‘Damned ingenious,’ went on the colonel enthusiastically. ‘Who is it, d’you know?’ Lady Cranleigh got control of herself quickly. In ordinary circumstances the Indian’s appearance could only be conspicuous but at a fancy dress ball it was unexceptional save for the admiration it provoked at the guest’s originality.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Lady Cranleigh quickly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Colonel, I must go and greet him.’
‘Of course, dear lady.’
Lady Cranleigh forced herself to keep her passage through the dancers slow enough not to arouse any curiosity in her guests, and approached the Indian sedately and with a welcoming smile which became tight-lipped once she had guided her unexpected guest to the shelter of an arbour at the end of the terrace.
‘Dittar! What are you doing?’ The Indian took his troubled eyes from the dancers and dropped them sorrowfully.
‘There was nothing else for me to do.’ He spoke precisely, deliberately, with very little accent.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘My good friend has gone.’
‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’
The Indian’s deep-set black eyes dwelt upon the tight lines of the woman’s face with a profound sadness. ‘When I arose today he was not in the room. Last night was the night of the moon.’
‘Not in the room? What about Digby?’
‘Digby, he also has gone.’
‘Digby?’
‘It was the night of the moon.’
‘That’s nonsense, Dittar, nonsense!’ She spoke with uncontrollable anger born of a terrible fear. Reproach was added to the sadness in the black eye.
‘Come with me!’
Lady Cranleigh hurried away through a dense rose garden to a distant green house followed closely by the Indian. Inside the green house, submerged in the proliferation of tropical foliage, the frightened woman turned to the Indian who gulped greedily at the sweet warm air.
‘Now!’
‘I would come to you sooner,’ began the Indian apologetically, ‘but it was not safe until the ceremony... the ceremony of the dance of masks.’
Gratitude closely followed by a sense of shame helped Lady Cranleigh to hold her fear in check. She drew courage from the quiet strength of the dignified Indian whose primitive roots she knew to be deeper than her own.
‘It was clever of you, Dittar. Thank you. But they must be somewhere.’
‘I have searched through the day. There is no sign.’
She knew this to be true. If Dittar Latoni, Chief of the Utobi, could find no sign, there was no sign to find. And yet instinct told her there could be one place where the Indian had not searched. There were sacred areas in his own ancestor worship which bound him to respect that of others.
‘Have you looked in the attic?’
‘No, Lady.’
‘Then come!’
4
The unrelieved blackness and the rank, damp air somehow made it difficult to breathe. The Doctor wanted nothing more than to suck light air into his labouring lungs; it took preference over the satisfaction of his inordinate curiosity.
When adventuring from his room he had concentrated his attention on the wall to his right in the belief that a possible exit would be in the opposite wall. Now he was returning to the point where his inquisitiveness had held him firmly by the nose he again concentrated his manual exploration on the wall to his right to balance the possibility of finding an exit point even if it meant no more than a return to his room.
‘Got it!’ The expression of triumph leapt involuntarily from his lips as a hair-thin line of light slashed his hand at head height. He had missed the unmistakable join in the woodwork on his outward journey for the reason that his sight had had no time to adjust. But his eyes had long since surrendered to a bottomless blackness that, alone, made it possible for him to see the light. Such is the nature of humility, he thought. He would remember that.
All his fingers followed along the line of light probing for an irrelevance, an abnormality, something that contradicted the predictable. The little finger on his right hand found it; a thimble-sized knob that gave under pressure. A panel pivotted away from him with a groan and the Doctor stepped, gratefully, into a narrow corridor capped by skylights. Wherever he was he was directly under a roof.
The corridor was narrow, narrower than the corridor where his own room was situated, and there were doors to either side. The Doctor tapped on the first, turned the handle and pushed, expecting the door to open inwards.
Assuming the door to be locked he stepped away from it but the pressure of his hand dragging on the handle pulled the door open revealing a cupboard. It was stacked with books. The Doctor picked one up and then another, glancing at their spines. They were both botanical works.
