He sobered instantly. “Do not even think of it. I am warning you, Veronica.”
“Warning me. Warning me?” My voice rose to a register I do not usually employ, but before I could continue, a curious scratching sound captured my attention.
“What is that?”
“It was you, shrieking like an overexcited tamarin monkey,” Stoker said.
“I do not shriek,” I told him with considerablefroideur. “And this was a scraping noise. There it is again.”
I pointed upwards and he cocked an ear, nodding as the sound came again, a rasp like a chain being pulled through a handle. Then came a creak and the coal doors were eased open. After a moment, Harry Spenlove’s grinning face appeared.
“Hallo? Ready for a rescue?”
CHAPTER
26
With a snap, a rope dropped into the room, uncoiling as it fell. One end had been secured outside the coal door and the other fell just short of the stone floor. Down Harry climbed, not as gracefully as Stoker would have done it, but silently and with a certain athletic vigor he often took pains to hide.
“Harry,” I muttered as he leapt lightly off the end of the rope and came to me. “What fortuitous timing. You might have come before your inamorata broke two of my ribs.”
“I thought she would never leave,” he whispered. “I could not exactly make my presence known.”
He came near and bent to the shackle at my foot.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
He rolled his eyes heavenwards. “This is a rescue, you daft woman. I should have thought that was perfectly obvious.”
“You are not the first person I would have chosen to play the role of hero,” I pointed out. “You have always fled at the first inkling of danger.”
“I am here now,” he said, looking a little put out. He brightened. “I say, I have always wanted to play the hero! Isn’t this fun?”
“Rather less for us,” I pointed out.
“No doubt,” he replied, looking instantly abashed. “But I did remarkably well under the circumstances. You see, I was just leaving the Sudbury barber shop when I saw the pair of you get into the carriage. I was about to hail you when I recognized Göran.” He paused to shudder. “I knew at once what was happening and I realized I was your only hope of liberation. So I hailed the next hansom and was hot as any hound upon your trail.”
Stoker held up his cuffed wrists. “And an excellent job it was, but do you think you might unlock us now? Your friends may return any minute, and it would be advisable for us to put some distance between us before that happens.”
“I do not suppose you thought to bring a hacksaw?” I asked.
Harry dipped two fingers into his pocket and lifted out a key with the air of a professional conjurer. “How you do like to underestimate me, Veronica.” He fitted the key to the lock and the cuff sprang free. He grinned. “I am an exceptionally resourceful man.”
I was too fatigued and famished even to care how he had come into possession of the key. He repeated the process on the rest of the cuffs and I moved my limbs cautiously, stretching life back into them as he turned to Stoker’s shackles.
There was a sudden snap and Harry swore, something loud and profane and thoroughly Anglo-Saxon.
“What is it?” I demanded, coming near to look.
“It seems Mr.Spenlove has broken the key off in the lock,” Stoker said dryly.
“Rotten luck,” Harry told him, peering into the keyhole.
“Harry,” I began in a warning tone.
He backed away, hands held up as if to ward me off. “Veronica, it is not my fault.”
“So we are just as abducted as we were before your arrival,” I said.
