CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

So, our party was now two members down. It could have been worse —one of us could have been dead.

I was sure that, by leading the way, I might limit any future accidents. After all, bar Kane, I was the one who had some idea of what we were walking towards.

“We are nearly there,” he said, that growl of a voice coming from just behind me. “There is a hole in the tunnel wall just around the next bend. It used to be part of a factory I think—huge storage areas and chambers, abandoned until we came.”

“We came?” I asked. “I thought you were born down here?”

There was a slight pause. “Indeed, it was just a turn of phrase.”

He was growing less cautious now we were nearly there. I took that as a good sign. After all, it would be easier all round if we could just drop the pretence.

We turned the corner and Kane pushed past me. “I will lead,” he said. “It is difficult to find if you don’t know where it is.”

We gathered at the entrance, the hole covered by a draped length of sacking. “We are here,” said Kane. “We should enter quietly, my father may have left someone on guard. If we can sneak up on them quietly we stand a fair chance.”

“Quietly?” asked Mann. “It’s been as noisy as the Boer War down here so far.”

Kane simply stared at him so I took it upon myself to take control.

“We will do as Kane says,” I told them. “Whatever happens, stay calm.”

The time had come. I suspected I knew what would lie on the other side of that wall. I was fairly certain that I had the measure of how events would play out once we stepped into Mitchell’s lair. Now I would find out if I had been right.

One by one, we stepped beyond the sacking, entering the pitch-darkness of the room beyond. There was a smell, that sweet animal scent of the zoo. From the way the sound of our footsteps echoed I could tell the room we were entering was of a reasonable size. I knew as much when there was the sound of a struck match and the beam of a lantern shone upon us. Then another, and another, and yet one more …

We were surrounded by the beast men, holding up their lanterns and looking at us with their animal eyes.

“Ah, Holmes,” said Mitchell, still wearing his foul pig’s-head mask, “so good of you to join us.”

Kane went to stand by his master’s side.

“You really should have stayed within the safe walls of Baker Street,” Mitchell continued, his voice distorted as it echoed around the inside of that swinish cowl. “Now that you are all here I can do whatever I wish with you, my experiments can recommence with fresh supplies! You are entirely at my mercy!”

All of which, naturally came as something of a relief.