about chest level as he worked his way slowly towards the back wall of the cellar. He reached the corner of the wall, glanced back briefly and then resumed his steady and methodical progress. Using the same technique, he crossed the back wall of the cellar with exactly the same lack of result. Every stone he’d pushed had seemed absolutely solid.
But Angela had been in the cellar, and now she wasn’t. She hadn’t gone up the spiral staircase, so there definitely had to be another exit. He’d tried the walls without result. Now he had to look at the floor.
Bronson directed the torch beam downwards and stared at the old flagstones, worn down by countless feet over the years. It didn’t look as if any of them had been moved in decades, possibly for centuries. He studied them anyway, looking for any sign of movement, of suspiciously clean edges or anything of that sort. Nothing.
He had to have missed something, some clue that would show him where the hidden entrance was located. Then he slowly became aware of something gnawing away at his subconscious. He’d seen something, or felt something – something that wasn’t quite right, something out of place. Bronson jogged back to the side wall of the cellar, and started walking slowly along the wall, staring at the stones and touching each one that he pressed against before. He reached the end, then started on the back wall. And then it struck him.
The stones on the side wall had looked and felt damp, as had those on the back wall, all except three of them in a horizontal line, about five feet from the junction of the two walls. Those stones were solid and cold, but not quite as cold as the stones on either side of them, and his fingers could detect no trace of damp.
He felt the stones above and below the three he’d detected, and they all showed the same characteristics: they were solid and cold but not damp. He’d found the hidden door. All he had to do now was work out how to open it.
Bronson shone the torch at the stones. Now that he’d identified the door, its shape was fairly obvious. He looked closely at the spaces between the stones. In an almost vertical line, from floor level up to about five feet above the ground, there was a straight edge where no mortar was visible.
But what he still couldn’t see was how to get it open. He ran his fingers up and down the vertical edge, feeling for a catch or lever. He pushed against each of the stones in turn, in case one of them would work a hidden catch, but again without result.
There had to be a way of getting the door open. Almost in desperation, he pressed his left shoulder against the stones, braced his feet on the floor and started to push. His right foot started to slide, and he changed position. As he again put his weight on his right foot, he felt rather than heard a click under the sole of his shoe, and the stone door swung silently outwards.
Caught completely unawares, Bronson tumbled through the opening, and crashed to the ground on the other side. Immediately, powerful springs swung the door closed again, the solid structure clicking back into place with a muted thump, the same sound he had heard minutes earlier.
He scrambled to his feet, reached down and drew the Browning from his holster. Then he replaced the weapon. It was pitch black in the chamber, and if he couldn’t see, he couldn’t shoot. He needed light.
The torch had fallen from his hand as he’d tumbled through the doorway, and he crouched down and felt around on the floor, searching for it. His probing fingers touched something shrivelled and furry, and he recoiled. A dead rat, probably. In a few seconds, his hand closed around a cool metal tube, and he gave a sigh of relief.
But that feeling didn’t last long. When he pressed the switch on the end of the torch, nothing happened. He shook it, and could hear a faint rattling sound inside it. The bulb or something had obviously broken when he fell.
He would have to find his way around by feel. Having made sure his pistol was properly seated in the holster, because if he dropped it he might not be able to find it again, Bronson extended both arms in front of him and started walking forwards.
Then he stopped dead. Somewhere in the darkness ahead of him, he could hear the faint sound of movement.
‘What happened?’ Inspector Bianchi demanded.
The black-clad police officer shook his head. ‘I don’t really know, sir. One minute the Englishman was standing close to the back wall of the cellar, then I looked away for a few seconds. I heard a noise and-’
‘What kind of a noise?’
The police officer shook his head again. ‘A kind of thump, I suppose. And when I looked back to that end of the room, he’d disappeared.’
‘Right.’ Bianchi called out to a pair of police officers who were manhandling a battery-powered floodlight into the cellar. ‘Get that light on, and aim it at the back wall. We need to find where Bronson has gone – right now.’
78
Bronson was desperate for even the faintest scintilla of illumination that might allow him to see his surroundings. But there was nothing, no light at all. All he had to go on was what his ears could hear, or his probing hands could touch. The only possible good news was that if he couldn’t see anything, then neither could anyone else.
What he could hear sounded like something moving cautiously over a stone floor, a kind of swishing, pattering noise that didn’t seem to be very close. He swung his left arm around in a semicircle in front of him, then did the same with his right, and took a cautious step forward. Then he repeated the sequence of movements, making very slow, and very cautious, progress.
He estimated he’d covered about fifteen feet in total darkness before the faint noises he was hearing stopped altogether. Whoever – or whatever – was ahead of him was no longer moving.
Inspector Bianchi strode across the flagstone floor to the back wall of the cellar. The two officers had already positioned the battery-powered floodlight a few feet away and, as Bianchi approached, they switched it on. Instantly, that corner of the chamber was brightly illuminated, the white light bouncing off the old stones.
For a few moments, the handful of police officers stared at the wall. Then Bianchi turned to his companion. ‘Tell me again what you saw,’ he instructed.
Once more the officer explained the sequence of events.
‘And he couldn’t have left this room by the staircase?’
The officer shook his head.
‘OK, you two, examine this corner of the cellar. Don’t stop till you find the doorway.’
Then he went over to the group of handcuffed figures still sitting with their backs to the wall at the other end of the chamber. He looked at each in turn until he found the man who he’d cultivated in order to join the group.
‘Stefano,’ he said, crouching down in front of him. ‘You’re going to jail, probably for a very long time. I’m not going to offer you a deal, but if you answer my next question correctly, then I will at least tell the judge at your trial that you tried to help us when you were arrested. Now, we know that there’s a hidden door at the other end of this room. How do we open it?’
The man named Stefano spat. ‘Judas,’ he snapped. ‘I should have guessed you were too good to be true. A senior policeman wanting to learn our secrets and share in our triumph? A man who could misdirect any inquiries and provide us with some protection from the law? We should never have even talked to you.’
‘I’ll take that as a “no” then, shall I, you contemptible piece of shit?’
Bianchi motioned to two of his officers. ‘As soon as you’ve got the wounded men out of here,’ he said, ‘get this lot upstairs. Before you do that, separate them and ask them individually about a hidden door and a secret chamber. They probably won’t talk to you, but I suppose it’s worth a try.’
