The dining-room of Molloy’s flat had not been built to receive twenty-five guests, but the Delegates of twenty-five affiliated Organisations had been crowded into it. The unshaded electric light glared down upon men of many types and nationalities. It did not flatter them.
The air was heavy with the smoke of bad tobacco and the fumes of a very indifferent gas fire. There was a table in the middle of the room, and some dozen of the men were seated at it. The rest stood in groups, or leaned against the walls.
Of the four who formed the Inner Council three were present. Most of the Delegates had expected that the head of The Council, the head of the Federated Organisations, that mysterious Number One whom they all knew by reputation and yet had never seen in the flesh, would be present in person to take the chair. But the Delegates who had entertained this expectation were doomed to disappointment. Once again Number One’s authority had been delegated to the other three members of The Council. Of these, Number Three was Molloy, the big, handsome Irishman who rented the flat. He sat facing the door, a fine figure of a man in the late forties. Number Two leaned forward over the fire, warming his hands, his pale, intellectual face expressionless, his eyes veiled. Belcovitch, who was Number Four, was on his feet speaking. They were large, bony feet, in boots which had most noticeably not been made for him. He spoke fluently, but with a heavy foreign accent.
“Propaganda,” he said, and laughed; really he had a very unpleasant laugh—“propaganda is what you call rot, rubbish, damn nonsense. What else have we been about for years—no, generations—and where are we to-day?”
Number Two drew his chair closer to the fire with an impatient jerk. Number Four’s oratory bored him stiff. The room was cold. This gas fire was like all gas fires. He pulled his fur coat together and spoke sharply:
“Molloy, this room’s most infernally cold, and where in the world does the draught come from?”
“Propaganda is dead,” said Number Four. He looked over his shoulder with dislike at Number Two, and mopped his brow with a dirty handkerchief. Molloy, just opposite him, turned a little and laughed.
“You bring the cold with you, Number Two,” he said. “Here’s Number Four as hot as his own speeches. You’ve got all the fire, and the door’s shut, and a screen in front of it, so what more do you want?”
“Propaganda is dead,” repeated Number Four. He stood with his back to the door. Only the top panel of it showed above the black screen which had been drawn across it. The screen had four leaves. On each leaf a golden stork on one leg contemplated a golden water-lily. The light shone on the golden birds and the golden flowers.
Number Four thrust his handkerchief back into his pocket, and rapped sharply on the table. It was covered with a red cloth which had seen better days. Number Fourteen had upset the ink only a few moments before, and a greenish-purple patch was still spreading amidst the crimson.
Belcovitch leaned forward, both his hands on the table, his raucous voice brought to a dead level. “Instead of propaganda, what?” he said. “Instead of building here, teaching there, what? That is what I’m here to-night to tell you. To-morrow you all go to your own places, each to his post; but before you go, I am authorised to prepare you for what is to come. It will not be to-day, but it may be to-morrow, or it may not be for many to-morrows yet. One final stage is lacking, but in essentials The Process is complete. Propaganda is dead, because we no longer need propaganda. Comrades”—his voice sank a little—“there are enough of us. Every city in the world has its quota. What The Process will effect”—he paused, looked round, caught Number Two’s slightly sardonic expression, and struck the table with his open hand—“what The Process will effect is this,” he cried—“in one word, Annihilation of the whole human race! Only our organisation will be left.”
“Now what I am instructed to tell you is this,”—he spoke evenly, swiftly, statement following statement—never had the attention of an audience been so fully his; and then suddenly the thread was broken. With a loud grating sound, Number Fifteen, sitting next to Molloy, pushed his chair back, and sprang to his feet.
“The door!” he shouted. “The door!” Every man in the room looked where Fifteen was looking. Above the water-lilies and the storks, where the top panel of the door had shown, there was a dark, empty space. The door was open.
Number Four whipped out a revolver and dragged the screen away. The door was open, and in the doorway stood a girl in her nightdress. Her hands were stretched out, as if she were feeling her way. Her eyes, of a greenish hazel in colour, were widely opened, and had a dazed expression. Her brown hair hung in two neat plaits. Her feet were bare. Molloy pushed forward quickly.
“Well, there, if that wasn’t the start of our lives,” he said, “and no reason for it when all’s said and done. It’s my daughter, Renata, comrades, and she’s walking in her sleep. Now I’ll just take her back to her room and be with you again.”
