Late Check-Out: No Light May ShowThree hours until the aircraft leaves

Major Reeve says he believes you, and that belief is not enough: London will cancel on the operation's stop-word and nothing else, and the word is in the operations book in the cellar. It is nearly nine, when the set will speak.

Hour Three: no light may show

A dark manor passage in the blackout: a bare skylight overhead, closed doors down either side, tall windows grey with night and nothing over them, and a torch propped by a doorway throwing one thin beam across the dark. Nobody there.

At nine the set in the cellar speaks, and the operator on duty takes it down in pencil with her lip between her teeth. It is Linnet's call sign and Linnet's fist, fluent and quick, confirming the field for midnight. It ends with a line that is not in any procedure:

WHO ELSE IS IN THE
HOUSE

Nobody in the cellar says anything. Edmund, at the foot of the cellar stair with the operations book under his arm, looks at you.

The warden came by at eight and chalked his list on the slate inside the back door, as he does every night:

LIBRARY   frame out
PASSAGE   skylight bare
SCULLERY  pane broken
FRONT     warden on step
BACK DOOR warden in yard

Here is the ground floor as the school's fire plan draws it, three rows of four, with the cellar stair at the bottom left and the hall top centre:

Library Hall    Dining  Front
Still   Passage Kitchen Scull.
Cellar  Boot    Larder  Back

Take the book from the cellar stair to the hall without showing a light.

The school's fire plan of the ground floor. Start on the cellar stair; end in the hall.

The way so far: Cellar stair

To the telephone, and the operations book.