Dr Prunesquallor was wiping his eyes, his thick glasses pushed for the moment above his eyebrows. But he was very much on the alert and as soon as his spectacles were again in place he grinned at everyone in turn. His eye lingered for a moment on his sister Irma, who was systematically tearing an expensively embroidered cream-coloured silk handkerchief into small pieces. Behind the dark lenses of her glasses her eyes were hidden from view, but to judge from the thin, wet, drooping line of her mouth and the twitching of the skin on her pointed nose it might be safely assumed that they were making contact with, and covering the inner side of, the lenses of her spectacles with the moisture with which the smoke had filmed them.
The Doctor placed the tips of his fingers and thumbs together and then, separating the tapering extremities of the index fingers, he watched them for a few seconds as they gyrated around one another. Then his eyes turned to the far end of the room where he could see the Earl and his daughter, with the old man between them, approaching the library door. Someone, presumably Flay, seemed to be making a great deal of noise in wrestling with the heavy iron door handle.
The smoke was spreading, and the Doctor, wondering why in the devil’s name the door had not been thrown open, began to peer about the room in an effort to locate the source of the ever-thickening wreaths. As he took a step past Nannie Slagg he saw that she was standing by the table from whose marble surface she had plucked Titus. She was holding him very closely to herself and had wrapped him in layers of cloth which had completely hidden him from view. A sound of muffled crying could be heard coming from the bundle. Nannie’s little wrinkled mouth was hanging open. Her streaming eyes were redder than usual with the stinging smoke. But she stood quite still.
‘My very dear good woman,’ said Dr Prunesquallor, turning on his heel as he was about to float past her, ‘my very dear Slagg, convey his minute Lordship to the door that for some reason that is too subtle for me to appreciate remains shut. Why, in the name of Ventilation,
Nannie Slagg was never very good at interpreting the Doctor’s long sentences, especially when coming through a haze of smoke, and all that she could gather was that she should attempt to squeeze her tiny Lordship through the keyhole. Clutching the baby even tighter in her thin arms, ‘No! no! no!’ she cried, retreating from the doctor.
Dr Prunesquallor rolled his eyes at the Countess. She was apparently aware of the state of the room at last and was gathering together great swathes of drapery in a slow, deliberate manner preparatory to rising to her feet.
The rattling at the library door became more violent, but the indigenous shadows and the smoke combined to make it impossible to see what was going on.
‘Slagg,’ said the Doctor, advancing on her, ‘go to the door immediately, like the intelligent woman you are!’
‘No! no!’ shrieked the midget, in so silly a voice that Doctor Prunesquallor after taking a handkerchief from his pocket lifted her from her feet and tucked her under his arm. The handkerchief enveloping Nannie Slagg’s waist prevented the nurse’s garments from coming in contact with the Doctor’s clothes. Her legs, like black twigs blown in the wind, gesticulated for a few moments and then were still.
Before they had reached the door, however, they were met by Lord Sepulchrave, who emerged darkly from the smoke. ‘The door has been locked from the outside,’ he whispered between fits of coughing.
‘Locked?’ queried Prunesquallor. ‘Locked, your Lordship? By all that’s perfidious! This is becoming intriguing. Most intriguing. Perhaps a bit too intriguing. What do
‘Too thick, Prunesquallor,’ said Lord Sepulchrave: ‘four-inch oak.’
He spoke slowly in strange contrast to Prunesquallor’s rapid, ejaculatory chirping.
Sourdust had been propped near the door, where he sat coughing as though to shake his old body to bits.
‘No key for the other door,’ continued Lord Sepulchrave slowly. ‘It is never used. What about the window?’ For the first time a look of alarm appeared on his ascetic face. He walked quickly to the nearest bookshelves and ran his fingers along the spines of calf. Then he turned with a quickness unusual for him. ‘Where is the smoke thickest?’