“A minute, I think, Molloy,” said Number Two. He got up slowly out of his chair, and came across to where the girl stood motionless, blinking at the light. “I said there was a most infernal draught. Will you come in, Miss Molloy?” he added politely, and took the girl by the hand. She yielded to his touch, and came into the room, shivering a little. Some one shut the door. Molloy, shrugging his shoulders, pulled the crimson cloth from the table and wrapped it about his daughter. The ink-soaked patch came upon her bare shoulder, and she cried out, cast a wild look at the strange and terrifying faces about her, and burst into a flood of tears.
5
Molloy, standing behind her, looked around as she had looked, and his face darkened. Number Four had his back against the door, and his revolver in his hand. There was only one face in the whole circle that was not stamped with suspicion and fear, and behind the fear and the suspicion there was something icy, something ruthless. Number Two, with a slightly bored expression, was feeling in his waistcoat pocket. He produced a small glass bottle, extracted from it a tiny pellet, and proceeded to dissolve it in the glass of water which had stood neglected at Number Four’s right hand.
“Now, Miss Molloy,” he said, but Molloy caught him by the wrist.
“What the devil——” he stammered, and Number Two laughed.
“My dear Molloy,” he said, “how crude! You might know me better than that.”
He held the glass to Renata’s lips, and she took it and drank. When she had set down the glass, she felt her way to a chair and leaned back with closed eyes. The room seemed to whirl about her. A confusion of sound was in her ears, loud, angry, with sentences that came and went. “If she heard,”—then another—“How long was she there? Some one must have seen the door open.”
“Who did, then?” Then in the harshest voice of all, “I don’t care if she’s Molloy’s daughter fifty times over, if she heard what Four said about The Process, she must go.” Go where?
6
There was something cold and wet touching her shoulder. The cold seemed to spread all over her. Now her father was speaking. She had never heard his voice quite like that before. And now the man in the fur coat, the one who had given her the glass of water:
“Yes, certainly, elimination if it is necessary. We’re all agreed about that. But let us make sure.” His voice had quite a gentle sound, but Renata’s heart began to beat with great thuds.
“Miss Molloy,”—he was speaking to her now, and she opened her eyes and looked at him. His face was of a clear, even pallor. His eyes, light blue and without noticeable lashes, looked straight into hers. The veil was gone from them. They held a terrifying intelligence.
Renata sat up. The crowd of men had cleared away. She, and her father, and the man in the fur coat were in an angle formed by the table and the black screen, which had been drawn close around them. Her father sat between her and the fire. His head was turned away, and he drummed incessantly on the table with the fingers of his right hand. Beyond the screen Renata could hear movements, and it came to her that the other men were there, waiting. The man in the fur coat spoke to her again. His voice was pleasant and cultivated, his manner reassuring.
“You are better now? Please don’t be frightened. I am a doctor; your father will tell you that. Being wakened suddenly like that gave you a shock, but you are better now.”
“Yes,” said Renata. She wished that her heart would stop beating so hard, and she wished that the man in the fur coat would stop looking at her.
7
“Now, Miss Renata, I am your doctor, you know, and I want you to answer just a few questions. You have walked in your sleep before?”
“Yes,” said Renata—“oh yes.”
“Often?”
“Yes.”
“What was the first time?”
“I think—I think I was five years old. They found me in the garden.”
Molloy let out a great breath of relief. If she had forgotten, if her account had differed from his—well, well, their luck was in.
There was a whispering from behind the screen. Number Two frowned.
“And the last time?”
“It was at school. I walked into another dormitory and frightened the girls.”
The man in the fur coat nodded. “So your father said.” And for a moment Molloy stared over his shoulder at him. “And to-night? Do you dream on these occasions?”
Renata was reassured. Every moment it was more like an ordinary visit to a doctor. She had been asked all these questions so often. Her voice no longer trembled as she answered. “Yes, I dream. I walk in my sleep because of the dream; now to-night....”
“Yes, to-night?”
“I dreamt I was back at school, and I thought I heard talking in the next dormitory. You know we are not allowed to talk, and I am—I mean I was a prefect. So I got up, and went to see what was the matter, and some one pulled the screen away, and there was such a light, and such a noise.” She put out a shaking hand, and Number Two patted it kindly.
