Fortress of Ephemera: A Gothic Thriller (16 page)

“We'll have to retreat to the hallway!” he called down. “There isn't much time before—”

“Understood!” I said. They backed away in synchronicity, hand over hand, to keep the line taught, but the root-rope slid sideways along the edge of the landing and smashed me into the wainscoting.

It was then that the staircase finished its collapse, top to bottom and at one fell swoop. What followed was like battle again in that the clamor was deafening, and the atmosphere left me blind and choking. (In this case, it was due to dust instead of the smoke from explosives.) I sensed at one point that I was plunging, but no sooner had my heart sped up than the line yanked taught, straining my ribcage. Noah and Miss Buxton had lost their grip on me, I would later learn, but Noah had anchored the line to a giant spool of copper he kept stored—amidst so much else—just inside the doorway. As the clamor faded and the dust cleared they hauled me up, and I rolled onto the hallway floor.

“I owe you both,” I said. “I owe you my life.”

“Is it worth anything in trade?” Noah asked. To this day, I'm not sure whether he was in earnest or deadpanning.

“Whew, you stink!” Miss Buxton said.

“Surely, it's no mystery why,” I said.

“I think there are—Yes, I see bits of glass glinting in your hair. And there must be some you-know-what too.”

“Awk!” I said (or something akin) and batted wildly at my head until I'd knocked free everything caught in my hair.

“Are you fit to go on?” Noah asked.

“I may have cracked a rib or two on the end of that line. But I can travel.”

“How are you at seeing in the dark?”

“Why?” I asked.

He motioned out the door to where the staircase used to be. “Lantern's buried in the rubble below.” In desperation, I felt for the flashlight in my pocket, but alas, it'd fallen out.

Darkness Reigns

Enough skylight filtered inside the hallway by the door where we sat to make out each other's silhouettes. We sat in silence for a spell. There were no more wild ululations from below. All that we could hear was the faint sound of the clocks in the great hall counting out the wasted seconds of Noah Langley's life.

“I am cold,” Miss Buxton said.

“And I am hungry,” I said. “As well as thirsty.”

“I am also filthy,” she said.

“I am filthier.”

“And slightly injured.”

“As am I. Several times over. How is it you're hurt?”

“My hands.” She held them up to me, though I could see nothing but their outline. “Rope burns in both palms—or should I say, root burns—from hauling you up.”

“You were magnificent.”

“For a woman, you mean?”

“Please, not that conversation again. Where is my laudanum when I need it?”

“You are lucky,” she said, “that by now I am almost too exhausted to speak.”

“No surprise there,” I said. “We've expended large stores of adrenaline these last hours, and this is really our first chance to rest.”

In truth the degree of torpor that I personally felt owed more to another factor. Too many hours had passed since even a tincture of opium had entered my bloodstream not to begin feeling some ill effects.

“No more resting, please,” Noah said. “We have to reach Elizabeth.”

“How?” Miss Buxton said. “It's so very dark.”

“We'll hold hands,” he said, “and walk in single file. I will lead the way down this hallway by touch, by feel, by memory, until we reach a storage closet at about the midway point on the left hand side.”

She brayed with laughter. “Storage closet? What an absurdity. This entire house is a storage closet!”

If Noah took umbrage, his voice did not let on. “I keep candles inside there. And lighters.” We rose to our feet, and Noah took Miss Buxton by the hand. “Try not to touch anything along the way, both of you.” With a mere step or two, he slipped into impenetrable darkness. She fell in behind Noah, at the same time linking fingers with mine, and we proceeded as one organism.

We moved with more haste than I'd anticipated, for Noah evidently knew his dystopian jungle blind. I could tell that we were on one of his ubiquitous goat paths because my feet stumbled over nothing, whilst my elbows, shoulders, and hips kept bumping into things to the left and to the right. Thankfully, the air was a few degrees warmer here than it'd been beneath the broken skylight.

“What if we don't reach your sister first?” Miss Buxton said. “What then, Mister Langley?”

“It's only one more floor to go.”

“But who knows where the robbers are now?” she said. “They may have found the other staircase. They may have captured Elizabeth already.”

“We must hurry,” he said.

“You'd best prepare yourself,” she said, “to bargain with those . . . those fiends. Truly bargain, I mean. No more tricks. Are you willing to do that? To give up the—What did they call the gold coins?—the Lydian whatchamacallits? In exchange for your sister's life? For your own, perhaps?”

“I . . . I don't . . . I hadn't—”

“Are the coins nearby?” she asked. “Handy? In case we need them?”

“That is no concern of yours.”

“I beg to differ. What if something should happen to you? And Miles and I—and Elizabeth too—are left to face the robbers? If we don't know where the coins are, then we'll have no leverage, no bargaining power.”

Noah halted us. “Storage closet.”

A knob turned, a door creaked, and then came a series of gentle thuds onto the wooden floor at our feet. Half a dozen paraffin candles had spilled from the closet when the door opened, I saw, once Noah had lit one of them. The shelves, overflowing with assorted candles, presented a psychotic rainbow of color.

Noah held out to me a glass jar painted in lavender. It was about four inches in diameter and a foot tall with a gold stem on top surrounded by a few odd-shaped accoutrements made of silver, I think, or platinum. Painted in miniature on the side was a Turner landscape I recognized.

“Choose a candle,” he said.

“That's your lighter?” I said.

“It's a Dobereiner's hydrogen lighting machine. An antique, predating the invention of friction matches. Quite valuable.”

I selected a pillar candle, and he lit me. As he lit Miss Buxton's taper candle, I noticed that on the floor of the closet stood a row of the antique lighting machines, each with their own unique artwork.

