“No … check the gallery first.” There was a brief flash of light, and Dunworthy heard a clank of metal and footsteps ascending.

They’re going up Wren’s Geometrical Staircase, he thought, and took advantage of the covering sound of their footsteps to walk quickly along the aisle, his hand on the wall for guidance. Pillar, pillar, iron grille. That was St. Dunstan’s Chapel. The vestibule and the door should be just beyond.

“… find anything?” he heard from somewhere above him. He ducked for cover moments before the pocket torch’s light flared down.

“Here it is!” one of them shouted; it must have been the first one because he said triumphantly, “I told you I heard something. It’s an incendiary. Fetch a stirrup pump.”

Dunworthy heard the second one racket along the gallery overhead. He felt his way quickly to the door, opened it, and slipped out to the porch and the steps.

And into pouring rain. Which explains why it’s so dark, he thought, ducking back under the porch’s roof. It was nearly as dark out here as inside. If he hadn’t known there was a pillared porch and then steps, he couldn’t have found his way down to the courtyard.

He squinted across it. He could only just make out the dark outlines of the buildings opposite. The rain also explained the absence of searchlights and of bombers droning overhead—the Luftwaffe would have had to call off the raids when this started. And it explained there not being any fires. The rain would have put all of them—except for the incendiary that had come through the gallery’s roof—out.

Dunworthy glanced up at the bell tower to see if they were up there and then splashed down the steps. To reach the tube station, he needed to find Paternoster Row and then Newgate.

And watch where he was going, though that was almost impossible to do in this downpour. It beat against him icily, more like sleet than rain. He hunched forward, ducking his head against its onslaught.

At any rate, no one else will be mad enough to be out in this, he thought, pulling the collar of his tweed jacket up tightly round his neck, but he was wrong. There were two figures walking straight toward him. Members of the fire watch? Or civilians on the way home from the tube station? Or an ARP warden who would demand to know what he was doing out on the streets and hustle him off to a surface shelter?

He splashed quickly across the road and down the narrow lane to his left. It was scarcely six feet across, and what little light he’d had to see by was utterly shut out by the buildings on either side. It was as dark as it had been inside the cathedral. He had to return to feeling his way, and it took him forever to reach Paternoster Row.

If it was Paternoster Row. It didn’t look like it. It was no wider than the lane and was lined with ramshackle houses instead of publishers’ offices and book warehouses. It also seemed to have a deeper descent than it should, though that might be a trick of the darkness.