Chapter Thirty Five
Rattus rattus
At the foot of the long flight of stone steps leading down from the hotel kitchens into the main passage below the Shelbourne, young Billy O'Loughlin paused. His ears were still smarting from the drubbing he had received at the hands of the sous chef. Feckin' bastard! It wasn't his fault. Really, it wasn't. How the bleedin' hell could he be expected to know the soddin' cream was off? Ruefully Billy briskly rubbed his sore ears with the palms of his hands, tried to numb the pain, then glanced about him. To be truthful, he really didn't like coming down here; took cold comfort in the fact that he knew he wasn't alone in that. Not many of the hotel staff did, especially at night, and above all to this particular part of the rabbit warren of passages that ran below the hotel. Billy himself wasn't given to having fanciful notions, was known to have sneered openly at those that did, but down here, on his own, well it was rather different. There was undeniably something that wasn't quite right about this part of the vast building. Of course, he'd heard the rumours, after all, who hadn't? At that moment, somewhere close at hand, off to his left, a door creaked.
Momentarily somewhat disconcerted, young Billy stood stock still. He slid his eyes sideways, glanced nervously to his left, in the direction from whence the sound had just come, to catch the surprising sight of a man slipping in through the old door at the very far end of the passage. There were stories about that particular door too, to where it led. Billy shivered. That apart, the man he had just seen passing through the very same door, pulling it close to, shutting it carefully behind him, was undoubtedly Frank Brennan. Now, what on earth was Mr. Brennan doing down here? He belonged upstairs.
That morning, Billy had heard mention among the staff in the hotel kitchen of the fact that once again, and not for the first time, Mr. Brennan had not shown up for work; that this time he really was for it, would undoubtedly lose his job. With the blithe unconcern, but equally the curious interest of a young lad, Billy made his way cautiously down the passage. Reaching the closed door, he stopped and listened. Save for the sound of his own wildly beating heart, the silence was completely unbroken. Something wasn't right, didn't add up. There was not a sound coming from the other side of the door. Young Billy O'Loughlin screwed what remained of his courage to the sticking-place.
Inside the culvert, alert for any unexpected sounds, Donnelly had heard the unmistakeable noise of rapidly approaching footsteps. Cautiously, quietly, he set down the last two of his detonators on a narrow ledge, closed the shutter of the dark lantern, and waited.
"Mr. Brennan, are you in there?" Billy called out nervously. His voice echoed noisily in the empty stillness of the subterranean passage. The silence lengthened, and when Brennan did not immediately answer him, Billy became somewhat nonplussed, increasingly nervous. Now what, he wondered. Cautiously, the young kitchen porter reached for and turned the handle of the old door. The hinges were rusty, squealed their protest. Just as the door began to swing slowly open, Donnelly's clenched right fist shot through the widening gap, hitting the startled boy hard and square in the face, catapulting him backwards into the passage outside, where Billy hit the back of his head against the corner of the brick wall, the impact immediately knocking him unconscious.
A moment or two later and Donnelly had edged himself carefully through the narrow gap between the partially opened door and its frame. Squatting down on his haunches, with undisguised interest, he surveyed the unconscious form of the young lad now stretched out before him on the stone floor of the passage. Donnelly passed the moist tip of his tongue over his dry lips. Any other time ... But now was not the time. Grabbing the unconscious form of the kitchen porter under the arms, swiftly Donnelly hauled young Billy into a sitting position and then set about dragging the now unconscious lad's body back down the passage and into the nearest empty storeroom. Having laid Billy out on the dirty floor, with one brief backward glance of infinite regret, Donnelly re-emerged into the dimly lit passage. Here he paused, and looked at his wristwatch.
Good God, was that the time already? The explosives should have been wired and laid by now. He would have to work fast. But working quickly with any kind of explosives, especially when they are of suspect quality, let alone already deteriorating, is never to be recommended – as Donnelly should have realised.
