It was nearly four o'clock when the noise of the engine suddenly ceased. Margaret instinctively felt for Peter's hand. They sat in silence, listening, and presently they heard a door open and a murmur of voices. They could distinguish no voice they knew, nor could they catch what was said. Footsteps sounded retreating in the distance, and when these had died away they heard a key grate in a lock. Someone had remained behind, and there could be little doubt who that someone was.
Peter gently pulled Margaret to her feet, and led her to the wall alongside the door, so that she should be out of range of a shot fired through the grille. He placed himself as near to the door as he dared, determined to make a fight for it if the Monk came into the room.
But no one came. They heard the padding footstep which Margaret had described, and it died away as the others had done.
After the noise of the machine the silence that now hung over the tomb-like placee was so profound that Margaret felt that she knew at last what was meant by "hearing a silence." Nothing broke it, and she realised with a feeling of panic how completely buried alive they were. She felt she dared not speak, but presently Peter turned and said; "Gone. We'd better wait a bit before we get to work."
She nodded. The palms of her hands felt cold and sticky. She had an awful fear that the Monk might be still there, listening to them, waiting.
The minutes crept by. Peter whispered: "I'm going to give him half an hour's grace, just in case he hasn't gone. We've got loads of time. Let's sit down again. But if I say "move" get back to this wall again. See?"
"Yes," she replied. "We'd - we'd better go on talking, hadn't we?"
"That's the idea. Let's play I love my love with an A, as we used to when we were kids."
This programme was faithfully carried out, and since neither of them seemed to be able to think of drinks beginning with D, or attributes beginning with Q it took them more than half an hour to struggle through the alphabet. When they had at last come to the end, Peter got up. "I think it's safe enough now," he said. "If he were coming to do us in he wouldn't wait all this time. You sit still. I'm going to try and move that shutter."
For perhaps twenty minutes he tried by every means lie could think of to force it open, but it was of no avail. He banged on the door, to test the thickness of the wood. It sounded very solid, but he could at least try to break through. He picked up one of the chairs, and drove it with all his might against the door until one of its legs broke, and he was forced to pause for a while to get his breath. He sat down on the table, wiping the sweat from his face. "Well - I'm warm enough now, anyway," he said, trying to coax a smile into Margaret's wan countenance.