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By Root 401 0

stood foursquare in front of Catherine and Susan, and while Harries turned to face us and lurched slowly forward, the Doctor and Stratford edged around Harries to the stairs as he turned to face us and lurched slowly forward. Stratford reached down from the broken hole in the banisters and Kreiner and I hoisted Simpson up until the Doctor and Stratford could pull him up on to the stairs. Kreiner followed. I lifted him easily (he was relatively light and I was terrified into depths of strength I had never known I was possessed with) and he stumbled through the gap in the woodwork above almost before the Doctor and Stratford had finished helping Simpson up. The Doctor supported the butler as they continued up the stairs. Stratford reached down again to help me, and Susan watched in horror from the hallway as I reached up to grasp Stratford’s outstretched hands and pulled myself towards them.

Stratford had almost pulled me up when I stopped. Stratford pulled harder, to no effect, and the strain on my ankle tightened as Harries gripped me tighter.

Catherine had been standing behind Baker and Susan on the threshold of the drawing room. Now, as her dead brother started to drag me downwards, she came to herself again and ran across the hall and up the stairs to the others.

The sound of her running and the blur of her sudden movement distracted Harries for a moment and his grip slackened. Slightly. I just caught sight of Susan and Sergeant Baker running after her. Moments later, Baker’s strong grip was added to Stratford’s. Between them I could see Kreiner’s anxious face, and the Doctor starting back down the stairs to offer his assistance.

It turned out to be unnecessary. My downward movement slowed as my rescuers reasserted themselves in the grotesque tug of war, and I managed to pull myself round slightly, freeing my other leg from where it had been trapped against the side of the staircase. I lashed out with my freed foot as soon as I was able, and caught Harries across the face, feeling the rotten flesh give as my shoe tore through it, and his hold on my ankle broke.

I was up on the stairway in a moment, thanking God that I was free and that Harries had chosen my left leg to grasp – my right ankle could never have stood the punishment.

I staggered up after the others while below Harries watched us for a moment, then returned to the base of the stairs, and started up after us. We were trapped, and all of us knew it. The staircase was the only way down from the first floor, and none of us could hold out much hope of getting past Harries, either on the stairs or in the narrow corridor above. Had we had time, we would have realised that we were now every bit as dead as he was.

* * *

THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (19)

It was the movement to help Simpson that was our undoing. After Harries, or what was left of him, had pushed Simpson from the stairs the butler had ended up in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Unfortunately, due to the idiosyncratic construction of Banquo Manor, the stairway was in the shape of an ‘L’ going up parallel to the dining room wall and turning right to join the upper floor. The bottom ten steps protruded out past the dining-room wall, forming a cul-de‐sac approximately twelve feet square.

Simpson fell into this cul-de‐sac.

Hopkinson immediately ran to help Simpson. Kreiner followed him after a few seconds. After that the events unfolded with the predictable and unstoppable momentum of a falling card house, leaving the Doctor and me watching in mute horror.

Hopkinson quickly checked Simpson over.

‘He’s alive,’ he shouted, ‘but I think his leg is broken.’

Kreiner helped Hopkinson to get Simpson up on to his undamaged leg and they turned to carry him over to us.

Richard Harries stood facing them. Kreiner shouted something, letting go of the arm that Simpson had draped around his shoulders. He slumped sideways against Hopkinson, and I could see him wince as his damaged leg touched the floor. Hopkinson stood still, assessing their predicament, but from where the Doctor and I stood it