Hall, from where he sat beside the fountain in the middle of the driveway.

“Fotherby,” Portland spluttered. “Thank God. When you crashed through that staircase,” he paused to cough further. “I thought you would break your neck.”

Portland had not wasted a second after Fotherby had left to run after his friend, but he did not know the terrain and had become lost trying to find a gap in the thick hedge that he had to get through to reach the house. He had watched, as he ran forward, Fotherby pulling one man from the fire before the surgeon had returned into the blazing inferno. Without considering what he was doing, only that he knew it was right, Portland had run into the house in time to witness the staircase cascade in a shower of burning splinters. Carrying Fotherby...

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