8
“Very startling for you,” he said. “So you opened the door and came in and heard us all talking. Can you tell me what was being said?” His hand was on Renata’s wrist, and he felt the pulses leap. She spoke a shade too quickly:
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps I can help you. Your father, you know, travels for a firm of chemists, a firm in which I and my friends are also interested. We were discussing a new aniline dye which, we hope, will capture the markets of the world. Now did you hear that word—aniline—or anything like it? You see I want to find out just what woke you. What tiresome questions we doctors ask, don’t we?”
He smiled, and Renata tried to collect her thoughts. They were in great confusion.
Aniline—annihilate—the two words kept coming and going. If her head had been clearer she would almost certainly have fallen into the trap which had been laid for her. Molloy stopped drumming on the table and clenched his hand. With all his strength he was praying to the saints in whom he no longer believed. Behind the screen twenty-three men waited in a dead silence. Renata was not frightened any more, but she was tired—oh, so dreadfully tired. Annihilate—aniline—the words and their similarity of sound teased her. She turned from them with a little burst of petulance.
“I didn’t hear anything like that. Oh, do let me go to bed! I only heard some one call out....”
“Yes?” said Number Two.
“He said, ‘The door, the door!’ and then there were all those lights.”
Jane Smith sat on a bench in Kensington Gardens. Her entire worldly fortune lay in her lap. It consisted of two shillings and eleven pence. She had already counted the pennies four times, because there really should have been three shillings. She was now engaged in making a list in parallel columns of (a) those persons from whom she might seek financial assistance, and (b) the excellent reasons which prevented her from approaching them.
Jane had a passion for making lists. Years and years and years ago Mr. Carruthers had said to her, “My dear, you must learn to be businesslike. I have never been businesslike myself, and it has always been a great trouble to me.” And then and there he and Jane had, in collaboration, embarked upon the First List. It was a thrilling list, a list of toys for Jane’s very first Christmas tree. Since then she had made lists of her books, lists of her clothes, shopping lists, and an annual list of good resolutions.
Jane stopped writing, and began to think about all those other lists. She had always showed them to Mr. Carruthers, and he had always gazed at them with the same vague benignness, and said how businesslike she was getting.
Dear Cousin James—Jane was rich instead of poor when she thought about him. She looked across at the trees in their new mist of green, and then suddenly the thin April sunshine dazzled in her eyes and the green swam into a blur. Cousin James was gone, and Jane was alone in Kensington Gardens with two-and-elevenpence and a list.
She opened and shut her eyes very quickly once or twice, and fixed her attention upon (a) and (b) in their parallel columns. At the top of the list Jane had written “Cousin Louisa,” and the reason against asking Cousin Louisa’s assistance was set down as, “Because she was a perfect beast to my darling Jimmy, and a worse beast to me, and anyhow, she wouldn’t.”
In moments of irreverence the late Mr. Carruthers—the Mr. Carruthers, author of five monumental volumes on Ethnographical Differentiation—had been addressed by his young ward and cousin as “darling Jimmy.”
Professor Philpot came next. “A darling, but he is sitting somewhere in Central Africa in a cage learning to talk gorilla. I do hope they haven’t eaten him, or whatever they do do to people when they catch them.”
It will be observed that Miss Smith’s association with the world of science had not succeeded in chastening her grammar.
Jane’s pencil travelled down the list.
“Mr. Bruce Murray. In Thibet studying Llamas.”
“Henry”—Jane shook her head and solemnly put two thick black lines through Henry’s name. One cannot ask for financial assistance from a young man whose hand one has refused in marriage—“even if it was three years ago, and he’s probably been in love with at least fifteen girls since then.”
“Henry’s mamma—well, the only time she ever loved me in her life was when I refused Henry, so I should think she was an Absolute Wash Out—and that’s the lot.”
Jane folded up the list and put it into her handbag. Two silver shillings and eleven copper pennies, and then the workhouse!
It was at this moment that a stout lady with a ginger-coloured pug sat heavily down upon the far end of Jane’s bench. The ginger-coloured pug was on a scarlet leather lead, and after seating herself the stout lady bent forward creaking, and lifted him to a place beside her.
Jane wondered vaguely why a red face and a tightly curled fringe should go with a passion for bugled bonnets and pugs.
“Was ’ums hungry?” said the stout lady.
