by Sadie Swift
Ten
I found Mrs Lloyd alone in the wood and white-tiled kitchen. The savoury smell of the hotpot still lingered in the warm air. Her arms were white from flour she’d spread upon a table’s surface and wooden rolling pin so that the dough she was making didn’t stick to it. The front of her black and white uniform was similarly dusted with white like Sir Percival and I had been on our journey through the snow. A white mob cap protected her grey hair. The current whereabouts of her husband were unknown to me. For all I knew he was in their private quarters doing solitary male things. I had to stifle a giggle when the idea of him perusing a copy of Cossack Horseriders Weekly crossed my mind.
Mind upon business, Miss Lovelady! I silently reminded myself.
“That was a most delightful Bakewell tart, Mrs Lloyd.”
“Why thank you, Miss Lemon.”
“I really must get the recipe from you before…” I let the sentence hang like a fisherman’s lure in the water.
“’Before’, Miss Lemon?”
I went and sat upon a wooden chair to the side of the table she was using. “When our work here is done the Department will want us to move on.”
“Oh.”
She concentrated on kneading the dough, with perhaps a touch more vigour than before.
“It must be a marvellous place during the spring and summer months. Those majestic mountains, fields of lovely flowering alpines. Clean, fresh air. Most invigorating.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“And your husband to share it all with! I do so envy you, Mrs Lloyd.”
This time she didn’t answer but concentrated on the dough, picking it up and slamming it down onto the table with a loud thud! raising a cloud of flour into the air. Maybe their marriage wasn’t all that it looked like?
“It’s been lovely being able to speak to another woman. All I normally get are boring male conversations.”
A tear glinted in her left eye. Had I gone too far? But I had to know if we were all in danger.
“Mrs Lloyd?” I asked gently.
She stood unmoving, her face downcast.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Lloyd. May I know your first name?” I quietly asked.
“Gwen,” she replied, almost whispering.
“That’s a lovely name, Gwen. I’m Alice.”
She raised her head and looked at me. My heart almost broke seeing her eyes were red and puffy and fresh tears left trails in the white flour on her cheeks. I got up from the chair and went round to wrap my arms around her.
She smelt of lavender and flour and was slightly shorter than myself. Hugging her felt like she was a large cuddly pillow. Her body shook with quiet sobs and I cursed myself for having to do this to her.
We stood in the silent kitchen until her breathing had regained its normality. I released her from my arms and pulled a chair out for her to use.
“Here, Gwen.”
Still choked up she could only whisper, “Thank you, Miss.”
I sat next to her and, smiling, said, “Alice, Gwen. Please call me Alice.”
She sniffed and smiled back. “Alice.”
“I’m worried, Gwen.”
Wiping the wetness from her eyes with a red plaid tea towel she retrieved from a pocket she asked, “Why?”
“There are strange things going on, Gwen. Did you know that Dewi was killed last night?”
She gaped at me, her red-rimmed eyes wide with surprise, “Dewi? No!”
I nodded confirmation. “Last night. Attacked from behind. No one heard or saw anything.”
“Dewi,” she whispered, her unfocused eyes looked across the kitchen.
“He’s not the first, is he, Gwen?”
She didn’t respond, still in shock from Dewi’s death.
“How many others are there, Gwen?”
Her eyes flicked to mine.
“How many, Gwen?”
She stayed silent.
I reached for her arm and gently held it. “I want to help, Gwen. But can’t if you don’t tell me.”
“No one can help,” she said quietly.
She didn’t know me very well.
I decided to change tack. “Why is there a strange warm area under the grounds, Gwen? Is there a passageway under the house to it?”
Her red-rimmed eyes widened with fear, “Please don’t look for it, Alice.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Promise me you won’t look for it. Please,” she pleaded.
“I’m a very curious lady, Gwen. I also don’t like people dying around me in mysterious ways. Is there a monster, Gwen?”
But fear had taken a hold of her and she started shaking. Then quickly stood up and ran sobbing from the kitchen.
My choices were becoming limited. Sir Percival had to stay and look after his apparatus, Mrs Lloyd was out of the picture, and Mr Lloyd was… somewhere. But whether he would be of help or hindrance was unknown to me.
The day was still young. I decided it would be for the best to inform Sir Percival that I was going to find a monster. At the very least so he knew his main glassblower would be unavailable. For an indeterminate length of time.
Eleven
On hearing my plan Sir Percival closed his eyes and stood as still as a statue. The only indication that he was still alive were the little tics and shivers his body produced. Having experienced this before I knew that he was internally debating his best course of action. I was all set to get tooled up (as I believe it was termed in the Penny Dreadfuls) and head off alone to face whatever the thing was. But Sir Percival quite unnerved me by announcing, “I believe the best outcome for all concerned would be if I joined you, Miss Lovelady.”
I was unable to hide my astonishment, “Are you quite sure of this, Sir Percival?” I knew he needed me as cover for his sexual proclivities, but going to hunt a monster? Perhaps one of the variables in his mental calculation was that he was concerned about my not being available to shield him from Glenys’ romantic intentions?
He stayed silent for a few moments, as if re-running the equation in his head.
“Yes.”
