Dido and Pa (23 page)

"Shows up like the very devil, an open window does," he whispered. "Now where?"

Dido was sorry that she had not seen more of the inside of Cinnamon Court; but she remembered that it formed an L, with the river passing one end, the street passing the other end, and the garden in the angle. Cellars were under the river, Wally said; so that meant they must be below the big saloon where they now stood.

"Reckon we oughta go down," she whispered, pointing; and Podge nodded. "But let's look in all the doors as we pass."

A wide carpeted passageway, dimly lit here and there by wall lamps, led from the saloon, turning left halfway along its length. Windows on the left looked into the garden. As they stole along, Dido reflected that breaking into a rich
house was easy, for thick carpets favored the burglar. She could not help being struck by Wally's expert way with windows and locks; at each closed door, if it would not open, he slid into the keyhole a slender rod with a prong like a miniature tuning fork; delicately tried it, listening with his ear close to the lock; adjusted, twisted once or twice; and each time the lock came undone.

Reckon his boss musta been a top-notch cracksman, Dido thought.

The rooms they inspected were all smaller reception rooms and had no one in them; they were dark. But toward the farther end of the long passage music was to be heard, issuing softly from behind a closed door.

"That sounds like my pa," breathed Dido into Podge's ear. He nodded, and gestured her to put her eye to the keyhole.

When she did so, she could see, as if at a penny peep show, a small round image of her father sitting on a gilt chair by a bed, playing softly on his hoboy. She could not see the occupant of the bed, who lay sunk among a pile of soft pillows; beyond the bed was the frowning, intent face of Dr. Finster staring down at something; his lips were pressed anxiously together, yet there was an expression of hope and relief on his face. Pity if Pa's music is going to keep the margrave from cutting his cable, thought Dido; if he was to kick the bucket, a whole lot o' folk would breathe easier.

Her father's face made her feel sad; it was so weary and haggard, although it had a look of devotion, like the doctor's. Pa's tired to death, thought Dido; but nobody asks
him if
he'd
like to lie down and sleep; he just has to go on playing and playing....

Moving on past the door, she shook her head, beckoning the boys to follow.

They found a servants' stair and went down, past a duty room where a couple of footmen lolled, deep asleep, their heads and arms resting on a table. Empty bottles explained their slumber. Finishing up the wine from the party, thought Dido. Lucky for us.

The whole house, hereabouts, seemed drenched in slumber. Not a sound from anywhere. How can they sleep so, wondered Dido, when the moon shines so bright!

Down more, and steeper, stairs and along another corridor, reversing the way they had come, stepping through squares of moonlight all the way from the windows on the garden side. Now they began to hear a soft, regular sound; Podge's face became alert, then angry, for it was the sound of sobbing they could hear; it came from behind a door near the end of the passage.

With immense caution, Podge opened the door, which was not locked. It gave onto a small room, all gray and pink, lit by a candle, where Sophie sat drooping in a chair while a kneeling page rubbed and chafed at her feet and hands. Scattered bandages lay on the floor.

The page jumped in terror as they came in; but at sight of Dido a look of huge relief spread over his face. He was the redhead who had given her his basket of programs.

"Thank the powers it's you!" he whispered. "Me and Boletus was told to carry her down to one o' the cellars, but
Boletus is dead drunk and I couldn't—wouldn't. You come to take her away? But how? She can't walk. Those bandages was tarnal tight. Her feet and hands are all numb."

"I'll carry her," said Podge, and picked up the half-conscious Sophie.

"We'll never get her out o' that window or down the ladder," muttered Dido. "It'll have to be the front door.... I know. I got it. You can put her in one o' them basket chairs they had for the sick folk; when I left they was still in the lobby."

"But the front door's locked and barred," said the redheaded page.

Wally silently exhibited his picklock.

"And there's guards in the street outside. They'll cop you for sure."

"We'll need to entice them away," said Dido. She reflected. "Ain't there any other way out, bar the front door?"

"There's a stair from the cellar to the garden. And a door from the garden through the wall to the street. That's locked too. And guards outside."

