“Screeech!   Screeech!   Screeech!” came the sound from above her and Tara looked up in amazement as she realised what it was.

“Oh no!   He’s cutting the overhead cable!” she said at a whisper.   Then crouching down to get her mouth as close to the floor of the elevator as possible, Tara called to Richie, “He’s cutting the cable!   That man is cutting the overhead cable!”

*      *      *

Straining until his eyes were almost bugging out of his head, Richie Travers heard the screeching protests of the elevator and hoped it meant that he was succeeding.   He had managed to pull the dumbwaiter down a few centimetres.   But there was still a long way to go.

Then her heard the other sound.   A much louder screeching of metal, followed by Tara’s voice calling to him, “He’s cutting the cable!   That man is cutting the overhead cable!”

“Oh God!” said Richie.   He knew that he could never pull the elevator down faster than the maniac could cut the cable to send it plummeting down to the subbasement.

He frantically looked about the wracks of knives and kitchen utensils for something, anything to help him.   Realising he had no time for finesse, Richie raced across to grab a large meat cleaver and the largest wooden meat tenderiser he could see.

“Hold on, honey, I’m coming,” Richie called up to Tara Weston.   Then he placed the metal cleaver against the base of the dumbwaiter.   Then, using the meat tenderiser as a hammer, he began to hammer against the cleaver like a manic carpenter, in a bid to cut the base out of the dumbwaiter before the madman on the fourth floor could cut the overhead cable.

*      *      *

Above the dumbwaiter Roderick Voss stops, looking puzzled.   He can hear the hammering from below and wonders, “What the hell can it be?   Perhaps the little bitch is trying to kick the bottom out of the elevator?”

He realises that she has stopped crying, as though her courage has found its second wind.   And once more he thinks, “Will you be my Waterloo, young Tara Weston?”