The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

As he tightened it, I remembered to press my fingertips together to form an arch, just as I had done when Feely and Daffy had locked me in the closet. When had that been? Last Wednesday? It seemed a thousand years ago.

But Pemberton was no fool. He saw at once what I was up to, and without a word, he pinched the backs of my hands between his thumb and forefinger and my little arch of safety collapsed in pain. He pulled the bonds tight until my wrists were squeezed together, then double-and triple-knotted the thing, giving it a hard, tight tug at each step.

I ran a thumb over the knot and felt the slick smoothness of it. Woven silk. Yes, he had used his necktie. Precious little chance of picking my way out of these bonds!

My wrists were already perspiring, and I knew that the moisture would soon cause the silk to shrink. Well, not precisely: Silk, like hair, is a protein, and does not itself shrink, but the way in which it is woven can cause it to tighten mercilessly when it is wetted. After a while, the circulation in my hands would be cut off, and then…

"Sit," Pemberton commanded, pushing down on my shoulders—and I sat.

I heard the click of his belt buckle as he removed it, whipped it round my ankles, and pulled it tight.

He didn't say another word. His shoes grated on concrete as he climbed the steps of the pit, and then I heard the sound of the heavy boards being dragged back across its mouth.

A few moments later, all was silence. He was gone.

I was alone in the pit, and no one but Pemberton knew where I was.

I would die down here, and when eventually they found my body, they would lift me into a gleaming black hearse and transport me to some dank old morgue where they would lay me out on a stainless-steel table.

The first thing they would do would be to open my mouth and extract the soggy ball of my handkerchief, and as they spread it out flat on the table beside my white remains, an orange stamp—a stamp belonging to the King—would flutter to the floor: It was like something right out of an Agatha Christie. Someone—perhaps even Miss Christie herself—would write a detective novel about it.

I would be dead, but I'd be splashed across the front page of the News of the World. If I hadn't been so frightened, so exhausted, so short of breath, and in such pain, it might even have seemed amusing.

24

BEING KIDNAPPED IS NEVER QUITE THE WAY YOU imagine it will be. In the first place, I had not bitten and scratched my abductor. Nor had I screamed: I had gone quietly along like a lamb to the September slaughter.

The only excuse I can think of is that all my powers were being diverted to feed my racing mind, and that nothing was left over to drive my muscles. When something like this actually happens to you, the kind of rubbish that comes leaping immediately into your head can be astonishing.

I remembered, for instance, Maximilian's claim that in the Channel Islands you could raise the hue and cry merely by shouting, “Haroo! Haroo, mon Prince! On me fait tort!"

Easy to say but hard to do when your mouth's stopped up with cotton and your head's wrapped in a stranger's tweed jacket that fairly reeks of sweat and pomade.

Besides, I thought, there is a notable shortage of princes in England nowadays. The only ones I could think of at the moment were Princess Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, and their infant son, Prince Charles.

This meant that, for all practical purposes, I was on my own.

What would Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier have done? I wondered. Or for that matter, her husband, Antoine?

My present predicament was far too vivid a reminder of Marie-Anne's brother, cocooned in oiled silk and left to breathe through a straw. And it was unlikely, I knew, that anyone would come bursting into the Pit Shed to haul me off to justice. There was no guillotine in Bishop's Lacey, but neither were there any miracles.

No, reflecting upon Marie-Anne and her doomed family was simply too depressing. I'd have to look to the other great chemists for inspiration.

What, then, would Robert Bunsen, for instance, or Henry Cavendish have done if they had found themselves bound and gagged at the bottom of a grease pit?

I was surprised by how quickly the answer came to mind: They would take stock.

Very well, I would take stock.

I was at the bottom of a six-foot pit, which was uncomfortably close to the dimensions of a grave. My hands and feet were tied and it would not be easy to feel my way around. With my head wrapped up in Pemberton's jacket—and doubtless tied tightly in position with its arms—I could see nothing. My hearing was muffled by the heavy cloth; my sense of taste disabled by the handkerchief stuffed in my mouth.

I was having difficulty breathing and, with my nose partially covered, the slightest exertion used up what little oxygen was reaching my lungs. I would need to remain quiet.