Chapter Fifteen #2
I’d never had a good view of the dumb waiter when it was in use in the dining room, and it was much larger than I’d imagined.
The opening in the dining room wall was big enough to allow a couple of trays and a pile of plates to be placed inside the car, but now I was able to see that the car itself was much, much larger.
On a floor like this one where the opening was big enough, you could easily fit a decent-sized chair in the car.
Or a person.
‘In you go, poppet,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Poppet?’
‘I thought it would make my request sound a little more . . . you know . . . reasonable. A friendly invitation to fun and larks between pals.’
‘Why don’t you get in, poppet?’
‘Because I am frail and old—’
‘You’re forty-five.’
‘I am. But you know, less than a hundred years ago half the population was dead by the age of thirty-five. By their standards I’m positively ancient. But I was going to go on to say that, compared with you, I’m also an absolute giant—’
‘You’re a danger to shipping. If poor Captain Scott had made it back from the Antarctic, his next voyage would have been to try to explore the other side of you.’
‘You’re making my point for me, dear. Just get in the lift and see where it goes.’
‘It goes downstairs to the dining room and the kitchen.’
‘Yes, of course. But where else does it go?’
‘How should I know? Where else is there?’
‘And that, my dearest Flossie, is why I want you to get in and find out. I have an idea, and this little elevator might well be the key to understanding what’s going on.’
With a tut, I crouched down and shuffled into the sturdy wooden box of the dumb waiter.
The floor was reassuringly solid and stable, and in the dim light coming in through the large opening I could see that the walls and ceiling were also suitably rugged.
There was no wall at the back and I could see the stone of the lift shaft.
I knelt on the floor of the car and looked around. ‘There are buttons in here. In a box on the wall like the ones out there.’
‘Are they labelled?’
‘“Up” and “Down”, just like on the outside.’
‘I’d suggest “Down”, then. We know what’s above us.’
I pressed and held the ‘Down’ button and the dumb waiter started to move.
The movement of the lift was smooth and comfortable. It didn’t judder. It didn’t wobble against its tracks. It just glid, glode or glided almost noiselessly downwards.
It wasn’t long before an opening appeared in the shaft. From the size of the aperture I guessed that this would be the dining room, and I delayed my release of the button until my head was level with the doorway so that I could see what I was dealing with.
I sat silently.
The doors, not designed to be concealed like the ones above, were not as closely fitted and I was able to tell that the lights in the room were not switched on. It wasn’t dark out there, but the only light came from the slowly descending dusk outside the windows.
I pushed the door on my left and it swung easily open, revealing that I was, as I had suspected, in the dining room. I pulled the door closed and pressed the ‘Down’ button once more.
I was facing the side where the doors would appear, keeping a lookout for the telltale signs that I’d arrived at the kitchen.
I knew Peggy would be hard at work there and didn’t want to have to explain why I was mucking about with the dumb waiter, but I still wanted to be sure of where I was and what I could see.
There was a weird breeze behind me as I descended but I didn’t have time to turn and investigate before the opening appeared in front of me and I knew I was at the kitchen level.
Light shone through the cracks in the lift doors and the sounds of culinary bustle came from the room beyond. This was most definitely the kitchen.
So I was right. The dumb waiter served the kitchen and the dining room with an opening on the second floor, presumably for moving guests’ baggage and other large items to the upper level.
But Herself ‘had an idea’, so I owed it to her to carry on exploring. There was no evidence that this was the lowest extent of the lift shaft so I pressed ‘Down’ again and descended.
It wasn’t long before the lift stopped moving with a soft bump, as though it had hit a set of gentle springs. I was disappointed to find that there was no opening in front of me, but a cold draught behind me made me shuffle round to take a look.
There was an opening, this time uncovered. I struggled out and found myself in what felt like a large wooden box. Or a cupboard – that was much more likely. I pushed open the door and found myself in a darkened room.
