We looked at the narrow landing at the head of the stairs and realised it wasn’t going to be as easy as Johnny made out to catch Lewis. The door opened into the larder, so Lewis need only open it, standing well back, to see that the cellar was no longer flooded and that we were therefore alive. Indeed, if he had any sense, he would not touch the door to the cellar, for one look at the larder floor would show him that the water had failed to rise to the ceiling of the cellar. He would report to Amy that there was no tale-tell water on the larder floor, and...
‘She will guess we are still alive and have found some way to divert the floods from inside. She will take no chances,’ said Edward. ‘Whether she needs proof of my death or not, she will not risk a murder charge. Better to leave us to starve and wait the seven years for presumption of my death. No, we’ve got to get out of here by ourselves, and the only way out is through that door.’
‘New bolts top and bottom,’ I muttered.
‘It’s oak,’ said Johnny. ‘It’ll take for ever to get through that with what tools we have.’
‘We have all the time in the world,’ said Edward. ‘No one will disturb us. I agree that it may take days for us to carve a way out, but that’s better than dying, isn’t it? We’ll take it in turns. I’ll start.’
I pointed to the floor. ‘Look, the water is rising again!’
‘The outlet’s blocked with all that debris,’ said Johnny, jumping down. ‘We’ll have to clear it again before we can start on the door.’ We formed a human chain to clear the hole and drag the dustbin clear of the hole. The water sank rapidly once more, until it was running cleanly along the channel under our feet. Edward rescued the bolts, disentangled some wire from the bunk where it had been used to tie me up, and started chipping away at the door.
I crouched at the edge of the manhole, fascinated by the water as it slipped darkly away under my feet. Amy could not yet have diverted the water back through the sprinkler system or it would not be flowing so fast. Perhaps she descended to the larder every hour or so to check on the level of the water. How soon would she guess that something had gone wrong with her plan, and what action would she take then?
I shivered. I had a great respect for Amy.
‘Look at this!’ cried Johnny. He showed me a weird contraption taped to the bottom of the dustbin. He raised his voice to attract Edward’s attention. ‘Know anything about dynamite? There’s some fixed here—they must have intended to set it off later on, in order to clear the channel for the water.’
‘Don’t touch it!’ warned Edward.
It turned out that neither man knew anything about explosives.
‘If it had a clock on it,’ said Johnny, ‘we could put it against the cellar door, wait for it to go off, and then walk out of here.’
‘But it doesn’t have a clock,’ said Edward, ‘which means that it is going to be detonated electrically at some time convenient to Amy. We daren’t meddle with it ourselves. We can’t use it. We mustn’t try to alter its position or defuse it. We can’t put the bin against the door and hope for the best because it might blow up while one of us is working there. Our best bet is to cart the bin into one corner of the cellar, build a barricade round it with whatever we can lay hands on, and pray!’
So that’s what we did. I didn’t like it. Johnny didn’t like it. Nobody liked it. But it was the only thing we could do.
Edward went back to the door, and I returned to the manhole.
‘Couldn’t we float a message down the drain?’ I asked.
‘Don’t think so,’ said Edward. ‘You’ll find a grating down-stream. I put it there a while ago to catch any debris which might come down the drain.’
Johnny came to look. He got down into the manhole, and felt around. He said he thought he could probably get the grating out, if Edward thought it was worth the effort.
‘It’s almost wide enough for me to go down the drain myself,’ said Johnny. ‘How far is it from here to the lake?’
Edward dropped his makeshift tools in horror. ‘Don’t think of it! It must be fifty metres to the lake. Remember how the lawn slopes to the lake...the drain drops sharply down below the house and enters the lake about two metres down...it would not be possible for anyone to swim all that way underwater. Besides, the drain is too narrow for any man—for any-one to get through it. It may even get narrower farther down.’
Johnny was frowning. Edward had said first that ‘no man’ could get through the drain, and then had amended it to ‘no one’. He was right in thinking that a man as broad in the shoulder as himself or Johnny would be stuck before he got far. But a woman—a small woman, used to swimming underwater—might get through if the tunnel did not narrow at the lake end.
