‘Michael, my love, did you think I’d drive out to a dark old house without a torch in the car?’ She brandished a large torch.
‘Well, all right. I’ll go down the steps,’ said Michael. ‘I don’t know if it’s straight down the rabbit hole, though, or whether it’s more a case of “Down, down, to hell, and say I sent thee thither”.’
‘No one but you would find an apt quotation at a moment like this.’
‘I don’t know about quotations, but I’m going to feel utterly ridiculous descending to hell clutching a broom.’
‘They’d probably let you sweep it out,’ said Nell. ‘Michael …’
‘Yes?’
‘Be careful.’
Before he could respond, she had gone back to the car. The engine fired, and Nell reversed and then drove the car back towards the house. Michael waved and indicated to her to move slightly to the left. This time the lights fell directly across the door.
He waved again, and sent a thumbs-up sign. ‘We’re all set,’ he said into the phone. ‘I’m about to plumb the depths.’
The door opened again, with only a small protesting creak, and a smell of damp and decay breathed out.
‘There’s a flight of stone steps inside,’ said Jack. ‘And at the bottom are several small rooms, with the furnace room at the far end.’
The furnace room, thought Michael. They fired the furnace that night to burn Esther Breadspear’s body.
He said, ‘Yes, I can see the steps.’
‘Go past the furnace room – you’ll recognize it because it’s got strips of iron over it and a round window. Then you should see the garden door. It leads to a small courtyard on the left of the house.’
The car headlights were doing a reasonable job of lighting the stone steps, and Michael, still clutching the broom, reached the foot without mishap.
‘So far so good,’ he said to Hurst. ‘Are you still hearing me?’
‘Yes, but you’re a bit crackly. Listen, if the signal goes – and you’re underground remember – all you’ve got to do is go along the passage as far as you can.’
‘All right.’
A thick smell of damp and decay hung everywhere, but Michael would rather grope his way through this bad-smelling darkness than remain trapped in the hall with the threat of fire.
At the foot of the stairs was a narrow passageway with brackets along the wall where gaslights might once have been. It was a dismal place; the stones were leprous-looking, and there were puddles of oily condensation on the ground. Thick cobwebs trailed from the ceiling; Michael tried to avoid them, but several times they brushed his face, and he shuddered and swiped them away.
‘Can you see the row of doors yet?’ asked Hurst.
‘Not yet … Oh, yes, I can now,’ said Michael after a moment.
‘Six rooms,’ said Hurst. ‘The furnace room’s the seventh.’
Michael said, half to himself, ‘It would be the seventh chamber. of course. The one containing Bluebeard’s butchered wives.’
‘Sorry? You’re breaking up—’
‘I think the signal’s going,’ said Michael, snapping back to reality. ‘But I should be almost there now. Is there any sign of the fire engine yet?’
‘No, but—’ Hurst’s friendly voice cut off and a thin whine emitted from the phone.
‘Hell and damnation,’ said Michael, and the enclosed space picked up his last words and spun them eerily around him. He cursed under his breath, thrust the phone into his pocket, and went cautiously along the stone passage.