Chalice of Darkness, page 24
‘Rudraige, keep your voice down. You don’t want half of London to hear you. I even spy one or two Gilfillans.’
‘A fig for all your Gilfillans. May they be booed off every stage in the land,’ said Rudraige in ringing tones, and went plunging off in the direction of the mutton pies.
TWENTY-THREE
Jack came out of the sick dizziness slowly and painfully.
The darkness was pressing down on him – it was like a thick, stifling curtain. His head still throbbed, and his shoulder was hurting furiously from that second vicious blow Saul Vallow had aimed at him. He was aware of confusion, but he knew quite well where he was and what had happened. Saul Vallow had lured him to Bastle House, then had sprung on him, knocked him half out with a brass candlestick, and tipped him down into this place.
He thought I knew something about the Deeds of this house, thought Jack, moving his hands and then his arms experimentally, and wincing from the wrenches of pain. Something about my father’s name being on them. He frowned, but could not make much sense of this. What he could make sense of, though, was that Saul was the man who had killed Aiden all those years ago. He had admitted it openly and calmly.
I saw him do it, thought Jack, still lying on the hard stones, not yet daring to move, fearful of what injuries movement might reveal. But his mind had gone back to that afternoon inside the burning theatre, and he could remember the scorching heat and feel the terror.
He had promised his father that he would go outside, but he had stayed where he was, too afraid to move. He had seen into the royal box, and he had seen the man who stepped forward and pushed Aiden over the balcony’s edge.
I was frozen with terror, thought Jack, lying in the dark cellar of Bastle House, and I never dared to look the memory in the face afterwards. But now he remembered huddling in a corner, praying not to be found, and how it had only been when the unknown man finally went down the iron stairway, banging the stage door to Sloat Alley, that he had been able to crawl out from his hiding place. He had been gasping and shaking, half-blinded by tears and smoke, but he had managed to get down the stairs, and he had never been so grateful to see his Uncle Rudraige and Aunt Daphnis in his life.
Everywhere was in confusion – there was still a search for people who could be trapped in the theatre – there were panic-stricken questions as to who was safe and who might not be. Had anyone seen Bill the Chip? No, it was all right, Bill was just over there. But what about Mr O’Kane? Could the firemen search the upper rooms to be sure? If he was still in there, he might have fallen – knocked himself out – could the firemen look in the main rehearsal room? Jack thought it was curious that out of those tumbling memories – in the midst of this grim situation he had been flung into by Saul Vallow – Connor O’Kane’s name should have materialized. He could not remember what had happened – if O’Kane had been found or not. He did not recall any of the family ever mentioning him again.
There was another image within that panic-filled confusion, though. There had been a moment when he had looked towards the alley’s opening and seen, framed against the pouring rain and the thickening twilight, the outline of a man walking away – a man whose coat collar was turned up, and who had a scarf wound around his neck, pulled up so that it covered most of his face …
He pushed the memories away, and tried to concentrate on getting out of the cellar. It was vital to think that he would get out.
He was aware of the heavy old house above him, and he supposed that deep down he was frightened, and that the fear would soon tip over into outright panic, but it had not done so yet. Was that arrogance, because he could not believe he would not escape? Was it because he could not believe someone would not come to rescue him? But who would do that? Saul Vallow was not likely to succumb to remorse, and in any case he believed Jack to be dead. As for Gus, it could be two or three days before Gus came back to Vallow.
The Mercian Arms people might wonder where he was, although they were just as likely to assume he had sneaked off leaving the bill unpaid. Declan Kendal might miss him, though – but again it could be two or three days before Dr Kendal made any enquiries.
Hell’s teeth, thought Jack, I’m not going to die down here. I’m going to get out – I’m going to step on to the Amaranth’s stage again – I’m going to find that bloody Talisman Chalice, and there’s going to be the most extravagant piece of theatre pageantry London’s ever seen! Royalty will be there – Edward himself, and the Queen – and as much of London society as we can pull in. We might even invite the Gilfillans. This last idea pleased him so much that he at once began to visualize it – the Gilfillans en masse, seated in the stalls, envious but determined not to show it. Viola? said his mind. Yes, for sure Viola would be there, her eyes brilliant with curiosity and interest.
On this uplifting image, Jack managed to sit up. The darkness swung dizzily around him, and the pain of his shoulder tore into him, making him gasp. He felt as if every part of his body was bruised and probably bleeding. But as far as he could tell he did not have any broken bones. He thought he had still been dizzy and confused when Saul pushed him into the cellar, and that because of it he had, as was sometimes said of drunken men, ‘fallen soft’. Vallow would not care how he had fallen, of course; he would not have cared if the fall had broken Jack’s neck, or whether he would lie in the dark until the cold and hunger and thirst finished him off. This thought sent a jab of such anger through Jack that he forced himself to sit up, and then to get, very slowly and cautiously, to his feet. It was difficult to do this in the pitch dark, and he all but fell over, but instinctively threw out a hand to grab something to steady his balance.