The pug breathed stertorously, after the manner of pugs, and his mistress at once produced two paper bags from a beaded reticule. From one of them she took a macaroon, and from the other a sponge finger. The pug chose the macaroon.
“Precious,” cooed the stout lady, and all at once Jane felt entirely capable of theft and murder—theft from the stout lady, and murder upon the person of the ginger pug. For at the sight of food she realised how very, very hungry she was. Bread and margarine for breakfast six hours before, and the April air was keen, and Jane was young.
The pug spat out the last mouthful of macaroon, ignored the sponge finger, and snorted loudly.
“Oh, naughty, naughty,” said the stout lady. She half turned towards Jane.
“You really wouldn’t believe how clever he is,” she observed conversationally; “it’s a cream bun he’s asking for as plain as plain, and yesterday when I bought them for him, he teased and teased until I went back for macaroons; though, of course, a nice plain sponge finger is really better for him than either. I don’t need the vet. to tell me that. Come along, a naughty, tiresome precious then.” She lifted the pug down from the seat, put the paper bags tidily back into her reticule, rose ponderously to her feet, and walked away, trailing the scarlet lead and cooing to the ginger pug.
Jane watched her go.
“Why don’t I laugh?” she said. “Why doesn’t she amuse me? One needn’t lose one’s sense of humour even if one is down and out.”
It was at this unpropitious moment that the tall young man who had sat down unseen upon Jane’s other side, laid his hand upon hers and observed in stirring accents:
“Darling.”
Jane whisked round in an icy temper. Her greenish-hazel eyes looked through the young man in the direction of the north pole. He ought to have stiffened to an icicle then and there, instead of which he murmured, “Darling,” again, and then added—“but what’s the matter?” Jane stopped looking at him or through him. He had simply ceased to exist. She picked up her two shillings and her eleven pence, put them into her purse, and consigned her purse to her handbag. She then closed the handbag with a snap, and rose to her feet.
“Renata!” exclaimed the young man in tones of consternation.
Jane paused and allowed herself to observe him for the first time. She saw a young man with an intellectual forehead and studious brown eyes. He appeared to be hurt and surprised. She decided that this was not a would-be Lothario.
“I think you have made a mistake,” she said, and was about to pass on.
“But, Renata, Renata, darling!” stammered the young man even more desperately. Jane assumed what Cousin Louisa had once described as “that absurdly grand manner.” It was quite kind, but it induced the young man to believe that Jane was conversing with him from about the distance of the planet Saturn.
“I think,” she said, “that you must be taking me for my cousin, Renata Molloy.”
“But I’m engaged to her—no, I mean to you—oh, hang it all, Renata, what’s the sense of a silly joke like this?”
Jane looked at him keenly. “What is my cousin’s middle name?” she inquired.
“Jane. I hate it.”
“Thank you,” said Jane. “My name is Jane Renata Smith, and I am Renata Jane Molloy’s first cousin. Our mothers were twin sisters, and I have always understood that we were very much alike.”
“Alike!” gasped the young man. Words seemed to fail him.
Jane bowed slightly and began to walk away, but, before she had gone a dozen paces, he was beside her again.
“If you’re really Renata’s cousin, I want to talk to you—I must talk to you. Will you let me?”
Jane walked as far as the next seat, and sat down with resignation.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Todhunter—Arnold Todhunter.” He seemed a trifle breathless. “My sister Daphne was at school with Renata, and she came to stay with us once in the holidays. I said we were engaged, didn’t I? Only, nobody knows it. You won’t tell Mr. Molloy, will you?”
“I’ve never spoken to Mr. Molloy in my life,” said Jane. “There was a most awful row when my aunt married him, and none of us have ever met each other since. My aunt died years and years ago. I think Mr. Molloy is an Anarchist of some sort, isn’t he?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Mr. Todhunter, with violence. He banged the back of the iron seat with his hand. Jane reflected that he must be very much in love if he failed to notice how hard it was.
“Yes, yes, he is,” repeated Mr. Todhunter, “and worse; and Renata is in the most dreadful position. I must talk to somebody, or I shall go mad.”
“Well, you can talk to me,” said Jane soothingly. “I have always wanted to meet Renata, and I should love to hear all about her.”
Mr. Todhunter hesitated.
