“Oof!” Spencer grunted as Fidget yanked at his lead. “Looks like the dog has picked up the scent again!”
“Allow him to show us the way, Mr. Spencer,” Krishnamurthy ordered. “And voices low, please, gentlemen!”
Following behind the basset hound, they ran up the slope to the back of Tichborne House, crossed the patio, and entered cautiously through the open doors to the gunroom.
The house was silent.
Hoare touched his superior's arm and pointed to the floor. Krishna-murthy looked down and, in the dim light, saw black spots trailing across it. He bent and touched one, raised his finger to his nose, and whispered: “Blood. Someone's hurt.”
“Not Richard, I hope!” Swinburne hissed.
They moved across the chamber and out into the hallway, tiptoed along it, and passed into the large ballroom.
Fidget's nose, and the trail of blood, took them straight across the dance floor, out through another door, and along a passage toward the smoking room. Before they got there, the dog pulled them into an off-branching corridor.
“I thought so,” Swinburne muttered. “There are stairs ahead that lead down to the servants’ quarters, the kitchen, and the entrance to the labyrinth.”
“You think they have him under the Crawls, lad?” Spencer asked.
“I think it likely.”
Commander Krishnamurthy pulled his truncheon from his belt and nodded to Hoare to do the same.
“Move behind us, please, gentlemen,” he said. The poet and philosopher obeyed.
They crept on, reached the stairs, descended, and became aware of a low-pitched repetitive rumbling.
“It's Mrs. Picklethorpe's bloomin’ snorin’!” Spencer whispered.
A few steps later, voices came to them from the kitchen.
“Shhh,” Swinburne breathed. “Listen!”
“-knows the finances of the estate, so we need to keep the fool alive for the time being.”
The poet recognised the brash tones at once. It was Edward Kenealy.
“But can we make him cooperate?” came an unfamiliar voice. “He's a stubborn old sod.”
“He'll crack as soon as we get him near the diamonds again, don't you worry. He's very susceptible. No resistance at all. How's the doctor, Bogle?”
“He's bleeding badly, sir.”
A fourth man spoke, his voice tremulous: “I'll be all right.”
Swinburne recognised the tones.
“We need you for the seance, Jankyn,” Kenealy said.
“Just bandage me up tightly,” came the response. “Bogle can run me to the Alresford doctor later. I'll be fine for the seance.”
“I should dig out the pellets, sir.”
“No, Bogle,” Kenealy snapped. “There's no time. We have to contact the mistress as soon as we can. She wants to check on Burton's condition. Waite, help me find a table and chairs. We'll carry them to the central chamber. We have to conduct the seance in the presence of our prisoners.”
Krishnamurthy turned to his companions and whispered, “Four of ’em, and one disabled. Come on!”
He and Constable Hoare dashed forward, with Swinburne, Herbert Spencer, and Fidget at their heels. They hurtled into the kitchen and all hell broke loose.
Swinburne caught a glimpse of Jankyn, shirtless and bloodied, lying on a table with Bogle standing beside him. Edward Kenealy and a Rake-the man named Waite-were near the pantries.
“Stop! Police!” Krishnamurthy bellowed.
“Don't move!” Hoare shouted.
“Damnation!” Kenealy barked, swinging around and raising his right arm.
Swinburne dived aside as a bolt of blue lightning crackled out of the lawyer's hand and whipped across the room to envelop the policemen's heads.
Krishnamurthy covered his eyes and collapsed to his knees.
Hoare, though, took the full brunt of the attack. His body snapped rigid and rose six inches from the ground, floating within a dancing, sizzling aura of blue energy. He shook wildly and let loose a high-pitched howl of pain. His face turned red, then blue, and blood spurted from his nose and eyes.
“Bleedin’ heck!” yelled Spencer, who'd fallen against a cupboard. “Stop it!”
Swinburne looked around, saw a frying pan, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd grabbed and thrown it.
The pan hit Kenealy's forehead with a tremendous clang. The lawyer staggered, tripped, and fell onto his back. The energy shooting from his hand left Hoare, fizzled across the ceiling, and vanished.
The constable dropped.
Waite leaped over to a work surface, seized a wooden chopping board, and launched it at Swinburne. The poet ducked. It spun past his head and smacked against the wall behind him.
Krishnamurthy moaned and fell forward onto his hands.
Bogle picked up a dinner plate and pitched it in Spencer's direction.
Fidget barked and ran out of the room.
Kitchen implements were suddenly flying back and forth; pans, crockery, and cutlery, crashing and smashing with a deafening racket.
Constable Hoare's truncheon rolled to Spencer's feet. The philosopher grabbed it and sent it spinning through the air. It hit Waite in the throat, and the Rake doubled over, choking.
Krishnamurthy crawled forward, moaning with the effort. He'd almost reached Kenealy when the lawyer rolled over, turned, and looked up. Blood was streaming down his face from a wound in his forehead. He jerked a hand toward the policeman. Blue flame grew around his fingers.
“None of that!” the Flying Squad man groaned, and whacked his truncheon down onto the hand.
Kenealy screamed as his finger bones crunched.
Krishnamurthy slumped forward and passed out.
“What's the meaning of this!” demanded a voice from the doorway. It was Mrs. Picklethorpe, resplendent in her nightgown and hair curlers. A pan, launched by Bogle, hit her square between the eyes. She toppled back against the corridor wall and slid to the floor.
Swinburne flung a full bottle of wine at Bogle and whooped with satisfaction as it bounced off the Jamaican's head and exploded against a cupboard behind him. The butler swayed and buckled, dropping onto Kenealy.
The lawyer pushed his uninjured hand out in Swinburne's direction.
“I'll kill you!” he snarled.
Spencer bounded across the room and sent a thick hardbound cookery book thudding down onto Kenealy's head, knocking him cold. The heavy volume fell open at the title page: Miss Mayson's Book of Household Management.
“Well, I'll be blowed!” Herbert muttered. He bent and retrieved the volume then sent it slapping into the side of Waite's head. The Rake collapsed, out for the count.
Jankyn sat up and moaned. He held both his hands flat against his left side. Blood leaked between his fingers.
“Bastards!” he said huskily.
“You're hardly in a position to insult us,” Swinburne observed. “I assume Guilfoyle shot you?”
Spencer knelt and helped the recovering Krishnamurthy to his feet.
“Yes,” Jankyn groaned. “He tried to take Burton from us. Kenealy killed him but the man's shotgun went off as he died. The only working gun on the whole bloody estate, and I have to get it!”
“What was that lightning Kenealy fired from his hand?”
“Get me to a hospital. I'm bleeding to death.”
“Answer my questions and I'll consider it,” the poet answered, and Spencer had never heard the little man sound so grim.
“It's etheric energy. Kenealy has a talent for channelling it, which the mistress has enhanced.”
“The mistress? Who's she?
“She's the leader of-Ah! It hurts! I need treatment, man!”
“The leader of the Rakes? I know. And she's a Russian. But what's her name?”
“I haven't the foggiest, I swear! Enough! Enough! Look at this blood! Help me, damn it!”
“Is Burton alive?” Swinburne demanded.
“Possibly. He's in the centre of the labyrinth.”
“How many are in there, guarding him?”
“None.”
“You're lying.”
“I'm not.”
“If that's the way you want to play it, fine. Physician, heal thyself, and if you bleed to death, I'll not mind one little bit, you damned blackguard.”