“So, what’s your idea of enjoying yourself, Miss Candidate for Sainthood?” Mrs. Malloy’s defiant attempt at a laugh came out as a snort, quite unfitting a future mistress of Mucklesfeld. “Would it be thinking you’ve already won Lord Belfrey’s heart with your looks and charm? A shame you’re not tall enough to look in a mirror once in ten years!”
The ensuing silence was the loudest I had ever heard. A pinched-faced Judy made no reply, but the gleam of tears in her eyes spoke paragraphs. No one else said peep, fearing perhaps, as I did, that to say anything would only make matters worse. If I could have produced a clap of thunder to startle Mrs. Malloy back to sense-demonstrated by a crawling, sniveling apology-I would have done so. As it was, I would have to wait until I got her alone. Or so I thought for the second and a half before a deafening crash of what sounded like vast wooden cymbals blasted us all back in our chairs, followed by an immediate plunge into darkness. A higher power at work? But just how much higher? Even in my shattered, trembling state, I couldn’t help thinking that Georges had been remarkably quiescent during this gathering. Had he just made up for such restraint with a bang?
Judy’s voice pierced the blackness. “That sounded to me like exterior shutters being clapped shut outside. There weren’t any at these windows when I was walking around that side of the house this morning, but it wouldn’t have taken any time even for one person to install them.”
“’Course not.” The meek voice sounded vaguely like Mrs. Malloy’s. Too little too late, I feared, to put her instantly back in anyone’s good books, but at least she wasn’t (as yet) ratcheting up the tension. “It could have been done right before lunch; no one was likely to go outdoors when waiting for the gong to bong, so to speak.”
“There aren’t any shutters at any of the windows.” This sounded like Livonia. “It isn’t the house for them, is it? I mean, it’s not a villa in the South of France or that type of place.”
“I’ll feel my way over to the door and try for a light switch.” That was Alice. As with Judy’s, her voice was instantly recognizable. A scraping back of chairs, followed by some blundering into one another (the dark truly was impenetrable), and then Alice again. “I’ve found it.” Minuscule pause. “Nothing! The power’s off, at least in here.”
“That Georges!” Judy sounded back to her bracing self. “No one can accuse him of not doing things in style. Have you tried the door handle?”
“Won’t turn.”
“Could I try?” Livonia offered. “One thing I got out of my relationship with Harold were a few, supposedly top secret company tricks on how to wiggle a lock. If someone would pass me a knife… Oh, thanks, whoever you are! A butter one, that’s perfect!”
Hope flamed… flickered… ebbed and died.
“Sorry. It has to be bolted on the outside. Harold didn’t have any solutions to that one.”
“Good try, Livonia,” said Judy. Echoes of agreement rose and fell.
“Well,” Mrs. Malloy said (perhaps a little less puffily than usual), “like Wisteria Whitworth exclaimed when the padded cell door closed on her…”
“Who?” several voices inquired.
“Another of Doris McCrackle’s heroines,” I supplied. “On that occasion she told herself there was no reason to panic and absolutely no use in screaming because no one would hear her. We’ll be heard, but no one will come because they’ll be under orders not to interfere. Even my husband will feel compelled to stuff his fingers in his ears. Luckily, unlike Wisteria, we aren’t dealing with reality-except in the silly sense of the word. This is a game. Another of Georges’s wacky challenges to see if the five of you can display steel under pressure. Meaning there has to be a way out of here. You just have to find it.”
“But you’ll help, won’t you, Ellie?” said Livonia steadily. “Perhaps your being here is Georges’s way of giving us a bonus card. You have a professional understanding of houses.”
“If anyone can find a secret exit, it’ll be Mrs. H here.” Even though my anger at Mrs. Malloy for bringing that gleam of tears into Judy’s eyes did not evaporate, I couldn’t help being touched by the pride in her voice. “Couldn’t put in a book all she knows about old places. Wouldn’t brag about it herself, she wouldn’t-modest to a fault, always was and always will be.”
This was laying it on too thick. Aware that attempting to sound self-deprecating would come off as self-satisfied, I kept silent.
“Glad for the silver lining,” said Alice. “Of course it’s too much to hope that Georges has supplied us with a torch.”
“Even if they aren’t remarkably scarce at Mucklesfeld, he wouldn’t make it that easy.”
“And to be fair to him, Ellie,” Judy’s voice came from close beside me, “it’s not to be expected that he would make things easier. A shame I’m not one wearing my hiking jacket; there’s a penlight in one of the pockets.”
A general murmur of resigned disappointment.
Molly spoke up. “I don’t know anything about secret passages and that sort of thing, but it doesn’t seem likely we’d find an opening on the window wall.”
“I don’t know all that much either,” I said in the direction of her voice. “Despite Mrs. Malloy is praise, I’m not an expert on houses the age of Mucklesfeld.” Answering snort. “Most of what I’ve gleaned-rightly or wrongly-comes from reading books of the sort written by Doris McCrackle. And in those fictional accounts the hidden opening is often found, after a great deal of tapping of the wainscoting, on one side or other of the fireplace.”
“There’s a lot of paneling,” said Molly, “but I didn’t notice a fireplace.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you would have done,” came Mrs. Malloy’s determinedly mellow rejoinder, “but it’s there on the back wall at the top of the table, closed off with a piece of metal sheeting.” Something I, the authority, hadn’t noticed.
Although not good in the dark (Ben might disagree), I managed to fumble my way without excessive bumping into furniture-hard-edged-or the other women-softer-edged-to the wall in question. A sharp yelp preceded Molly’s warning to be cautious of the metal fireplace covering. With considerable overlapping of hands, we proceeded to frisk the wainscoting. To be frank, I wasn’t entirely convinced we would locate a means of escape from the dining room other than the ones bolted against us. But just when I was thinking that past inhabitants of Mucklesfeld must have been a very dull, unimaginative lot, who hadn’t deserved the treat of being scared out of their wits by being forced to hide from the Roundheads or harbor a popish priest, someone bumped into me, causing my knee to jerk forward.
“Is whoever that was all right?” inquired Judy from somewhere to my right.
“Blissful,” I said, staring into an opening the size of a cupboard door, which though shadowy revealed the start of a passageway, suggesting that somewhere ahead was a window or even an exit. “Don’t anyone trample on me as we escape Georges’s clutches!”
Exuberant exclamations, cheers, and laughter exploded as I stepped forward. There was, however, nothing of a stampede in the surge behind me. The light neither brightened nor waned as we made our crocodile march down the narrow, timbered face fifteen or so feet before finding ourselves at the top of a stone stairway.
It was Judy who noticed the candlestick and box of matches. “A clue that we’re meant to go down,” she said, and to my relief Mrs. Malloy did not inform her that this was too obvious to bother mentioning.
“Oh, I do love clues,” said Molly from my immediate rear. “I’m actually enjoying this adventure.”
Judy lit the candle, put the matches in a hip pocket, and we began the downward procession.
“It is rather fun, isn’t it?” I could hear the smile in Livonia’s voice as we continued down, girded on both sides by walls that looked as though they had been around before Hadrian got busy doing his showing off. “Or maybe it’s just the relief of being out of the dining room, which I didn’t much like even before we got locked in.”