"Reckon we'll manage," said Dido, and thought some more, while the three others watched her trustfully, and Sophie faintly moaned.

"Can you come by a skeleton?" she asked Redhead, who looked startled but replied, "For sure; there's usually half a dozen in the cellars."

"Prime. That'll save you a roasting. Can you take us to the cellars?"

He nodded.

"Right. Let's go. Front door first."

As quietly as possible they made their way along passages and downstairs to the lobby, Podge and Redhead taking turns to carry the inert Sophie. At the top of the main stair leading down to the vestibule, they paused. There sat the night porter on his stool by the door, and he was wide awake, playing solitaire patience.

"Call him!" Dido whispered to Redhead, who nodded and called:

"Mr. Chantrel—can you come and help me a moment?"

"What's the row, then?" asked the porter, yawning, and he came slowly up the stairs, rubbing his eyes. As he reached the corner Podge rose from where he had been hidden behind the rail, hooked a foot under the man's legs, and threw him sharply to the floor. His head hit the post and he lay still.

"Is he dead?" breathed Dido.

"No; just knocked silly."

"Better put him back by his stool. Now, unlock the front door,
but don't open it.
And lay Sophie in one o' them basket chairs."

When that was done, "You," said Dido to Podge, "stay here, with Sophie. And be ready to nip out the door and run like the devil when you hear us kicking up a row. Let's have Sophie's jacket; here—we can wrap her in this"—taking a silken Chinese rug from the floor. "Understand? When you hear the ruckus—scarper!"

Podge nodded. He was very pale. He tucked the rug carefully round Sophie.

Dido and Wally followed the redheaded page, who led them through a green baize door, along a stone-flagged passage, and down a flight of stone steps to another, very massive door, which he unlocked; then he paused to light a candle.

"His nabs gave me this key, and the one for the cellar where we were to put Lady Sophie."

"Well, now we need to find a skeleton and put it there."

The cellars were dank, disgusting places, even wetter than Mrs. Bloodvessel's basement, most of them inches deep in river mud. Wally had to open the doors of several before they found a skeleton half embedded in mud; they hauled it along to the cell which had been destined for Sophie, and dressed it in her jacket.

"Now lock up the poor devil again," said Dido.

Faint cries and groans had been audible while they were doing this. Now, when Wally undid another door, they found the imprisoned children and Chelsea pensioners, who were all in a miserable state of fright and despair; they could hardly believe—especially the old men—that this was a real rescue and not just another devilish trick of the margrave's. But a few of the children knew Wally, and were prepared to trust him.

"Now you've gotta find us an ax," Dido told Redhead. "We'll be shoveling 'em up the stairs while you do that."

"An ax? Where'll I find an ax?"

"I dunno. In the kitchen, likely. Look sharp about it!"

Wally and Dido shepherded the limping, bewildered
group of captives up another flight of stone steps after Wally had carefully relocked the cell door. At the top of the steps a locked, iron-barred gate led into the moonlit garden. Here they waited while Wally worked on the lock and Dido counted the group; there were fifteen of them, she was relieved to find, the same number as had been at the concert.

"No one got ate by rats, then?" she asked the tiny lavender seller, who said:

"No, miss, but weren't the rats jist something! We took turns shying bricks and rocks at 'em—otherwise they'd 'a' had us for sure."

While Wally undid the gate Dido addressed the group in a whisper:

"Now listen: I want you to listen real hard.
Don't
go busting out across the garden as soon as Wally gets the gate open. Stay here in the shadow till I gives the word. Understand? We don't want nobody to see you till we got a way for you to go."

Some of the children were sniffing back tears, and the old men were whimpering with fright and cold.

"Stow that row!" Dido hushed them. "You're a sight better off than you was. Button up!"

Having opened the gate, Wally slipped along in the shadow of the house to inspect the row of spiked posts which protected the river end of the garden.

The sky was beginning to cloud over and more snow to fall, which Dido noticed with approval. Just so's it don't get warmer and the ice melt, she thought in sudden alarm.

"The posts are only wood," Wally came back to report with relief. "Steel heads to 'em, and bedded in brick, but with an ax I can chop out a couple in no time."

