The Yellow Room Conspiracy (21 page)

PAUL X

August 1956

I
t was impossible to sleep. I lay in the dark. The lightning flashes continued through the rain, by now a steady, drenching downpour. Lucy came back once but I refused to acknowledge her presence—mean-minded of me, as I could sense her distress, but I was unable to cope. My sole thought was to leave, to get clear away, without having to talk again to any of the Verekers or anyone else connected with them. I listened for the movement of doors, and as soon as I was sure that everyone on my floor at least had gone to bed I rose, dressed and stole in stockinged feet along the corridor and down the stairs. There was a telephone in the old butler's pantry, well out of earshot of any of the bedrooms, but to my dismay it turned out that raising a taxi at almost midnight on a wet Saturday night in Bury was not a practical possibility, though I offered all the money I had on me. In the end I was forced to accept an offer to collect me from the drive gates at half past seven next morning, for a fee of twenty pounds on top of the fare.

I went back to my room, locked the door and lay down in my clothes, taking the precaution of setting my alarm for half past six. I did in fact then sleep for a while, but woke soon after first light, and wrote a note for Nancy, apologising for leaving and saying I would arrange to collect my car and case later. Though still deeply miserable I was feeling physically almost normal, but I wasn't prepared to risk carrying the case the length of the drive. I longed to write a note for Lucy, but I could think of nothing I could bear to say, so I left it at that and crept once more downstairs.

I realised now that I was hungry enough to raise the possibility of my collapsing again on the journey. The chances of finding anything to eat in Bury on a Sunday morning were nil, but I remembered from my telephone call last night that the remains of supper had been cleared on to the pantry table. I found an electric kettle, tea in a cupboard, milk in the fridge, bread rolls, butter and cheese. It was half past six by the time I finished. I now felt fully up to the journey—in fact if Bobo had not taken my key I would have paid off the taxi and driven myself to London. The risk of harming some other road-user at that hour would have been negligible.

By now I was anxious to be gone. There was a risk of someone else coming down for an early snack, or of Lucy waking and going along to my room to check on me. But the rain was sheeting relentlessly down outside the window, and again, after what had happened the evening before it would have been stupid for me to wait half an hour at the gate in weather like that without protection and then journey soaked to London. I needed an umbrella, a raincoat, boots. Luckily I knew just where to find them, in the Gun Room close to my way out. It was a hundred to one, knowing the habits of the house, that Lord Vereker's boots, which fitted me, would still be there. Almost cheered by the neatness with which matters were now arranging themselves for my escape, I stole back down the West Corridor, across the central hail and straight on towards the main door under the porte-cochère, turning left just before I reached it down the shorter corridor that led to the Gun Room and the East Stairs. The boots were exactly where Gerry had found them for me after Lord Vereker's funeral. Probably I was the last person to wear them. It took me a short while to choose an umbrella and raincoat that wouldn't be needed for a few days. Nervous now that I might meet someone and have to argue with them about my determination to leave, I paused at the Gun Room door and listened. Perhaps some primal instinct of the hunted caused me at the same time to sniff the air. I think so, because I immediately smelt something of which I had perhaps been vaguely aware before, a definite odour of gas.

I paused, sniffed again and was sure. The house, it will be remembered, was heated by its own gas-plant, a Victorian device whose intricacies only Mr Chad understood. It was located in the cellars below the East Wing. Clearly there must be a leak. I felt I had to investigate. It might be extremely dangerous, and whatever my own urgencies I couldn't leave a house full of sleeping people like that. The smell seemed to be coming from my right, and grew stronger as I turned in that direction and stronger still as I climbed the East Stairs. By the time I reached King William's Room it was so powerful that I felt it would be dangerous to go on. (This was old-fashioned town gas, which contained a proportion of lethal carbon monoxide.) I retreated, hurried down the stairs, and ran, still in gumboots and raincoat and grasping the umbrella, back to the central hall, up the main stairs and on to where Nancy and Gerry slept. I hammered at their door with my fist and tried the handle. The door moved, but then was almost pulled from my grasp and Nancy stood there, fully dressed. She stared at me, took in umbrella, raincoat, boots.

