‘No good,’ and gave the implement to Phryne.
‘It’s a well-made door,’ she agreed after a moment’s struggle. ‘It’s perfectly fitted and the lintel is of stone, curse it. It’s no good, Lin dear, we shall just have to bang on the door until someone comes and lets us out. You can take first shift.’
Lin swung the iron bar against the unmoving portal and it clanged.
After about a minute, a partially deafened Phryne took the bottle and the quilt and removed herself to the bottom of the stairs. Her foot splashed down into water that was now at least ten inches deep and she withdrew two steps, suppressing her exclamation of disgust. The water was stagnant and foul with floating debris. She shook her wet foot like a cat who has put a paw into an unexpected puddle, squeezed water from her sock and trouser leg and dried her hands on her jumper.
Then she unwound the wires and popped the cork of the champagne, taking a deep gulp. Now was probably not the time to wonder aloud to her claustrophobic companion about what was actually in that sarcophagus.
The noise filled the cellar and echoed dully. After about ten minutes, Phryne called, ‘Come down and have a drink, Lin. I don’t think they can hear us.’
He laid down the bar and the noise stopped. Phryne swallowed and her hearing, in some measure, returned. She shared her musty cloak with him. He was panting with effort.
‘It’s embarrassing, Lin dear, not catastrophic,’ she said quietly. She felt him gasp a little as he gulped the rather good champagne – French, Phryne was sure, though not Veuve Cliquot – and he sat still and began to control his breathing. The heart which had been racing against her cheek slowed and firmed.
‘I am forgetting my training,’ he said into her hair. ‘My master always said I was impetuous. ‘‘In the true way there is only calm’’, he said. I can hear him saying it.’
‘Master?’ asked Phryne encouragingly.
‘Yes, Master Wu. I studied at the Temple of the War God in Peking. Only for a couple of years. Long enough to learn some discipline, I would have thought, but I have always been afraid of being locked in the dark. When I was a child I had a nurse who used to shut me in a cupboard if I displeased her. I’m ashamed, Silver Lady, to show such weakness.’
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you aren’t afraid, you can’t be brave.’ She knew that this was insufficient and gave him something very close and secret. ‘I’m afraid of fire.’
‘Fire?’
‘Yes. The pain of a burn hurts me more than anything else – the brassy taste in the mouth, that cold pain. If we were facing a fire, I’d be scared half to death, whereas a little cold, wet and confinement does not worry me unduly, though when I find whoever shut us in I’ll do him an injury. Don’t worry, Lin. I don’t think any less of you. We’re all afraid of something.’
‘And you are a warrior,’ mused Lin, pulling the quilt closer. ‘Li Pen said so, and he would know, being one himself. He came out of that temple after ten years, Silver Lady, a complete fighter and hunter. That is why my father engaged him. He protects me, as well as irons my shirts and makes sure that I do not forget that I am Chinese.’
‘Then he will be looking for you,’ soothed Phryne.
‘That is so.’ Lin’s voice was firm again. ‘And he will find me. The trouble is, Silver Lady, that if we are missing together, people will make a certain deduction, and refrain from disturbing us.’
‘Hmm.’ Phryne’s mind raced. If this was the case, they might be in the cellar until dinner time. By then the water, fed by the flooded river as well as the spring, might have risen to the ceiling, drowning even that marble coffin with who knew what inside it. She had a moment of sheer superstitious panic, let it flow over her, and drank some more wine. The bottle was perceptibly lighter when she commented, ‘I wonder if there’s another way out of this cellar?’ She embraced Lin and stroked his cheek. He leaned his forehead on her shoulder, much as Gerald had done.
‘There might be. This is the sort of place to have secret passages.’
‘Yes, but one really needs light to find one. Let’s see. There must be candles somewhere and I’ve got matches in my pocket, how foolish of me.’
She drew out the box very carefully and lit one. By its light, she scanned the cellar, sighting what she wanted on top of a wine rack in the far corner.
‘Right. There’s a box of candles over there and no reason why we should sit in the dark. How many matches do we have?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Good. Come down and start striking.’
‘How will you get across?’ he asked as she headed toward the bottom of the stair.
‘I’ll wade.’
Phryne fought off a wave of revulsion and stepped down into the cold unclean water. She skirted the wall by the uncertain light of the match, knowing that somewhere in the middle was the well. The water was knee-deep now and freezing. Unseen objects rolled underfoot, threatening to fling her face down into the scum. She clung to the wine racks and reached the other side. There was a little light from a skylight of opaque glass barely a foot across.
There were eleven candles in the wooden box and a container of matches. She lit three tapers and instantly the dark was banished to lurk in the corners.
Across the expanse of black water she saw Lin Chung standing on the step shaking his burned fingers. She winced in sympathy.
‘There we are. Light. Now, what do we need to look at?’
‘The sarcophagus,’ he said bravely. Phryne sloshed across to it, steeled herself, and peered in.
‘Nothing, it’s empty. Hang about,’ she added, bringing the candle closer. ‘There’s a bit of crumpled fabric here, some fluid of some sort, and, erk, rather an awful smell. I think she’s been here, Lin, but she’s not here now. That’s a relief, eh? I’m going to have a look at the far wall. Back in a tick.’
‘I’m coming, too.’ Lin stepped down. Phryne smiled at him. In the flickering light, her eyes glowed as green as a cat’s. She gave him a taper and put the piece of material from the coffin in his pocket.
‘They never make women’s clothes with enough pockets,’ she complained, holding her candle high and clambering over crates and boxes.
‘Perhaps so that gentlemen with pockets can feel useful,’ said Lin, pushing aside what appeared to have been a wardrobe trunk for ocean travel before the sides had caved in.
‘Now, we are under the servants’ hall,’ reasoned Phryne. ‘This appears to be a boundary wall, what do you think?’
The weight of the house was pressing down on Lin Chung like a boulder on the back of his neck. He coughed, shook himself, and said, ‘Yes, it’s well built and it must be the outer surface of the house.’
‘Good, now for the other ones. What do you think has happened to the Major?’
‘I have no idea. He might have run away. Perhaps Miss Medenham and he could not agree and he rode off in a fit of pique. He might have fallen off his horse and not landed as lightly as you did, Silver Lady.’
‘Aha,’ said Phryne.
‘Aha?’
‘Come here, Lin, look at this stretch of wall. What’s different about it?’
‘It’s brick,’ he said. ‘The other walls are stone.’
‘It’s brick and it’s decorated,’ she said, feeling along tuck-pointing and around white mortared borders. ‘Look for the pattern which doesn’t match the rest of the wall.’
‘Here,’ he said, puzzled, laying a palm on slimy bricks laid lengthwise and criss-crossing. ‘This is the only part like this.’
‘Good. Now pull, push and twiddle everything which looks twiddleable.’
Lin obeyed long enough for his candle to burn down. Phryne gave him another one.
‘This is futile,’ he protested. ‘The water’s rising.
Hadn’t we better go back up the stairs?’
‘In a little while.’ Phryne, the water almost at her hips, pounded a likely-looking brick, then leaned on a particularly careless obtrusion of mortar. Nothing happened and the water continued to rise.
‘Dammit,’ she muttered. ‘You’re right. Let’s go back.’
