I certainly hadn’t expected what happened next.
The effect of his arrival was earth-shattering. Everybody stopped dead and turned, standing stiff and straighter. No, they didn’t just stand straighter, they stood at attention, their eyes wide.
‘Holy Moly,’ I whispered, gazing at the silent crowd.
Mr Ambrose stood at the edge of the hall. He stood on the same level with everyone else. Still, with their stares fixed on him like that, he seemed to tower over everybody like some Greek god on Mount Olympus who wasn’t above hurling a few lightning bolts at people who didn’t worship fast enough.
His dark eyes met those of Sallow-face, whose face actually lost some yellowness, turning white at the eye contact. He gave a tiny, curt bow, and bent over his books again, back to work. He wasn’t the only one. That flicker of dark eyes had been enough: suddenly, everybody was moving again, only now they moved at double speed.
And Mr Ambrose started forward again.
Blimey…!
I could almost feel it radiating out from him: the power, like a spider’s web, that joined him to every person in this building, the ends of the web connected to his employees’ brains, right to the part that was responsible for fear and obedience.
Maybe, that annoying little voice inside me said, just maybe, in comparison, he hasn't worked you that hard after all.
Mr Ambrose headed straight across the hallway. He didn’t need to navigate through the masses of people: wherever he stepped, people made way for him. Not like they would for a king, forming a guard of honour or something, no. They were far too busy showing him how busy they were, working for him, making more money, to stand around doing nothing. But they never got in his way as he headed for a metal door at the other side of the huge room, marching along a line as straight as a ruler.
Taking a large ring of keys out of his pocket, he opened the door, stepped inside the corridor beyond and was just about to let the door fall shut behind him when I woke up from my daze. Bloody hell! I was supposed to go with him!
‘Wait up!’
He was so intent on getting to his victim and starting to squeeze information out of him that he seemed to have forgotten all about me, and Karim, too, for that matter. But when I called, he looked up to see me dashing across the hallway. I was beside him in seconds, and after a moment’s hesitation, he held the door open for me.
‘I thought… it’s only… ladies who go first,’ I panted, not able to conceal my grin. ‘Since when have you started acknowledging my femininity?’
‘Since I want to have the door locked behind us and am the only one with the key,’ he shot back. I heard Karim come up behind me, huffing, puffing, and grumbling things in Punjabi. ‘Now shut up and get a move on!’
‘Yes, Sir!’ I smirked and stepped into the corridor beyond. After a few steps I stopped, for a very good reason:
The corridor had no windows and no lamps. Before me lay complete and utter darkness. Well, almost complete and utter. Through the open door a few rays of sunlight shone into the corridor, but they only reached a few yards, then failed. All I could see were these few yards of cold stone floor.
‘Err… Mr Ambrose, Sir…?’
I heard Karim step into the corridor behind me, and the door slammed shut, bringing us from almost complete and utter darkness to utter complete and utter darkness.
‘Well, that’s just spiffing,’ I commented, turning my head from left to right, which made absolutely no difference to the blackness I saw. ‘Now it’s even easier for us to walk into walls!’
‘This corridor leads underground,’ Mr Ambrose said. ‘That makes it hard to have windows. And why should I expend money on wall lamps…?’
‘Yes, why? I mean, the human skull can take a few concussions, no problem.’
‘…why should I spend money on wall lamps, when it is perfectly possible to carry one single lamp and save a lot of money for oil?’
A spark flared in the darkness. It caught on something and, a moment later, a yellowish light grew a few feet away from me, at about my shoulder level. It fell on Mr Ambrose’s classic features, and he jerked his head to the left, down the corridor.
‘Come. Let’s go.’
Holding the lamp over his head, he marched ahead of us. The little light was just bright enough to shine a few feet ahead. Luckily the stone floor was as even as a ruler, or I would have stumbled and broken my foot a dozen times. Probably he’d polished it himself with sandpaper, to save the builder’s bill. Or he’d just willed it to be smooth by staring at it long enough. I wouldn’t put it past him.
The corridor started to slope downwards into the earth, towards the cellars under Empire House. We went around several curves, and the angle downwards remained the same, yet we never came across any stairs.
‘Why is there no staircase?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes, the things we have to carry down this corridor can’t walk on their own,’ Mr Ambrose shot back without slowing his pace or turning his head.
Can’t walk on their own…? Blimey! What was he talking about? Bodies? Dead bodies? Anxiety washed through me once again as I thought of his threats to me, and of all the things that could happen to Simmons. Maybe I should go to the police after all…
‘Cargo and papers, Mr Linton,’ Mr Ambrose added as if he’d read my mind. ‘You have an over-active imagination.’
And you have threatened to kill me and have a man locked up in your basement, which should be the job of the police with whom the Queen of England is so kindly providing us! That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence!
But I didn’t say that out loud. I definitely did not want to end up in the room next to Simmons'.
Finally we reached the end of the corridor. Under a massive brick archway, that indeed would be large enough to admit large crates of cargo, we stepped into a room I recognized: it was the room just in front of Simmons' cell. At the opposite end of the room was the solid steel door behind which Simmons was held. To my left there was another door. I recognized it as the one through which we had entered the basement last time, by the back entrance.
Karim strode determinedly towards the door, but Mr Ambrose touched him lightly on the arm, and the huge Indian stopped in his tracks.
‘Before we go in - Tell me, how did you finally crack him?’
Karim shrugged. ‘I am sorry, Sahib, that it took me so long. It was my failure. I failed to take into account the character of the English.’
‘In what way?’ I asked, interested. After all, I was English. I had no idea that I shared a character trait with other English people. So far, I hadn’t found a lot of common ground.
The bearded mountain threw me a glare and shut his mouth. Apparently, he wasn’t ready to answer any questions that came from me.
‘In what way?’ Mr Ambrose repeated my question, so now he had no choice but to answer.
Karim cleared his throat. It sounded like a volcanic explosion. A very embarrassed volcanic explosion.
‘Well, Sahib, I threatened him with the usual European, Arabian, Indian, and even Chinese torture methods. Nothing seemed to terrify him. But that was the wrong approach. As I said, I failed to take into account the character of the English. Then it finally came to me. I…’
He cleared his throat again - and then the sneaky son of a bachelor bent down and whispered something in Mr Ambrose’s ear! And Mr Ambrose, Mr Immovable Stone-Face Ambrose, actually lifted an eyebrow.
‘Is that so? And did it work?’
‘Did what work?’ I demanded.
‘Oh yes,’ Karim said with grim relish, ignoring me completely. ‘He is talking like a trader in the bazaar. Only he does not wish to sell, but give it all for free.’
‘What did you do?’ I demanded. ‘Karim, what did you do to the poor man?’
This time, they both ignored me.
‘Very well then.’ Taking the keys from his pocket once more, Mr Ambrose unlocked and unbolted the door. ‘Let us see who is behind this infernal intrigue!’
He thrust open the door and stepped forward, into the dark.
The Adversary