“There's a gas leak,” I panted. “In the Yellow Room, I think. It was so bad I stopped at King William's Room.”

She too seemed to take it in absolutely at once. She pushed past me and ran down the corridor, which spanned almost the full width of the house on that floor. I followed but lagged behind. When I reached the cross-corridor at the far end she had disappeared, but the false specimen—case on the right wall was hinged out. The cavity opened on to the spiral stair down to the secret door in the Yellow Room. As I reached it I heard thumps, and Nancy's voice crying, “Gerry! Gerry!” The gas smell here was strong too.

I waited, getting my breath back. There was no point in two of us crowding down there and being overcome, and if she didn't return soon I might have to try to haul her out, but the thumps and the calling stopped and she came climbing back, white-faced.

“He didn't come to bed,” she gasped. “We've got to wake everyone up. Then we'll try again. You do this floor. I'll do upstairs.”

She rushed away. I had no idea which rooms were being slept in so would have to try them all. From the main stair I heard a tinkle of glass, followed by the clamour of several electric bells. Fire alarms. A door opened at the other end of the cross-corridor and Harriet looked out, still in her night-dress.

“Yellow Room's full of gas!” I shouted. “Gerry's in there. Tell Bobo to come and help. Get everyone else out of the house.”

She too seemed to understand at once, and vanished. Not for the first time I was thankful for her unimaginative practicality. Anyone else would have hesitated, checked that they'd heard right, or something. I ran back to the spiral stair and down, lifted the door-handle and flung my weight against the door. It seemed totally solid, and the twist of the stairs precluded a proper charge. There was nowhere for leverage. I climbed the stair and found Bobo in the cross-corridor wearing grey flannel trousers over his pyjamas and pulling a jersey on as he came towards me.

“That door's locked,” I gasped. “We'll have to try King William's Room. It's full of gas.”

I ran but he overtook me on the stairs and led the way. I followed with relief. I am not a man of action. Bobo was. Indeed he already seemed to have a plan. At the foot of the stair he picked up the short bench that had always stood there and hefted it onto his hip. The gas smell was now sinisterly strong.

“Right,” he said. “First thing is air. I'll go and get a window open upstairs. You do that one there. When I call, take a good lungful and then hold your breath and come on up.”

I saw his own lungs fill. Still carrying the bench he climbed purposefully up the stairs. I followed him to the landing, loosed the catch of the landing window, slid the sash up and leaned out, breathing the rain-washed air. In a few seconds I heard his call and followed him on up. He was kneeling on the bench, which he had climbed on to reach the window-catch, and had his head and shoulders out into the open. As I joined him I could see the raindrops beginning to gather on his already sparse blond hair. Mercifully the draught was inwards.

“Christ,” said Bobo. “Did you smell it in here? Must be solid gas in the Yellow Room. I tried a squint through the key-hole, but the key's in the lock. Stupid bugger. He'll be a goner all right, if he's in there. Ready? We'll use this bench as a ram. You take that end. Five swings and back to the window. I'm not going to kill myself for bloody Gerry.”

We swung the bench rhythmically against the lock with Bobo grunting the time. At the third strike something splintered. At the fifth the lock gave. Bobo booted the right-hand leaf and propped it open with the bench. He barely glanced inside before inspecting the other leaf. He found the bolts and slid them free, then gestured me back to the window. Over his shoulder I saw that the curtains were drawn in the Yellow Room but the lights were still on. A pair of legs, presumably Gerry's, were visible. The body itself, slumped in the armchair on the far side of the fireplace, was hidden by a draped table on which stood a decanter and siphon. Bobo followed me back to the window.

“Looks like a piece of cake,” he said. “I'll go in and get him out. You stay by the door. Don't come in unless you can see I'm having trouble. If anything goes wrong, get me out, not him. He'll be a goner. Grab a fresh lot of air before you try anything. If you don't think you can do it alone, go and get help. But it's not going to come to that. Soon as I'm out, get some air, then go in and turn the gas off. Keep counting while you're in there. Soon as you reach twenty-five, head for the door. More air, go back, get the windows open. Just don't try to do any more in one go than you can. And for God's sake don't touch any switches. I'll be back as soon as I've got him outside. Right? We're off.”

