The Bet

knew it was going to take far longer than before given that they were searching this time for Isaac and not with him.

“This is getting ridiculous,” he breathed as he followed Estelle out of the room.

“Do you have your gun?” she asked.

Myles nodded and patted the pocket of his jacket. “Let’s hope I don’t need to use it. Stay close, though, alright?”

Estelle had no intention of doing otherwise, and nodded effusively.

They only got half-way down the hallway when a shadow at the far end suddenly moved. Estelle tugged hard on Myles’ hand but didn’t need to say anything. Myles had already noticed it. He was already in motion before the figure, dressed entirely in black, left the shadows and raced down the corridor away from them. It paused for a moment at the end, as though contemplating what to do, or tempting them to venture nearer. Suddenly, with a flurry of tails, it whirled around and disappeared down a side corridor.

“The servant’s quarters,” Myles cried as he began to run. He let go of Estelle’s hand and lengthened his stride. “Quickly. We must catch him.”

Estelle lifted her skirt and raced after him as fast as she possibly could. She daren’t look about her, and had no idea where they were going, but stuck right behind Myles as they raced through the house.

When they reached what appeared to be an unused set of stairs, she followed Myles down it without question. Later, she would wonder at her daring. As it was, she knew her safety lay with Myles, and so worked hard to keep pace with him and not let him disappear from sight. It was difficult, especially when she reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a corridor which ran to the left and right of her only to find herself alone.

“Myles?” she called quietly. She paused, her breath sawing in and out, and listened intently to the sound of running footsteps. It sounded as though they came from her right but she couldn’t be sure. Cautiously, she tiptoed forward, careful to keep her back to the wall in case she was attacked from behind.

Without any way of knowing which way she should go, she stopped still and waited. Her heart pounded in her ears as she listened. She couldn’t hear anything else except for her own breath which sounded inordinately loud in the silence of what appeared to be a disused hallway.

She began to pray that she wouldn’t hear gunshot, and that Myles, wherever he was, was alright. While she wanted him to re-appear, she wasn’t prepared for the moment when he did actually emerge from the shadows before her. She didn’t completely manage to stifle her scream of surprise when he suddenly raced toward her but didn’t get the chance to say anything before he grabbed hold of her hand and hauled her after him as he retraced his steps.

“Come on,” he ordered briskly, his face stern.

“Have you found them?” she asked in trepidation, dragging her heels in case he said yes.

“No, but I have found their route in and out of the house. Come on,” he urged again, unwilling to waste a single moment now that he had the murderer on the run.

A warning voice cautioned him against dragging Estelle with him, but the thought of having to leave her behind, even locked in Barnabas’ bedroom with him, was prohibitive. He had no intention of allowing her out of his sight ever again, even when he was chasing a killer: a killer who was, at that present time, running for his life through the woods.

Thankfully, after that momentary hesitation, Estelle followed him. Right up until the moment they arrived at the tunnel entrance.

“I am not going in there,” she protested and slammed to a halt as she stared at the huge, gaping maw of darkness that stretched wide like a demon’s mouth before her.

“It is a tunnel,” Myles explained as though she couldn’t see that for herself.

She threw him a filthy glare. “The tunnel the killer just ran down,” she snapped. It wasn’t a question.

“I didn’t know it was here, Estelle,” he explained. “I followed him down there. It comes up at the old orangery on the other side of the property, right next to the stable block. It runs under the moat so goes downhill a bit, and there are a few steps that lead up to the small back room behind the greenhouses. It is the route the killer has been taking to get into the house without being seen.”

Estelle stared at him. “So he doesn’t live here after all?”

Myles sighed. “It doesn’t look like it, but we need to find Isaac.”

“Who on earth put it there?” She demanded, still not budging an inch.

Myles sighed, and suspected the killer had already gone by now, but was still unwilling to relent until he knew that for a fact, and had found some way of securing the tunnel’s entrance from further invasion.

“I don’t know. One of my ancestor’s probably. I know of only one house with a tunnel like this and that is owned by my good friend Henry Harper at Calke Abbey in Leicestershire. His grandfather had a tunnel built that extended to his orangery when his wife protested about having unseemly delivery carts drive up to the back door. So he put a tunnel in. The deliveries were made at the orangery and the tunnel used by the servants to transport the goods to the house underground so the occupants of the house couldn’t see them. I know this part of the house has fallen into disrepair and is no longer used, and never knew about the tunnel. We have never used it. I am sure father must have forgotten about it too. He has certainly never bothered to maintain it, or mentioned it in passing.”

“So down here is used for storage,” she replied matter of factly. The evidence was all around them.

Myles nodded. “The rooms are all full of unwanted possessions because the attic is full.”

Estelle sighed. It sounded such a waste of what should have been a wonderful house. Now, it had been left to fall into ruination and had allowed a killer to select his victims at will.

“I cannot believe that someone would get access to the house like this.”