Johnny looked at me. ‘Fifty metres?’ he queried, too softly for Edward to hear.
‘I don’t think it’s fifty metres. Maybe forty.’
‘Underwater, through a drain...’ Reluctantly he shook his head. ‘He’s right. You mustn’t risk it.’
‘Get the grating out, anyway. We’ll try to send a message down through the drain.’
‘A paper boat? A message in a bottle? Why not?’
But I knew there were no bottles in the cellar, and a paper boat would be swamped and sink in that water-filled channel. Nevertheless, I rummaged around while Johnny replaced his tripod, mended the rope and set about pulling the grating out of the drain. I quartered the floor of the cellar for Edward’s pen-knife, but there was no sign of it. I suppose it had been sucked down into the drain when the water receded. I shivered with fear because I knew that I was going to have to go down the drain. We could not afford to wait for Amy to discover that her scheme had failed. Already Edward’s movements were dragging, and Johnny moved like a sleep-walker. The chill of the cellar would finish us all off, even if Amy decided to leave us to starve to death, and did not descend on us with Lewis and the chauffeur to beat our brains out and throw us into a trench dug by night in the woods...
‘What are you doing?’ asked Edward, as I climbed the stairs to rummage once more in the bolster.
I explained once more that I was looking for something to send through the drain to attract attention to our plight. There was nothing left in the tool-box to help us.
He caught at my arm. ‘You mustn’t go down there yourself. Promise? It’s too dangerous. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘I’m a good swimmer.’
‘Not that good. Not good enough for fifty metres underwater. Promise me? The lake is full of reeds, too. It’s not safe to swim there, which is why I built the pool. Promise!’
He was right, of course. I promised.
‘Thanks, Kit. You’re such a headstrong little person that I was afraid you’d try it and drown. I know you’ll keep a promise. You always mean what you say when you look me in the eye, don’t you?’
‘Got it!’ cried Johnny. He had the grating half in and half out of the manhole. I scrambled down to help him, leaving Edward tapping away at the door. He had hardly made any impression on it. We could not get the grating out into the cellar, so eventually we pushed it back up the drain, against the flow of water, and wedged it there. The way was open to the lake, but I had promised not to take it.
And then we had our first real stroke of luck. Even as Johnny and I sat there above the manhole, the flow of water slackened and sank to a trickle. We stared down, knowing that Amy must have turned the course of the stream back into the sprinkler system, which meant that very soon Lewis would come to see what had happened to us...
It also meant that there would not be fifty or forty, or even thirty metres of submerged drain between us and the lake. Maybe fifteen or twenty, depending on how far beneath the waters of the lake the drain came out.
I had to go, and go quickly before Edward realised what I intended to do. I would be breaking my promise to him, but since circumstances had changed since I had given it, I didn’t worry too much about that. What I did worry about was Edward’s reaction once he found I had gone.
I slipped through the manhole into the drain. Johnny helped me down. He was made of the same stuff as I was, and he wouldn’t hinder me, even though he knew the risk I was running.
‘Keep him sane for me!’ I whispered. I crouched. I crawled rapidly down the drain Even as I went I heard Edward’s voice echo down the tunnel behind me...‘Kit!’
It was slimy in the tunnel, and quite, quite horrible. I like water, and I like swimming, but I don’t like underground places, and I don’t like crawling through slime. Twice I stopped and fought panic, but I couldn’t turn round and go back since the tunnel only just accepted me. It never occurred to me to go back up the drain the way I’d come. My chief fear was that Amy would discover that the water was not yet over the store-room floor, and would send the spring water through the drain again, which would drown me for sure.
I paddled on. When I looked back under my arm I could see a prick of light in the darkness where the manhole let light in from the cellar. Then the walls of the drain bent to the left and I lost even that cheering ray of light.
