I closed the window behind me after I’d stepped out onto the narrow ledge, and after that I managed without difficulty to pull myself up the side of the roof in front of me. The tower lay immediately ahead. And sure enough, there was a fire escape, or at least some wooden steps, leading up to a door at the top of it. The only problem was reaching the tower, since, from my perch on top of this small gable end, I found myself looking down into a large glassy-covered well in the centre of the house, the sloping top lights set above the big dining-room, on the ground floor, I imagined. And there was no way across this wide gulf, other than by three narrow stone bridge-buttresses that linked and supported both the interior walls of the house, at this point a good twenty feet above the glass.
I could stay where I was, of course. But on looking back I saw that, on top of this roof, I was no longer hidden from the ground. And if I returned to the ledge outside the nursery window, the police — perhaps having heard the peacock’s commotion and coming into the room to investigate — had only to open the window to find me. I could at least test the stone buttresses beneath me …
I slid gently down the edge of the roof to the first of them, nearest to the front of the house and thus almost completely hidden from the overlooking windows. The stonework was at least a foot wide to begin with, and firm as a rock as I straddled it. But the buttress narrowed gracefully as it rose to a bridge in the middle, and I wasn’t certain that it would support my weight at that point. On the other hand, since it was built in the form of a bridge, with a keystone in the middle, I thought it should quite naturally take the increased strain.
I moved very slowly out over the glass, legs soon dangling in space to either side, edging forward along the buttress inch by inch, never looking down. The sun was suddenly very hot on my neck and shoulders and I started to sweat, unable to move a hand to mop it up. The salty moisture soon came down in beads in front of my eyes, over my nose, into my mouth.
Towards the apex of the buttress, when I was riding up it, my head and shoulders hunched down over the bridge like a man on a galloping horse, I thought I heard a stone shift, the minute sound of something giving, beginning to crack. I froze for a minute, sensing the sharp glass beneath, a great pit opening in my stomach. But nothing moved; there was no other sound and I inched my way down the far side without mishap.
And now it was an easy journey up the corner guttering of the roof opposite and down the far side to where the big square tower with its pagoda roof rose up into the dazzling summer sky like an irresistible Victorian command, pushing its way imperiously through the other fantastic Gothic excrescences, the eccentric roofs and turrets, the miniature spires and stone pineapples which covered the top of the manor like barnacles.
The railed steps down from the tower, though, I saw now, didn’t lead to the ground. They were part of some interior fire escape, if anything, and led straight to a small doorway in one of the gable ends, which of course would only lead me straight back into the house again. Perhaps I might be safe in the tower?
I climbed up the steps, unseen from the ground below since they faced inwards, and the door at the top opened at once. There was quite a large, perfectly square room inside, with four expected Gothic arched windows — but with a quite unexpected domed ceiling covered in blue-and-white tiles, an eastern mosaic of turbanned gentlemen smoking hookahs with camels in the background, and Arab lettering picked out in long scrolls that ran right round the circumference. The view was stupendous from this height, right across the rim of beech and oak which normally hid the estate, giving out over half the North Cotswolds.
A big wooden loom stood in the middle of the room, skeins of variously coloured wools to one side of it and lengths of lovely finished tweed on a day-bed in one corner. There was a telephone on a small but this time well-cluttered desk. I saw an open diary — another large engagement diary, but again with no engagements in it. Glancing at the top of the page I read: ‘… awful thing — that he won’t let me touch his hands even …’ There was some crockery, cutlery and a small fridge filled with tubs of yoghurt, pots of honey and a half-bottle of champagne. I could have done with a cold beer. Even though one of the windows was open it was very hot, with a hot, baked smell of wool and dried pine from the floor and wooden loom. It was a marvellous retreat, a hermit’s eyrie, high on the land, quite cut off from the world. And indeed, that was the problem. There was no access to, or escape from this tower as far as I could see other than the steps I had come up. It seemed a wilfully inconvenient place to have a workshop.
But then I saw what must have made it much more habitable. In one corner was a heavy, ecclesiastically carved panel with a wooden handle beneath carved in the shape of a big cigar. I lifted it up. There was a dumb-waiter behind, the serving shelves presently in position. And then I realised: of course, the cigar-shaped handle, the desert Arabs smoking hookahs on the tiled dome of the ceiling. This turret retreat had obviously been built as a smoking-room originally, where the Victorian grandees, the more agile of them, the youngsters perhaps, could get well away from the ladies and freely indulge their fumes, their vintage port, their risqué jokes. And if this was so then the dumb-waiter would certainly lead down to the dining-room, or to the pantry, and perhaps below that to the cellars where the butler could the more readily load cargoes of Fine Old Tawny on board for the bloods on high.
I could get right down to the bottom of the house in this way, I thought: it was worth the try. The opening into the lift was quite big enough. The ropes inside were new. If I lowered the serving box down a few feet I could get inside the shaft, stand on top of the box and then, working the return rope, let myself down to the ground floor or basement.
The police were searching upwards through the house, I knew. But if I doubled back on them in this way, and got into the cellars which they’d have checked out by now, I might finally be secure.
As I thought about it I heard a sound on the roof beneath and, looking out the window for a second, I saw the door in the gable end which led out to the tower steps beginning to open. The police had reached the top of the house, but still weren’t finished. I needed no further prompting.
I pulled the lift down to below the level of the floor and, gripping fast onto the return rope, I levered myself quickly into the dark hole, closing the serving-hatch behind me. The shaft was hardly more than two feet square. But everything had been perfectly built and carpentered here and I slipped down gently, soundlessly, through the guts of the house, down this dark gullet, without any problems.
I passed a chink of light in the wall, where the dumb waiter gave out onto the kitchen or dining-room or pantry. But there was still a further drop in the shaft; it went deeper. Eventually the lift came to a halt in complete darkness. I must have been at the bottom of the house, in one of the cellars. I felt in front of me with my fingers. There was nothing but open space. The sleeve of wooden panelling which all the way above had enclosed the lift shaft must have been absent in the cellar at least in front of me, for I found then that I was still hemmed in to either side. But in front I was free: sitting on the serving box: free, but in complete darkness. Lowering myself very carefully, my feet eventually touched the floor. And then I saw a very faint crack of light ahead. It came from beneath a door and I groped around the sides of this looking for a switch. Finding one at last, I turned the light on.