Bobo had never looked a natural athlete, effective rather than deft, and was a large man now, but he was still keeping himself in trim. Holding my breath and counting the seconds I watched from the door as he walked calmly into the room. By five he had reached the chair. He took Gerry by both wrists, heaved him into a sitting position, half knelt and dragged the body over his shoulders. Gerry was in his shirt-sleeves, with gaudy Eton Rambler braces. I glimpsed his face, a dark yellowish purple. Eleven. Bobo stayed kneeling, adjusting his hold. Fourteen, fifteen. He rose, shrugged his load into position and strode out and straight to the window. Twenty-two. I joined him. Edward Voss-Thompson was out on East Lawn under a golf-umbrella, wearing a dressing-gown.

“Want any help?” he called.

“Not yet,” I answered. “Stay where you are. Send for an ambulance.”

“Right,” said Bobo. “Your turn.”

I held my breath and walked back into the Yellow Room. Five and I'd reached the gas-tap and turned it off. Plenty of time. I stood and looked around. Gerry's smoking-jacket lay across the desk, beside a brandy bottle and a half-empty water-jug. There was a balloon glass on the table beside the armchair where he had been slumped. An upright chair stood close in front of the fire itself, facing the room. Fifteen. As I picked it up to carry it over to the window my fingers went straight through the cloth at the back. Ridiculously, I paused to see why, and found that the whole area was scorched. The padded front, on the other hand, was for some reason damp. I actually stood there, staring at the object as if it mattered, before carrying it on to the window and climbing on to the seat. The window-catch, out of sight above my head, was of an unfamiliar pattern with some kind of locking-device. Obstinate, I fiddled with it, realised I had lost count, came to my senses and dashed for the door. My haste, verging on panic, caused me to catch my foot on the bench which Bobo had used to prop one leaf open, and I went sprawling, with the hoarded breath bursting from my lungs. Nothing could stop me gasping a breath of the poisonous mixture, but I forced it out again, crawled blindly for the window and hauled myself up. This time, though, I deliberately stood to one side, invisible from below, while I gulped the sweet inflowing draught. The bench had made my mind up.

I truly believe that since that first whiff of gas outside the Gun Room I had sensed, guessed, known, that something more complex and more potentially disastrous to us all than an accident, or even a suicide, was in process. Perhaps some such awareness had been in my mind ever since Nancy's ominous remark on the telephone: “It's going to happen. Or else …” The sisters at their net on the lawn, Nancy at the window, Mr Chad on his ladder; the locked doors; Nancy up and dressed and apparently waiting for my alarm, Harriet ready for it too, Bobo knowing so clearly what was involved, bringing the bench; the water-jug, the chair both scorched and wet … I also knew that such intricacies invariably come apart under the pressure of the real world. Every section of the machinery carries the possibility of betrayal. It was never going to work. It must be covered up. Buried.

I knew what I wanted to do, but not how. Bobo would be back any moment. All I could think of, no doubt from forgotten boyhood reading, was oily rags. Bonfires. The Gun Room. I left the window and dashed downstairs.

Matches and paraffin were there, but no cloth. I opened the can, wadded a handkerchief over it and tilted. A missile. There was a waste-paper basket full of old cricket balls. I took one and ran back up the stairs, knotting the sodden handkerchief round the ball as I went. I remember hearing footsteps along the passage below, Lucy's voice calling my name. No more.

LUCY X

August 1956

T
he first I knew was the fire alarm—I think I've said that. There were feet stamping about, and voices, and it was dreadfully early, and I wanted to put the pillow over my head and go back to sleep, but then Nan rushed in and hoicked the bedclothes off and yelled that the East Wing was full of gas and we'd all got to get out, so I pulled some clothes on and went down and out through the double Saloon doors on the South Front, where luckily there was always a stand full of brollies, so I took one and stumped crossly round in the pouring rain to the East Lawn to see what was happening. Teddy Voss-Thompson was there, shooing everyone up to the stables, but he told me Paul and Bobo were up in King William's Room trying to get Gerry out, and a moment later Bobo came staggering out of the East Door with a body over his shoulder. I ran to help.