“Then let us get ready.”
As we left the laboratory he gave the apparatus a wistful look, as if he were unsure whether he’d see it again. Judging from the attack on Dewi I wasn’t sure he was far off the mark.
We made haste to our rooms and arm ourselves. Thankfully the false bottoms and hidden extras in our cases went undiscovered by the poking and prodding of Her Majesty’s Customs inspectors after we’d arrived back from Venice. But with the rush to hide us away from the Men of the Cog, and the need to quickly re-create the Cold Aether machine, we’d not had time to add to our arsenals.
Back in my room I decided that I’d be damned if I was going to face a dangerous monster while in disguise. Whatever it was would know the wrath of a pink-haired female!
Quickly I washed the black dye out, quite ruining a towel in the process (I hoped Mrs Lloyd would forgive me). I felt much better looking in the mirror seeing my now normal pink hair, albeit slightly smudged.
One thing I did think was missing from my arsenal was a sword. Thin stiletto knives were all very well, but if it was the type of monster that needed its head lopped off in order to die, then I needed to have something able to do the job properly. Luckily the Baron (whoever he was) had his own weapon collection, which was kept gleaming by Mrs Lloyds slow polishing. One sword in particular stood out – a most ornate affair, all curves and sharp pointy bits (including the one you aimed at your foe).
Suitably armed with my clockwork weapons, my rifle at the ready, and protective goggles hanging round my neck I rejoined Sir Percival. Naturally I ignored his surprise at seeing my pink hair again, and made him detour to the Baron’s armoury whereupon I sheathed the aforementioned sword and strapped it to my back.
For his part Sir Percival eyed the crude lethal weapons with a disdainful air, and decided to keep with the gun of his own making.
“Do you have any idea where to find the t
unnel, Sir Percival?” I asked on our journey back to the ground floor of the house.
“At the moment, no. I can only hope that the entrance is somewhere within this house and not out in the grounds.”
I concurred with his thoughts, not wanting to face the cold snow again any time soon.
We began by looking for any locked doors. After ten minutes of this it began to dawn upon us that we hadn’t the foggiest idea where to start. For all we knew the entrance was in one of the upper rooms and we’d have to descend a thin staircase between the house’s walls. Without deliberately levelling the house (perhaps explosively) finding the tunnel looked an impossible task.
It was therefore quite unexpectedly fortuitous that a puffy-eyed Mrs Lloyd found us and, after getting over her shock at the sight of my pink hair, wordlessly beckoned us to follow her. Whereupon she led us down several corridors to what appeared to be a staff waiting room.
Several bells were attached to one of the walls with their strings deliberately cut so they wouldn’t work anymore. Holes above them indicated where the strings normally went on their journey throughout the house ready to be used by the Baron and his houseguests to summon staff.
From the well-worn comfy brown leather chair with several expensive-looking bottles of port on a little podium to its side, and the low coffee table with some large-bowled spirit glasses upon it it appeared that Mr Lloyd had made the room his own. I was most thankful to see that copies of Cossack Horserider weekly were not in evidence, as Sir Percival may have been waylaid by them.
“Behind there,” Mrs Lloyd indicated a large rectangular piece of dark wood that just appeared to be leaning against one of the walls. At a guess it was roughly eight foot tall by five feet wide. Anything could be hiding behind it.
I smiled warmly at her and said, “Thank you, Gwen.”
She looked at me and burst into fresh sobs. Sir Percival took a step back away from her in shocked surprise, carefully making sure I was between him and the potentially hysterical female.
Ignoring him I went to give Gwen a hug, but before I could reach her she’d turned away and hurried out of the room. Maybe it was just as well as I wouldn’t want one of my clockwork weapons accidentally activated. I did though mentally promise to give her a thank you hug when the monster was vanquished.
Silently Sir Percival and I looked at each other, and then the large piece of wood. It looked for all the world like a table-top just waiting to be re-veneered.
Wordlessly we unholstered our guns and checked they were ready. The whining sound of the Tesla coil on my rifle loud in the room.
Twelve
With one hand holding my rifle I went to move the wood but Sir Percival quickly touched my arm. Surprised, I looked at him.
He whispered, “It may be booby-trapped.”
I nodded my understanding at his excellent thought and carefully went to one side of it to see if anything unusual was in evidence. Nothing was, but I did feel strange air movements and an earthy scent that originated from the tunnel behind it.
Silently I shook my head at Sir Percival, whereupon he examined the other side. Apparently not seeing anything either he indicated the stone floor slabs to me. I noticed scuff marks to one side of the piece of wood, as if it had been moved to one side. He mimed that I should take hold of my side of the piece of wood and he would hold the other and we’d move it together.
With our weapons held in one hand we used our other hands to pull and push the large piece of wood out of the way.
The base of the wood appeared to have been greased as the movement was smooth and silent. Probably Mr Lloyd not wanting to advertise the fact of his movements to his wife. Just what was he doing down there?
Behind the wood was a crudely-shaped hole roughly six feet high and four feet wide in the stone wall. Beyond was darkness.
Sir Percival looked around for something he expected to find in the room.
“There’s no lantern,” he whispered.
