I stood up and loosened my tie, opening the neck of my shirt. Then I walked over and had another look at the wall thermometer. It was now reading eighty. I really was worried then because something had begun to nag at me.
I looked at the copper grid in the floor by the window. There was a line of them all round the room, set about two feet back from the walls. This one was fastened to the floor by a couple of screws at each end. Hot air streamed up through the ornamented grid work, very hot air.
I looked at the thermometer again. It now ready eighty-two. Ever since Durnford had closed the doors on us the temperature had started to rise. When I had first come in here the place had been at a comfortable room heat. Now it was hot enough to grow orchids.
I looked across at O'Dowda and Kermode. O'Dowda, his gown flowing open untidily, was leaning back in his chair, glass in hand, watching me, the light from the candles behind him on the raised throne burnishing the stiff stubble of his red hair.
Kermode was sitting on the edge of the throne, a small, bent-up grasshopper of a man, the side of his face caked with dried blood, his dark eyes on me, full of interest, promising himself, no doubt, some dark pleasure of revenge when the moment came.
O'Dowda, imagining I was about to say something, said, 'Not so cocky now, eh? But don't waste your breath trying to make any deal. You're here and we're here and we're going to get you. So no deals.'
He was right. I was going to speak, but not about deals.
I said, 'What's the temperature limit on this heating system?'
They both looked surprised at the question, then Kermode said, 'Somewhere around ninety-five.'
I said, 'It's gone up from seventy to over eighty in the last ten minutes.'
'So what? It's that bloody fool Durnford. He's locked us in and turned up the regulator,' said O'Dowda. 'The man's gutless. He doesn't like us and that's all he can think of doing. I'd have had some respect for him if he'd pulled a gun on me — even though he was talking through his hat about all that murder stuff. Sit down, boyo, and take your jacket off and finish your champagne. Might feel like a nice sleep afterwards.' He chuckled to himself.
I had it then, of course. For the last few minutes it had been at the back of my mind, but now I had it clear. Durnford was crazy, but he was no fool. And there wasn't any question of his being willing to wound and afraid to strike.
I said quickly, 'Remember the first time I was in this room, O'Dowda? I handed over a thermal bomb to you. A big overweight beast of a thing that could blow this room to bits. What did you do with it?'
He wasn't any fool either. He was with me at once.
'I gave it to Durnford to get rid of.'
'Well, my guess is that he has. Somewhere in this room. Probably, on the pipes under one of the floor grids, that bomb is sticking like a limpet waiting for the temperature to hit the right mark. Durnford has pulled a gun on you all right, and the rest of us.'
They were both on their feet.
I said, 'Kermode, go quickly round this room and see if you can spot any grid screws that have been scratched or tampered with.'
'The windows,' said O'Dowda, and now there was alarm in his voice. 'Smash 'em open, that'll bring the temperature down.'
'Only the air temperature. It won't affect the bomb. It's clamped against a pipe somewhere.'
'We can take up all the grids and turn the heat off at the individual radiators,' said O'Dowda.
He was panicking now.
I said, 'There are about two dozen in this room, and we need a screwdriver. The only thing to do is to spot the grid he used. We can rip that up, maybe.'
As I spoke Kermode was already on his way round the room, examining the grids.
I checked the grids along the window wall. None of them showed signs of having been moved. The thermometer on the wall now read eighty-five. What would he have set the temperature control at on the bomb? Ninety? Eighty-seven?
Kermode came out from behind the throne and said, 'I can't see any grid that's marked.'
'Pull 'em all up,' shouted O'Dowda. 'Come on.'
He went to the nearest grid, bent, got his huge fingers in the ornamented copper-work and pulled. The soft copper face bulged upwards, stretching under his power, but the screws at either end held. And they would hold, I knew that. He was a millionaire. Millionaires don't tolerate shoddy work. In any suburban house the screws would have come out as though they had been set in soap. Anyone who worked for him was forced to give full value for money. That was his epitaph. I couldn't bother with mine. I checked the thermometer again; it was eighty-seven. I put what might be my last bet on Durnford having plumped for ninety and headed for the door. The grids ran all around the room except across the door end. If any spot was going to be safer than another, it might be this end. Also it was well away from the windows. I didn't want momentarily to survive the blast and have a sheet of glass take my head off.
Kermode stood, lost, at the foot of the throne and shouted, 'What the hell do we do?'
I said, 'Come down here and fix yourself some cover.'
As I spoke, I toppled over a duchess and laid her lengthways as a barricade. I piled a gent in diplomatic corps dress on top of her. At least I was observing social levels.
Kermode began to move, but O'Dowda, panicking, not believing that there wasn't something that could be done, working on the old millionaire's principle of maintaining immunity from everything unpleasant, shouted, 'Give me a hand with this!'
He was tugging at another grid, the sweat lacquering his red face. Kermode hesitated, glancing towards me as I broke the social code and put a Coptic bazaar merchant on top of the diplomatic corps man.
O'Dowda roared at Kermode again and Kermode went to him. He had to, he had to bank on survival, and that meant he had to be in O'Dowda's good books. Master and man, it's a bond that lasts right up to death, when the master is a millionaire. I was glad I was my own master and man. There was no quarrel between us. I added three more bodies and then propped a tall, thin, ascetic-faced university don with a fur- tipped robe against the pile. I wondered what he'd done to annoy O'Dowda. Voted against him in convocation, maybe, when the others wanted to give him an honorary law degree in return for some new university building.
Between them, they ripped up the grid at last, buckling it back. The screws were still holding but they gained enough room to feel inside. O'Dowda bent and groped and almost immediately was up and reaching for another grid. He was a trier. With luck — and it would have to be the luck of the Irish — he might strike the right grid this time, might even get it opened up and have his hand poised, but he was running a race with ninety degrees Fahrenheit and my bet was that it was pushing the eighty-nine mark already.
Gun and parcel in either hand, I settled behind my barrier and shouted, 'For God's sake be sensible. Get some cover away from the grids!'
Kermode, straining at the grid with his master, turned and looked at me. All he could see was my head behind the barricade. His eyes were full of longing, but he dared not leave his master.
Then suddenly he straightened up, taking his hands off the grid.
'KERMODE!' roared O'Dowda angrily.
'Wait a minute.'
Kermode turned and ran towards the throne. There was a strip of fine Persian carpet across the floor four yards away from the monstrous effigy of O'Dowda. He ripped it aside. There was a grid underneath it.
'I'd forgotten this one…' He bent over, examining the screws. 'This one! This one!'
O'Dowda moved towards him, gown flying, knocking over a table as he went, shoving a Rajah-like figure, turbanned, white-suited, out of his way.