“Miss Smith—you did say Smith, didn’t you?—it’s so difficult to begin. You’ll probably think I’m mad, or trying it on, but it’s like this: I’ve just qualified as an engineer, and I’ve got a job in South America. Naturally I wanted to see Mr. Molloy. Renata wouldn’t let me. She hardly knows her father, and she’s most awfully scared of him. We used to meet in the Park. Then one day she didn’t come. She went on not coming, and I nearly went mad. At last I went to Molloy’s flat and asked to see her. They said she had left town, but it was a lie. Just before the door shut, I heard her voice.” Mr. Todhunter paused. “Look here, you won’t give any of this away, will you? You know, it’s awfully confusing for me, your being so like Renata. It makes my head go round.”
“Go on,” said Jane.
“Well, the bit I don’t want you to tell any one is this—I mean to say, it’s confidential, absolutely confidential: when I was at the Engineering School, I knew a chap who had got mixed up with Molloy’s lot. He didn’t get deep in, you’ll understand. They scared him, and he backed out. Well, I remembered a yarn he had told me. He was in Molloy’s flat one night, and it was raided. And I remembered that he said a lot of them got away down the fire-escape into a yard, and then out through some mews at the back. Well, I went and nosed about until I found that fire-escape, and I got up it, and I found Renata’s room and talked to her through the window. It’s not so dangerous as it sounds, because they lock her in the flat at night, and go out. And she’s in a frightful position—oh, Miss Smith, you simply have no idea of what a frightful position she’s in!”
“I might have, if you would tell me what it is,” said Jane dryly. She found Mr. Todhunter diffuse.
“Well, she’s a prisoner, to start with. They keep her locked in her room.”
“Who’s they?” interrupted Jane.
Mr. Todhunter rumpled his hair. “She doesn’t even know their names,” he said distractedly. His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s the most appalling criminal organisation, Miss Smith. Molloy’s one of them, but they won’t even let Molloy see her alone now. You see, they think she overheard something. They don’t know whether she did or not. If they were sure that she did, they would kill her.”
“Well, did she?” said Jane.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Todhunter gloomily. “She cried such a lot, and we were both rather confused, and she’s most awfully frightened, you know.” He glared at Jane as if she had something to do with Renata being frightened. “If I’m to take up this job of mine, I have to sail in three days’ time. I want her to marry me and come too; but she says that, if she runs away, they’ll make sure she heard something, and, if it’s the farthest ends of the earth, they’ll find her and kill her. It seems Molloy told her that. And if she stays here and they bully her again, she doesn’t know what she may give away. It’s a frightful position, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you go to the police?” said Jane.
“I thought of that, but they’d laugh at me. I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t know anything. Molloy would only say that Renata was under age, and that he had locked her in to prevent her running away with me. Then they’d kill her.”
“I see,” said Jane. Then—“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
All the time that Mr. Todhunter had been glooming and groaning, running his fingers through his hair and depicting Renata’s appalling position, the Great Idea had been slowly forming itself in his mind. Every time that he looked at Jane, her likeness to Renata made him feel quite giddy. The Great Idea intoxicated him. He began to decant it.
“Miss Smith, if you would—you see, if we could only get a clear start—what I mean to say is, South America’s a long way off——”
“Quite a distance,” Jane agreed.
“And if they thought that you were Renata, they wouldn’t look for her—and once we were clear away——”
“My dear Mr. Todhunter!” said Jane.
“I could take you up the fire-escape,” said Mr. Todhunter, in low, thrilling accents. “It would be quite easy. They would never know that Renata was not there. You do see what I mean, don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” said Jane in rather an odd voice. “You’ve made it beautifully clear. Renata is in a position of deadly peril—I think that’s what you called it—and the simple way out is for Renata to elope with you to South America, and for me to be in the position of deadly peril instead. It’s a beautiful plan.”
“Then you’ll do it?” exclaimed the oblivious Mr. Todhunter.
Jane looked away. Immediately in front of her was a strip of gravelled path. Beyond that there was green grass, and a bed of pale blue hyacinths, and budding daffodils. Two-and-elevenpence, and then the workhouse—the ascent of a fire-escape in the April darkness, and at the top of the fire-escape a position of deadly peril.
“Of course,” said Jane, speaking to herself in her own mind. “I might try to be a housemaid, but one has to have a character, and I don’t believe Cousin Louisa would give me one.”
She turned back to the chafing Mr. Todhunter.
