‘What happened? Did he hit you?’ I put out my hands and found his shoulder.
‘Yes, with the pistol butt – only a glancing blow but my face is rather painful so don’t touch it. Come here, my poor girl, I should never have let you get involved in this.’ He held me close and felt me trembling.
‘Try to keep calm,’ he said. ‘Let us stand here quietly until we feel a little better. The worst thing we can do is panic. We’ll wait until we are quite sure he has gone then we’ll try to escape.’
‘How?’ my voice was faint and wavering.
‘There’s a way in so there’s a way out. Lean on me until you feel stronger.’
‘I’m not at all sure leaning on you has that effect,’ I said after a short interval.
He managed to chuckle. ‘Well, it’s working wonders for me anyway.’
He rested his chin lightly on the top of my head and I closed my eyes. I thought that if only I wasn’t so frightened and we were anywhere else at all I would think this was heaven.
‘We’ll stay quiet and listen,’ he said, but we could hear nothing. It was very close and airless in the priest-hole and I wondered how long a man had been able to survive there.
‘I feel sure he’s gone,’ he said at last, ‘and I think we can have a little light on the proceedings before we try to get out. While Frank was putting you down here I managed to grab his tinderbox and a stump of a candle. We’ll both feel better when we can see our surroundings. You’ll have to strike the light, I’m afraid. It’s one of the things I can no longer accomplish.’
My hands were still shaking so much I had difficulty striking the flint and igniting the tinder, though he held the box for me and encouraged my efforts. At last we had the candle lit and looked round. There was barely enough room for us to stand upright.
‘Where exactly are we?’ I wondered.
‘Inside the outer wall of the house.’ He climbed the ladder and put his shoulder to the trapdoor. After several attempts that made him grunt with effort, he confessed he could lift the trapdoor no more than a fraction of an inch.
‘The blackguard has pushed the chest on top of us. I might have known!’ For the first time I heard despair in his voice.
‘How long can we survive without air?’ I asked, rather tremulously.
‘Don’t think about it.’
I looked round frantically at the walls, which all seemed to be quite solidly made of ancient brick. Then I suddenly remembered something Sophie had said – long ago, it seemed, when we first came to Lovegrove. It was the day it had rained and I had first explored the Tapestry Room and discovered the closet. I had encountered Sophie and Rowland shortly afterwards; they had been tapping the panelling around the house, searching for the second priest-hole.
‘There’s supposed to be a passage leading from the hiding place to the priory ruins,’ she had said. It was a tradition, a legend, no more, yet it did give a shred of hope.
‘What are you doing?’ he enquired.
I was holding the candle flame close to the walls, inspecting every inch. I told him what Sophie had said. ‘It’s at least worth looking,’ I said.
‘I wish you’d call me John,’ he said suddenly. ‘In these circumstances formality is ridiculous. Besides, we’ve just been a good deal closer than some married couples.’
‘I’ll call you anything you like if we can only get out of here. Look at this wall – doesn’t something appear odd?’
He was standing close behind me and he peered over my shoulder. ‘Why is it whitewashed? The other walls aren’t – though it’s a very old, dirty whitewash.’
It was indeed festooned with cobwebs and dust, but here and there was a break and grey filaments dangled in a ragged fringe where they had been torn. I knocked at the wall with my knuckles and hurt myself on rough bricks – which suddenly became smoother and gave out a loud rapping sound.
‘I think there’s a door,’ I speculated, ‘and the wood has been carved in a pattern of bricks and then everything whitewashed over.’
‘It’s been opened recently if those torn cobwebs are anything to go by. See if you can find some sort of handle.’
Nothing of the sort was visible but I discovered a small hole bored in the door. It was enough for me to gain a hold with two fingers and I pulled hard. There was a door and it opened more easily than I expected. A blast of air – dank and earthy – came to meet us. It was not fresh air by any means but it was a good deal better than what we had been breathing in the priest-hole.
‘There are steps,’ I said, peering down, ‘very steep – more like a ladder than a staircase. Do you suppose Frank has been coming and going this way?’
