A Red Herring Without Mustard

Again a muffled sound, weaker. Was it farther away, or was I imagining things? One thing was certain: It could only be coming from somewhere behind a giant pipe that rose up out of the stonework, leveled off, bent ninety degrees, and headed off towards the far side of the chamber.

I scrambled up onto the thing, straddled it for a moment—then dropped down on the other side.

The passageway into which the pipe led was lower, narrower, and damp. Moisture beaded on the walls, and the floor, between bricks, was wet earth.

Just ahead, the tunnel was blocked by an iron gate: an iron gate that was chained shut and locked on the other side with a large, old-fashioned padlock.

I gave the thing a rattle, but it was absolutely solid. Without a key, there wasn’t a hope of getting past.

“Damn!” I said. “Damn and double damn!”

“Flavia?” someone croaked.

I must admit that I came very close to disgracing myself.

I shone the beam through the bars and picked out a shape huddled on the ground.

For as long as I live I shall never forget his white face staring up at me, blinded by the torch’s beam. He had managed, somehow, to lose his spectacles, and his pale eyes, blind and blinking, were those of a baby mole pulled from its hole and dragged out suddenly into the daylight.

“Colin?” I said. “Colin Prout?”

“Turn it off!” he pleaded in a ragged voice, twisting away from the light.

I swung the torch away, so that the passage beyond the bars was once more in near-darkness.

“Help me,” Colin said, his voice pitiful.

“I can’t. The gate is locked.”

I gave the massive thing a shake with one hand, hoping it would spring open—perhaps by some as-yet-undiscovered magic—but that did not happen.

“Try it from your side,” I told him. “There might be a latch …”

I knew, even as I said it, that there wasn’t, but anything was worth a try.

“Can’t,” Colin said, and even in the darkness I could tell that he was on the verge of tears. “I’m tied up.”

“Tied up?” It seemed impossible, even though I had once or twice been in the same position myself.

“I’ve got the key, though. It’s in me pocket.”

Praise be! I thought. Finally, a bit of luck.

“Wiggle yourself over to the gate,” I said. “I’ll try to reach the key.”

There was a painful silence, and then he said, “I’m … I’m tied to somethin’.”

And he began to whimper.

It was enough to make a saint spit!

But wait: The padlock was on Colin’s side of the gate, wasn’t it? I had noticed this but not given it my proper attention.

“Did you lock yourself in?” I asked.

“No,” Colin snuffled.

“Then how did you get in there?”

“We come through the door in the fountain.”

A door in the fountain? We?

I chose to ask the most important question first.

“Who’s ‘we,’ Colin? Who did this to you?”

I could hear him breathing heavily in the darkness, but he did not answer.

I realized at once the futility of it all. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trying to pry answers out of a captive from whom I was separated by a wall of iron bars.

“All right, then,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. Tell me about the door in the fountain. I’ll come round and let you out.”

It made me furious, actually, to think that I should have to ask a stranger about a secret door at Buckshaw—and secret it must be, for I had never heard of such a thing myself. Such mysteries were surely meant to be handed down by word of mouth from one family member to another, not practically pried from a near-stranger who skulked about the countryside in the company of a poacher.

“Simon’s toe,” Colin said.

“What? You’re not making any sense.”

The sound of sobbing told me there was no more to be got from him.

“Stay here,” I said, although it made no sense. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“No, wait!” he cried. “Give me the torch. Don’t leave me alone!”

“I have to, Colin. I need the torch to light my way.”

“No, please! I’m ’fraid of the dark!”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Close your eyes and count to five hundred and fifty. It won’t be dark with your eyes closed. When you finish, I’ll be back. Here—I’ll help you start. One … two … three …”

“Can’t,” Colin interrupted, “I ’aven’t learnt my hundreds.”

“All right, then, let’s sing. Come on, we’ll sing together:

“God save our gracious King,

Long live our noble King,

Long may he …

“Come on, Colin, you’re not singing.”

“Don’t know the words.”

“All right, then, sing something you know. Singing will make me come back sooner.”

There was a long pause, and then he began in a cracked and quavering voice:

“London Bridge is … fallin’ down

Fallin’… down, fallin’ down

London Bridge is fallin’ down …”