“Maybe he wasn’t expecting anyone to follow him down the tunnel,” I whispered back.
He nodded. “Shall I go and get one?”
I thought about it. At the moment surprise was our greatest ally. And as far as I knew my strange aetheric sight was still working.
“I shall go first. Follow close behind me.”
Sir Percival quirked his head to one side while looking at me.
“You seem to be quite adept in lightless environments, Miss Lovelady. Do you have some sort of anomalous night-sight?”
Damn. If I told him I did then he’d realise that I was just having a lot of fun poking him whilst pretending I too couldn’t see a thing.
I did the only thing I could do without answering truthfully – I quickly raised my gun at the ready and headed into the tunnel with a hasty, “No time to waste!”
Thirteen
Darkness and the smell of dry earth surrounded me. I breathed a sigh of relief that my strange sight still worked and let me see faint purple images of the surrounding tunnel, which was only wide enough for one person at a time to walk through it. I felt a hand on my shoulder as Sir Percival used me as a guide. I knew I’d have to answer some rather pointed questions as to my behaviour in similarly lightless environs that Sir Percival and I had been in previously.
Assuming we survived this one first though.
The tunnel quickly turned left and sloped slightly downwards. I had no clue as to how far we were from the strange warm area of ground we’d seen outside. Or even its direction. The floor of the tunnel seemed to be hard packed. Possibly due to the number of times Mr Lloyd had walked over it.
The sound of our movements and breathing was absorbed by the earthen sides and ceiling. Ahead there seemed to be a strange straight-edge to the tunnel side. When we reached it I realised it was one of the house’s foundation walls. But whether it was at the side of the house or inside I didn’t know.
I detected a warming of the air around us, and that a faint breeze with a slight tang to it pushed it into my face. We must have been getting near to the strange heated area.
Sir Percival’s hand left my shoulder. Quickly I looked round to check if he was alright, and saw him examining the surrounding walls and ceiling. It was then I realised that very faint light surrounded us, and it was orangey-red in colour.
“Must be from the heat source,” Sir Percival surmised in a whisper.
I turned and led the way along the tunnel, my every sense on full alert.
The heat intensified and I felt a bead of sweat prickle my brow. Just what was down here?
Instead of rough, packed earth the tunnel walls here appeared to be smoother. Curious I ran my left hand fingers over them. It felt like they’d been plastered. And the ceiling had a distinctive curve to it. Had Mr Lloyd been practicing interior decoration down here?
Sir Percival nudged me and, when I turned to question him with a look, indicated something ahead of us. Slowly we continued on and I saw what had gained Sir Percival’s attention – an alcove with a statue inside it.
I felt another nudge from him, and was quite ready to poke him in response when I caught sight of the ground we’d been walking upon. Only it wasn’t rough-packed earth, it was small shaped tiles. I stopped walking in surprise. Mr Lloyd had built a bathroom down here?
Sir Percival pushed past me and hurried to the alcove.
The faint orangey-red light gave everything a macabre look. Especially the image of a very large snake picked out in the tile pieces on the floor.
Fourteen
Ahead of me Sir Percival finished examining the statue and hurried further on to another alcove he’d spied. Confusion still gripped me. Was this a quite extraordinary effort of interior decoration by the elderly Mr Lloyd, or was something else going on here?
As I walked upon the image of the snake a distant memory tried to gain my attention. But like a word you can’t recall at the tip of your tongue it still had some way to make it to my conscious mind.
The stat
ue in the alcove was created from smooth stone, possibly marble, and was female. Almost embarrassingly so as she was topless. But why hadn’t Sir Percival cried out in shock at the sight of so much female?
Had Mr Lloyd been hiding the light of his sculpting prowess underneath his gruff exterior? Was this his vision of Mrs Lloyd, perhaps at a far younger stage in her life? If so he must have an excellent memory for… female parts.
Sir Percival hurried back to me, excitement almost lighting him up. “Isn’t this wonderful?”
But before I could agree that it was quite the achievement for a gentlemen of his advanced years, he quite dumb-founded me by adding, “A Roman temple! Who’d have thought it!”
Roman?
Yes, Roman, my subconscious agreed, feeling slightly smug with itself and giving me a light cuff around the head for being such a dunce. That made much more sense than attributing everything to Mr Lloyd’s actions. I almost laughed aloud at the thoughts I’d had of his deeds down here. It also explained Sir Percival’s action, or non-action as it were, at the sight of the topless female statue – it wasn’t a dangerous statue of a topless female, it was the far safer topic of history. Of the Ancient Roman type. Probably something that he’d had beaten into him at whatever school he was sent to board at.
“They were probably here due to the gold, like those currently living here.”
But wait, what did a Roman temple have to do with a monster? And did it mean we’d be dealing with gods? Again? I’d had quite enough of that in Egypt, thank you very much.
Before Sir Percival could rush off ahead into the temple I grabbed his arm and asked, “What has this to do with the monster we’re hunting?”
He was so excited that the fact of a female holding on to him didn’t cross his mind.
“Oh. I, um don’t yet know, Miss Lovelady.”
I waved my gun under his nose to make him aware that we were still in danger and should be careful.
