The clock’s rhythm had definitely changed. It was quickening–so much so that it almost sounded as if someone was winding it forwards.
Winding it…Someone was winding it!
Antonia dived for the kiln and scrambled inside, tearing her hands and legs in the process, but hardly noticing. She straightened up inside the shaft again, and turning her head up to the light, shouted at top of her voice. ‘Help! I’m trapped down here!’
Her words echoed sickeningly in the enclosed space, and showers of soot fell onto her. She shouted again. ‘Is someone there? Please–can you hear me? I’m shut in down here!’
Another moment for the echoes to die away, and then the light overhead shifted slightly, as if something might be blocking it out. A voice–a voice that Antonia dimly recognized, called, ‘I’m here. I’ll get you out. Are you all right?’
‘Never better. For God’s sake come down to the kiln room and get the doors open!’
‘I’m on my way,’ said Kit, and this time Antonia heard the clang of ladder rungs. There was a long silence during which she had time to imagine half a dozen disasters, and then came the sound of the steel doors being pulled open.
As Kit appeared in the doorway, Antonia said, ‘Thank God for memorial clocks,’ and to her fury, began to cry.
Godfrey Toy was almost beside himself with delight. Antonia was safe and sound–all thanks to that nice Kit from the library–and although Godfrey had not got all the details yet, it had been all to do with winding the old Twygrist clock. Kit, it seemed, had been amazingly good, dragging Antonia out of the grisly kiln room, and phoning police and ambulances and whatnot. He had phoned Quire House as well–they had all been there when the call came, and Godfrey thought he had never seen anyone move as fast as Oliver and Jonathan Saxon. Out of the house and into the car inside minutes: Oliver had not even paused to put on a coat, and Kit told Godfrey it had been Oliver who got to Twygrist ahead of anyone else. Godfrey was still considering this, not daring to hope that it meant anything, but hoping all the same that it might.
After the phone call, he had scurried round Quire, putting a large pot of coffee to filter in Oliver’s kitchen, and then dashing down to his own flat to gather up a few snacks for them all to eat while they talked. Antonia could not have eaten for at least twenty-four hours, and there would be all kinds of things to hear about. It sounded as if quite a lot of people would be converging on Quire. Godfrey himself and Oliver and Antonia, of course. Dr Saxon and Kit Kendal. Inspector Curran, and perhaps Sergeant Blackburn as well. He counted up the numbers in his head, and made a few more sandwiches.
‘Dear God,’ Oliver said when Godfrey eventually staggered up the stairs with his tray, ‘are you feeding the starving tribes of the world?’ but Godfrey said breezily it had been a long and worrying twenty-four hours, and Antonia had better be fed after her ordeal. Oliver merely said, ‘Smoked salmon sandwiches and chicken vol-au-vents. Oh, and vichysoisse. I see.’ Godfrey explained that the soup was for Antonia and the salmon needed eating up anyway.
Antonia devoured the soup and the sandwiches, and thanked Godfrey. Even like this, white-faced, and exhausted-looking, there was still a light in her eyes. She had, it seemed, already made a full statement to Inspector Curran, who was seated at the table with Sergeant Blackburn, but there were still a lot of questions and answers.
‘She was hiding in the cottage’s attic, of course,’ said Antonia. ‘I locked all the doors but she was already inside.’
‘I should have thought you could have made a better search,’ said Jonathan to Inspector Curran. ‘Or were you treating Dr Weston as the tethered gazelle for the hungry tiger?’
‘Jonathan, I’ve been called many things in my time, but—’
‘Actually, it’s usually a goat they tether, I think.’