The slime became liquid, and I splashed on. I stopped when the filthy water lapped my elbows, fighting panic. I went over the arguments once more and came to the same conclusion. If I went on, I might drown but I had a fifty-fifty chance of fighting my way through into the lake, and once in the lake I could attract attention...call for help...
I went on. When the water reached my mouth, I took a deep breath and started to swim. In a couple of strokes I was underwater and brushing against the sides of the tunnel.
I don’t ever want to do anything like that again. It was not nice, not at all.
I bumped my head, my shoulder and my thigh, and I was blind in that filthy dark water. Then I thought I was going to pass out, for there was a thudding in my head and my lungs were pressed so flat that...lights flashed across my retina and I resigned myself to death…but it was the moon and the fairy lights shining through the depths of the lake that I saw. I came shooting up through the reeds, gasping, as fireworks burst into life, repeating their brilliance in the waters around me.
I was worn out. I struggled through the reeds, half threshing, half pulling myself to the bank.
‘Paul!’ A well-known voice spoke sharply above my head. ‘Come here, quickly!’
A jewelled hand caught hold of mine, and hauled me on to the soft grass. Joan.
Surfacing near to Joan and Paul was the second piece of good luck we had that night, for of all the people I knew, they were the best equipped to comprehend the situation and act on it. At first Paul wanted to go direct to a phone and call the police, but when I threatened to have hysterics, he assured me he would do nothing to attract attention until we had rescued Edward and Johnny. My unconventional arrival on the bank of the lake had caused little or no commotion since the fireworks display was well under way and most people were watching that. Joan took off her brocade evening coat and made me put it on. Then, arm in arm, we strolled up the lawn to the house. Paul darted off to have a word with Jack Straker, asking him to drum up reinforcements, but rejoined us by the time we reached the patio. The band had stopped playing for the duration of the fireworks display, and the floodlights had been turned out, so that we were able to pass through the crowd of guests without remark.
‘Amy is down by the swimming pool,’ said Paul. ‘James is propping up the bar under the trees over there...don’t look! Piers is in with a crowd of his friends down by the lake, but I don’t know where old man Coulster is. Someone reported he’d been feeling ill and had gone to lie down. I can’t see either Lewis or the chauffeur. Jack’s going to see if he can locate them. Jack was worried about you; thought you’d eloped with Edward!’
‘Not tonight, Josephine!’ I said, and tried not to scream with hysterical laughter at my witticism.
‘This way.’ Paul directed us through the main reception rooms, filled with stands of flowers, and through a baize door into a dark corridor.
I stumbled. Joan’s coat was too long for me, and I had fallen over its hem.
‘Kit, can you manage? Darling, you’re shaking! Wouldn’t you like to sit down and rest while Paul gets the men out?’
I shook my head. ‘If Edward is still alive, he’s going to half kill me for going down that drain.’
‘A larder, did you say?’ Paul tried various doors. He located Amy’s office, and I pointed to a corridor at right-angles to the one in which we stood.
A burly figure in evening dress pounded along the corridor behind us, and I put both hands over my mouth to stifle a scream. It was Fred, his genial face strained with anxiety.
‘Hush!’ said Paul, testing the larder door. It was locked.
Joan pulled me aside and put her arms round me while the two men set their shoulders to the door. At the third charge it gave, and they stumbled into the larder. The floor was quite dry. Lewis’s waders stood in one corner.
‘Men hate being rescued by women,’ I said to Joan. ‘And he’ll be furious with me because I’ve given him such a bad scare.’
‘If I were you, I’d faint!’ advised Joan, with one of her wicked grins.
‘I can’t faint on demand!’
Paul unbolted the cellar door, and called out that we were friends. Two filthy, ragged men lurched into the larder, causing their friends to draw back. One of the wild men tore me from Joan, shook me, and said he was going to thrash the life out of me. The other propped himself against the wall and grinned at me. He said Edward had tried to go down the drain after me, and that there had been a slight—er—altercation about it. In other words, he’d had to fight Edward in order to stop him committing suicide.
