“After his trial he was mocked by the Roman soldiers,” Malachi said.
“But what hour was that?”
Malachi shook his head. “The Bible doesn’t say.”
Warthrop thought for a moment, bringing all his prodigious powers of concentration to bear upon the riddle. “Not mocked by soldiers,” he said slowly. “By witches. The witching hour is three a.m., in mockery of the Trinity and a perversion of the hour of his death.” He drew a deep breath and nodded decisively. “It’s three o’clock, Kearns. I’m sure of it.”
Kearns set the hands to three o’clock, the tumblers inside softly clicked, and, before Kearns or anyone else could try his luck, Warthrop reached out and pressed against the nerveless rock. With a grinding groan the secret door slid straight back, creating an opening on one side through which two men could walk abreast. Neither light nor sound escaped from that dark fissure, only the faintest odor of decay, a smell with which I had, unfortunately, become all too familiar. Like the grave, what lay behind the great marble door was black and silent and reeked of death.
“Well!” Kearns said brightly. “Shall we draw lots to see who goes first?”
Malachi pulled the lamp from my hand. “I will go,” he announced grimly. “It is my place; I’ve earned it.”
Kearns pulled the lamp from Malachi’s hand. “It is my place; I’m being paid for it.”
Warthrop pulled the lamp from Kearns ’s hand. “The place is mine,” he said. “I inherited it.”
He glanced at Morgan, who misread the meaning of it. The constable dropped a hand onto my shoulder. “I’ll look after Will Henry.”
Before Malachi or Kearns could protest, Warthrop ducked into the opening. The light of the lamp faded, then disappeared altogether. For several excruciatingly elongated minutes we waited without speaking, straining our ears for any sound to emerge from the stygian darkness that dwelled behind the secret door. The lamp’s glow returned at last, attended by the doctor’s lean shadow, following next its glow upon his drawn features; I’d never witnessed him wearier.
“Well, Warthrop, what did you find?” demanded Morgan.
“Stairs,” replied the doctor quietly. “Descending down a narrow shaft-and a door at the bottom.” He turned to Kearns. “I stand corrected, Jack.”
“When have you ever known me to be wrong, Pellinore?”
The doctor ignored the question. “The door is locked.”
“A good sign,” Kearns said, “but a bad circumstance. I don’t suppose your father bequeathed you the key to it.”
“My father willed me many things,” replied the doctor darkly.
Kearns called for the crate to be brought inside the tomb, and he quickly laid out the supplies for the hunt: extra ammunition for the rifles; six of the remaining grenades; a small sack containing a collection of sachets, perhaps two dozen in all, their shape and size reminding me of tea bags; a tight coil of sturdy rope; and a bundle of long tubes with short, fat strings protruding from one end.
“What is that, Cory?” asked Morgan, pointing at the bundle. “Dynamite?”
“Dynamite!” exclaimed Kearns with a slap of his open hand against his forehead. “Now, that is something I should have thought of!” He pulled three canvas bags from the crate and packed each with two grenades, bullets, and a fistful of the little paper packets. He patted the empty sheath strapped to his leg and wondered aloud where his knife had gone.
“I have it, sir,” I said, and held out the knife.
“How is it you keep ending up with my knife, Will Henry?” he asked playfully. He flicked the wickedly sharp blade against the twine binding the sticks and distributed them equally into the bags.
“They’re long-burning flares, Constable,” he informed Morgan. “Bright light for dark work.” He slung one of the bags over his shoulder and handed another to the doctor. The last he dangled in the constable’s direction. “Bobby-or would you prefer to delegate the duty to one of your brave volunteers?”
Malachi snatched the bag from Kearns. “I am going.”
“Your zeal is admirable, but I worry about its effect upon your judgment,” Kearns replied reasonably.
“I watched this thing murder my sister,” Malachi shot back. “I am coming with you.”
Kearns responded with a sunny smile. “Very well. But if your bloodlust gets in the way of my job, I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
He turned away from the tortured boy, his gray eyes twinkling merrily in the lamplight. “She has every advantage, gentlemen. She is faster, stronger, and what she lacks in intelligence she more than compensates for with her cunning. She knows the lay of the land, whereas we do not, and she can navigate it in darkness as black as pitch, which of course we cannot. We’ve no choice in the matter, of course, but the light we bring announces our presence; it will draw her to us like a moth to the flame. Her only weakness is the overriding instinct to protect her young, a vulnerability we may be able to exploit, should we be lucky enough to separate them from her maternal care. When threatened in the wild, poppies sequester their young in the lowermost chambers of their underground dens. That’s our destination, gentlemen, the very bowels of the earth, though we might not reach them; she may meet us halfway, or she may simply wait for us, but the odds we will have the element of surprise on our side are practically niclass="underline" We are the hunters-and we are also the bait.”
He turned to the constable. “You and your men will remain above, two on patrol of the cemetery’s perimeter, two for the grounds, and two on the watch here. She may flee to the surface, but I sincerely doubt it. It isn’t in her nature.”
“And if she does?” asked the constable, his round, owlish eyes blinking rapidly behind his spectacles.
“Then I would suggest you kill her.”
He clapped his hands, beaming with delight at our startled reaction to its echoing retort. “Jolly good, then! Any questions? Fools rush in, you know. Will Henry, be a good lad and grab that rope.”
“I thought only the three of you were going,” the constable said, dropping his hand upon my shoulder.
“Only as far as the door, Constable,” said Kearns. “To save us a trip back up for it. Your concern is touching, though. Here.” With the toe of his boot he pushed the rope across the smooth floor toward Morgan. “You carry it.”
Morgan stared at it as if it were a rattlesnake coiled at his feet. His hand dropped from my shoulder. “Well… I suppose it would be all right, as long as it’s only to the door.”
“Touching,” repeated Kearns with soft derision. He turned to the doctor as I picked up the rope. “Pellinore, after you.”
Now through the black slit in the wall we followed the doctor’s dancing light, Kearns first, then Malachi, and finally me, shuffling forward, borne down by the heavy rope draped over my shoulder. A flight of narrow stairs confronted us on the other side of the wall, descending thirteen steps to a small landing, then, after turning sharply to the right, continuing for another baker’s dozen to a cramped chamber, six feet long and six wide, its walls and ceiling reinforced by wide wooden planks that reminded me of a ship’s decking. Into this claustrophobic space the four of us crowded, our lamps throwing our misshaped shadows upon the weathered timber.
“You said there was a door,” Malachi whispered to the doctor. “Where is it?”
“We are standing on it,” replied the doctor.
We followed his gaze downward. A trapdoor lay under our feet, hinged on one edge, with a rusting padlock on the opposite side securing it to a clasp bolted into the chamber floor.
“And there is no key?” asked Malachi.
“Of course there’s a key,” Kearns said. “We just aren’t in possession of it.”
“No, sir,” I spoke up. “I think I have it.”