His hand sank into soft layers of something he could not identify, and then on a hard cold shape beneath. He let out a cry that echoed through the darkness, and recoiled at once, snatching back his hand and half falling against a section of wall, jarring his damaged shoulder. He scarcely noticed the pain, though, because his mind was reeling. What he had touched – what his fingers had closed around – was dreadfully and unmistakably a human hand.
And then Saul Vallow’s words came back to him.
‘I couldn’t risk you prying and snooping – finding out about the past. I couldn’t risk you asking questions about this house, either – finding out about the meddlesome bitch I killed to shut her up. She’s down there with you – where no one will find either of you. You’re both down there in the dark for ever.’
This was a nightmare – it could not be real. Jack could not be trapped in this cellar, with someone whose dead hand he had just clasped.
But it could only be that. Because whoever he had touched had not moved – the fingers had not closed around his or responded in any way. He had not realized he was going to speak, but he heard his voice saying, ‘Who’s there? Can you hear me? Who are you?’
The blackness seemed to absorb his words, and absolute silence followed. And there was no feeling of any other living presence in here. Jack had stolen into enough darkened rooms to be able to tell if anyone was nearby. His eyes had adjusted slightly by now, and he could just make out blurred outlines, patches where the darkness was denser or where it was not quite so smothering. Was a trickle of light coming in from cracks in the floorboards above? He thought it might be. Whatever it was, it was enough to show him the huddled shape that lay on the ground.
Maude? Was this who Saul had meant when he had referred to a meddlesome bitch? ‘I killed her to shut her up,’ he had said.
‘Please don’t be Maude,’ said Jack softly, to the dark outline. ‘Please let Maude be safe and well – alive, somewhere. But whoever you were, I’m sorry I can’t help you now, and I wish you could help me – I know that’s selfish, but I do wish it. In any case, there’s no way in which you could help me.’
But hope dies hard, and even though it made him feel sick to do it, he bent down, and forced himself to search the dark form, feeling through the folds of cloth, able to identify the remains of long skirts. A woman’s body, then. Not Maude, though – please not Maude. He flinched as his hands encountered the hard shapes of bones, and he was aware that it was the maddest thing in the world to be doing this, because there would not be anything that would help him, he knew that …
But there was something. Within the remnants of the cloth were two items that had not disintegrated. Something the woman must have had in the pocket of her gown.
A tin of old-fashioned matches. And two candles.
It took a good deal of resolve to lift them clear, but Jack managed it. When finally he straightened up he felt remarkably heartened. The matches and candles themselves would not provide an escape route, but they would provide light, and he might see a way out. And the matches were in a tin, so they should have been preserved, which might not have been the case with a card box. The tin probably meant they would not be safety matches, so they ought to ignite on almost any surface. Such as a stone wall inside a cellar?
Moving cautiously, because it would be disastrous to spill the matches over the floor, and probably not be able to find them, Jack felt around until he found a couple of crevices into which a candle could be wedged – one in a section of wall, the other in the floor near to it. Then, taking a deep breath, he struck one of the matches sharply against the stone wall. His first attempt failed, and so did his second, and he was aware of panic, because it was possible the matches were too old or too damp to work.
But at the third attempt the match flared up. Please don’t let it die, thought Jack. Please don’t let this dank coldness douse it, and let me be able to light the candle.
There was another of the bad moments when he thought the candle was not going to light, but then it caught. Thank you, God. He lit the second candle from it, and wedged both in the crevices. As the candles burned up a little more strongly he turned to look back at what lay on the ground, seeing that it was dried and shrivelled, bones showing through the withered skin, the whole shape very nearly mummified. There were shreds of cloth that clearly had once been a gown, and fragments of leather from shoes or a belt. Wisps of hair, dried and coarse, clung to the skull. The head had fallen forward, and the jaw had dropped in a travesty of a grin.
‘Whoever you were,’ he said, softly, ‘I’ll always be grateful to you for providing me with the means to make a light.’
He lifted up one of the candles and held it up to see the trapdoor. Was there any means of reaching it? It was a fair way over his head, because the cellar was a deep one, and there were iron rungs driven into the wall, presumably to allow people in the house to get down here. Or to allow anyone already down here to get up? But even by the flickering candlelight he could see that the rungs no longer extended all the way up to the trapdoor. The top part had either rusted away or been torn away, so that there was a gap of perhaps six or seven feet from the final top rung to the trapdoor. A circus acrobat could not reach it. Not even an accomplished burglar, used to throwing a silken ladder over walls and hooking it on windowsills in order to swarm up sheer surfaces, could reach it.
Jack sat down and considered. Saul Vallow would not have imprisoned him down here unless he was sure there was no way of escape, but he could not have allowed for Jack being able to make a light and examine his prison so thoroughly. The light was uncertain, but it showed up the cellar’s confines. The high ceiling with the rafters and the trapdoor, and the useless iron rungs. The stone walls and floor, all ingrained with the grime of many years. But in one section of those stone walls …
In one section was the outline of a low-set door that could only lead outside.
The shadowy outline of an idea began to form.
It was vital not to hope too much, because the idea was tenuous, and it was also extremely risky.