“The servants's staircase is at the other end of this hall.” Noah turned in that direction and led us on, holding in one hand his votive candle (an apropos selection for the high priest in this afterlife of material things). He used his other arm to cradle the antique lighter like a football.

Our three candles barely revealed the canyon of clutter we traveled within. The walls were mostly above my head and reached in spots all the way to the ceiling. They consisted of the usual mad gallimaufry of material goods found throughout the Langley household, dusty and spider webbed and aged—more often than not—into that indeterminate state between antique and rubbish. The copious cardboard boxes were each labeled in black ink with a brief description of their contents. The canyon walls would come to an abrupt end in front of each door and just as abruptly resume.

“Please, Mister Langley,” Miss Buxton said, “where are the gold coins?”

“I don't remember,” he said.

“Approximately?”

“I don't know. I have no way of knowing. I no longer have my notebook.”

“It's in my back pocket,” I said. “I've been holding onto it ever since Howard lost faith in its contents.”

“Miles!” she said. “How brilliant of you!”

“It's mine,” Noah said. “You must return it to me.”

“I had no other intention.”

“Finally,” she said, “a bit of fortune.”

“Perhaps not,” Noah said, “given that I'm not entirely sure we still possess the coins.”

“I don't believe you,” she said.

“Nor do I,” I said. “And you should know that whatever you say is in the notebook—or
not
in it—will be subject to verification by me, Noah. As I had just enough study time with it to crack the code.”

“You did?” Miss Buxton said.

“Turns out it's very simple. I tried to tell Howard, but he was beyond listening by then.”

“You're bluffing,” Noah said.

“It's called a 'transposition code.' Far too incomplex for modern warfare. Our military hasn't used them since the Civil War. But I know from personal experience that Army Signal Corps instructors still teach transposition codes during basic officer training as an introduction to cryptology.”

“Pshaw!” he said. “I've never even heard of a—What was it?—transportation code.”

“Reinvented the wheel, did you? And I suppose it's just a coincidence that your father, the colonel, served in the Civil War?”

“You couldn't possibly know the code.”

I sighed. “Hold up, everyone.” When they halted, I whispered into one of Noah's ears. “Your cipher consists of whole words written down in plain English and hidden in columns of letters. I could read the words by having my eyes travel down the first column, up the fourth, down the second, and up the third. I suspect that every fifth word in the code is a meaningless complication because I had just enough time with your notebook to translate the following, and I quote: 'Saudi Arabian Silver Bedouin concrete necklace.' Enough said, Noah?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Enough. You have a keen mind, Trenowyth. I wish to rehire you as my attorney.”

“How very gracious of you. I accept.”

“Good. Now the secret to my code is protected under attorney-client privilege. Is it not?”

“Technically, no,” I said, “but don't be anxious. My lips are sealed. You have my word. And note that I've already avoided sharing your secrets with Miss Buxton.”

“Then thank you,” he said. “I won't forget your kind consideration. May I have my notebook, please?”

“But you haven't a pocket in that union suit.”

“I'll manage.” He gave his candle to Miss Buxton, and when I handed off the notebook, he dropped it inside his suit through the neck opening so that it became trapped against his chest. He retrieved his candle. “It seems to me, upon further reflection, that the Lydian Croesids are a moot point of contention between us. Because I don't believe that our, um, adversaries, would bargain for them. They'd pretend to bargain, yes, but still mean to slit our throats in the end.”

“Point well taken,” I said. “But what if we could arrange it so that we leave the coins where the robbers can find them, but can't find us?”

“In which case,” Miss Buxton said, “they would surely 'take the money and run.' Splendid plan, Miles.”

“But,” Noah said, “if we reach Elizabeth in time, the coins could stay hidden, and the four of us could escape from the house using my secret exit.”

“Then by all means,” I said, “let us hurry.”

We resumed our trek. But not for long.

“Ouch!” Miss Buxton exclaimed as she collapsed in front of me. “Twisted my ankle. Oh, and my candle's out.” I helped her to her feet, and Noah relit her taper candle.

“Is it sprained?” I asked.

“Perhaps a little,” she said.

“Let's test it out,” Noah said and started down the hall again.

“A hydrogen lighter sounds dangerous,” I said. “Isn't there a potential for explosion?”

“Certainly,” he said. “But corrosive spills are more common. Dobereiners are filled with sulphuric acid.”

“Score one for progress,” Miss Buxton said.

“However much we might subtract from its score elsewhere,” I said. “How's the ankle?”

“Not too bad,” she said. “I've been wondering about something.”

“Yes?” I said.

“The collapse of the staircase. The gargantuan noise it made. Surely, the sound penetrated to the outside world.”

“Surely,” I said.

“But do you think it was loud enough to draw the authorities?”

“It's entirely possible,” I said. “Even probable. Wouldn't you say, Noah?”

“I really couldn't say,” he said. “But might I suggest whispering from this point forward, and only when necessary.”

“Quite right,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

Due to the dim lighting, the servants's staircase did not come into view until we were nearly upon the steps. By this point, the canyon of clutter had ended so that we were exposed, out in the open, when Howard Kemble popped into view from where he'd been hiding above the landing on the steps leading to the top floor. He held Patrolman's Cox's revolver again, aiming it at Noah's chest. Miss Buxton screamed. Willie and Brady emerged together, behind Howard.

The gun holder said: “No more fucking around with you people.”

A Woman Saves My Life

Noah dropped his candle. I wasn't sure whether he'd done so in pure startlement or because he'd intended that the candle extinguish (which it did) and that I and Miss Buxton extinguish our own candles, that we flee together under cover of darkness, risking Howard's blind fire. But Willie wasted no time in eliminating that option by lighting a kerosene lamp, the same one we'd left behind on purpose to encourage the men to snuff out their hazardous torches.