Up till now everything had gone like clockwork, but her act had stopped the clock dead. And everything hung on timing. The die had been cast. There could be no going back. Gregory knew that if he could not get her out that night, she would have to take her medicine even if it came to being shot. As for himself, the thought of the situation in which he had landed himself to no purpose made him seethe with rage. It struck him that this was just the sort of unforeseeable happening that so often ruined the plans of murderers.
As he stood staring at her twisted body, he fought to make his brain work calmly. Should he leave her there and quit, or was it still possible to retrieve the situation? He had counted on her to act as his lookout. He had meant her to climb an eighteen foot wall and wriggle across sixty feet of open ground on her tummy. To carry her the whole way would add enormously to the risk of their being seen, and he doubted his physical ability to do it. Yet so much hung upon his rescuing her. And finding himself up against some unforeseen difficulty had never yet made him throw his hand in.
With sudden resolution he ran forward, snatched up the key that had fallen from her hand, grabbed her wrist and pulled her arm round his neck. Then, with a fireman's lift, he carried her up the short flight of stairs to her room.
Having got her into it and on the bed, he ripped off her outer clothes, hunted round till he found the black slacks and turtle necked sweater, and thrust her flopping limbs into them. Deciding that cold or no cold she would have to go without a coat because its flapping skirts might get in his way, he carried her down to the front door. Leaving her there, he went back for his suitcase. When he had fetched it, he opened the door quietly and looked out.
From where he stood he could make out the silhouette of the Bloody Tower opposite, and the top of the Inner Wall running west from it, but down below was a grey foggy darkness that would have hidden anyone standing there. He listened for a long moment. Hearing no sound of footfalls, he left the door on the latch and went out on to the stonewalled balcony. Walking at a normal pace along it, he went down the steps at its end into Water Lane. After having strained his eyes, peering first one v/ay then the other into the murk, he coughed loudly to draw attention to himself. No challenge came. The place was deserted.
Turning, he ran back up the steps. His rubber soled shoes made his quick movement almost soundless. Dragging Sabine and lifting his suitcase out on to the gallery he shut the door firmly. Again he got her into a fireman's lift across his shoulders, picked up the suitcase with his free hand, and at a shambling run carried them down into the roadway.
For all Sabine's slim figure, her dead weight was considerable. By the time he got her to the railing in front of the steps leading down to Traitors' Gate, he was panting like a grampus, and sweating profusely. Unceremoniously he bundled her over on to the top step, then followed with the suitcase. The pit was a canyon of utter blackness and, as he staggered down the steps with her limbs dangling about him, he knew that he was now out of danger for the moment.
At an easier pace he crossed the stone floor of the old entrance to the moat and so pitch dark was it that he walked right into the great gate before he saw it. Lowering Sabine he undid his suitcase then glanced at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It was twenty past ten. He had lost only ten minutes through having to dress Sabine. If things went well, and his strength did not fail him, he might yet get her on to the embankment by a quarter to eleven.
Not daring to use his torch, he felt for the saw, switched on the battery, and set to work on cutting through one of the iron bars of the gate between its two lower horizontal beams. The bars were square and about an inch thick, but very old and partially rusted through; so, if he had not been afraid of discovery, he could have made short work of them. As it was, every other minute he had to switch off and pause to listen, in case someone passed above and heard the buzzing of the saw. Once he caught the sound of voices, and remained dead still for three minutes by his watch, to ensure that whoever it was had passed well out of earshot.
The two cuts to get out the lower section of the first bar took him sixteen minutes. As he had to cut out two more before there would be an opening large enough to crawl through, he knew already that he had been unduly optimistic in hoping to get Sabine to the launch on its first run in. But his experience with the first bar made his work on the other two considerably quicker.
Grimly, he alternately worked away with his saw and paused to listen. At last the job was done. After wrenching out the third bar he looked at his watch. It was two minutes to eleven. Raising Sabine he pushed her through the two foot square hole he had made. Then he repacked his suitcase, crawled through himself and pulled it after him.
He now had ample time, so he sat with his back against the gate resting for a couple of minutes. Getting to his feet again, he carried Sabine through the tunnel to the far end of the pit in which it terminated. It was somewhat lighter there, as it was not surrounded with high walls, and had only the grim facade of St. Thomas's Tower on its north side; but the shroud of darkness and fog was still sufficient to hide a person down in it, providing he kept still, from anyone looking down from above.
Having fetched his suitcase, Gregory got from it the ten inch steel spikes and the mallet with the padded top. To his relief he found no difficulty in driving the spikes firmly into the crevices between the two foot deep blocks of stone that formed the sidewalls of the pit, and the mallet having been muffled its strokes made little noise. But when he had to stand on the lower spikes to drive in others higher up, it was a precarious business.
As he took his time over it, fourteen minutes elapsed before he reached the top. The stone parapet shelved outward and, leaning his arms on it, he peered about in all directions. There was no sign of movement and he could just make out a few of the nearest old cannons, some sixty feet away.
Descending to the pit, he looked at his watch. It was sixteen minutes past eleven. There was still nearly half an hour to go, and to wait about on the embankment would be to court disaster. For the final stage he reckoned ten minutes should be easily sufficient, so for the next nineteen they must remain where they were, in the pit.
A dank chill pervaded the old moat, making it bitterly cold down there. Gregory got out his flask and took two long swigs of brandy but he did not dare to force any down Sabine's throat. To do so might now have brought her round but made her vomit; and he knew that he stood a better chance with a limp body than one half-conscious, moaning and racked with pain.
The minutes dragged interminably, and now that he had time to think he was plagued with fresh fears. Had he made it absolutely plain to Kasdar that if they were not on the embankment at a quarter to eleven he was to return at a quarter to twelve? Had Kasdar, after not finding them at the rendezvous the first time, been seized with the idea that they must have been caught, that the guards would now be on the alert, and that he might be caught too if he risked bringing the launch in again? As there had been no alarm or shouting out on the embankment during the past hour the launch must have remained undetected on its first run in; but would it be so lucky next time?
At last the gruelling wait was over. Taking the two belts out of the suitcase, Gregory fastened one round Sabine's waist and the other round his own. He had brought them only for the purpose of lowering her over the twelve foot deep embankment to the launch. Now, he thanked his stars he had thought of that, for without them and the rope which joined them it would have been utterly impossible to get her up the ladder of steel spikes.