‘I’ll half kill you, Kit!’ said Edward, hugging me so fiercely that I cried out. His threats gave me enormous pleasure, for I was sure he had never in his life before felt moved to lay a finger on a woman in that way.
I wound my arms round his neck and whispered that I’d been terribly afraid, and that I’d never do it again...
‘Until the next time you think you know better than me!’
There was a cry from Joan. Johnny was half-lying on the floor, with Paul trying to lift him. Johnny’s bandage had slipped. Blood was dribbling down the side of his face and his skin was waxen under the grime.
Edward put me down and assumed control of the situation. Joan and Fred were to take Johnny and me through into Edward’s study, ring for the police and send someone to find a doctor. In the meantime, Paul could help Edward and Jack to search out the conspirators.
Voices were to be heard in the passageway. Jack’s alarmed face appeared in the doorway. He had been keeping watch outside. Edward drew him into the larder and motioned him to stand opposite Fred, flanking the door to the corridor.
‘…I told you not to be so hasty. If the water hasn’t reached the larder floor, then it is simply not rising as fast as you calculated it would, and we will have to keep pumping it in until it is up to the required level.’ It was the Alderman speaking. Someone else replied, but I couldn’t make out what he said.
‘No, no,’ said the Alderman testily. ‘I’m feeling all right now. It was the excitement and having to deal with Edward by myself that made me feel unwell, but your taking so long to drive the Rolls round to the other side of the lake left me with no alternative. Well, what are you waiting for? Turn the water back into the cellar again. We’ll give it another hour. There may be some outlet we don’t know about from the cellar...’
‘The larder door is open!’ That was Lewis’s voice. He appeared in the doorway. Jack and Fred pulled him into the larder, Edward hit him, and they all piled on top of their victim. Lewis squawked once, and then lay still.
‘What...?’ asked the Alderman, shuffling to the door. Behind him there loomed another man, in a chauffeur’s uniform.
‘Welcome!’ said Edward.
All the forcefulness drained out of the Alderman. He leaned against the doorpost and closed his eyes. Edward grabbed the chauffeur’s shoulder and drew him, unresisting, i
nto the larder.
‘Tie them up,’ said Edward. ‘Put them in the cellar and bolt the door.’
‘No !’ sighed the Alderman.
‘No,’ Edward agreed. ‘Not you. I want a word with you. I want to know how many of you are involved.’
‘Not Piers,’ said the Alderman, faintly. ‘I know he’s the only one you care about.’
Edward took his arm and beckoned the rest of us to follow him. Fred and Paul stayed behind to dispose of the minor villains. We processed through the house to Edward’s study. Johnny had recovered sufficiently to walk, with his arm round my shoulders. Tinker appeared, running, and took Johnny off me, to lay him on a settee. Someone lit a fire in the grate, someone else pushed me down beside Johnny. Edward was explaining, everyone else was exclaiming. Someone dashed off for a doctor who happened to be among the guests. Con and Bet hurried in; Con hurried out with another man to collect the Rolls, which had all my clothes in it. Sheila arrived with some food, and Morton with some drinks. A doctor materialised, and said he’d better stitch the cut on Johnny’s head before he was packed off to bed. I helped him. A large brandy appeared at my elbow; I nearly drank it, then remembered my vow and asked for hot sugared tea instead. A woollen robe appeared and was put around my shoulders, while another was draped over Johnny.
Silence.
Everyone turned to the doorway. Amy stood there, in her beautiful black velvet dress, with diamonds shimmering at her wrists and ears. The powder stood out on her face and her eyes were like points of steel. She saw us, realised her plan had miscarried, but refused to admit defeat.
She inspected her father, sagging in an armchair, and discounted him as an ally. She was on her own. She was magnificent.
‘Has there been an accident?’ she asked, arching painted eyebrows. ‘Edward, you should not desert your guests like this! I have been looking for you everywhere. There is some absurd rumour going round to the effect that you’ve run off with the Neely woman...I suppose you fell into the lake together! You should have more sense at your age!’
Cry for Kit Page 12
