Mrs Gillyflower ploughed on. ‘Who so beset him round with dismal stories,’ she warbled. ‘Do but themselves confound, his strength the more is!’ Her taloned fingers clacked at the ivory keys, building to a wheezing climax: ‘Then fancies flee away, I’ll fear not what men say, I’ll labour night and day … ’

Chitter, chitter, chitter.

Mrs Gillyflower’s hands paused over the keys.

Chitter, chitter, chitter.

A ream of thin ticker tape began to spill from the organ’s wooden innards.

She grabbed at the paper and held it close to her face, eyes beading under furrowed brows. There was a problem. A problem in the factory. A problem that needed … eliminating. With a sniff, Mrs Gillyflower rose from the stool, smoothed down her beaded black dress and swept from the room.

Mrs Gillyflower was redoubtable, oh yes indeed. A dreadnought. Implacable, determined, brilliant – and quite, quite mad …

*

Elsewhere in Sweetville, the top floor of the manufactory itself was a strange and frightening place. A place of clanking, shrieking industry – or the sound of it at least. The corridor was bathed in a strange and sickly red glow and here stood a handsome young couple. The woman was Effie – an innocent bound up in this hellish saga – the man Edmund Thursday.

‘Oh please, Edmund, please! By all that’s holy!’ Effie wrung her hands, as affecting as a Holman Hunt composition. ‘Do not leave me in this fearful place!’

Edmund closed his hands over hers. ‘You know what I saw, Effie. Now, if I have not returned in an hour, you must fetch the police. God only knows what has become of our friends.’

‘And the ’Grims? What if they try to prevent me? Edmund –’

She kissed him fiercely. Theirs was a passion forged in the flame of adversity. They had met whilst working for the Yorkshire Clarion: she an ambitious ‘New Woman’ with her sights set on a journalistic career; he a brave and noble soul, determined to find what lay at the heart of Sweetville!

Edmund pulled away, attempting a smile of reassurance. ‘Don’t fret, Effie, my dear. All will be well. But we must get to the bottom of this dark and queer business, no matter what the cost.’

Without another word, he strode off towards the far door. Inset in it was a glass portal, like one you might find on a passenger ship. Through it washed the same, vivid, unnatural red glow. Edmund paused on the threshold, turned back towards Effie – and winked.

Then he was gone through the door. There was a brief rise in the shriek and clamour of machinery – then Effie was alone.

But not for long.

She felt a tremor beneath her boots and then, from deep below, the clank and shudder of a lift. Effie looked round, left and right. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere save through the door where Edmund has lately passed. She was trapped!