If I had been better prepared for my jaunt, I might have had a box of matches and a candle, or even a flashlight, but as it was I was as blind as Clarice.
I had an idea where I might be, but it seemed that to do the job properly, I ought to get out and confirm it.
I needed to explore, but I couldn’t see a thing, so I decided to follow the line of cupboards. Most rooms are rectangular, so I reasoned that if I followed the walls all the way round I’d eventually find the door and, I hoped, a light switch.
I’d gone no more than a few feet when I hit wooden shelving. This went some way towards confirming my guess as to where I might be, but scuppered my wall-following plan. I turned and followed the shelves to their end and then had to take a step of faith into the open space beyond.
I edged forwards across the stone-flagged floor, arms outstretched, hoping to find the far wall with its door and light switch.
How did Clarice do this? Years of practice, obviously, but what did she actually do?
She was at pains to point out that her other senses weren’t enhanced and that she didn’t have magical powers, she just paid more attention to the senses she had.
I had the same senses she had, so what were they telling me?
I stopped moving and concentrated.
What could I hear?
Nothing.
No, wait, I could hear the sound of wind whistling faintly underneath a door.
I clicked my tongue. The reverberations of the sound told me the room was quite large and had hard walls and floor. That much I already knew, but I felt a bounce of confidence as my ears seemed to confirm it.
What could I smell?
The freshly cut wood of the shelves. Coffee. Vegetables. I must be in the storeroom, just as I suspected.
And then another smell hit me. The unmistakable smell of death. I was definitely in the storeroom with the tarpaulin-covered bodies of Everett and Sidwell-Plant.
And if that was the case, then I knew that as long as I kept going slowly forwards, I’d soon reach the outer wall and from there I’d easily be able to find the door.
I moved on. After less than a minute of careful shuffling I could feel the draught from the door on my face and hands and moments later I had the lights on.
Finally, there before me was the familiar storeroom, with its shelves of supplies – including the supposedly smuggled cognac – and the two bodies.
At the back of the room I could see the cupboard door I’d opened to get out of the dumb waiter and, to my chagrin, the light switch right beside it. All that stumbling about could have been avoided if only I’d fumbled around for a bit. Heigh-ho.
It was time to take my new knowledge back to the waiting Lady Hardcastle.
I took one more quick look round, but there was nothing fresh to be seen so I went back to the dumb waiter. I switched off the light and stepped into the cupboard, closing the door behind me. I crawled into the lift and held the ‘Up’ button. I began to ascend.
I passed the kitchen and then, on a whim, turned to the back of the car to try to find the source of the draught I’d felt on the way down.
Between the kitchen and the dining room, there was another opening in the lift shaft, on the same side as the entrance to the storeroom.
I stopped the lift, lining it up as carefully as I could with the opening, and pushed at the wooden panel.
As before, it was a door and it opened into another large space.
This time I took the trouble to hunt for a light switch.
It wasn’t hard to find and I was soon looking into a small, low-ceilinged room.
There was a mattress in one corner with what looked like some women’s clothing untidily stuffed into a soldier’s kit bag.
The rest of the room was reasonably tidy, but some discarded greaseproof paper and an empty beer bottle indicated that someone had stayed here long enough to eat and sleep.
I went in to have a good look round.
I rummaged through the bag and confirmed that it held a woman’s outdoor outfit, complete with coat and boots, as well as two pairs of plimsolls – one small enough for me, and one suitable for someone a good bit taller. There was a velvet pouch at the bottom and I drew it out and looked inside.
Well, that answered one question, at least.
Finally, screwed up behind the bag was a man’s bloodstained shirt and a rag – exactly as we’d expected we’d find somewhere after we’d examined Everett’s body.
After my sensory successes in the storeroom, I sniffed the air, but the delicious aromas of Peggy’s cooking masked anything else I might have been able to detect.
With a nod of satisfaction at a job well done, I switched off the light, clambered back into the dumb waiter, closed the door behind me and went up to tell Lady Hardcastle what I’d found.