“Let’s talk,” she said briefly.
Jane took down the telephone directory, opened it, and began to run her finger along the column of “M’s.” As she did so, she wondered why the light in public call offices is so arranged as to strike the top of the occupant’s head, and never by any chance to illumine the directory.
“Marbot”—“Marbottle”—“March, The Rev. Aloysius”—“March, George William Adolphus”—“March, Mrs. de Luttrelle.”
Jane made a mark opposite the number.
When Rosa Mortimer married Henry Luttrell March, she thought, and often said, how much nicer the Luttrell would look if it were written de Luttrelle. If her husband had died six months earlier than he actually did, the name in this improved form would most certainly have been inflicted upon an infant Henry. As it was, the child was baptized and registered as Henry Luttrell, and ten years later took up the struggle over the name where his father had left it. Eventually, a compromise was effected, Mrs. March flaunting her de Luttrelle, and Henry tending to suppress his Luttrell under an initial. His mother never ceased to bemoan his stubbornness.
“Any one would think that Henry was not proud of his family, and he may say what he likes, but there were de Luttrelles for hundreds of years before any one ever heard of a Luttrell. And Luttrell Marches is bound to come to him, or practically bound to, because, whatever Henry may say, I am quite sure that Tony will never turn up again.”
The very sound of the aggrieved voice was in Jane’s ears as she unhung the receiver and gave the number. She supposed that Henry still lived with his mother, and that Mrs. March would still keep an indignant bridge table waiting whilst she discoursed upon Henry—his faults, his foibles, his ailments, and his prospects of inheriting Luttrell Marches.
At that moment Henry, appropriately enough, was gazing at a photograph of Jane. It must not be imagined that this was a habit of his. Three years ago was three years ago, and Jane had receded into the distance with a great many other pleasant things. But to-night he had been looking through some old snapshots, and all of a sudden there was that three-years-old Cornish holiday, and Jane. Henry sat frowning at the photograph.
Jane—why was one fond of Jane? He wondered where she was. It was only last week that some one had mentioned old Carruthers, and had seemed surprised that Henry did not know how long he had been dead.
The telephone bell rang, and Henry jumped up with relief.
“Hullo!” said a voice—and “Hullo!” said Henry.
“Is that Captain March?”
“Speaking,” said Henry.
“It’s Jane Smith,” said the voice, and Henry very nearly dropped the receiver. There was a pause, and then Jane said:
“I want to come and see you on business. Can you spare the time?”
“Er—my mother’s out,” said Henry, and he heard her say, “Thank goodness,” with much sincerity. The next moment she was apologising.
“Oh, I say, Henry, that sounded awfully rude, but I really do want to see you about something very important. No, you can’t come and see me. I’m one of the great unemployed, and I’m not living anywhere at present. No, I won’t meet you at a restaurant either. Just tell me your nearest Tube Station, and I’ll come along. All right then; I won’t be more than ten minutes.”
Henry turned away, feeling a little dazed. Being a methodical young man, he proceeded to put away the photographs with which the table was littered. A little snapshot of Jane he kept to the last, and ended by not putting it away at all. After he had looked at it for some time, he put it on the mantelpiece behind the clock. The hands pointed to nine o’clock precisely. Then he looked at himself in the glass that was over the mantel, and straightened his tie.
Henry’s mother naturally considered him the most beautiful of created beings. Without going quite as far as this, Henry certainly approved of his own looks. Having approved of himself, he proceeded to move the clock back half an inch, and to alter the position of the twisted candlesticks on either side of it. Then he poked the fire. Then he began to walk up and down the room. And then the bell rang.
Henry went out into the hall and opened the door of the flat, and there on the threshold stood Jane in a shabby blue serge coat and skirt, with an old black felt hat. Not pretty, not smart—just Jane. She walked in and gave him her hand.
“Hullo, Henry!” she said. Then she laughed. “Or, do I call you Captain March?”
“You call me Henry,” said Henry, and he shut the door.
“I expect you’d like to come into the drawing-room”—this came hurriedly after a moment’s pause. He moved across the hall, switched on the light, and stood aside for her to pass. Jane looked in and saw more pink cushions and pink lamp-shades than she would have believed it possible to get into one small room. There were also a great many pink roses, and the air was heavy with scent.
“I’m sure that’s not where you see people on business,” said Jane, and Henry led the way into the dining-room.
