that, from what we now know. The iguanodon was a dinosaur that lived on our Earth many years ago, Eddie. Despite what we have seen tonight, or think we have seen, the last dinosaurs became extinct long, long ago.’ He paused to examine the monstrous head, towering above him, glistening with condensation.
Sir William walked slowly round the statue, tapping at its side, its belly, its back with his cane. ‘Yes, here, I think,’ he decided. He was kneeling at the back of the creature, almost hidden in the undergrowth that sprawled out on to the rock. ‘Bring that stone, will you?’ he said to George, gesturing to a large, heavy lump of rock lying at the base of the outcrop.
‘We don’t have long,’ George said as he picked it up.
‘They’ll hear us trying to break in,’ Liz pointed out.
Sir William suggested that George use the heavy chunk of rock to try to break through the underbelly of the statue. ‘Here, you see?’ he pointed out the spot to George. ‘You can feel where the metal is worn slightly smooth, and there is a joint where the plates do not quite meet. The elements have begun to take their toll.’
‘Let’s get a move on then,’ Eddie said. The cold was getting to him now. He had no jacket and the damp mist had eaten into his clothing so that he was shrouded in a chilly aura.
The first blow echoed metallically round the park, bouncing back from beyond the lake. The faint sounds of the distant search stopped at once. Then they started again, immediately louder and closer.
‘Let’s hope it takes them a while to get a bearing on us,’ Sir William said as George laid into the underbelly of the beast with renewed urgency and vigour.
‘The echo may help,’ Liz said, between blows.
Eddie was stamping his feet to try to keep warm. ‘We might have to leg it,’ he said.
‘It is possible we were followed from the club,’ Sir William said. ‘So if we do have to make a run for it, and we get separated, then I suggest we meet back at the British Museum. It should be empty by now. They will have let poor old Berry go home to his family once they discovered where we were.’
The next blow made a different sound — cracked and discordant.
‘I felt it give,’ George said excitedly. ‘I think it’s going.’
After several more blows, George set down the rock and worked at the ragged metal with his bare hands. It had torn along the joint and he managed to wrench a whole plate of metal free, revealing a dark opening in the underside of the statue. ‘I can get my arm right inside,’ he said. ‘It
‘Excellent, excellent.’ Sir William clapped his hands together in delight. ‘Can you feel anything?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘We shall have to get right inside to search,’ Liz said. ‘Or,’ she added, turning pointedly towards Eddie, ‘someone will.’
‘No way,’ Eddie said at once. ‘Really no way. At all. Not ever.’
George had emerged from under the statue. He was listening carefully, head cocked to one side. ‘They must have heard the noise. I think they’re coming.’
‘We can’t just leave,’ Liz said desperately. ‘Not now.’
‘How big is the hole?’ Sir William demanded. ‘Maybe I can — ’
‘You can’t,’ George told him.
Now they could hear running feet, trampling through branches and long grass. Shouts of anger and elation as the hunters found their trail.
‘We’ve got about half a minute,’ George hissed. ‘At the most.’
Everyone was looking at Eddie. His arms were folded and his expression was set. He stared back at them. ‘Half a minute,’ he muttered. ‘Oh give us a leg up, will you?’
‘What am I looking for?’ he asked as he scraped and scrambled through the jagged tear in the statue.
‘I am afraid I really don’t know,’ Sir William whispered.
Eddie stifled a cry of pain as his knee caught on a curl of sharp metal. He slumped forward into the darkness, his every move echoing hollowly round the black interior of the creature. The belly of the beast. Slowly and carefully he crawled forward. There were bracing struts — like roof girders — running round the inside of the statue. Heavy, sharp bolts held them in place. They were painful when you crawled over them, as Eddie quickly found.
‘Anything?’ Liz’s voice hissed up through the hole.
‘No,’ he hissed back. He reckoned he had crawled round a good part of the interior by now and found nothing inside it at all that was not part of the structure.
Then a shout — not a voice Eddie recognised. ‘They’re here!’
‘Oh corks!’ he heard George exclaim.
Then Sir William’s urgent: ‘See you back at the Museum, Eddie. We’ll try to lead them away. Good hunting.’
‘Get Mr Blade,’ the voice shouted again, so close that Eddie thought it might be inside the statue with him. Running feet, the clatter of pursuit. Eddie lay as still as he could, not daring to move, not daring even to breathe.
After what seemed for ever, he turned round carefully, staring into the close blackness in the hope of making out the hole where he had come in. But he could see nothing.
His hand touched something. Something hard and round and heavy. It rolled away from him, sounding like a large glass marble inside a tin can. The noise was louder than thunder in the confined space.
‘What was that?’ said a voice that sounded uncomfortably close. ‘Where did that come from?’
Eddie’s hand found the stone again — it was about the size of an orange, and he lifted it carefully, gently, silently. The only weapon he had. The moon must have broken through the clouds again, for now he could see the uneven hole in the floor about four feet in front of him.
And as he watched and held his breath and grasped the stone tightly, first a large hand, then a whole arm reached in through the hole. Searching, feeling its way towards Eddie as he sat and shivered in the darkness.
Chapter 18
They soon lost their pursuers in the dark, the voices and the sounds of Lorimore’s men falling behind.
‘Let’s hope they don’t much wonder what we were doing,’ Sir William said quietly. ‘We don’t want them examining the statue too closely or they will uncover poor Eddie.’
‘You think that’s likely?’ Liz asked, concerned.
‘I doubt they’re clever enough to realise the significance, my dear.’
They moved as quickly and quietly as they could through the misty night. Sir William led them towards the back gate of the park. With luck it would not be guarded. The path sloped upwards, past the lake, and before long, a dark shape loomed out of the mist ahead.
‘Is that the gates?’ Liz wondered.
‘Looks more like another statue,’ George said, the apprehension heavy in his voice.
As they edged cautiously closer, George could see that it was a figure — a large man, stretching out as if it was waiting to enfold them all in an enormous bear hug. A sudden gust of wind scattered the mist, and the moon shone down for the briefest of moments before the clouds could regroup.
But in that moment they could see the massive ape of a man stood waiting for them at the top of the slope. His face was scarred and pockmarked, and several days’ growth of dark stubble added to the ape-like image. His eyes were deep-set and black as tar. With an inhuman roar he leaped down the slope towards them.
George moved quicker than even he would have thought possible. The huge man had hurled himself at Sir William, but George got there first, intercepting the man. The two of them slammed together and rolled down the slope. George was tall not broad, but sinewy. He was no match for the enormous figure that rolled him aside and started back up the slope. George grabbed at his legs, dragging him down. But the man swatted him away like an annoying insect. George rolled with the blow, stumbled, and pulled himself painfully back to his feet.
Liz was staring, shouting anxiously to George to see if he was all right. Sir William looked on with a mixture of anxiety and interest at the bear of a man who was now lumbering towards him. As he came closer, Sir William stepped down to meet him, raising his cane. He whipped it down on the man’s head, so hard that George heard the crack of the splintering wood.
