Chapter Fourteen
They were trapped inside the icehouse.
“Do you have a hairpin?” Dr. Scott asked.
“No.” Selena hadn’t taken the time to put her hair up before she’d rushed out to the icehouse. “But I have Mrs. Hillman’s brooch.” She retrieved it from her pocket and inserted the point into the lock. But no matter how hard she wiggled and twisted it, the door lock appeared to be jammed.
Dr. Scott pounded on the icehouse door. “Help! We’re trapped in here!”
Selena’s heart thudded with apprehension as she joined in the pounding. “Help! Help us!”
Although they were standing aboveground in the icehouse’s entryway, it was so cold, their breath formed clouds in the air. Selena’s face felt as if it were made of the same ice that was piled up in blocks in the storage area below.
The doctor paused and slowly shook his head. “I doubt anyone will hear us. We’re quite a way from the house, and these walls are thick.”
Selena swallowed hard. “You said the lock sometimes sticks?”
“That’s what your butler told me before we headed out here. But …” Dr. Scott broke off, his jaw tense.
“What are you thinking?” Selena’s mind went to a dark place. “That someone might have deliberately locked us in here?”
He opened his mouth as if to reply, then shut it gain. “No. No. Of course not.” Bracing one foot against the doorjamb, he turned the knob again and pulled with what seemed to be all his might, but still, the door wouldn’t open.
“Is there another way out?” Selena wondered.
“Icehouses generally only have one entrance and exit. But I’ll go check. I’m afraid I’ll have to take the lantern.”
Selena didn’t relish the idea of being left alone in the dark. “I’ll come with you.”
She followed him down the stairs back to the icehouse floor, where the intense cold enveloped her like a frozen shroud.
While Dr. Scott perused the perimeter of the chamber, Selena took in the two bodies on the ice slabs and wrapped her arms around herself, trembling, struck once again by the eeriness of the place. It felt like a frosty tomb.
“There’s no other exit,” Dr. Scott said, returning with the lantern.
A cough broke the stillness nearby. Selena started in astonishment. “Is someone there?”
A fair-haired, lanky lad straightened up from behind the slab of ice upon which Mrs. Whitlock lay. It was Billy, the hall boy. He was shivering in a thin coat, his eyes were sheepish, and his lips were blue.
“Billy!” Selena recalled that he’d been a member of the group who had shoveled the path to the icehouse. “What are you doing in here?”
The lad’s cheeks, which were already pink from the cold, turned a deep shade of red. “I wanted to see the dead body.”
“Did you shut the icehouse door?” Dr. Scott demanded, his features hard.
Billy twisted his hands. “I … I don’t know, sir. I don’t think so. But I may have done.”
“That was foolish, boy.” Dr. Scott scowled. “Now all three of us are trapped in here.”
“Wells knows we’re here,” Selena said. “Surely, when we don’t return, he’ll send a party to look for us.”
“He’ll have to be quick about it,” the doctor pointed out. “Hypothermia can happen in minutes. We’ll all be dead within the hour.”
Selena gasped. “Oh, no.” She hadn’t realized how cold and terrified she was until the doctor had put that reality into words.
“I’m scared,” Billy whined.
“So am I, Billy.” Selena felt bad for the boy, who looked like he was about to cry.
She crossed to him and embraced his thin frame.
In her most reassuring tone, the one she used when her students were anxious about something, she said, “Don’t worry.
We’ll get out of here.” If only Selena could believe that.
Billy was trembling even harder now.
“Dr. Scott,” Selena said softly, “Billy needs a coat. Mrs. Whitlock’s will do. Would you help me?”
“Of course,” the doctor replied. They removed the coat from Mrs. Whitlock’s body and offered it to the boy.
“I’m not wearin’ no dead woman’s coat!” Billy cried, his eyes wide.
“Take it and be grateful.” Dr. Scott shoved it at him. The lad reluctantly put it on.
A shiver now took over Selena’s entire body and her teeth started chattering.
Dr. Scott unbuttoned his overcoat and offered it to her. “Wear this.”
“What? No! I couldn’t,” Selena objected. “You’ll freeze.”
“Take it,” he insisted.
“I already have a coat.” Although in this frozen chamber, even her woolen coat felt as thin as Billy’s had been.
Ignoring her protestations, Dr. Scott wrapped his overcoat around her like a cape. “Let’s go back upstairs. It’s a bit less cold there, and we can call again for help.”
They traipsed up the stairs to the entryway, where Selena and Dr. Scott pounded on the door and all three began yelling at the top of their lungs, “Help! Help! We’re trapped in the icehouse!” They continued the chant over and over until Selena’s mouth went dry, and her voice became hoarse.
