The pitch-black staircase still echoed with Her Majesty’s receding pistons, and though it was the only possible way for her to have gone, Perkins still paused before that ominous descent. “What would father have done?” he asked himself. “He’d never have left the farm that’s what,” he answered and charged after his benefactor.
One advantage of bare feet was their relative silence during propulsion compared to the booted footfalls of those Perkins presumed too overweight or too stupid to disguise them. The faster he travelled, the louder they grew until the flickering light from several lanterns illuminated the tiled floor, walls and ceiling of the tunnel, passage, corridor or whatever it was that lay ahead. Slowing, so as to keep a respectable distance, Perkins followed the group for perha
