Chapter Twenty-three

Malinda jumped up and flung the table on Miss Tempie, who rolled over in her chair, sputtering and clucking like an upset hen. China broke in a clatter and silver clanged as it hit the flagstone floor. I grabbed the silver teapot and Malinda snatched up a huge footed tray. My hat fell off as we ran. We ran like our lives depended on it.

We ran past the swimming pool, turned into a garden and back the way we’d come. Or we thought it was the way we’d come. All the doors looked alike. We took the first unlocked door, shoving past massive furniture stacked to the ceiling and dark boxes big as refrigerators. “Oof.” Malinda bumped into one as we rounded a corner. “The damn thing didn’t move an inch.” She stopped to rub her shoulder.

Fast behind her I said, “Look.” The hall ended in stairs that curved up and a door that went down. The door had a padlock big and heavy as a purse.

We took the stairs, running, still carrying the tray and teapot. “If we run into anyone,” Malinda said, “you douse him, I’ll whang him then we run like hell.”

At the top of the stairs, we hesitated, then took the hall to the left, both of us seeing what looked like light at the end of it. We tried locked door after locked door until we reached an open one, stood in the doorway and caught our breath. Verna lay asleep on the bed. At least she looked asleep … as Miss Lavinia had looked asleep. At first. Death was the ultimate deceiver. “You don’t think…?” I asked.

“She’s sherried out,” Malinda said. “Look.”

I saw the mole on Verna’s chin quiver as she suddenly sucked in a snore.

We went back the way we’d come, taking the other hall this time, the carpet so worn and dry it cracked like leaves under our feet. Dust rose and dried our throats, coated and filled our nostrils.

We turned the corner and saw more stairs. “I’m not going up any more,” Malinda said, and we turned to go back, this time with me leading, only to find a heavy wardrobe blocking the way we’d come. “Damn, damn, damn.” I leaned against it, beat it with my fist.

“Maybe we can move it.” Malinda grabbed an edge, pushed with her weight against it. Nothing moved. “It’s solid as cement.”

Somebody had moved the wardrobe, shut us in like cats in a cage. We’d die slowly here, clawing walls and screaming until we were too weak to breathe. No one would hear us. No one would come looking. Or if they did, not a thorough search. Miss Tempie would tell some half-witted tale like “the dear girls only stayed half an hour. So impolite, and young people these days have no time for manners and graciousness.” Nobody would go looking through this monster of a house checking every hall and door.

“The stairs,” I said. “There was a door at the top.”

We ran down the hall again. This time we took the stairs to the third floor and ended up in a small room with a huge Palladian window arched like a church. “Lord,” said Malinda, “I thought I’d never see daylight again.”

There were double glass doors and we ran toward them and pulled.

“Stuck,” I said. “Probably haven’t been opened in fifty years.”

“They’re going to open now,” Malinda said, and shoved her hip against them.

The doors stayed stuck.

“Hit it,” I said, and with the teapot I started breaking glass.

Malinda hit it with her tray, fast and furious. The glass fell in front of us as we aimed blows and leaped backward, let the shards crash and splinter in jagged tears and deadly stalagmite crystals at our feet.

When most of one door had been cleared of glass, we broke the wooden frames and stepped onto a small, round porch.

“A damn balcony,” Malinda said. “And I bet it’s as rotten as the rest of the house.” She put her hand out to hold me back. “It may be too much for both of us. Wait.”

She eased to the rail and looked down. “If we crawl over, then drop, we’ll be on the front porch with no broken bones.”

Malinda hiked up her skirt and swung a leg over the rail.

I heard a muffled thump, the shifting of something large behind us. “Hurry,” I said. “There’s somebody in the hall.”

Malinda was over the rail. From the balcony I heard a soft thump below, and Malinda said, “After you, Nancy Drew.”

I grabbed the rail that wobbled in my hand and sent splinters prickling into my fingers. I banged one knee, but I was over and hanging free by my hands. Then I let go and slid through cool air. I landed on my feet with a hard plunk that sent me off balance and rocking for a minute. But I was okay. Nothing broken, nothing damaged.

Malinda snatched me up beside her, close against the house. “He can’t see us under here,” she whispered. “When he goes back in, we run for the cars.”

“But not on the gravel,” I whispered. “Let’s take it a cedar at a time.” I pointed to the cedar spires, casting green-black pyramids of shadows beside the driveway. The shapes were large and would hide us quickly, completely.

Overhead we heard the boards in the balcony creak. Grit and filth rained down. Through the cracks, we saw soles of large shoes, heard the boards groan until the footsteps stopped at the rail, then give and groan again as he returned to the house. Only this time was another sound. A small sound that felt like glass at my chest. The clink of metal. A gun? Was Rolfe carrying a gun? Had it hit against the glass as he went though the door and back into the house? Or did he still carry that damn shovel and plan to hit us over the head before he buried us in that “garden of earthly delights”? “Run,” I told Malinda. “Run faster.”