The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [81]
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‘Thank you,’ said the Barone, loosening his cravat. ‘But this is not why I have brought you here, at grave risk of an apoplectical seizure to the both of us. Pray step outside.’
Putting his lantern down on a small table, he opened a small door and went out onto the narrow balcony which ran all round the tower under the eaves of its pointed roof.
The Doctor followed him into the breezy night and obediently looked up to where the Barone’s finger pointed.
‘We are lucky, Doctor,’ he said.
In a gap between the massing thunder clouds it was as plain to the eye as the evening star on a clear summer’s night; plainer, for it was brighter than any star, with a glowing aura and a tail of light: a comet.
‘No man has beheld this sight for one hundred and fifty seven years,’ Verconti continued. ‘When Clancy’s prediction to the Royal Society in 1661 proved accurate, its appearance precipitated such riots of superstitious fear that –’
‘Clancy’s comet,’ said the Doctor.
‘Is it not a wonder in nature, sir? Did I not promise you that –’
Again the Doctor interrupted him. ‘1661. Of course. Of course.’ Suddenly he slapped his forehead with his hand and exclaimed in a loud voice, ‘Fool! Fool!’
‘Your pardon, sir?’ said the bewildered Barone.
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The Doctor swung round to him, but he was clearly not seeing him.
‘Orobouros!’ he said, as if it should be plain to an infant.
‘I fear I do not comprehend you.’
But the Doctor had gone; and when the Barone followed him back into the little observatory, there was nothing of him to be found there but the sound of his footsteps running down the steep stairs as if he were being pursued by all the devils of Hell.
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Twenty-Two
Having been cheated of one hackneyed way of escaping from a locked room, that is by pushing the key out of the lock onto a sheet of paper, Sarah immediately thought of the other one: climbing out of the window on a rope made of bed sheets knotted together. It always seemed pretty easy.
The only trouble was that, even using the sheets from both beds and all the pillow cases too, by the time she’d used up a large bit of it to tie it to the bedstead, the rope still dangled some twenty feet from the ground; and she wouldn’t be much use to Louisa with a broken leg.
But as she was peering out, trying to work out what to do, she realized that the window of the room below was open and looked to be much the same size; and the rope reached to its level with something to spare, even allowing for the bit of a sideways swing necessary to reach the windowsill.
There was nothing else for it.
She hitched up her ankle-length skirt, pulling it up under the high-waisted sash to form a sort of mini-dress, and clambered out onto the sill, lowering herself over the edge and trying to grasp the floppy cloth below with her feet as she’d learnt to do in the gym at school.
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But as soon as she put her full weight on the rope, it gave a lurch and she dropped her full length, to be left hanging by an insecure grip some thirty feet from the ground.
Oh God, she thought, her head swimming, the bed wasn’t heavy enough. It must have slid across the floor.
She tried to get her legs round the dangling sheet, but it was flapping about in the squally air. She tried to let her left hand slide down a bit, but she couldn’t bring herself to put all her weight onto her right hand; and all the time she could feel her strength going. She wouldn’t be able to hang on at all much longer.
‘Help! Help!’
She had shouted without even thinking; but the sound seemed to be swallowed up by the wind. She tried again; and again, with the extra power that real terror gave. And then – oh, thank you God! – the Doctor’s voice.
‘Sarah! Lift your feet and put them on the wall.’
She made a tremendous effort and managed it. The extraordinary thing was that it immediately made her feel better. Not only because she was no longer dangling helplessly, but by straightening her legs she seemed to be able to get a sort of grip on the rough-hewn stone with her thin-soled pumps.
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