'I would leave you both bare,' said the count, 'but the dungeons of this castle are so damp. I would hate to see you catch cold.' He nodded toward their clothes. 'Get dressed.'
They did so.
Fabbri spun them around and manacled their hands behind their backs. 'Andiamoci.'
The count turned and stepped out of the apartment. Fabbri followed, then Pendergast and D'Agosta. The half dozen thugs brought up the rear.
Down the circular staircase they went, out of the keep and back into the ancient rooms of the castle. The count led the way back to the dining salotto , then through the kitchen and into a large, drafty pantry. An arched opening was set into the far wall, with a staircase descending out of sight. The group descended this into a deep, vaulted tunnel, its walls weeping moisture and encrusted with calcite crystals. Silently they walked past storerooms and empty galleries of stone.
'Ecco,' said the count, stopping before a low doorway. Fabbri stopped in turn, and Pendergast, his eyes on the ground, clumsily stumbled into him from behind. Fabbri cursed and pushed him away, sending the agent sprawling to the stone floor.
'Get in,' said the count.
Pendergast rose to his feet and ducked into the tiny room beyond the doorway. D'Agosta followed. The iron door slammed, the metal key turned, and they were in darkness.
The count's face appeared at the small grating set into the door.
'You'll be secure here,' he said, 'while I attend to a few final details. And then I will be back. You see, I have prepared something special, something fitting , for you both. For Pendergast, a literary end-something out of Poe, actually. And for D'Agosta, murderer of my Pinchetti, I will use my microwave device one more time before destroying it, and with it the last evidence of my involvement in this affair.'
The face vanished. A moment later, the faint illumination of the corridor was extinguished.
D'Agosta sat in the dark, listening to the echo of retreating footsteps. In a moment, all was silent save for the faint dripping of water and the flutter of what D'Agosta thought must be bats.
He shifted, pulled his torn clothes more tightly around him. Pendergast's voice came to him through the darkness, so low as to be almost inaudible.
'I don't see any reason to delay our departure. Do you?'
'Was that a lockpick I saw you hiding under Fabbri's collar?' D'Agosta whispered.
'Of course. Most obliging of him to carry it for me. Naturally, I stumbled into him just now in order to reclaim it. And now I have little doubt that Fabbri or one of the others is outside, guarding us. Bang on the door, Vincent, and see if you can't get a response from him.'
D'Agosta banged and shouted: 'Hey! Let us out! Let us out! '
The echoes slowly died away in the corridor beyond.
Pendergast touched D'Agosta's arm and whispered again. 'Keep making noise while I pick the lock.'
D'Agosta shouted, yelled, and swore. A minute later, Pendergast touched his arm once again.
'Done. Now listen. The man waiting in the dark no doubt has an electric torch, which he'll turn on at the slightest indication of funny business. I'm going to find him and take care of him. You keep making noise as a diversion, and to cover any sounds of my crawling through the dark.'
'Okay.'
D'Agosta once again took up the cry, stomping around and demanding to be let out. It was pitch-black, and he could see nothing of what Pendergast was doing. He yelled and yelled. Suddenly there was a loud thump outside, followed by a thud. Then a beam of light stabbed through the low opening.
'Excellent work, Vincent.'
D'Agosta ducked back out beneath the low doorway. There, about twenty feet away, was Fabbri, facedown on the stone floor, arms flung wide.
'Are you sure there's a way out of this pile?' D'Agosta asked.
'You heard the squeaking of bats. Right?'
'Right.'
'There must be a way out.'
'Yeah, for a bat.'
'Where bats fly, so shall we. But first we must get our hands on the machine. It's our only real evidence against the count.'
{ 81 }
They made their way back through the dark stonework of the storage cellars and furtively climbed the ancient stairway to the pantry. Pendergast checked the room carefully, then motioned D'Agosta forward. Slowly, they moved from the pantry to the kitchen: a huge room with parallel tables of oiled pine and marble, and a massive fireplace replete with grills and racks. Cast-iron cookware hung on great hooks and chains from the ceiling. No sounds issued from the dining salotto beyond. All appeared deserted.
