“What happens then?” wondered Tara, not knowing whether the dumbwaiter would grind to a halt instantly.   Only hoping that she would not be stranded midway between the fourth and second floors.

*      *      *

“Crash!   Crash!   Crash!   Crash!” Roderick Voss swings the billiard cue repeatedly against the doors of the dumbwaiter.   Initially from frustration at the missed opportunity to punish the clever bitch for having outsmarted him in a way that none of his numerous other victims have ever done.   But then as the wooden doors of the small elevator begin to splinter beneath the repeated blows of the billiard cue, another hope springs into the mind of Voss:

“If I can smash the lift doors open, it will stop midway between floors.   It wouldn’t go until the recorded message told the little bitch to shut the doors.   So if I smash them open it should stop again,” he thinks.   “Then I can reach into the shaft and pull the lift back up!”

With this thought in mind, he starts to smile, all wasteful anger gone.   Yet he keeps hitting the dumbwaiter with increasingly greater force.   Until he is rewarded for his efforts.

“Yes!” cries Voss in almost sexual delight as one of the small doors shatters in half.   The first half falls into the elevator shaft and crashes down onto the descending dumbwaiter.   The second half hangs onto the hinges for a few seconds.   But two more hard crashes with the billiard cue is enough to make it fall onto the floor in the banqueting hall.

Then, to the joy of Roderick Voss, the cranking of mechanisms grinds to a halt as the small elevator stops.

Two or three sharp whacks with the billiard cue is enough to smash away the second door.   Then Voss peers down into the dumbwaiter shaft.

He grins his broadest shit-eater grin at the sight of the food elevator trapped between floors below him.   He only wishes that there was a glass top, so he could see into the dumbwaiter to see Tara Weston cringing inside.   But he is pleased to hear her sobbing and decides that will have to do.   For now!