“Now turn out the light,” he whispered.
The following stage of the operation was carried out in silence. Simon worked the scissors through the cloth above him and slowly cut out a circle of the material roughly two feet in diameter. He handed the piece of cloth down to Amity, who held his legs to steady him during the next part of his work.
He had already ascertained during the afternoon that the ceiling was not the original, which probably had been plaster long cracked with age, but was modern plasterboard in two by two foot squares nailed directly to the beams.
“Are you sure,” he had said to Amity in the afternoon during one of their later dances, “that S.W.O.R.D. doesn’t have some sort of an alarm system rigged to the ceilings?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” she had answered rather emotionally. “Do you think I can read Warlock’s mind? Do you think I built the place or something?”
“In any of your books, was the ceiling rigged?” he had asked firmly.
“No, I never thought of that.”
“Not very bright.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Be grateful,” Simon had told her soothingly. “That little oversight may save our lives.”
Now, however, as he actually brought the point of the scissors into contact with one of the cracks between sections of plasterboard, he felt more hope than confidence. Could he be certain that Warlock would have followed Amos Klein’s works slavishly enough to include even the oversights in the construction of his headquarters? There was no guarantee that the first penetration of the scissors, or the first prying away of a section of plasterboard, would not result in a deafening and potentially deadly eruption of alarms and pounding feet in hallways all over the building.
Simon slipped the point of the scissors between the adjoining pieces of ceiling material until he felt the scissors press against the wooden beams to which the plasterboard was nailed. There was no alarm. Not breathing, but hearing the sound of his own breathing from the tape recorder, Simon cautiously moved the scissors to one side, using them as a lever to pry the board from the wooden beam. Instinctively he worked slowly, as if he thought he could slam the board back into place at the first sound of ringing bells and thereby avoid detection, even though he knew that one split second of alarm would guarantee catastrophe at this point.
Still, he worked slowly, and not only through an unreasoning desire to avoid an alarm which, if it existed, could not be avoided, but because of the necessity for silence. Three nails held the square of plasterboard to a beam on each of its sides, which meant that the Saint, with his tiny pair of scissors, had to work loose six nails without a squeak of metal in wood nor a rattle of the already loosened edges of the board against the beams. Envying the recorded ease with which his lungs had enjoyed their oxygen that afternoon, he breathed with silent caution and eased the nails from their seats in the wood.
The next to the last was stubborn. It had no intention of budging without a fight, and when it did it creaked from the hard wood with what sounded to Simon’s ears like the legendary shriek of a mandrake torn living from the earth.
“Shh!” said Amity.
Simon restricted his reaction to vivid mental images of Amity hanging by her thumbs from the ceiling of Warlock’s subterranean torture chamber. Silently he passed down the square of plasterboard, and his companion slipped it under the bed.
“Now,” he whispered, “up you go.”
He formed a stirrup with his hands in order to boost her through the hole in the ceiling. She steadied one of her feet there.
“Ready,” she whispered.
“Down!” Simon snapped.
“What?”
“Someone’s coming.”
Simon dropped Amity on to the bed without much regard for how she landed. The footsteps he had heard approaching in the corridor were at the door. There were four rapid knocks.
“Keep still,” Simon whispered to Amity. “Get your clothes off, and if anybody pokes his head in here try to keep his eyes on you and hope he doesn’t notice the hole in the ceiling.”
Amity’s protesting gasps were cut short as he rolled quickly from the bed, drawing the curtains behind him. Almost blind in the darkness, he managed to locate the tape recorder and slap down the ‘off’ button just as a gentle ping announced the unlocking of his room’s door. As it opened, he staggered bleary-eyed into the fan of bright light that came in from the hall.
“What is it?” he mumbled. “What’s happening?”
The ample form of Bishop presented itself on the threshold.
“I heard something squeak,” he said, half belligerently and half apologetically.
“And you woke me up to tell me that?” Simon cried, working himself rapidly into a temperamental rage. “Why didn’t you call your mother?”
Bishop would have stepped into the room if Simon had not blocked his way.
“I’m supposed to investigate anything strange,” he muttered.
He was doing his best to investigate, going on tiptoe from one foot to the other as he bobbed from side to side trying to see around the Saint’s shoulders.
“Well I’m here,” Simon shouted at him. “What more do you want? If you’d prefer total silence you’d better send me home or shut down your blasted listening post!”
There was a sound of running feet behind Bishop, and Warlock himself hove into view, puffing mightily. He was clutching a quilted red robe around him, and he had either lost or not taken time to put on one of his loose-fitting slippers.
“What’s wrong?” he called.
“I...” Bishop began, but Simon interrupted.
“Wrong?” he yelled. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong! These idiots of yours are harassing me to death.” He pointed at Bishop, almost prodding his nose. “Do you know what’s wrong with this one? He heard something squeak! Can you believe that?” Simon’s voice rose to a tremulous climax as he invoked Warlock’s incredulity. “Can you believe it? He heard something squeak!”
“What is this, Bishop?” Warlock asked. “I told you to call me only in an emergency.”
“I...” Bishop began. Then he paused, red-faced. “I heard this sort of loud squeak, and I reckoned...”
“He reckoned any excuse was enough to let him barge in here and wake me up in the middle of the night!” said the Saint. “And I absolutely cannot function without eight hours of uninterrupted sleep! I cannot!” He thumped his fist against his open palm. “I absolutely cannot.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Klein,” said Bishop, “but I distinctly heard...”
“A squeak,” Simon said.
“Is that all, Bishop?” Warlock asked sternly.
“It was a loud squeak,” Bishop said. He tried to see around the Saint into the room. “Maybe I’d better check the bed,” he said defensively.
“Oh, wonderful!” said Simon, carried to new heights of sarcasm by the obvious cretinism of Warlock’s staff. “Check the bed! Magnificent.” He flung out an inviting arm. “Please do. Please. I don’t know which of us will be most embarrassed, but if it’ll earn me a few hours’ rest, you’re more than welcome.”
“Bishop,” said Warlock, “go back to the monitoring room. I’ll speak to you later. In the meantime, do not disturb me or Mr. Klein unless you’re quite certain something is wrong.”
“Yes,” Simon called after Bishop. “Squeak or no squeak. As long as I’m cooped up here I’ll squeak all I please. I’ll stay up all night storming around the room shouting ‘SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK!’ at the top of my lungs if I feel like it!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Klein,” Warlock said. “People are a bit jumpy and over-eager, but I’ll try to prevent you from being bothered.”