At the top was a door into the attics, and it was that door, that terrible out-of-bounds door, which now I and James Henry Hayward and, though fainter, Alice Higgs fled, slipping and sliding on those ancient steps worn by so much foot treading over the centuries, making it dipped and cupped and smoothed out and treacherous at even the slowest pace. On I scrambled, on and up, on and round, to the deafening roar of Robert Burrington, closer and louder, but there was the door at last, arched and ancient, a turn of the screw above me, and on I went, slipping, on hands and knees now, as that Robert and that Burrington bellowed so much, and there was the door, I touched it now, and there, just one turn below, was the bellowing of Robert Burrington, and a heave, and a Robert, and another heave, and a Burrington, and at last the door gave way and I was out of that horrible stone throat and into a different peril.

The Attics of Heap House

The attics of Heap House were never to be visited, for in those rotting chambers lived bats. Tens of thousands of them, they bit at living things with great determination and could cause monstrous infections. There were at least seven cases in my lifetime of an Iremonger succumbing to rabies after bat bites. Unto these regions, with something shrieking Robert Burrington behind me, did I come, in my terror beyond the door of the bell tower ignoring the moulding sign that said TRESPASSERS WILL NOT BE.

I slammed the door behind me. Into the thick, stinking, damp darkness I sank. Above me there was rustling. I mustn’t wake them, I must be very quiet. I shifted onwards as carefully as I might, sliding once and feeling a thick dampness and muddiness along my arm, but on I went, in desperation through the dung field to try and find myself some sort of hiding place.

There was a great mound, slightly luminescent, which was especially tall and funnel-shaped, and there I crouched and waited. I could not hear Robert Burrington yet. The attic door remained closed and dark. Perhaps the holder of Robert Burrington shan’t come, I thought, perhaps he knew all about the attics and was thinking twice about it, and was sensible and wanted no part of it, yes, perhaps he was not so foolish as to try the unstable upper storeys. Only then, as I considered this, there was a certain small creaking and with that creaking came a sound, and whoever he was that carried Robert Burrington stood in the doorway. I could just make out a shape, of a man, a long tall man with a black topper, taller and thinner than any man I had ever seen before, eight foot tall perhaps, and so little width about him. I waited behind the mound. What shall he do?

‘Robert Burrington?’