‘It seems likely – but let me squeeze past you and I’ll go down first if you’ll hold the candle.’
I shielded the flame with my hand, wondering what on earth I would do if it went out and I had to use the tinderbox again in pitch darkness. Colonel Hartley began to descend the steps.
‘It’s quite safe,’ he said. ‘If Frank Lawrence has been using it then it should be secure enough. You’d better keep the candle – I can’t hold it and hang on to the steps. There’s no rail so come down carefully.’
Despite the discomfort, and indeed the danger of our descent, we were both buoyed up by the hope of escape. I was hampered by my skirt, which was brushing against my poor companion’s face, so I hitched it up to my knees and tucked it into my sash.
We reached the ground at last and found ourselves in a vaulted passageway. I hastily loosened my skirt until it fell to my feet again. I thought I heard him murmur ‘Pity!’ but I could have been mistaken.
‘Only one way to go and that’s forward,’ he said. He took the candle from me and led the way.
‘How far is it from the house to the priory ruins?’ I asked. ‘About a hundred yards, do you think?’
‘Near enough and – damn – what’s this?’ He stumbled and nearly dropped the light.
‘A white cloth under my feet – can you pick it up?’
I retrieved the object, which proved to be a lace-edged pillowcase stained with blood.
‘Louisa Thorpe’s pillowcase!’ I exclaimed. ‘He must have wrapped it round her head, as you surmised, to prevent the bloodstains before he threw her down the stairs – then he got rid of it down here.’
‘Leave it for now; it can always be retrieved later if necessary. Let’s get out of here first.’
We hurried on and suddenly emerged in a vaulted underground chamber supported by heavy pillars. In the centre stood a coffin, a brand new coffin with brass plate and handles.
‘This must be right under the nave of the old priory church,’ I said, ‘so there are flagstones over our heads. How do we escape?’
‘There may be some sort of exit but I doubt it. We’d better look first and if we don’t find anything I’ll try and shift one of those flagstones. They were removed very recently so they shouldn’t be too difficult to raise.’
We were still prisoners but at least we had the hope of getting out. Above the paving which formed our roof was the sky and there were faint lines of daylight gleaming through the chinks in the stones. We searched the walls and found only a bricked-up archway which must once have led to another passage; then we again turned our attention to the coffin.
‘I’m sorry, my poor friend, but you’ll have to help us,’ said John Hartley, climbing on the coffin lid and putting his shoulder to one of the flagstones above his head. This time his efforts yielded almost immediate results. The stone grated and rumbled a little and then slid aside, letting in a glorious burst of sunlight, fresh air and birdsong.
‘I’m not at all sure I can get out,’ he said. ‘One really needs two arms – but you certainly can. Climb up here, put your hands on the edge of the aperture and I’ll heave you up from below as best I can.’
It was a struggle but I was light and agile and managed at last to scramble out. I sat for a few moments, looking down at him. His hair was wildly tousled, there was a horrible swollen contusion on his left cheekbone which distorted the scar further and he was very dirty.
I looked at my torn and filthy dress, my blackened shoes and tattered stockings; my hair was falling down my back in wild disorder and I suddenly burst out laughing, perhaps in hysterical relief.
‘What a pair we must look!’ I gasped. ‘I suppose we must go back to the house like this.’
‘You’d better fetch help, I’m not high enough to get myself out and you can’t help me on your own. See if you can find Sam Bates – he came with me when I got your note – except it wasn’t from you. Frank Lawrence must have written it but it was very convincing and after all, I’ve never seen your handwriting.’
‘Haven’t you? No, of course you haven’t. I suppose it was similar to the message I got saying you wanted to see me in the Tapestry Room closet as you’d found something of great significance.’
‘He was taking a risk, of course – he didn’t know that I hadn’t seen your writing.’
‘But Frank had – enough for him to do a reasonable forgery at least.’ I hesitated. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’
‘Then kiss me first.’
I crawled to the edge of the gap in the stones and leaned over. Our lips met briefly and then he seized me by the back of my head and kissed me again with a great deal more feeling.
‘I like you with your hair down,’ he said. ‘Now run!’