“Don't look,” he said, but I'd seen already. It was Gerry. I knew he was dead. That colour.

Bobo laid him down. I took off my coat and covered his face and then ran into the house. I was desperately worried about Paul. After last night, and then creeping round fully dressed when everyone else was in bed, I thought he might do anything. As I turned into the East Corridor I just glimpsed him running up the stairs. I called his name. Bobo was a bit behind me, so I don't think he'd seen Paul. He was telling me to come back. He caught me up and held me by the elbow but I jerked it away and said, oh, I don't know what, and he gave in, so we started up the stairs together.

We hadn't quite reached the landing when there was a colossal explosion and a great whoosh of burning air and we were knocked flat. They told me afterwards that if we'd been anywhere except on the stairs we'd have been killed. Paul too. He must have been just below the top, because the explosion knocked him all the way back down to the landing. I didn't see or hear him fall but we found him there, with his clothes on fire, when Bobo grabbed me by the shoulder and started to drag me up towards the window, which was open.

Bobo was absolutely terrific. I'll never hear a word against him since then. Quick as a flash he let go of me and simply rolled Paul up in the landing carpet, banging the flames out with his bare hands as he did so, then he picked Paul up and carried him to the window, sat and swung his own legs over, and jumped.

I rushed to the window too and climbed out. I could see Paul and Bobo lying in the laurels beneath me. It wasn't far, really, not a whole storey anyway because of the landing, but I still couldn't make myself jump, though the house was like a furnace behind me. I climbed out and hung from the sill but I still couldn't let go, and then Mr Chad arrived with his ladder and got me down.

I was perfectly alright, hardly a scratch, just my hair a bit singed, but Bobo had broken both ankles it turned out, in spite of the soft ground under the laurels. We got them out. I can't remember who else was there, but Mr Chad kept shouting at everyone that we'd got to get well clear because the equaliser tank hadn't gone up yet. He and Teddy were carrying Paul, still rolled in the carpet, and I was trying to keep the rain off Paul with a brolly, when I remembered about Gerry and looked back over my shoulder. So I actually saw the next explosion.

It was like films of the Blitz, though I don't think I've ever seen a film of a big bomb actually hitting a house, but I'm sure that's what it would be like. Before I heard the noise or anything I saw the East Front sort of shrug, and then came the roar and the wall of hot air whumped over us and the house was breaking up, floating apart, huge blocks of brickwork and stone sailing through the air and the ball of boiling fire mushrooming up beneath them. Mr Chad staggered against me but we didn't quite fall, and then we started to run best we could carrying Paul, while the bits of house came crashing down through the trees around us.

We all got up to the stables somehow. Somebody must have helped Bobo, I didn't see who. No one else was hurt, though a lot of Mother's windows had been blown in by the blast and I could hear the horses screaming in their stalls and thrashing around as they tried to escape. Mother's flat was all on the ground floor, so we carried Paul into her bedroom. One side of his face was ghastly to see and his right sleeve had really caught fire, so I told them to bring me scissors and a lot of cold water and towels and I bathed and bathed the burnt bits, the way Nanny always said you had to, though the doctors then said grease was better, but now they say water after all. It was when I was cutting the burnt sleeve away that I smelt the paraffin. I've made too many bonfires not to know what it was. That's how I knew he'd started the fire.

It didn't make any difference. It was all over, done, and a lot of it was my fault. All I knew was that I wanted to do the best for him I could. When the ambulances came I insisted on staying with him. They didn't want me to, but I told them who I was and people still used to pay attention to that sort of thing then.

The ambulance didn't have proper windows, just a couple of titchy little panes in the back doors, but as we swung round into the drive I got a glimpse of what had happened to the house. The whole of the East Wing was gone, and a lot of the centre block. You could see right into the rooms beyond, the wall-paper and the fireplaces and a bath hanging in mid air, like you used to on bombed sites during the war. The East Front had collapsed outwards on to the porte-cochère. There was just a pile of rubble there. Gerry was underneath it.