We looked at Göran, who gave us a broad grin as he fondled his clasp knife, polishing it with an exaggerated gesture on his lapel. When he had made his point, he pocketed the blade and unlocked the front door whilst we stood a little way behind. I listened for any sign of neighbors, but there was nothing to be heard except country sounds—birds twittering in the bushes and the new green leaves of the trees rustling in the wind. Clouds were building, scudding across the sun and throwing the house deeply into shadow as Göran threw open the door.
The house was exactly as I feared—a veritable architectural wedding cake with every possible extravagance and embellishment worked in plaster. With care and good furnishing, it might have been acceptable, for the proportions of the rooms were suitable for a large family home. But the roof must have been damaged, for every ceiling was bubbled and cracked, the plaster crumbling away. The floors were stained with watermarks that ruined the elaborate parquet, and I distinctly heard mice scrabbling about in the walls.
“What a lovely home you have,” I said to Mrs. MacGregor, baring my teeth in a smile.
She returned the gesture. “Rented for a song from an owner who has almost forgot the place exists. The nearest neighbor is six miles, so there is no one to hear you,” she added with an unmistakable note of menace, all the more disconcerting for being delivered with a smile.
I decided against goading her further, and we followed the taciturn Swede down a corridor and through a door, down a flight of stone stairs and through another door. Through it was a small chamber, cut into the earth and built of stone. The seams in the stone floor were packed with black dust, and I realized we were standing in the former coal store. A trapdoor high in the wall above us showed where the stuff had once been delivered, but I could see the shiny new hinges even at a distance. No doubt the hasp and lock on the other side were new as well, and the inside of the coal store had been fitted out as a sort of jail. A pair of narrow mattresses festooned with dubious-looking stains had been thrown down, and a chamber pot stood expectantly in the corner. In the center of the room, a cast-iron column was bolted to the floor, running the height of the room and through the ceiling some fifteen feet above. Around it were lengths of bright new chain, heavy stuff, with shackles to match. While Mrs. MacGregor watched from the doorway, Göran secured the shackles around our arms and legs. Wound as the chains were about the column, we were free to shuffle about the room but could not make it as far as the door. A single lantern had been lit and hung on a peg next to the door, well out of reach.
“We will bring food in a while,” Mrs. MacGregor said brightly. “I do hope you will be comfortable.” With that she slammed the door, and I heard the familiar, desolate sound of a key turning in the lock.
“Well, here we are again,” I said calmly. “This is usually the point at which you become hysterical.”
Stoker stared at me. “I have never become hysterical. I have, upon every occasion, reacted with perfect candor and appropriateness to the situation at hand.”
“You shout a great deal,” I reminded him.
“Because I am usually in pain,” he retorted. “I have been chained, stabbed, shot, beaten, nearly drowned, and subjected to every possible insult regarding my upbringing, breeding, conduct, appearance, and intelligence. I think that is quite enough to send any man into a froth of emotion.”
“See, you admit. You are prey to your emotions. And you, a man of science,” I added, tutting audibly.
My remarks, as the clever reader will no doubt have already deduced, were designed to distract Stoker from the predicament at hand. The fact that we had been abducted was not in itself surprising or particularly alarming. That sort of thing had been occurring with such regularity, I had almost come to expect it. But during the course of our investigations the previous October, Stoker had been the recipient of some particularly nasty attentions on the part of our abductors. Ribs had been broken, a cheekbone fractured, a lung punctured, along with various and sundry abrasions and contusions, any one of which might have felled a lesser man. He had not even begun to recover from the depredations when he had been shot, a wholly unnerving experience on my end and one I did not wish to repeat. (Stoker will protest that his was the more harrowing ordeal, but as he was unconscious for most of it whilst I was left to worry, I think I may claim the greater share of distress.)
Malefactors, I had observed, were seldom as unchivalrous as one would expect. Despite often being deprived of my liberty, I had yet to be boiled in oil, stretched upon a rack, poked with hot pins, or subjected to whatever tortures were in fashion at the time. I was usually left to worry through the long, lonely hours of darkness when Stoker was off being tormented, and the experiences had left me with nerves flayed to ribbons. I did not anticipate this new ordeal with any great fortitude, I must admit. The Swede was a tall and muscular fellow with a neck like that of a slightly malnourished ox, and I did not like the gleam in his eye when he looked at Stoker. He would take his time with it, I feared, and perhaps even subject Stoker to a few new experiences. He looked entirely too fond of his knife, I decided, and whilst I cherished each and every scar upon Stoker’s excellent physique, there was no great need to add more.
There was no way to anticipate precisely when the tortures would commence, but the time would pass more quickly in spirited conversation, thus the prick to Stoker’s temper. I thought to distract him, and I did a masterful job. He spent a good while giving vent to his various resentments, cataloging his numerous umbrages until his voice was almost hoarse, and he suddenly broke off in mid-rant.
“You are doing this on purpose,” he accused.
“Of course I am,” I returned calmly. “There is no possibility of escape at present, and we needed to pass the time.”
“How do you know there is no possibility of escape?” he demanded.
“We have been in similar peril upon enough occasions that I know how to evaluate a makeshift prison when I see one,” I said. “To begin, the floor and walls are stone, solid and immovable. There is no window to permit egress, and the door is six inches of good English oak, locked from the outside. That leaves the coal doors,” I said, pointing upwards, “which are no doubt padlocked from the outside even if we could reach them, but there are no handy bits of furniture or ladders, and the stone walls are too smooth to permit even the tiniest fingerhold in order to climb them.”
He grunted his agreement. “I don’t suppose you have a weapon stuck somewhere on your person?”
I glowered a little. “No.”
His brows steepled upwards. “Not even a corset stay you’ve sharpened into a stiletto?”
“I am, for your information, wearing a new corset and I have not had the opportunity to alter it to my satisfaction,” I replied in considerable annoyance. It was a new fashion, the ribbon corset, and had been the product of a Parisian corset maker’s atelier. I had swooned at the delicate latticework of the satin ribbons, and I had taken immense pleasure in the greater liberty of movement it permitted.