He turned, whistling a little tune as he left. The others followed, and I heard him whistling still as the door closed behind them. It wasnot until I heard the rasp of the key in the lock that I realized what he was whistling. “God Save the Queen.”
I took a seat on the floor, resting my head against the wall.
“Thank God. I thought those chattering bastards would never leave,” Stoker said.
I looked down to find him grinning at me. He moved slowly to stand.
“I thought you were dying,” Eddy told him in obvious relief.
“It would take more than those Irish hooligans to kill a Templeton-Vane. I’ve been hurt worse by Tiberius just for taking his horse without permission. But they were enjoying it rather too much, and I have no fondness for pain. I thought if I pretended to swoon they might lose interest, and they did. They have no imagination,” he added. “They only like administering a beating if they can hear you scream.”
“That is quite enough,” I told him, shuddering
Stoker rubbed his hands together briskly. “All right, then. I want to get out of this bloody place and put an end to this madness once and for all.”
“Agreed,” I said, more briskly than I felt. “What do you suggest?”
He stared at me. “Suggest?”
I gaped at him. “Really, Stoker. You are the only one of us to have the lay of the land, a crucial bit of intelligence if we are to effect an escape. And what else were you doing when you were lying around with all the feverish activity of a pygmy sloth? You might have been developing a scheme for our liberation.”
“My scheme was to try to get out through the door and that did not end in success,” he returned coolly. “The least you two might have done is develop another plan. I don’t know what you think my life has been up until this point, Veronica, but until I met you, there was very little call for me to elude abductors and murderous thugs.”
“Feathers,” I said in some irritation at his sudden lackadaisicalattitude. “You’re just being difficult because you are in pain. I know for a fact that you were engaged in actual warfare.”
“If you are referring to the Siege of Alexandria, might I remind you that I stood on the deck of a ship as it lobbed cannon fire ashore? I was not exactly vaulting through the rigging with a cutlass in my teeth,” he replied.
“Still, this is child’s play compared to that.”
“It bloody well is not! I had the might of Her Majesty’s Navy, which included some rather ferocious guns and a few thousand sailors at my side. Here I have—”
“You have me,” I told him, lifting my chin.
He broke off and grinned again. “Well, I daresay the Egyptians would have been a damned sight more cowed by you than the navy’s guns.”
“And me,” Eddy said, drawing himself up with visible effort at regaining his courage. I knew then what Stoker had been playing at. By refusing to take the mantle of leadership, he forced Eddy to put aside his fears and step into the breach. Necessity will always triumph over nerve in a person of character, I reflected.
Stoker gave him a look of quiet approval. “Very well, what do you propose?”
Eddy paced the room slowly, studying it from every angle. It was excruciating in its slowness, but he got there in the end, and when he pointed to the clerestory windows, I nearly gave a shout of triumph.
“The windows?” he said in a hesitant voice.
Stoker and I exchanged glances. “It is possible,” Stoker said finally.
“Can you climb?” I asked Eddy.
He nodded. “Six years on Royal Navy ships. Although those were ropes, not stones,” he added doubtfully.
“It is a beginning.” Stoker’s tone would brook no hesitation now. “Shall I go first?”
“It must be me,” I insisted.
“I am a better climber,” he objected.
I looked at the windows again, marking the slender dividers between them, and then eyed Stoker’s broad torso. “Your shoulders will never fit through,” I said.
“Dash, I hadn’t thought of that,” Eddy said, his moustaches turning down in dejection.