Jack was not going to wonder if the low-set door might only lead to another cellar – it was too substantial for that. He wedged one of the candles in a fissure nearer the door, and examined it carefully. On the left was a square of wood, nailed on to the door’s surface, which was very likely a wooden lock plate. Locks could be picked if they could be reached, and he had with him the leather wallet containing the lock-picking tools. ‘You never know when you might encounter a house whose locks it would be useful to open,’ his father used to say, and Jack had always heeded this advice. If a lock was indeed behind this square of oak, it would be a heavy, very old-fashioned lock. But Jack had picked heavy, old-fashioned locks with complete success before.
He investigated the miscellaneous debris in the cellar, hoping to find something that could be used as a chisel, but there was nothing. He tilted the candle closer to the door to examine it more closely, scorching a fingertip from the candle in the process, and swearing. His cry echoed eerily in the dim cellar, but the small pain gave him an idea. It would be impossible to burn down the whole of the door – even if he could do so with a couple of candles and a tin of matches it would take a very long time, and he could well set light to the entire cellar, and still be trapped in it. But could he burn off the wooden lock plate? He searched again, this time looking for rags or cloth that would burn fairly easily. He sent a quick look to the shape in the corner, still partly wrapped in the remnants of its clothes. Would they burn? But he could not and would not take the tattered remains of the dead woman’s clothes.
That left his own clothes, and his overcoat was thick cashmere. Jack took it off, along with his scarf, and rolled them into a tight bundle. He removed the wallet with the lock-picking tools and set it down near the door. There were leather gloves he could put on to protect his hands – they would probably catch fire, but not as quickly as the woollen coat and the scarf. He pulled the gloves on, grasped the folded coat with one hand, and held the top section of it against the candle. The flame licked at the cloth at once, and as it began to burn, Jack held it against the wooden square. The wood blistered almost immediately, and he moved the flame slowly around the edges. Smoke curled out, and the heat began to work down to the leather gloves, but the wood was blistering more with every minute.
The gloves were starting to become uncomfortable when one side of the wooden square sagged. Jack at once flung the makeshift torch down behind him, and seized the edge, wrenching it free. Please let there be a lock behind it, because if there was not …
But there was. It was a massive and very old lock, but he had expected that. He opened the wallet and began to slide the metal hooks into the keyhole, trying several different ones, quickly realizing that the slender, smaller ones were no use, and using instead the larger ones. Twice he glanced behind him to where the wadded overcoat still smouldered in a corner, but although it was creating a good deal of smoke, it was not an actual fire. The thought flickered across his mind that smoke issuing from the house would be a good thing anyway; if it were seen, people would come to douse it. He would let it burn quietly and slowly away, and with any degree of luck the smoke would trickle up through the cellar roof, into the house above, and from there outside. If it looked like by staying within the confines of the cellar and getting out of control, he could stamp it out.
At the fourth attempt there was a click and he felt the hook latch into the mechanism inside the door. Slowly now, thought Jack. Don’t rush it. Don’t let me lose the connection. Don’t let the lock be rusted beyond use. He applied more pressure, and felt the mechanism spring back.
The door sagged, but it did not move. Jack pushed it as hard as he could, and there was a slow creaking sound, then slowly and reluctantly it gave way and swung a little way open. Jack pushed it wider, and fell thankfully out into the cool fresh air.
He lay for a little while in the field behind Bastle House, aware of his bruises and the pain of his injured shoulder more than he had been while he was opening the door. He realized, as well, that his hands were burned more than he had noticed.
He did not care about any of it. Presently he was able to sit up and then stand. The cold air was already clearing his head. He brushed some of the dust and grime away, and then saw that smoke was still curling upwards as he had hoped; it did not look like the beginnings of a real blaze, but he would have to go in search of someone and get help to quench it. He would have to do something about Saul Vallow as well, although he was not yet sure how he would deal with that.
But with the idea of at least containing the fire to some extent, he pushed the cellar door shut, and then went around the side of the house towards the narrow track that led to the meadow path and Candle Lane. He had only taken a few steps when he saw in the distance a figure climbing over the stile. Even from here he recognized it. Saul Vallow. Returning to Bastle House? To make sure Jack was dead after all? Or to deal with the fire before anyone saw it and came running out? Jack stepped back into the lee of the house’s wall, and watched.
As he stood there, Saul went up the stone steps at the front of the house, and unlocked the main door. Jack waited for a moment, then followed him.
Saul had returned to Vallow Hall with a sense of having dealt very satisfactorily with Jack Fitzglen.
He threw his overcoat on to the hall table for somebody to deal with, and carried his bag with the candles and the glass chalice into his study.
Seen in the better light of the room the chalice was a remarkable object. Saul had thought he might place it in full view of people here at the Hall – not that people came here these days, but situations could change. But now that he had it here he had a really curious feeling of wanting to keep it away from everyone – of secreting it in a place where no one but Saul himself could see it. For the moment he placed it in a wall cupboard, and closed the door on it. He would decide what to do with it later. He put the Bastle House keys in there with it.