Here, luckily, Redhead arrived with a meat-ax.

"Now you better mizzle," Dido told him. "Get back to your own quarters, fast. And thanks! Wally'll lock the gate behind you. Just tell his nabs as how you put Sophie in the cell and that's all you know."

He looked a little wistful. Does he want to come with us? Dido wondered. But she was busy hushing the children and reassuring the old men; she had enough to worry about. Wally relocked the cellar gate, then hacked away two posts by the river, making a narrow passage through which the prisoners could wriggle through onto the ice. When that had been done—

"Now:
scarper,
all of you!" Dido told them. "Away from here as fast as you can pelt. Wally and I will soon be coming after to help any that's in trouble—but help each other if you can—don't wait. Go on—mizzle!"

As soon as the last of them, puffing, straining, and sniveling, had been squeezed through the gap, Wally and Dido ran to the locked wooden door that led from garden to street. Wally began to batter it with the ax, Dido thumped it with one of the posts that had been chopped out. Both of them yelled at the top of their voices.

"This way! This way! Come along! Help, help! Save us! Hurray! Hurrah! Down with his nabs!" And Dido added, "
Podge!
Now's your moment! Don't loiter! Beat it!"

They made a terrific row, banging and bawling; soon they heard alarmed shouts and running feet on the other side of the wall as the guards came racing to see what was going on. By now Wally had made a hole in the planking just about large enough to let a person climb through.

"Best we clear off now before they nab us," said Dido, ramming her spiked post through the hole and into the stomach of somebody who had just arrived on the other side. "Don't forget the ax, Wally!"

They scooted back across the garden to the gap in the line of posts and edged through. By now snow was falling fast.

"That's handy," said Dido with satisfaction. "It'll cover our prints, farther on.... Here, give us the ax; you take the ladder."

Already she could hear the margrave's guards, who had either broken through or opened the door in the wall, and were now busy searching the garden for escaped prisoners. It would not be long before they found the gap in the river fence.

Dido, swinging the ax with all her strength, chopped a hole in the ice, which was not so thick here, because of the fast inshore current; part of it suddenly gave way with a loud squeaking crunch, and the portion on which she herself stood tipped sideways; she only just had time to leap back to safety. The hole she had made was about four feet across. Stepping back, she began to hack at the edge of it, and managed to dislodge another large section.

"Watch out, girl; don't take any chances!" called Wally.

"Just a bit more—so they can't jump across," panted Dido, and whacked a third time with the ax.

A much larger piece came away, and tipped her clean into the water—if Wally had not been lightning-quick, thrusting the end of the ladder against her, she would have been swept under the solid ice by the current.

"Quick!" he yelled. "Grab hold!"

"Thanks—blp—I got it—here I come—" Dido gasped, and, spitting out Thames water, was dragged in triumph to safety just as a group of guards came scrambling through the gap in the fence and along the ice—only to come to a dismayed halt at sight of a twelve-foot stretch of black water which Dido's chopping had created.

"Let's go!" she gulped. Wally and she scurried along the ice, hauling the ladder between them. Despite its weight they managed to keep up a good pace, and soon overtook the group of escaped prisoners, who were limping and hobbling amid moans and cries of "I can't keep up!" and "Won't somebody help me?"

"We'd best turn up here," said Wally, at the first creek. "Don't take 'em to Bart's."

"Where'll we take them, then?"

"Once they're rested, they can go to wherever they came from; I don't reckon his nabs will go looking for them, do you? But they can come to my dad's place for now," said Wally.

"
In the reign of Queen Anne, it all began,
" sang the children, dancing in a ring in brilliant moonlight round the fountain in the forecourt of Bakerloo House.

"
In the reign of King Jim, it was fairly grim,
In the reign of King John, it still went on,
In the reign of King Bill, it went on still,
In the reign of King Fred, it came to a head,
In the reign of King Bruce, they called a truce,
In the reign of King Walt, it came to a halt.
"

What the children were doing Simon could not see, and hardly cared; he was greatly astonished to find them there still, at this late hour of night.