I TOOK A deep breath and wished that I had not. It was the fetid air and not my fear, I told myself, that made me feel queasy.
‘I shall go first,’ I decided, pushing as many misgivings as I could collect into the attic of my mind.
Being fifteen inches taller than me at six foot one and robustly constructed, Gerrund was a great deal heavier than I and, if he broke our makeshift bridge, he might make it across but I would be left behind.
He handed me his lamp and I peered over. It was more of a crater than an earthwork.
‘Why the devil would they need to make it so large?’ I wondered.
‘They probably had an extra big hole going spare,’ he joked as I stepped out tentatively. ‘Have a care, milady,’ he fretted, though I had not been intending to be reckless.
The alleged plank felt solid enough despite it bowing down worryingly in the middle. The trench was about eight feet wide and I was probably halfway across when the beam wobbled.
‘Oh dear,’ I said mildly.
‘Damnit!’ Gerrund contributed less mildly.
Broggit! Ruby contributed with no attempt at mildness at all.
Parasol grasped in my left hand and lantern in my right, I stretched out my arms either side to improve my balance. I had seen a tightrope walker do that when I was a child and it was probably not his fault that the tower had tipped, sending him plunging to his death.
Do not think about that, I told myself sternly, but myself rarely listens to my advice.
I slid another foot forward. Walking boots would have given me a better grip, but I had been expecting to step straight indoors, not to perform acrobatics en route. The plank wobbled again even more violently and I windmilled my arms to regain my balance.
Do you know what this is? Ruby enquired.
No, I replied warily.
Dangerous, she said.
Be quiet, I snapped and, for once, she did as she was told.
‘How deep do you think it is?’ I was too unsure of my stability to lower the lamp for a closer inspection.
‘Only about six feet,’ my man estimated.
Perfect depth for a grave, Ruby observed, rarely silent for long.
‘I’ll stand on my end to steady it,’ Gerrund proposed.
‘Please do,’ I urged, wondering why he hadn’t done so already, but it still felt unsteady when I moved again. ‘I hope there is an extra-large mattress at the bottom.’
‘Bound to be,’ he assured me, ‘with linen sheets and plumped-up pillows.’
I took another tentative step and the plank rocked alarmingly.
‘I thought you were supposed to be steadying it.’
‘I am,’ he said, ‘or you’d have spilled for certain that time.’
To hell with this. I took a deep breath and ran three frightened steps to the other side.
‘Well done, milady,’ he called.
I hooked the lamp on the end of my parasol and held it out towards him. Gerrund hesitated. Surely the man who had scaled the outside of the clocktower at Newmarket was not going to baulk at such an obstacle?
‘Just thinking,’ he said. ‘If I shift it over a bit…’ He crouched and dragged the end of the plank a foot or so to his right. ‘The ground looks more level here.’ He set one boot on the plank and then another. ‘That’s better,’ he declared with some satisfaction and ambled over as casually as he might have taken a country walk, his cane jauntily over his shoulder.
‘Thank goodness you did not think of that before I went,’ I commented coolly.
‘I couldn’t see the problem until you tried it,’ he defended himself.
My feet were wet and I lowered the lamp to find that the whole street ran with effluent, a steady stream trickling into the ditch.
‘Oh for goodness sake.’
Hems were up to ankle height by this time, but mine had still got saturated.
‘I did advise you to wear something old,’ my man reminded me.
‘I do not have anything old,’ I told him, ‘other than you.’
Gerrund bristled; at an estimated age of forty-two he was hardly decrepit.
‘Not gone rusty yet,’ he muttered.
We sloshed on, my Wilber-Lowe bespoke shoes squelching with every step until we reached a hanging sign with a peeling picture of something resembling a misshapen sweep’s boy proclaimed to be The Green Munky. The confused sounds of what I hoped was revelry came from within.
‘Why are all the windows boarded over?’
‘Glass doesn’t last long round here,’ Gerrund explained.
‘It sounds like they are doing good trade.’
‘Not much good about it,’ he grunted.
The moment he pushed open the door the light and the noise hit us, but not as hard as the stench. I had thought that the street air was foul, but it was rosewater compared to this.
I could have stayed at home, I pondered, but the newspapers, I tried to tell myself, were full of blood-curdling accounts of people who had thought that they were safe behind locked doors.
Ruby fingered her silver revolver. Mine lay usefully in my desk.
Here goes, she said gamely and we stepped inside.