And equally, detonators whether or not they are fused, are much more sensitive to handle than gelignite, particularly at the tip which contains the ultra sensitive base charge. Those with which he was working were aluminium, with the fuses already attached, and when lit had a burning speed of ninety seconds a yard, and like any detonator needed to be handled with extreme care.
The incident involving the young kitchen porter had made Donnelly more than unusually nervous about discovery. Sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, someone would come down to find out what had become of the lad. Back in the culvert, hurriedly, Donnelly set about finishing his work. His allotted task was only to provide a diversion so as to facilitate the attack planned on the poless. Therefore, he had no need to use all the explosives in his pack which, given what he had now found to be the state of some of the sticks of gelignite, was just as well. Christ Almighty! Why, if this whole lot went off down here in this confined space, he'd damned well blow himself, the Shelbourne, and everyone else in the vicinity to kingdom come!
Above his head, seemingly very close at hand, while Donnelly continued methodically with his task of impending destruction, he could hear the constant murmur of voices, no doubt belonging to those pedestrians who were walking, strolling at their leisure, along the pavement, blissfully unaware of what was now taking place directly but a short distance beneath them.
Strange to relate, given the fact that what Donnelly was now doing was very well likely, if not inevitably, going to rob some of the unseen owners of those self same voices of their very lives, he found the sound of his fellow human beings to be somehow curiously re-assuring. For most of the time, whether they were male, female, or even those of children, the voices were but faint and indistinct. However, for one brief instant, just as those owning them passed directly over Donnelly's hiding place in the culvert beneath their feet, the voices became clear and distinct, so much so that he could pick out individual words, hear brief snatches of conversation. Then, just as soon as they had become audible, the voices dwindled, faded, rapidly disappeared completely out of the range of Donnelly's hearing, as their owners passed off down the street. And mixed in with the sound of human voices, to his ears there came the constant noise of footsteps, the sound of horses' hooves, the incessant rumble of motor traffic in the street, along with the ringing of bells and the grinding of wheels against steel rails, as yet another tram passed along the road in front of the Shelbourne Hotel.
The culvert itself was arched, narrow, damp, and noisome. Working by the light of a dark lantern was not easy, but it lessened the chance of discovery. A short distance from where Donnelly was working, the culvert had long since collapsed, was now no longer passable; at least by man. Beneath the road, just at the point where the leaking foul sewer of the Shelbourne Hotel crossed through the old culvert, near to where Donnelly was now close to completing his task, the large black rat plopped softly down onto the loose mound of damp, freshly fallen earth. The rat sniffed the foetid air, and then glanced about him. At the far end of the dirt strewn, filthy passageway his pair of bright, lively eyes made out the faintest glimmer of light. On impulse, in the cloying darkness, he scuttled off down the culvert to investigate.
In the dim brightness cast by the dark lantern, at the very same moment that Donnelly reached for the last of the detonators, the large black rat emerged on to the narrow stone ledge. Donnelly saw the rat and froze rigid. Had there been anyone about to have heard him, his terrified yell would have been all too audible. As the detonator fell from Donnelly's momentarily numbed fingers, startled by the yell, the black rat turned tail and fled.
In the dining room of the Shelbourne Hotel, watched by Edith, Sybil passed Tom his second piece of chocolate cake.
"Now do try and eat this without getting yourself into the same mess as you did last time!" laughed Sybil.
"I'll do my best". Tom chuckled. He winked merrily at Edith, who grinned back at him, joining happily in their carefree laughter.
Just beyond the front of the hotel, down below the surface of the road, behind the frightened scurrying rat, Donnelly's dropped detonator hit the stone floor of the culvert. There was a single spark, a flash of intense brilliance, followed but a moment later by a blinding, fearful roar, as in a chain reaction, the same flash set off all of Donnelly's explosives. The resulting explosion blew him to pieces, and in a clamorous, deafening, thunderous roar, tore through the stone arched roof of the culvert, through the gravel surface of the road directly above, a matter of yards from the plate glass windows of the dining room of the Shelbourne Hotel.