Sentence The Fourhundredandtwentyninth

But too late! Gertie almost automatically put her finger into her mouth and sucked the blood, and then everything happened so quickly: Gertie gave a little shudder and slumped to the side, quickly losing consciousness; “call an ambulance,” cried Isa to Jasmine, sliding Gertie to the floor and beginning CPR, her locked hands pumping up and down on Gertie's chest, while Jasmine, galvanised

into action dialled 999 and gave the operator details of what was needed; Gertie was still unconscious when the paramedics arrived and took over, quickly loading her onto their gurney and wheeling her out to the ambulance parked just outside the front door; Jasmine went with their young cousin as Isa, still in shock at what had happened, cordoned off Aunty Crist's study and waited for the SOCOs to arrive, which was a brief wait – the team was already nearby, waiting for the planned entry into the Cavern which sonar had predicted would be found once the entry point on the shoulder between the two largest hills had been breached – although, after the hurly-burly, time seemed to stretch and she could almost fancy she was seeing the chyron that passes subliminally at the bottom of a tv screen but she couldn't grasp what the meanings were; Isa didn't care that there would now be a delay in the process of entering the Caves, she needed urgent answers to the questions thrown up by the discovery of a hypodermic needle under the chair in which both Gertie and Sir Pantagruel had been sitting so very recently – what had it contained? who had put it there (presumably originally penetrating the chair from below) and was it intended that Pan would have sat on it? and, just as importantly – why? her head reeling with questions, and while she waited for them, Isa sat outside on the doorstep, sipping at a fresh coffee given to her by her ever-benign Aunty Crist, and smoking a less-benign

cigarette while aware of the alliaceous scent of wild garlic drifting from the kitchen garden; Pan must have been the intended victim – but who knew that he was coming? that he would sit there? and anyway, where on earth is he now? and was Gertie's question to Jasmine about the double-chiming clock really so irrelevant? And why had Jasmine referred to it as a MacGuffin?