Further examination told him that all volumes were on botanical or geographical subjects. The Doctor inferred that they represented the stored library of the late Marquess who had died in the Venezualan jungle. He moved on to the next door which, again, proved to be a cupboard. This one contained articles of men’s clothing all neatly folded and stacked.
The remaining cupboards contained more books and clothing and one was filled with sporting equipment: cricket bats, tennis-rackets and croquet mallets. One door at the end of the passage was narrower than the rest. It proved to be empty but it was deeper than the others, the sort of cupboard used for keeping brooms and similar domestic articles. The Doctor stepped into it for a closer look and was startled by a squeak that suggested he had invaded the home of some small creature now perished underfoot. But the sound was no more than the back of the cupboard beginning to move; something that caused a relexive action in the Doctor. He lifted his foot and the back of the cupboard reversed its movement. The floor of the cupboard was clearly the spring which opened yet another secret door. The Doctor glanced back along the corridor to confirm that the panel through which he’d escaped was still open. With his retreat covered he felt more confident about continuing his exploration. He stepped into the cupboard and its back slid to one side to expose another passage way. This was, indeed, a house of secrets.
Dittar Latoni, Chief of the Utobi, hissed between his teeth.
It was a noise rendered more plangent by the sounding board of the protruding lower lip. What came forth was a note from a Venezualan humming bird: a warning call used by hunters in the jungle on the banks of the Orinoco.
Lady Cranleigh stopped and turned to look at the Indian.
He signalled silently that he should precede her through the attic door. She shook her head. ‘No, Dittar,’ she said firmly. ‘I have nothing to fear from your friend.’
‘It is still the time of the moon,’ replied the Indian gravely.
Lady Cranleigh stepped resolutely to the door and opened it. The Indian quickly closed the distance between them to protect her from any threat beyond as she felt for the switch and turned on the light. The room seemed empty except for the family memorabilia and the ghosts that undoubtedly haunted them.
‘Are you here, friend of Dittar?’ called Lady Cranleigh.
‘Lady!’ implored the Indian and moved protectively ahead of her, pushing his way further into the room. He eased between the baskets and the effigies, ducking and stooping to look behind them. He moved cautiously behind the suit of armour and straightened to look with sad eyes on the smooth, exposed, featureless face of the unmasked executioner.
‘He was here, Lady.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I can smell him.’
Adric was feeling lonely, distinctly left out of it. He watched the cavorting dancers enviously, less envious of their prowess than their courage in making such fools of themselves. Nyssa had finally abandoned him and he was kicking his heels with a furtive eye on the resplendent buffet but he lacked the courage even to invade that single-handed. The last thing he wanted to be was conspicuous; more conspicuous than he felt in this ridiculous costume, that is. He’d suffered the last straw when a young man, dressed as what he discovered later was an eighteenth-century pirate, had approached him and asked him to dance. All he’d done was to open his mouth to say ‘thank you’ and the pirate had blushed, cleared his throat, muttered something about being sorry and beat a hasty retreat. It really was the limit.
He’d even thought of following Nyssa’s suggestion and asking Lady Cranleigh to dance. He might make a perfect fool of himself but it would at least do something to reassert his masculinity. But Lady Cranleigh had disappeared from the scene. He cast longing eyes at the inviolate food. His mouth was uncomfortably dry. Perhaps he could ask one of those proud-looking frilly fellows for one of those lemon drinks.
The dancers were throbbing through a tango. Nyssa had watched her twin jerk through its unexpected rythms and then had readily accepted an invitation from a large white rabbit to join in. Sir Robert’s full-bottomed wig whipped into the face of the twirling Tegan with the impetus of the dance in a way impossible for him to control.
‘My dear, you deserve a better dancer than I. We must find you someone your own age.’
‘You’re a bute dancer, Sir Robert,’ said Tegan pulling her head out of the path of the knight’s flailing locks. Sir Robert considered her remark for a step or two before concluding it to be a compliment, and replied with a twinkling smile, ‘That, surely, is a great hoot.’
Tegan chuckled. The dance came to an end and she looked across the terrace to where the twins had come together once more with their respective partners. Sir Robert followed her look. ‘Miss Talbot and your friend are again impossible to tell apart. I wouldn’t like to swear which is which.’
