Dance Of Death

The door didn't budge.

Smithback turned to face it, pressed harder.

Locked.

Shit. This was something he hadn't anticipated: a door that was never locked during the day.

He sounded his pocket for the basement key, hoping against hope it would open the kitchen door as well. No luck.

He glanced over his shoulder again, disappointment and a rising despair flooding over him. It had been such a good plan. And he'd been so close to getting out. To be thwarted like this…

Then he paused. There might-just might-still be a chance.

Cautiously, he made his way back to the landing. He peered up, straining for any sound, but the velvety darkness remained silent. Noiselessly, he crept up the stairway to the second floor, flitted across the landing, and entered the dining room.

The vast, ghostly space seemed sepulchral in its stillness. A few bars of pale moonlight slanted in through tall windows, bathing the room in an eerie, almost phosphorescent illumination. Smithback threaded his way quickly between the tables-already laid for breakfast-until he reached the rear. Here, a decorative partition ran parallel to the wall, concealing the service ports and waiters' stations behind. Smithback ducked behind the partition and-now in deeper darkness-moved carefully toward his destination: the dumbwaiter, covered by a four-by-three-foot metal panel set into the back wall.

Slowly, careful to make no noise, Smithback grasped the metal panel and pulled it open. Inside was an empty shaft. A heavy rope, mounted to a pulley mechanism on the chute's ceiling, vanished in inky depths below.

Smithback couldn't help but smile.

During his kitchen duty, he'd seen gray tubs of silverware and dirty dishes come down from the dining room via this same dumbwaiter. Now, with any luck, it would carry a very different cargo.

There were a series of buttons beside the access panel, used to raise and lower the dumbwaiter. Smithback peered at them in the faint illumination, then reached out to press the up button. He'd bring the thing up from the kitchen, clamber in, and descend…

Then he froze. The motor would make a lot of noise in the stillness. And there was the faintest chance somebody might still be inside the kitchen: the last thing he wanted was to betray his presence.

Leaning forward, he grasped the heavy rope, gave one or two exploratory tugs, and then-with a grunt-began to haul upward with all his might.

It took ages to hoist the dumbwaiter from the kitchen below. By the time he was done, Smithback was gasping and puffing, his triple layer of shirts soaked in sweat. He paused to rest a moment and look around. Still nobody.

Returning his attention to the dumbwaiter, he clambered inside, squeezing his long limbs into its narrow confines. He pulled the access panel closed behind him.

Utter darkness.

Sitting inside the dumbwaiter, knees up around his ears, Smithback realized there was no easy way to lower the device. Then he discovered that, by placing his hands against the front wall of the chute and exerting upward pressure, he could force the dumbwaiter down, inch by inch. It was blind, sweaty, exhausting work, but in a few minutes he felt his hands brushing against the steel frame of another access panel. He'd reached the first floor-and the kitchen.

He paused a moment, despite the stifling, claustrophobic space, to listen. Hearing nothing, he pushed open the panel.

The kitchen was empty. The only light came from the emergency exit signs, which threw a faint crimson light over the sprawling space.

Smithback climbed out, worked the kinks out of his limbs, and looked around. There, set into a far wall, was the door to the basement.

He stiffened with excitement. Almost there. Nothing could stop him now. River Oaks might be able to incarcerate slack-jawed wackos like Roger Throckmorton, but it couldn't hold the likes of William Smithback.

The kitchen was a strange melange of old and new. The soot-blackened walk-in fireplace was flanked by professional stainless-steel mixers large enough to hold a family. Long bunches of braided garlic cloves, peppers, and fines herbes hung from the ceiling: the head chef was a native of Brittany. The granite countertops gleamed with ranks of cookware. Dozens of top-quality German carving knives sat behind locked frames of steel and meshed glass.

But Smithback had eyes for only one thing: the heavy wooden door set in the far wall. He quickly walked over to it, unlocked it. A stone stairway led down into a well of darkness.

Gingerly, Smithback stepped down, careful not to slip on the clammy stone. He closed and locked the door behind him, shutting out the pale red glow of the exit signs and plunging the stairwell into utter darkness. He made his way downward with exquisite care, counting steps as he went.

At the twenty-fourth step he reached bottom.

He stopped to look around. But there was nothing to see: the surrounding blackness was, if anything, even more complete. The air smelled of mold and damp. For the first time, it occurred to him that he should have nicked a flashlight, made some discreet inquiries about the layout of the basement and the route to the loading dock. Maybe he should put this escape attempt off for a day or two, go back to his room, and try again another night…

He pushed these thoughts away. It was too late to go back: he could never force the dumbwaiter back up to the dining room. Besides, his job was at stake. And he wanted, needed, to talk to Nora. He had three hours until the first delivery of the morning: that was more than enough time to find his way.

He took a deep, steadying breath, then another, suppressing a faint susurrus of fear. Then, arms stretched out before him, he began to move slowly forward, sliding one foot ahead, then the other. After about a dozen steps, he made contact with a brick wall ru

There was another sound, Smithback realized, in addition to his steps: the low pattering and squeaking of rats.

His foot came in sudden contact with something on the floor, squat and heavy and immovable. He pitched forward, saving himself at the last minute from sprawling. He rose, rubbed his shin with a curse, then felt forward with his hands. Some kind of a slop sink, bolted to the brick face, barred his way. He moved carefully around it, then continued forward. The squeaking of rats died away, as if the rodents were fleeing at his approach.

The wall to his left ended abruptly, leaving him once again marooned in the black.

This was crazy. He needed to think this out.

Mentally, he went over what he knew of the layout of the mansion. As he reviewed his twistings and turnings from the base of the stairs, it seemed to him the rear must lie to the left.

The moment he turned, he saw it: a pinpoint glimmer in the distance. It was the faintest smudge of light, a mere attenuation of black, but he made for it with the greediness of a drowning man for terra firma. As he walked, it seemed to recede before him, miragelike. The floor level rose, then fell again. At last, as he drew close, he could see that the illumination was set at eye level: a set of small green display panels fastened to an automatic thermostat of some kind. They threw a faint glow over a strange room: groined and vaulted in dressed limestone, it contained a half dozen steam boilers of polished brass and copper. They dated back to the mid-nineteenth century, at least, and had been retrofitted to the thermostat controls by bundles of colored wires. The giant boilers hissed and rumbled softly, almost as if snoring in rhythm to the sleeping mansion they warmed.

Over the sound of the boilers came again the scampering and squeaking of rats.