Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [78]
‘I can climb the shaft,’ said Tony, squinting up at it. ‘It’s a simple chimney job. But I agree with your other conclusions. I could hang up there yelling till I sprouted mushrooms before anyone would hear me.’
‘I didn’t know you could climb,’ I said, distracted.
‘I have many talents you don’t know about.’ Tony tried to leer, but didn’t do a very good job of it. ‘How far underground do you suppose we are?’
‘You mean we might try to dig out through the ceiling of the tunnel? We must be twenty or thirty feet down; the land rises behind the Schloss. What would we do with the dirt? There’s enough of it out there in the tunnel right now.’
‘But,’ said Blankenhagen, ‘if you dig through, and find the exit at the other end is also blocked?’
‘Let’s not cross bridges till we come to them,’ I said. ‘However, I don’t think our friend would have created a landslide if the exit at the other end were easy to close.’
‘It was deliberate, you believe?’
‘The dirt hasn’t been there long. And the rest of this is deliberate. I can assure you I didn’t dive feet first down that shaft on purpose. I’ll bet the stairs were partially sawed through, too.’
‘Someone flung you down?’ exclaimed Blankenhagen, as if the idea had just occurred to him. ‘You saw who it was?’
‘I saw nothing. I still don’t know who has been behind all the skulduggery. I suspect two people – ’
‘One of whom,’ said Tony, ‘could be you, Blankenhagen.’
Blankenhagen surveyed his battered form in meaningful silence. Tony shook his head.
‘That part could have been an accident – the stairs, I mean. You could have rapped me on the head and left me here if the stairs hadn’t collapsed.’
‘That’s silly,’ I said impatiently. ‘My money is still on the countess and Miss Burton. Good Lord, they are the only two left. And this argument isn’t getting us out of here.’
‘And,’ said Blankenhagen, ‘we may not have so much time.’
He didn’t have that much time. My surgery had been crude, and we had no antiseptic. A couple of days down here in his condition and he wouldn’t care about getting out. But that was not what he meant. The air in the tunnel had always been close and dry. Now, it seemed to me, it was already perceptibly warmer.
With Tony’s help, Blankenhagen managed to drag himself along the tunnel to where the dirt blocked the way, but when he tried to dig he collapsed.
‘I told you so,’ I said, helping Tony drag him out of the way. ‘I’ll start digging. I am, if you will pardon the expression, in better shape than either of you. And put out that torch, it’s just using air. This is going to be mostly by touch anyhow.’
Then began a period of time which is the worst memory of a not wholly pleasant summer. I started with great energy, sending out a spray of dirt like a burrowing puppy. Despite my boast I wasn’t feeling all that hot; I hadn’t had any sleep and my bruises ached. But there is no incentive quite as persuasive as the fear of dying of asphyxiation.
It was slow, heartbreaking work. The dirt slid down from above almost as fast as I dug it out. Finally Iwent back and got some boards from the fallen staircase to shore up my miniature tunnel. It helped some.
When Tony tugged at my ankles, I let him pull me out and take my place. Utterly exhausted, I curled up on the stone floor and, incredibly, fell asleep.
I slept uneasily, dreaming there was a steel band around my chest. I awoke with a gasp to find Tony shaking me.
‘The air is pretty bad, Vicky. We’ve got to get through soon, or we’ll never make it. If you clear away the dirt I push out . . .’
‘Blankenhagen?’ I croaked, rubbing eyes that felt as if they were glued shut.
‘He’s still breathing, but he won’t be for long. if we don’t get out of here soon, none of us will be.’
I insisted on taking his place in the hole. The air was foul in that narrow space, even worse than it was in the tunnel, and he had been breathing it for some time.
I felt as if I were working