“This is my room,” he said, and Jane sat down on a straight, high-backed chair and leaned her elbows on the table.
“Now, Henry,” she said, “I’ve come here to tell you a story, and I want you to sit down and listen to it; and please forget that you are you, and that I am I. Just listen.”
Henry sat down obediently. It was so good to see Jane again that, if she liked to sit there and talk till midnight, he had no objection.
“Now attend,” said Jane, and she began her story.
“Once upon a time there were twin sisters, and they were called Renata and Jane Carruthers. They had a cousin James—you remember him—my darling Jimmy? Jimmy wanted to marry Renata, but she refused him and married John Smith, my father, and when I was five years old she and my father both died, and Jimmy adopted me. Now we come to the other twin. Her name was Jane, and she ran away to America with a sort of anarchist Irishman named Molloy. She died young, and she left one daughter, whom she called Renata Jane. I, by the bye, am Jane Renata. The twin sisters were so much alike that no one ever knew them apart. Jimmy had photographs of them, and even he could never tell me which was my mother and which was my Aunt Jane. Now, Henry, listen to this. My Cousin Renata is in London, and it seems that she and I are just as much alike as our mothers were. In fact, it’s because Renata’s young man took me for Renata this afternoon that I am here, asking your advice, at the present moment.”
Henry smiled a somewhat puzzled smile. “Have you asked my advice?” he said; but Jane did not smile. Instead, she leaned forward a little.
“Are you still at Scotland Yard, Henry?”
He nodded.
“Criminal Investigation Department?”
He nodded again.
“Then listen. Renata is in what her young man calls ‘a position of deadly peril.’ In more ordinary language, she’s in a nasty hole. Do you know anything about Cornelius Molloy? That’s the Anarchist Uncle, Renata’s father, you know.”
“There aren’t any anarchists nowadays,” said Henry meditatively.
“I was brought up on anarchists, and I don’t see that it matters what you call them,” said Jane. “‘A’ for Anarchist, ‘B’ for Bolshevik, and so on. The point is, do you know anything about Molloy?”
“I’ve heard of him,” Henry admitted.
“Nothing good?”
“We don’t hear much that’s good about people—officially, you know.”
“Well, Arnold Todhunter says that Renata is supposed to have overheard something—something that her father’s associates think so important that they’re keeping her under lock and key, and seriously contemplating putting her out of the way altogether.”
“Did she overhear anything?” asked Henry, just as Jane had done.
“No one knows except Renata, and she won’t tell. Molloy goes back to the States to-morrow. They won’t let him take Renata with him, and Arnold Todhunter wants to marry her and carry her off to Bolivia, where he’s got an engineering job.”
“That appears to be a good scheme,” said Henry.
“Yes, but you see they’ll never let her go so long as they are not sure how much she knows. Arnold says she was walking in her sleep, and blundered in on about twenty-five of them, all talking the most deadly secrets. And they don’t know when she woke or what she heard. And”—Jane’s eyes began to dance a little—“Arnold has a perfectly splendid idea. He takes Renata to Bolivia, and I take Renata’s place. Nobody knows she has gone, so nobody looks for her.”
“What nonsense,” said Henry; then—“What’s this Todhunter like?”
“A mug,” said Jane briefly. She paused, and then went on in a different voice:
“Henry, who is at Luttrell Marches now? Did your Cousin Tony ever turn up?”
Henry stared at her.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because,” said Jane, with perfect simplicity, “Renata is to be sent down to Luttrell Marches to-morrow, and somebody there—somebody, Henry—will decide whether she is to be eliminated or not.”
Henry sat perfectly silent. He stared at Jane, and she stared at him. It seemed as if the silence in the room were growing heavier and heavier, like water that gathers behind some unseen dam. All of a sudden Henry sprang to his feet.
“Is this a hoax?” he asked, in tones of such anger that Jane hardly recognised them.
Jane got up too. The hand that she rested upon the table was not quite steady.
“Henry, how dare you?” and her voice shook a little too.
Henry swung round.
“No, no—I beg your pardon, Jane, for the Lord’s sake don’t look at me like that. It’s, it’s—well, it’s pretty staggering to have you come here and say....” He paused. “What was it you wanted to know?”
“I asked you who is living at Luttrell Marches.”
