A Favourite Scene In the Prisoner

   When Mister X arrives in a deserted village of Witchwood {Wychwood}, used by the Girl Who Was Death as a killing ground, he’s quickly put through the butchers and the bakers! First having been faced by gunfire from a Bren gun on a fixed mounting, which he disassembles. He takes the gun into the bakers, retaliating against the baker sat in a corner of the room {a flour sack and balloon dressed in a coat and white hat} after which he falls through a trapdoor to an almost certain death by electrified steel spikes, but doesn’t quite get the point! But that’s not all, the floor is heavily mined, with miniature mines, by which he is almost blown up when they explode. He would have been had it not been for the “hot-line,” a hot water pipe. And here he is, in the Candlestick makers. Only the candlestick maker never made candles like these! Well that would be right, candlestick makers do not make candles, only the candle holders. These candles are an invention of The Girl’s, they have a cyanide derivative mixed with the wax. As the wick burns and the wax melts it gives off cyanide gas, every candle in the room is breathing poison into the air. It’s a bit draughty in the Candlestick makers, so a steel shutter drops cutting off Mr. X’s retreat. Then further shutters drop down over the door and windows, effectively keeping out the draughts and the air as well. So Mr. X finds himself trapped in what has effectively become a gas chamber, from which there is no apparent escape!
   The man looks doomed, and would have been if not for some very quick thinking on his part, but which may on the face of it, look to be irrational behaviour, at least that’s how the Girl describes it. But there is method in Mr. X’s madness. Having discovered that the candles explode if snuffed out, a sudden and daring plan comes to his mind. He takes a number of different sized candelabra with their burning candles, and places then in front of the steel shuttered door. Then taking a pair of bellows from the fireplace, and positioning himself behind the shop counter, and pointing the bellows at the burning candles, with one puff of wind from the bellows, snuffs out all the candles setting off a large explosion which blows out the steel shutter, allowing Mr. X to escape. To escape out into the street and into heavy gunfire from a Maxim heavy machine gun!

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