Deadlight-Hall(42)

Porringer shook his head, although whether in refusal or because he was trying to clear his head, I have no idea. I was in fact bracing myself for the sound of gunshot when the open furnace cover suddenly swung back, as if someone had pushed it to shut it. It was a massive, thick slab of iron and it crunched against Porringer’s head and on to his hands, which were still grasping the edges, knocking him halfway into the furnace’s mouth, and trapping him. He gave a dreadful grunting cry, and I sprang forward, grasping the edge of the door to pull it back.

‘Help me,’ I said to Sch?nbrunn, desperately. ‘It won’t move – it’s stuck – or the hinge has broken, or something. But it’s so heavy – it’s smashed the back of his skull half open—’

Sch?nbrunn thrust the gun in his belt and knelt next to me, at the side of the furnace. ‘Porringer,’ he said, ‘can you hear us? Listen then, if you tell me where the Reiss twins are, I’ll free you, I swear. I’ll get the door up somehow and we’ll get you out, and get you to an infirmary. But first tell me where they are.’

Porringer was struggling, and blood was dripping from his hands, which were trapped between the edges of the door, and he was shouting for help, his cries echoing hollowly from within the furnace.

But when Sch?nbrunn rapped out that question, Porringer said, ‘Damn you, no!’

‘For pity’s sake, man—’

‘You’ll only – shoot me – as a spy …’ The words were slurred and distorted and blood was running from his neck. Sch?nbrunn and I exchanged glances.

‘You won’t necessarily be shot,’ said Sch?nbrunn. ‘You could change sides. Become a double agent. I’d help you.’ I knew he would have promised Porringer almost anything to find out what had happened to the twins. ‘Where’s the torch?’ he said to me, urgently. ‘Shine it on to the door’s hinges. Between us we can lever it open, surely.’

Porringer’s lower body was twitching spasmodically, and he was groaning. Sch?nbrunn and I grasped the edges of the door, and threw all our weight into pulling it open. In the cold torchlight we could both see that blood had spattered the iron – blood, with tiny splinters of bone in it. I began to feel sick. As you know I am apt to be annoyingly squeamish.

But I said, with as much force as I could, ‘Porringer, tell us. We’re trying to get you free, but tell us about the twins, and we’ll do our best to help you.’

But either Porringer would not or could not speak by now, and I said, ‘We must get him out. There’s blood and brain matter spilling out. We can’t leave him like this—’

‘If there was something we could use as a series of wedges to force the lid open,’ said Sch?nbrunn, looking round the room, ‘we could get him out and to an infirmary.’

‘Should one of us try to find a doctor? There’d be one in the village – Mrs Battersby would know, I could ask her. Or if her husband’s still prowling around upstairs …’

‘I think Battersby must have gone,’ said Sch?nbrunn. ‘If he was still here he’d have heard us and come down to investigate. As for going in search of a doctor – by the time we managed to get one here …’ He looked at the trapped man and gave an expressive shrug.

‘Also,’ I said, very softly, ‘to do any of that would blow our cover.’

‘Quite. Dammit, there must be something we can do.’

That was when we heard the other sounds. A kind of rhythmic ticking, like the heartbeat of some invisible creature. We both looked towards the door leading out to the dark passage, but nothing moved. Then came a dull roar. At first I had no idea what it was, then Sch?nbrunn said in a voice of extreme horror, ‘Dear God, it’s the furnace.’

‘What—?’

‘It’s firing,’ he said.

‘It can’t be.’

‘But it is. Can’t you smell the hot iron? The door mechanism must have released something – set something working. If we don’t get him out in the next few minutes he’ll burn alive. His face—’

The thick pipes feeding the furnace were already scorchingly hot, and the smell of hot iron was increasing.

The torch spluttered and the battery died. We were in the pitch dark.

Porringer’s screams will, I believe, echo through my nightmares until I die. It is a terrible thing to hear the screams of a man whose brain has been partly crushed, and whose face is about to be burned off by the roaring heat of an ancient furnace.