All at once, there came an answering call.
“Miss Taylor? Dr. Scott? Is that you?” It was Colonel Blackwood’s voice.
“Yes! Yes!” Selena cried, her pulse leaping. “We’re stuck in here.”
“The door won’t open,” Dr. Scott explained urgently. “I fear the lock is jammed.”
“Got it,” the colonel replied. The doorknob rattled. “Give me a moment. I’ve got a penknife.”
Selena waited with bated breath as the sound of metallic scraping ensued.
An eternity seemed to pass while the threesome stood there, shivering uncontrollably.
Selena had never been so cold in her life.
She couldn’t feel her hands anymore and she was beginning to feel drowsy.
Then suddenly and miraculously, the door burst open.
Colonel Blackwood stood there with a penknife in his hands.
“Thank you, Colonel.” Dr. Scott’s features sagged with relief. Putting an arm around Selena’s shoulders, he drew her out the door and urged Billy to come with them.
Without a word, Billy darted out, threw Mrs. Whitlock’s coat on the ground, and dashed off in the direction of the house.
“Who was that?” Colonel Blackwood asked.
“The hall boy, Billy,” Selena said. “He followed us in.”
“How did you find us?” Dr. Scott asked as they stood outside beneath the gently falling snow.
“I just learned of Mrs. Whitlock’s death from Gladys when she laid my new fire,” Colonel Blackwood said.
“I still don’t understand what happened, but I heard that you were bringing her body to the icehouse.
I rushed out here, hoping to have one last moment with Mrs. Whitlock before she …
” He took a breath, as if struggling to calm himself.
“Anyway, that’s when I heard you pounding on the door and shouting. ”
“Thank you.” Dr. Scott gave him an appreciative look. “I hate to think of what might have happened if you had not come, Colonel.”
“We’re so grateful.” Selena couldn’t believe how close they had come to losing their lives just now.
“I’m glad I could be of help. I’ve had more than one man in my regiment freeze to death. Not a pretty sight—and a grim way to die.” Colonel Blackwood hesitated. “May I ask—how did Mrs. Whitlock die?”
“A lethal combination of laudanum and alcohol, in her bedtime drink,” Dr. Scott replied.
“Good heavens.” Colonel Blackwood shook his head. “Would you mind if I go in and take a moment to pay my last respects to her?”
“Be my guest, Colonel.” Selena picked up the velvet coat from the ground where Billy had tossed it. “Would you do me a favor, though?” She explained how and why the coat had come to be there. “Would you mind bringing this back to Mrs. Whitlock?”
“It would be my honor,” the colonel replied.
“Take the lantern.” Dr. Scott handed it to him. “And please be quick. I need to get Miss Taylor back to the house, but I don’t want to leave until I see you safely out of the icehouse, Colonel—not with that tricky door lock.”
“I’ll fly as fast as a bird,” Colonel Blackwood assured them. He disappeared into the icehouse with Mrs. Whitlock’s coat.
“Doctor, please take back your overcoat.” Selena began to unwrap it from around her shoulders, but he stopped her.
“Keep it for now. You can return it later.”
Snow was drifting down at a steady pace. When he refused her second plea, Selena gave up, her heart turning over at his display of gallantry. “I still can’t help wondering if someone knew about that tricky door lock and deliberately shut us in.”
“Who? You mean the author of the threatening notes?”
She nodded. “They warned us to ‘stop looking or die.’ And said, ‘You’re next.’”
He let out an uneasy laugh. “It would have taken great audacity and tricky timing for someone to have pulled that off.” He shook his head.
“I’m sure Billy shut the door, with no idea that it would lock.
I understand why you’re suspicious, though.
Who knows what the person who wrote those notes is thinking or intending. ”
Colonel Blackwood rejoined them, and they hurried back to the great house. Selena was so cold that she kept the doctor’s coat when she returned to her room to change, promising to meet the gentlemen downstairs again later.
Once inside her chamber, Selena stowed Mrs. Hillman’s brooch in a dresser drawer, wondering when the right moment would be to apprise Mrs. Hillman about her friend’s misdeed.
She paused gratefully before the hearth, warming her frozen hands and feet by the fire.
Her mind spun with a mix of churning emotions: shock over all that had happened that morning and anxiety about what lay ahead.
For with Mrs. Whitlock dead, they had no idea who had sent the threatening notes or who had killed Jack Clarke—if indeed he had been killed.
Or if Mrs. Whitlock’s poisoning had been deliberate or accidental.
And what about that terrifying experience just now in the icehouse? Had Billy truly shut the door? Or had someone else closed it, knowing that the lock might jam and trap her and the doctor inside? All of these things were a conundrum, and not one she’d be able to solve today.