The Lunatic's Curse (21 page)

A short time later Gerulphus was standing at the end of the tunnel of cells, as had Rex and Hildred the previous night, in front of the last door. He pulled a long chain from
under his shirt upon which there were two keys. Using the larger one he unlocked the door. It opened with ease – he had oiled the hinges – and once inside he made sure to lock the door
behind him. This cell was much bigger than the others and in the centre there were two tables side by side. On shelves around the room, and against the walls, there were glass jars and pots and
miscellaneous oddments, but Gerulphus paid them no heed.

On the wall behind the door there was a panel of wood. Ostensibly its purpose was to provide hooks upon which to hang old branding irons, but Gerulphus knew better. He pushed aside one of the
irons to expose a keyhole. He put the second key in the hole, turned it and the panel swung out like a door, revealing a dark hole in the wall behind it. Gerulphus climbed through and the panel
closed slowly behind him, leaving not a trace of his presence.

Gerulphus had entered the underground maze.

*

Gerulphus stood with his lantern and listened for a moment. All was quiet. He strode off with the confidence of one familiar with his surroundings. As he went along the
subterranean passageways he passed at intervals the grinning skulls and skeletal remains of previous occupants of the asylum above. For it was here, down in this labyrinth of catacombs, that the
bodies of the lunatics were laid to rest when they passed on. They were not given a coffin or even a simple wooden box, merely placed in roughly hewn shallow cavities in the walls, where down the
decades they dried out and turned to dust. Gerulphus was not in any way unnerved by his silent and desiccated companions; he lacked the imagination to be.

This was where in a moment of weakness he had taken Ambrose and Hooper, to protect them from the rampaging lunatics – they really were completely mad! When it was safe, Freakley had been
more than happy to row them over to Opum Oppidulum.

Gerulphus’s confident stride was deceptive. In truth, it was possible to get utterly lost down here and Gerulphus knew of at least three skeletons that were seated on the ground rather
than lying in their proper resting place in the wall. There was also a lone skull. Perhaps they had been mistakenly laid to rest and then revived – only to die anyway. Or perhaps they were
one of the many lunatics abandoned regularly in the labyrinth by the cruel warders . . .

Ticking off the turns on his long fingers, and taking great care to avoid a very deep hole in the middle of onepassageway, Gerulphus eventually rounded one final corner and stepped out into an
enormous chamber to enjoy a sight that was nothing short of spectacular. The whole space was lit by a strange luminescence emanating from the rocky walls and convex ceiling. Some sort of lichen, he
had concluded, that cast an odd blue glow across the place, which was reflected and intensified by the sheet of sparkling water that greeted the eye. Water? Yes, for in this underground chamber, by
means of prehistoric underwater passages, Lake Beluarum lapped gently on a sparkling sandy shore.

During the lunatics’ breakout, genuinely fearing for their lives, the warders themselves had hidden in the tunnels but, in an ironic twist of fate, they had met their death at the hands of
a lunatic who was already in there.

A sort of poetic justice, thought Gerulphus. He might be the asylum caretaker but he had little sympathy for the warders. They were no better than Chapelizod.

But the underground lake wasn’t the only thing Gerulphus had discovered. He went towards the water’s edge, dropped to his knees and began to rake through the pebbles. After a few
minutes he picked out one which shone quite unlike the others. A diamond. Just recently there were always one or two to be found in the pebbles, and he made sure to collect them every day. And with
the advent of the full moon and the rising water they seemed to be washing up with increasing regularity. Gerulphus smiled and put it in his pocket to add to his collection.

Next he crunched purposefully towards a rocky ledge that ran around the wall just above the surface of the water and climbed up on to it. About halfway around, part of the ledge projected out
into the water. Gerulphus walked to the end and picked up a stick that was lying there. He knelt at the edge, his pale blue reflection looking back at him, and began to hit the surface of the water
rhythmically. The noise echoed around the chamber, a sort of watery slap, and he continued for some minutes. Nothing happened but he kept going. It made him smile to think that if anyone were to
look at him now they could be forgiven for thinking they might be in the presence of a genuine lunatic.

And then he stopped. On the far side of the chamber, where the rocky ceiling came down in a curving arc to meet the lake, a ripple spread slowly across the surface. And then another and then
another. Gerulphus watched with bated breath, the stick suspended before him, until finally a huge, dark and triangular scaly fin broke the surface and cut through the water.

‘Ah, here you are, my lovely,’ whispered Gerulphus, almost, but not quite, with affection. ‘Ready for your snack?’

As it approached, the true size of the monster became apparent. It cruised back and forth for a while, with each pass coming ever closer to the end of the rocky promontory. Then in one smooth
and graceful movement it rolled over on its side and looked at Gerulphus with an enormous left eye. And its skin glittered with the hundreds of delicate diamonds that were pressed into its fleshy
scales.

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Rex thought he would never get used to the smell in the tunnel of cells and he hated inhaling the damp and fungal odour. This time, he avoided even looking into the tiny rooms
and went straight to the locked door at the end. Hildred was already there with her hands flat on the wall again. She certainly has strange ways of doing things, thought Rex.

‘I can’t feel anything,’ she said. ‘Yesterday, I could feel reverberations in the rock. Now, nothing.’

Rex pressed his own ear to the rock and they both stood silently for a few more minutes, concentrating intently.

