
‘I need to see if she’s there,’ he said and ran back towards the mud room. As I watched, a long thin section of plaster with a burning beam behind it arched gently down and closed off my view of him with a sheet of flames.
‘Now, Dr Ramsay,’ I said. ‘When the ceiling goes, take a big breath and go under. Stay under as long as you can. Do you understand me? Alec!’ I shouted over my shoulder. ‘Alec, hurry!’
‘He left me there to die,’ said Dr Ramsay. I was watching the ceiling. The edge of the hole where the long thin strip had collapsed was licking and curling with tongues of flame and the brown bloom above us was darkening to black and blistering all over. ‘I thought it was one of his jokes. I actually climbed in and let him close the thing!’
‘Well, you’re out now,’ I said, wishing he would shut up and let me listen for Alec.
‘It started as a tease! He’s such a joker himself. I was only teasing.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Alec!’ I turned back to the doctor. ‘Get ready to breathe in and duck. It wasn’t seemly behaviour for a professional man, though, was it, Dr Ramsay?’ For I had worked it out as soon as I saw him there. The gentleman who wrote to say a woman died of fright at the Moffat Hydro. It was Dr Ramsay. ‘You thought if he had the nerve to dream up a story like that he deserved a bit of ribbing, eh?’ I said. ‘So you wrote to the magazine. And then when the mediums began to arrive you went to the library, didn’t you, and asked what ghosts you could tell tales of in Moffat and have them believed. You let some of Tot’s friends in on the joke, didn’t you? And persuaded them to spread your stories for you.’
‘It was only a tease,’ he said again. ‘And he was ready to kill me!’
‘I think, my dear doctor,’ I said, ‘that he was going to kill you because the story of Mrs Addie was crumbling and he didn’t want you to tell the police that he … what shall we say? … bribed you to sign the certificate?’
‘Not bribery,’ said the doctor. ‘He was going to write off my losings.’
At last, I remembered the other mention of a respectable man. Hugh had said that Tot’s casino attracted them. That was who I had seen slipping into the Hydro by the smoking-room door. He was on his way to the poker table or roulette wheel, where he would not have to pay his debts, at least not at twenty shillings to the pound.
‘And I wouldn’t have done it if there was a mark of violence on her,’ the doctor said. ‘She died of natural causes. She must have. Heart failure was the truth after all.’
‘She died as you were going to,’ I said. ‘Only without the fire to make it quick for her. Now, duck under! Alec, please! Alec, hurry!’
There was a huge creak and as I took in an enormous breath and let myself sink, I saw the ceiling above us give way and let a ball of yellow fire, ragged with grey and orange fringes all around, come rolling down towards us and then I was under the cold water and the silence filled my ears. I had lost Dr Ramsay. I felt for where he should be, but there was only the swish of empty water there and I knew that I would be able to hold my breath much longer if I kept from moving. So I crouched down as low as I could with my eyes shut and prayed and prayed, until my chest was searing with pain and my head was pounding.
When I could not hold on another second, I pushed off the bottom and came up through the warming water, letting my lungs empty and then filling them again as soon as my mouth broke the surface. It was hot and bright, filled with the sound of breaking timber and shattering glass, a nightmare place. I dragged in another breath, looking all around for Alec or Dr Ramsay, but the surface of the water was blocked with sizzling debris and I could see nothing. I closed my eyes, gulped as much air as I could and went under again.
I counted to two hundred before I felt myself begin to swoon and pushed upwards the second time. Up in the air, the nightmare was worse than ever. The ceiling was gone and a black chasm with fire at its edges rose above me. All around, pyres of broken timber and plaster were crackling like bonfires and belching smoke up into the air. Someone was screaming with pain nearby.
‘Alec!’ I tried to call out, but my voice was no more than a ragged whisper. ‘Oh, Alec.’ I looked up and saw a shard of floor beam coming straight down towards me like a burning arrow. I dragged in a breath and sank again.
It was warm all the way to the bottom this time, and I felt sluggish and heavy in my clothes and shoes. Odd objects bumped against me, but when I reached out my hand it was pieces of plaster, turning to mud in the wet, and I pushed them away.
I knew that my lungs gave in more quickly this third time. It seemed hardly a moment before I was rising again and when I got to the surface I lay back weak and panting, before I dared open my eyes.
The fire in the resting room was still crackling and leaping, but in here the flames were mere flickers and the smoke had cleared. I lifted my arms and let them float on the surface of the water, then shrieked as someone clutched my hand.
‘Dan!’ I turned and there was Alec, surging towards me through the debris in the pool. His face was shining red, his lips blistered, but he was alive and he was smiling at me. ‘She wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get to you for all the burning rubbish but I’ve been shouting and shouting.’
‘I was under the water,’ I said. ‘Holding my breath.’
‘What a good idea,’ Alec said, touching his lips and wincing. ‘I’m going to look like a toffee apple tomorrow.’
‘Where’s Dr Ramsay?’ I said. Alec nodded to a spot behind me but then tightened his grip on my arm.
‘Don’t look,’ he said. ‘He tried to get out and a piece of the ceiling fell on him.’
‘I told him to hold his breath and duck!’ I said. ‘Is he dead?’
Alec raised his eyebrows and then winced again as his wrinkling forehead stung.
‘He’s very very dead,’ he said. ‘Please don’t look, darling. Now, I reckon since we’re soaking wet, if we go the way we came we’ve got a fair chance of getting out of here. What do you say? We can always come back if it gets sticky.’
I shook my head, feeling the rat’s tails of my hair lashing back and forth. With every gulping breath I was taking in more of the sulphurous burning stink.
‘I’m never coming back to this bloody place ever again,’ I said and began wading to the e
dge of the pool to haul myself out. ‘I understand now why fire and brimstone are such an effective threat, I can tell you.’
We sizzled a bit in some of the corridors on our way to the outside and the floor felt hot through my shoes now and then, but we met no serious harm and when we emerged and came reeling out onto the lawns, we might not have looked as beleaguered as we felt for the crowd gathered there ignored us absolutely. They were all looking upwards to exactly the same spot on the first floor, some with their hands clasped over their mouths and some with their hands clasped for praying. I cast my gaze to where they were facing and saw Alec, from the corner of my eye, do the same.
Framed in one of the windows, a figure stood with a bundle of papers in its arms. The papers were on fire but she – it was a woman; it was Dr Laidlaw – threw them out anyway.
‘Stamp on them!’ she said. ‘Don’t use the hose. My work! My life’s work!’
‘Never mind your life’s work,’ shouted one of the firemen. ‘Save your life, you silly lassie. Jump and I’ll catch you.’
She bent and picked up another armful of paper folders and notebooks, casting them out of the window and then screaming as she saw them start to burn while they fell. Her hair was on fire now and one sleeve of her dress too, and yet no one turned away. We simply stood there, horrified, watching.
‘Jump and I’ll catch you!’ called the fireman again. Three of his colleagues came, running heavily in their boots and helmets, and the four of them stretched a tarpaulin sheet under the window.
‘Jump, Dr Laidlaw,’ someone else cried.
‘Do what your father would tell you!’ It was Mrs Cronin, standing wringing her hands, gazing up in horror.
‘Dorothea, for God’s sake!’ It was Alec’s anguished voice beside me.
She seemed to look at him for a long still moment in the midst of all that chaos and confusion and then slowly she turned away, walked into the fire and was gone.
Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone Page 29
