The Chemickal Marriage

people? And
you
! You gave that colonial chit my
book
! My own glass book and you have thrust it into the arms of an empty-headed girl!’
    ‘Only because I had no time to smash it.’
    ‘O!
O!
’ Schoepfil waved both arms at the ceiling. ‘Artless! Crude!
Teuton!
’
    ‘If the Contessa is inside, these few men will not take her.’
    ‘
Pah!
I’ll take her myself.’ Schoepfil clapped his grey-gloved hands. ‘So hard it
stings
.’
    The wheel gave with a sudden lurch. Schoepfil bustled through, returningthe pistol to his secretary as he passed. Svenson pushed after the Ministry men, but Kelling waved the pistol.
    ‘Where are
you
going?’
    ‘Put it away,’ sighed Svenson. ‘If he could spare me, I’d be dead. Since I’m not, I could shoot you in the head and he would only swear at the mess.’
    ‘You’re wrong,’ Kelling snarled. ‘He remembers – you’ll pay!’
    ‘You should bind that wrist.’
    ‘Go to hell.’
    Svenson found the others in a low octagonal room, with an oval door in each wall, like the engine room of a steamship. Schoepfil faced the Duchess with his hands on his hips.
    ‘Well, madam? Your falsehood is exposed!’ When the Duchess did not respond, he screamed again, waving at the doors: ‘
Open them!
Open them all!
’
    Doctor Svenson locked eyes for an instant with the Duchess. ‘Whose rooms are these?’
    ‘Not the
Queen’s
!’ crowed Schoepfil. Three doors were opened to utter blackness.
    ‘They were given to Lord Pont-Joule,’ said the Duchess.
    ‘The
late
Lord Pont-Joule.’ Schoepfil’s voice echoed from inside a doorway. He reappeared to shove a Ministry man at the next door. ‘Nothing – go, go!’
    ‘He was charged with Her Majesty’s safety –’
    ‘I know who he is,’ said Svenson. ‘Or was.’
    Schoepfil hopped back to the Duchess. ‘These tunnels follow the springs!’
    ‘Spy tunnels,’ said Svenson. ‘Just like where we observed Her Majesty’s baths.’ The Duchess gasped.
    ‘O well done,’ muttered Schoepfil. ‘Blab every single thing …’
    ‘You ought to have expected others. The rock beneath the Thermæ must have been honeycombed for a thousand years.’
    Schoepfil sniffed at the next door. ‘Sulphur – leading to the baths proper. Would the Contessa seek the baths? She would not.’ He called to the Duchess: ‘
She
killed him, you know – Pont-Joule!’ Schoepfil scoffed on his way tothe next doorway. ‘You arranged her audience. You aided her escape. He was her
lover
! Right in the
neck
!’
    The Duchess put her hands over her eyes. ‘I did not –’
    ‘O I
will
see you punished.
Where is my book?
’
    Kelling wrenched open the seventh door. Schoepfil sniffed the air. His face darkened. ‘O dear Lord …’
    ‘What is it?’ asked Kelling.
    ‘The
channel
.’ Schoepfil spun to the Duchess. ‘It’s true after all! You knew it! And
she
damn well knew it! Of all the – O this takes the biscuit!’
    Schoepfil’s hand flew at the Duchess. Svenson caught the blow mid-air. With an outraged sputter Schoepfil’s other hand delivered three rapid strikes to the Doctor’s face. Still Svenson held on – giving the Duchess time to retreat – until Schoepfil wrenched his arm free.
    ‘You presume, Doctor Svenson, you
presume
!’
    Schoepfil’s voice stopped with a guttural snarl. In the Doctor’s hand hung his grey glove, peeled off while retrieving his arm. The flesh of Schoepfil’s hand was a bright cerulean blue, nails darkening to indigo.
    ‘Sweet Christ,’ whispered the Doctor. ‘What have you done – what idiocy?’
    Schoepfil snatched the glove and wriggled his hand inside, glaring at Svenson with a mixture of abashment and pride, like a young master caught plundering his first housemaid. The instant the glove was restored Schoepfil turned on Kelling with a scream: ‘
What do you wait for? Inside and after them!
’
    Kelling dived through, but the Ministry men paused. ‘Is there a light?’ one ventured.
    Through the door came a crash and a grunt of pain. ‘There are steps,’ called Mr Kelling.
    Svenson opened the doors of a sideboard and pulled out a metal railwayman’s lantern.
    ‘How did you find that?’ asked Schoepfil.
    ‘Pont-Joule must have used these tunnels for surveillance.’
    ‘And look what it got him,’ Schoepfil spat, then shouted at them all. ‘A match! A match!
Light the damned thing up!
’
    Kelling was waiting by a pile of clothing. Schoepfil stood at the black pool, glaring at the