‘It must have been my imagination,’ said Rex finally. ‘But I’ll tell you what is real – the smell of fish! Mrs Runcible was cooking some this morning and the stink
seems to have made its way down here.’

‘Forget the fish,’ said Hildred impatiently. ‘Let’s see what’s behind this door. Have you got the picklock?’

Rex was surprised to find that his hands were shaking, and the simple task took longer than usual. It didn’t help that Hildred was breathing down his neck in anticipation. When the lock
finally sprang he pushed the door open into the coal-black room.

Hildred smiled. ‘That’s a good trick,’ she said, and went straight into the darkness.

Rex followed. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘we can’t both have imagined it.’

‘Imagined what?’ said a deep voice from the shadows.

Rex dropped the lantern in fright and Hildred grabbed at it before it hit the floor. Then both she and Rex near leaped out of their skins as a ghostly figure came out of the darkness towards
them.

‘Gerulphus!’ exclaimed Rex with a mixture of relief and fear.

Hildred gripped Rex’s arm and he could feel that she was shaking.

‘I’m intrigued,’ said Gerulphus in his familiar monotone. ‘What is it you think you imagined?’

‘We heard noises down here yesterday,’ said Hildred, recovering. ‘We came to have another look.’

‘But today it is quiet?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then maybe it
is
all in your head. Or it could be the ghost.’

Was that a smile on his face? wondered Rex.

Hildred spoke first. ‘So what brings you down here? Dr Velhildegildus does not plan to use the cells again, does he?’

‘I would not allow it,’ said Gerulphus firmly, and his voice was tinged with sincerity and his face showed what passed for an expression of sadness. ‘Some terrible things were
going on here under Mr Chapelizod and to this day it is my greatest regret that I didn’t do anything to prevent it. But Cadmus Chapelizod was a clever fellow. He and the warders were all in
on it together. In fact the head warder was almost as bad as he was. They went to great lengths to hide what they were up to. As caretaker, I wasn’t even allowed down here. Chapelizod
insisted that I spend my time in the grounds. As for Mrs Runcible and Freakley, she was in the kitchen and he was in the boat.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Hildred kindly (rather too kindly, thought Rex). ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. You weren’t to know.’

Rex did not find Gerulphus as convincing as Hildred did, and he couldn’t help remembering the state of the asylum grounds when he had arrived. They didn’t look as if they had been
titivated at all.

‘Now, if you look around in here for example,’ continued Gerulphus evenly, ‘you will see what I mean.’

He closed the door fully and took up a position with his back to the panel.

‘As you can tell,’ he said, ‘Mr Chapelizod was not a man to suffer fools gladly.’ He lit his own more powerful lantern and in its spreading light Rex and Hildred watched
with growing horror the shapes that emerged.

‘Oh my word,’ breathed Rex finally. For there was no doubt about it. This was not a cell; it was a medieval torture chamber.

Rusty chains strung through metal hoops looped across the walls. Manacles were riveted to posts buried in the floor. There were racks of long-bladed knives and sharp irons rested in the corners,
as if just left there casually. Even the tables, innocent in the dark, once fully revealed conspired in the horror, with handcuffs at one end and ankle straps at the other. The floor was strewn with
stained straw and wet with brown puddles. And, like all the other cells, there were rats biding their time in the shadows. The shelves on the back wall were crammed untidily with corked brown
bottles of unidentifiable liquids. A large bell jar sat at one end of the bottom shelf and, unable to help himself, Rex went closer, only to recoil in disgust when he saw that it was filled with
slow-moving, dark-skinned, mottled, writhing creatures.

‘Leeches,’ said Gerulphus. ‘You see why I keep it locked. Indeed, I thought it was. How did you get in?’

‘You must have left it open,’ said Rex innocently.

‘Evidently. I will have to be more careful. This is not the sort of place a child should see.’ He gestured to the door. ‘Shall we go? I believe Mrs Runcible is waiting for you
both in the kitchen.’

Hildred and Rex were only too happy to leave this squalid and sinister place. Gerulphus secured the door and the sober threesome made their way towards the stairs.

‘Well, it’s all in the past now,’ said Gerulphus as they ascended. ‘A new era is dawning with Dr Velhildegildus. But I think you should stay out of here. It’s damp
and cold; there could be disease down here. Have you seen the size of the rats?’

‘Big as dogs, some of ’em,’ said Hildred. She laughed lightly but she was holding Rex’s arm tightly. It struck him that this was the longest conversation Gerulphus had
ever engaged in.

Once upstairs, Gerulphus declined to go down to the kitchen and as soon as he was out of sight Rex began to talk, very quickly, still slightly shocked by what he had seen, but also puzzled.
‘I don’t believe Gerulphus couldn’t help the inmates,’ he said. ‘And did you notice how quick he was to excuse Mrs Runcible and Walter? And what he was doing in that
horrible place in the dark?’

‘Maybe it was his voice you heard the other night,’ said Hildred. ‘Maybe he was in there, behind that door, all the time.’

‘Oh Lord,’ said Rex quietly. ‘My father might have been taken there. Strapped to one of those tables and . . . and who knows!’

‘Try not to think about it,’ said Hildred.

Rex shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t ever want to go in that room again.’

Hildred placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘But we have to,’ she said. ‘Don’t you understand? Gerulphus wasn’t just advising us to stay away –
he
was warning us.
It can only mean one thing: there must be something down there he doesn’t want us to see.’

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