Heirs of the Body(62)

“Very wise, though the explosion was thunder, I expect.” Alec returned to the bed for his dressing gown and slippers. “I’ll come at once.”

Derek was shivering in cotton pyjamas and bare feet. “I let him go first, but I had the torch. I shone it down the stairs for him. I should have given it to him.”

“Don’t second-guess yourself, darling,” said Daisy, now sufficiently clad to give him a hug.

Alec had stripped a couple of blankets off their bed. “Here, put this one round you, Derek. No point in risking a chill. Come on.”

Before following, Daisy went to the chest of drawers for a cardigan, a pullover, two pairs of Alec’s socks, and three of his handkerchiefs. Though the lightning conductor had almost certainly averted damage to the turret, there was always a chance the boys’ things in the room might be inaccessible.

Apart from the turret’s winding steps, electric lights were kept on all night at the head and foot of every staircase. Daisy hurried after Alec and Derek, along the passages and up the stairs. As she turned into the last corridor, the others reached the far end.

Ben was sitting on the bottom step, his head in his hands. He looked up groggily as Alec knelt beside him and draped a blanket about his shoulders.

“How are you feeling, Ben?”

“My head hurts.” He raised a hand to feel the side of his head. “It’s sticky.”

“Derek, the torch, please.”

The torch was still turned on. As Derek handed it to Alec, the beam flashed across something on the floor beside the steps. Daisy put down the stuff she’d brought and went to look.

“I’m going to shine this in your eyes. Try to keep them open.”

“All right.”

Daisy picked up a length of bamboo, broken at one end.

“Both pupils dilated and the same size,” Alec said with satisfaction. “You’re probably not concussed. Let me see that head wound now.”

“I brought some hankies,” said Daisy, putting back the cane as nearly as possible in the exact position she had found it. “Here. And Derek, put on this pullover. It won’t get in your way like the blanket. Socks. Alec, may I put socks on Ben’s feet while you check his head?”

Alec shifted a bit to let her get at the small, brown pink-soled feet. The socks were much too big, of course. He wouldn’t be able to walk in them, but the important thing was to warm the boy quickly.

“You’ve got quite a gash there, but it’s already just about stopped bleeding. I don’t think it’ll need stitches. Derek, would you go and soak this handkerchief in cold water, please. Don’t wring it out. Sodden, not dripping too much.”

“Yes, sir.” Derek set out at a run, nearly tripped on the overlarge socks, impatiently tore them from his feet, and sped onward.

Daisy glanced up at the trap door. It was open, a square of darkness. No signs of destruction—fire, smoke, ashes—wafted through. She could fetch the boys’ own clothes in a minute.

“I suppose you hit it on the railing.” Alec turned the torch on the curlicued banisters. The fractured beam paused for a long moment on the piece of bamboo on the floor beyond, then moved on. “Yes, here. Quite near the bottom.”

“I didn’t slip. It felt as if my ankle caught on something.”

Derek raced back, panting, clutching a soggy hankie.

“Give it to your aunt. There’s electric light up there? Can you manage to turn it on without taking the torch?”

“Yes, of course.” He stepped past Ben and tramped up, clutching the rail on both sides.

A moment later, light flooded down through the trap. Gently, Daisy set about cleaning up the wound on Ben’s head.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry. Try to keep still, darling.”

Meanwhile Alec directed the torch at the floor on the far side of the stair. “Ah.”

Though Daisy couldn’t see what he was looking at, she could guess. “Don’t make cryptic Tom noises,” she said. “Ah” was the favourite monosyllable of his sergeant, Tom Tring, who managed to infuse it with a wide variety of meanings. “Is it what I think it is?”

Alec laughed. “Who’s being cryptic now? Hold on a tick.” He examined the iron coils of the banisters a few steps up. “Yes, it looks as if … Hmm.”

Derek, coming back down in his own socks with a pair for Ben, said, “That’s Uncle Edgar’s butterfly net! We didn’t take it, Uncle Alec,” he added defensively. “Even if we had we wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave it on the stairs.”

Ben jerked his head round to see what they were talking about. “Ouch! Is that what I fell over?”