‘I can apply my mind to that little problem later,’ said Eltisley dismissively.
‘But do you want Grundisburgh to be full of people like Megin?’ asked Bartholomew, repelled.
‘Megin has served me well,’ said Eltisley carelessly. ‘If Padfoot does not succeed in chasing away intruders, she does it for me. Or my friends here. They go out at night wearing masks, and rob people on the Old Road – there is nothing like rumours of outlaws to deter unwanted visitors.’
‘They do more than deter,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘They kill. Alcote came across a group of travellers who had been attacked the day we arrived in Grundisburgh, and one of them was dying. He paid Alcote to say masses for his soul at St Edmundsbury.’
Eltisley sniggered nastily. ‘Alcote should have said them for himself. But there is no problem with the occasional traveller being dispatched on the Old Road – it merely means that the danger is taken more seriously. They attacked you, I understand, when you first came here.’
‘And I shot one in the arm,’ said Cynric with satisfaction. ‘They fled into the bushes like frightened deer when they encountered a real fighting man.’
‘I know why you are keen to prevent people coming here,’ said Bartholomew quickly, before Cynric could incite the surly men to anger. ‘Barchester is where you conduct your experiments on the dead. Although I looked in the houses, and saw nothing unusual, I did not look in the church.’
‘Well, now is your chance,’ said Eltisley, gesturing that they should ascend the incline on which the church stood.
There was no sign of Mad Megin or her white dog as they walked up the rise. The building stood as still and silent as ever, with ivy darkening its walls and weaving through the broken tiles of its roof. Eltisley made his way to the small door Bartholomew had been about to enter when Megin had made her appearance, and pushed it open. It creaked on unsteady leather hinges, and sagged against the wall. He stood back, and indicated that Bartholomew and Cynric were to enter.
Inside, wooden benches held more phials, jugs, bottles and pots than Bartholomew could count. They were all around the walls, and more of them stood on the altar that had been dragged from its eastern end to the middle of the nave. Dark streaks up the walls and across the paved floor suggested accidents and miscalculations galore, and the whole church had a metallic, burned smell to it. Bartholomew was certain it could not be healthy.
Eltisley struggled with a ring set in a heavy stone slab in the chancel. With a spray of dirt, it came free, revealing a sinister black hole.
‘Perhaps you would wait in there,’ said Eltisley. ‘It is as secure a place as I know, and no one will hear you shouting for help – except Mad Megin, I suppose, but she will do nothing about it.’
‘What is it?’ asked Bartholomew, glancing down at the pitch darkness with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
‘It is the old crypt, where the lords of Barchester and their families were buried before the plague ended their line,’ said Eltisley cheerfully. ‘They will reward me handsomely when they rise from the dead to reclaim their manor.’
‘Is that why you are doing all this?’ asked Bartholomew, looking around at the phials and bottles that lined the room. ‘You want to be rewarded for your efforts by the dead?’
‘I will be the richest man alive,’ said Eltisley gleefully. ‘And all those who have helped me will also reap the benefits. I can be a very generous man.’
‘And who has helped you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Tuddenham? Grosnold? Hamon?’
Eltisley smiled. ‘You can work that out while you wait. It will give you something to do.’
‘We cannot go into a tomb with victims of the plague,’ said Bartholomew, aghast. ‘Even opening this vault might cause the disease to spread again. Are you totally insane?’
Eltisley regarded him coldly. ‘I am not in the slightest insane. And no one who died of the plague is down there. Mad Megin buried all of those in a pit in the churchyard. Now, hurry up. Do not be afraid if you hear rustlings and voices, by the way. I have given the corpses several doses of my potions, and I anticipate some of them will show signs of life soon.’
Sceptical though he was about Eltisley’s talents in that area, sitting in a tomb with long-dead corpses that were expected soon to come alive was not the way Bartholomew fancied spending his morning.
‘No,’ he said firmly, folding his arms.
One of the sullen drinkers stepped forward quickly, and gave him a push that knocked him off balance. Eltisley stuck out a foot, and Bartholomew found himself tumbling into the blackness. He opened his mouth to yell, but had landed before he could make a sound, thumping down a set of cold, damp steps into a musty chamber veiled in cobwebs. Cynric followed him moments later, and the trap-door thudded shut. There was a rumbling sound as something was dragged over it so that they could not escape, and then silence. They sat absolutely still in the darkness.
Bartholomew looked around him, straining his eyes in the pitch black to try to make out what kind of place they were in. He could see nothing at all, and could not even hear the voices of Eltisley and his friends in the church above. It was indeed as silent as the grave. He shivered. It was cold, too, and smelled of wet bones, worms and rotting grave-clothes. He heard a faint rustle, and leapt to his feet, banging his head on the roof as he did so.
‘What was that?’ whispered Cynric shakily.
The rustle came again, slightly louder, and then something ran across Bartholomew’s foot. He forced himself not to shout, and scrambled up the steps to where he thought Cynric was sitting.
‘Just a mouse.’ He coughed. ‘We will suffocate in here.’
‘No,’ said Cynric. ‘I can see daylight around the edges of the slab. We will not lack fresh air.’
‘This is horrible,’ said Bartholomew, trying to move further up the stairs, away from the ominous scrabbling that came from the floor of the vault. ‘I am sorry, Cynric. I have dragged you into something dreadful yet again.’
‘You certainly have,’ agreed Cynric. ‘More dreadful than anything I could have imagined. How are we going to escape?’
Bartholomew glanced to the thin rectangle of light that outlined the trap-door. ‘We could open that.’
Cynric tried first, then Bartholomew, then both together, but the slab was heavy, and whatever had been placed over it rendered it totally immovable. Cynric slumped down, and Bartholomew could see his dejected silhouette in the faint light that filtered around the slab.
‘That mad landlord intends to use us for his vile experiments,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He will kill us, and then try to raise us from the dead. I do not know which I fear more.’
Bartholomew could think of nothing to say. He sat quietly, listening to the rustling growing louder, closer and more confident, and once he thought he heard a squeak. He thought about what Eltisley had told him, and tried to make sense of it all. Some details became clearer, but he was certain Eltisley was not the sole power behind the evil dealings at Grundisburgh, and that someone was leading him, encouraging him and providing him with the funds to continue his work.
Although it felt like an age, not much time had passed before there was a rumble from above, and they heard someone struggling to lift the slab once again. Cynric tensed, and flung himself out of the vault the moment the gap was large enough. He was so fast, that he had overpowered Eltisley before the landlord realised what was happening. Bartholomew reached out and seized the foot of one of the henchmen, pulling him off balance, and clambered quickly out of the hole to help Cynric wrestle with another. To one side he heard a yell, and saw Michael struggling between another two of Eltisley’s surly customers.