To fall without warning, even by the height of a single step, is disturbing. To fall, as he did, now, by his height and the length of his arms into cold, stinking water is monstrous, nightmarish, like a small death. For a moment he only knew that he had been physically insulted. He stared into the shaft of light with its madly jerking molecules, felt wood slip under his gloved fingers and tightened his grip. At the same time he was disgustingly invaded, saturated up to the collarbone in icy stagnant water. He hung at arm’s length.

“Oh God!” Peregrine thought. “Why aren’t I a bloody Bond? Why can’t I make my bloody arms hitch me up? Oh God, don’t let me drown in this unspeakable muck. Oh God, let me keep my head.”

Well, of course, he thought, his hands and arms didn’t have to support his entire weight. Eleven stone. He was buoyed up by whatever he had fallen into. What? A dressing-room turned into a well for surface water? Better not speculate. Better explore. He moved his legs and dreadful ambiguous waves lapped up to his chin. He could find nothing firm with his feet. He thought: “How long can I hang on like this?” And a line of words floated in: “How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?”

What should he do? Perhaps a frog-like upward thing? Try it and at least gain a better finger hold? He tried it: he kicked at the water, pulled and clawed at the stage. For a moment he thought he had gained, but his palms slid back, scraping on the edge and sucking back his soaked gloves. He was again suspended. The clerk? If he could hang on, would the clerk send someone to find out why he hadn’t returned the keys? When? When? Why in God’s name had he shaken off the man with the oil can from Phipps Bros.? Jobbins. Suppose he were to yell? Was there indeed a broken window where tramps crept in? He took a deep breath and, being thus inflated, rose a little in the water. He yelled.