‘There’s a way of telling,’ confided Tegan.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a secret.’
The band opened up again with a lively tune and Sir Robert looked rueful. ‘I don’t think I can manage this one.’
‘The Charleston? Just watch me,’ suggested Tegan. She shook and twitched her way into the dance watched by an admiring Sir Robert. ‘Easy! See!’
Don Quixote claimed one twin, leading her away across the terrace with convulsive knee jerks that threatened to dislocate his armour. Adric moved to the other twin, confident about her identity. ‘Enjoying yourself, Nyssa?’
Ann looked at the boy, her eyes sparkling from behind her mask. ‘Nyssa? Can you be sure, Adric!’ Adric grinned.
He was quite sure. Nyssa was playing with him. She had altered her voice so that the delivery was softer and her eyes were wider in a more docile look. But she wasn’t going to fool him. He nodded after the twin with the galvanic man from La Mancha. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘Can’t I?’ Ann swung into the dance effortlessly and Adric watched her nimble knees and kicking heels open-mouthed. He glanced away at the other twin to confirm that he wasn’t seeing double. No, the dancing of both girls was as alike as their appearance. Adric shook his head, both crestfallen and amused. ‘I give up,’ he said.
‘Don’t do that! Come on! You try!’ Ann shifted her weight from one leg to the other, her heels flying in time to the happy, catchy music.
Adric summoned all his courage. With a gulp and a giggle he had a desperate go at copying the pattern of his partner’s busy feet. Ann clapped her hands in encouragement. ‘That’s it! That’s the way!’
All at once a wave of happiness overcame Adric. He was doing it. Yes, he was doing it and felt wonderful!
The Doctor considered the three doors along the wall of this new passage. More cupboards? He approached the first one across floor boards unrelieved by the drugget that had softened his footfalls earlier. He met what lay beyond the door with mild surprise.
He looked at a small but very comfortable bed-sitting room. There was none of the imposing solemn grandeur of the important guest rooms he had seen. Here the furnishings were modern and cheerful. Underfoot was fitted green carpet of deep pile and good quality. There were books, flowers and a gramaphone. The Doctor carefully picked up one of the brittle 78 rpm records and glanced at the title which was Spanish. No, not Spanish, he reflected, Portugese.
He returned to the passage and the next door in line.
This room was similar. The same stark outline of the former but well-appointed, even luxurious. On a coathanger clipped over the open wardrobe door hung a short white coat. Clearly these rooms were currently occupied. What had once been hiding places for persecuted priests or hunted Royalists were in use again. Did they house modern fugitives?
The Doctor’s troubled thoughts were further disturbed by the sound of distant voices. One, a woman’s, was getting nearer. The Doctor, acting on instinct, tucked himself out of sight behind the open wardrobe door. He’d had no right to penetrate the secret passages of Cranleigh Hall but his protean curiosity demanded satisfaction about the nature of any fugitives seeking sanctuary here.
He had made his move only just in time. Someone had entered the room. He aligned an eye to the crack between the wardrobe edge and the door just below the upper hinge and saw a woman dressed as an eighteenth-century French aristocrat and another guest, parading as a South American rain forest Indian. He remembered Tegan’s description of such a guest as they arrived at the Hall after the cricket match. Then the woman spoke again and the Doctor recognised his hostess, Lady Cranleigh.
‘He can’t just have disappeared,’ she was saying. ‘Where would he go?’ The Indian shrugged and the Doctor realised that the man was no counterfeit but the rather disquieting real thing. ‘I was convinced he was trustworthy,’ continued Lady Cranleigh. ‘Young, but to be trusted. Has he said anything to you?’
‘No, Lady.’
‘About not being happy here... anything like that?’
‘No, Lady.’
The Indian looked tired, ill. Lady Cranleigh looked round the room and then closed her eyes and put a hand to her head as if to assuage an ache. ‘Could he have been bribed?’
‘Bribed, Lady?’
‘By your friend... to take him away?’ The Indian shook his head slowly and sadly. ‘My friend had no money for a bribe.’ Lady Cranleigh released a long sigh and turned to the door. The Indian stood aside and she went from the room.