Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

Mrs. Pembroke pressed a hard, irregular object against Rupert’s side. A chunk of rubble.

She said nothing, but Rupert understood. He bent and picked up several chunks of rubble from the floor. When the villain’s associate started into the chamber, Rupert threw as hard as he could. The man fell.

Someone called down.

While those above called to their unconscious comrades, Rupert hurried to one of the bodies, grabbed the feet, and dragged him deeper into the tomb. Mrs. Pembroke did the same without being told.

By gad, she was a wonderful female.

Rocks instead of firearms. Near-silent destruction. Much more effective than shooting pistols — balls ricocheting off stone walls — and very possibly bringing the entire crumbling structure down upon their heads.

Those from above would hear at most the clatter of rocks — which could be falling rubble. They couldn’t be sure what was below: their prey or hungry ghouls.

Now several voices called for Amin and Omar.

Under the noise, Rupert said, “If they come to —”

“Help me get these two into the sarcophagus,” she whispered.

“The sarc — What?”

“I can’t kill a man in cold blood,” she said. “We’ve nothing strong enough to tie them with. It’s right here. The lid’s broken.”

The men’s torches lay where they’d dropped them, one still burning feebly. It illuminated very little. At first Rupert couldn’t discern the sarcophagus. But she’d already started dragging one of the inert men. Rupert did likewise, guided by the sound of her panting.

Getting the men into the coffin was easy enough. Keeping them in was another matter. Rupert heaved a few pieces of the broken lid on top. That at least would slow them down.

He doubted they’d be considerate enough to remain unconscious until their friends gave up and went away.

He doubted the friends would give up and go away.

Maybe it was wiser to simply kill this pair now and improve the odds. A knife would do it quietly enough.

Rupert’s entire being recoiled. He’d never yet killed anybody, and like her, found the notion of doing so in cold blood abhorrent.

Then she said, “I was wrong.”

He looked toward the sound of her voice. He could barely make out her shape against the surrounding darkness.

“Behind the coffin,” she said. “There’s a hole.”

Chapter 16

THE PASSAGE WAS SMALLER AND MORE IRREGULAR than the shaft to the burial chamber. At some points Rupert had to crawl on his belly. It was also a great deal longer.

At one point during the interminable journey, he called a halt for rest. “Are you all right?” he said.

“Don’t waste breath being solicitous,” she said crossly. “We haven’t enough air as it is. And I don’t need to rest. Can you not go faster?”

“Mrs. Pem — Dash it, I don’t even know your given name.”

“Daphne,” she said.

“Daphne,” he repeated. “That’s lovely.”

“Ye gods, what does it matter? Will you please move?”

“You need to rest,” he said. “You sound short of breath.”

“I want to get out,” she said. “Now.”

It was then he remembered her morbid aversion to closed spaces. He started crawling again, this time as fast as he could. She was probably near hysteria, with good reason. The tunnel was hot, and what air it held was stale and foul. He wanted to be out of it, too.

He crawled on, hoping for fresh air at the end, if not light. Above all, he hoped they hadn’t leapt out of the pan into the fire.

AT THE TOP of the burial shaft, Khareef discovered that brandy did not always give men courage. None of the others was willing to follow Omar and Amin down the shaft.

It was too quiet down there, they said. Something bad was down there.

“This place is evil,” said one coward. “The donkey is possessed.”

A distance behind them, near the mouth of the tomb, the foreigners’ donkey continued its wild braying.

“We made too much noise,” said another. “The English heard us coming and ran away.”

“Where can they go?” Khareef said. “There is but one way in and one way out.”

“What about the thieves’ hole?” another asked.

Khareef laughed. “If they’ve found it, they won’t get far. It’s falling in. They’ll have to turn back.”

“Perhaps it will fall on their heads.”

“Then they will die.”

“Duval will not be pleased.”

“The woman was not to be harmed.”

Khareef, like the others, was drunk. The mention of Duval sobered him. The woman was to be Duval’s hostage. For what purpose Khareef neither knew nor cared.

He did know and care what would happen to him if he bungled this assignment.

He grabbed a torch from one of the men and started down the shaft.

The others squatted at the mouth of the shaft and waited.

After a moment, Khareef’s voice wafted up, filling the air with curses. “Come down, you cowards,” he called. “Come down and help your brothers.”

&nbs

p; One by one, the men began crawling down the shaft.

They found Khareef bending over a stone coffin. “See what the swine of an Englishman has done,” he said.

It took two men to move the broken pieces of lid enough to get their battered and terrified friends out.

“Why didn’t you call for help?” Khareef demanded. “These old women thought a ghoul had eaten you.”

“Englishman,” Omar gasped. “Demon. Rocks.” He clutched his bloodied head.

“The woman,” Amin said. “Fearless and fierce like a lion.”

“She is only a woman,” Khareef said scornfully. “She threw rocks at you, as naughty boys do. The man is only a man. But you will all see, when they come out of this hole.” With his pistol he pointed at the thieves’ tunnel.

He leant against the sarcophagus and waited.

DAPHNE WAS NOT fearless.

She was, in fact, on the brink of babbling in terror.

She’d not altogether willingly or happily traversed pyramid and tomb shafts. Those, however, were spacious promenades compared to this roughly hewn tunnel. She doubted it was part of a tomb complex. It was more likely the work of robbers.

They’d certainly done a great deal of work, because it seemed longer than any of the endless passages in the Pyramid of Steps at Saqqara.

But perhaps it seemed longer than it was. She had no idea how far they’d gone when Mr. Carsington stopped again abruptly. She had an unhappy suspicion why he’d stopped.

In the course of the last few yards, bits of debris and dirt had been falling on her head. Now the floor of the tunnel was rough with rubble.

“Is it bad?” she said.

“It isn’t good,” he said. “The way is blocked.”

Judging by the sounds, he was shifting rocks.

“Looking on the bright side, it’s loose,” he said.

Bright side, indeed. The thing could cave in, burying them alive.

“On the other hand,” he went on, “I can’t tell how far the blockage extends.”

If she had to go back the whole long, suffocating way she’d come, she’d go mad.

“The ancients dug into rock using primitive tools,” she said. “Surely we can make a way through loose rubble, using our hands and our knives?”