The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [131]
Obviously he must not be armed with anything which he would not normally be carrying. Whatever he used to force an entrance must be something he had picked up on the spur of the moment outside the library or among the pines. A ladder, for instance, would at once arouse suspicions, and yet something of that nature was needed. It occurred to him that a small tree was the obvious solution, and he began to search for one of the approximate length, already felled, for many of the pines which were cleared for the erection of the library and adjacent buildings were still to be seen lying half buried in the thick needle-covered ground. It did not take him long to come upon an almost perfect specimen of what he wanted. It was about twelve to fifteen feet long, and most of its lateral branches were broken off close to the bole, leaving stumps varying from three inches to a foot in length. ‘Here’, said Steerpike to himself, ‘is the thing.’
It was less easy for him to find another, but eventually he discovered some distance from the library what he was searching for. It lay in a dank hollow of ferns. Dragging it to the library wall, he propped both the pines upright against the main door and under the only window. Wiping the sweat from his bulging forehead he began to climb them, stamping off those branches that would be too weak to support Lady Groan, who would be the heaviest of the prisoners. Dragging them away from the wall, when he had completed these minor adjustments, and feeling satisfied that his ‘ladders’ were now both serviceable yet natural, he left them at the edge of the trees where a number of felled pines were littered, and next cast about for something with which he could smash the window. At the base of the adjacent building, a number of moss-covered lumps of masonry had fallen away from the walls. He carried several of these to within a few yards of the ‘ladders.’ Were there any question of his being suspected later, and if questions were raised as to how he came across the ladders and the piece of masonry so conveniently, he could point to the heap of half hidden stones and the litter of trees. Steerpike closed his eyes and attempted to visualize the scene. He could see himself making frantic efforts to open the doors, rattling the handles and banging the panels. He could hear himself shouting ‘Is there anybody in there?’ and the muffled cries from within. Perhaps he would yell: ‘Where’s the key? Where’s the key?’ or a few gallant encouragements, such as ‘I’ll get you out somehow.’ Then he would leap to the main door and beating on it a few times, deliver a few more yells before dragging up the ‘ladders’, for the fire by that time should be going very well. Or perhaps he would do none of these things, simply appearing to them like the answer to a prayer, in the nick of time. He grinned.
The only reason why he could not spare himself both time and energy by propping the ‘ladders’ against the wall after the last guest had entered the library was that the Twins would see them as they performed their task. It was imperative that they should not suspect the library to be inhabited, let alone gain an inkling of Steerpike’s preparations.
On this, the last occasion of his three visits to the library, he once again worked the lock of the side door and overhauled his handiwork. Lord Sepulchrave had been there on the previous night as usual, but apparently had suspected nothing. The tall book stand was as he had left it, obstructing a view of and throwing a deep shadow over the handle of the main door from beneath which the twisted cloth stretched like a tight rope across the two foot span to the end of the long book shelves. He could now detect no smell of oil, and although that meant that it was evaporating, he knew that it would still be more inflammable than the dry cloth.
Before he left he selected half a dozen volumes from the less conspicuous shelves, which he hid