Henry was silent. He walked to the end of the room and back. Jane’s eyes followed him. Where had this sudden wave of emotion come from? It seemed to be eddying about them, filling the confined space. Jane made herself look away from Henry, forced herself to notice the room, the furniture, the pictures—anything that was commonplace and ordinary. This was decidedly Henry’s room and not his mother’s, from the worn leather chairs and plain oak table to the neutral coloured walls with their half-dozen Meissonier engravings. Not a flower, not a trifle of any sort, and one wall all books from ceiling to floor. Exactly opposite to Jane there was a fine print of “The Generals in the Snow.” The lowering, thunderous sky, heavy with snow and black with the omens of Napoleon’s fall, dominated the picture, the room. Jane looked at it, and looked away with a shiver, and as she did so, Henry was speaking:
“Jane, I don’t want to answer that question for a minute or two. I want to think. I want a little time to turn things over in my mind. Look here, come round to the fire and sit down comfortably. Let’s talk about something else for a bit. I want all your news, for one thing. Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself.”
Jane came slowly to the fireside. After all, it was pleasant just to put everything on one side, and be comfortable. Henry’s chair was very comfortable, and the day seemed to have lasted for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. She put out her hands to the fire, and then, because she noticed that they were still trembling a little, she folded them in her lap. Henry leaned against the mantelpiece and looked down at her.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Well, that summer at Upwater—you know we were lodging with the woman who had the post office—Jimmy and I stayed on after all the other visitors were gone. I expect it was rather irregular, but I used to help her. You see her son didn’t get back until eighteen months after the armistice, and she wasn’t really up to the work. In the end, you may say I ran that post office. I did it very well, too. It was something to do, especially after Jimmy died.”
“Yes, I heard. I wondered where you were.”
“I stayed on until the son came home, and then I couldn’t. He was awful, and she thought him quite perfect, poor old soul. I came to London and got a job in an office, and a month ago I lost it. The firm was cutting down expenses, like everybody else. And then—well, I looked for another job, and couldn’t find one, and this morning my landlady locked the door in my face and kept my box. And that, Henry, is why I am thinking seriously of changing places with my Cousin Renata, who, at least, has a roof over her head and enough to eat.”
“Jane,” said Henry furiously, “you don’t mean to say—so that’s why you’re looking such a white rag!”
Jane was horrified to find that her eyes had filled with tears. She laughed, but the laugh was not a very convincing one.
“I did have a cup of coffee and two penny buns,” she began; and then Henry was fetching sandwiches from the sideboard and pressing a cup of hot chocolate into her not unwilling hands.
“They leave this awful stuff over a spirit lamp for my mother, and she always has sandwiches when she comes in. It’s better than nothing,” he added in tones of wrath.
“It’s not awful,” protested Jane; but Henry was not mollified.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why are you so hard up? Didn’t Mr. Carruthers provide for you?”
Jane’s colour rose.
“He hadn’t much, and what he had was an annuity. You know what Jimmy was, and how he forgot things. I am really quite sure that he had forgotten about its being an annuity, and that he thought that I should be quite comfortable.”
Henry swallowed his opinion of Mr. Carruthers.
“Was he your only relation?”
“Well,” said Jane, who was beginning to feel better, “you can’t really count Cousin Louisa; she was only Jimmy’s half-sister, and that makes her a sort of third half-cousin of my mother’s. Besides, she always simply loathed me.”
“And you’ve no other relations at all?”
“Only the Anarchist Uncle,” said Jane brightly. She gave him her cup and plate. “Your mother has simply lovely sandwiches, Henry. Thank you ever so much for them, but what will she do when she comes home and finds I have eaten them all?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.” Henry’s tone was very short. “Look here, Jane, you must let—er, er, I mean, won’t you let....” He stuck, and Jane looked at him very kindly.
“Nothing doing, Henry,” she said, “but it’s frightfully nice of you, all the same.”
There was a silence. When Jane thought it had lasted long enough, she said:
“So, you see, it all comes back again to Renata. Have you done your thinking, Henry?”
“Yes,” said Henry. He drew a chair to the table and sat down half turned to the fire—half turned to Jane. Sometimes he looked at her, but oftener his gaze dwelt intently on the rise and fall of the flames.
“What makes you think that your cousin is to be taken to Luttrell Marches? Did these people tell her so?”
“No,” said Jane—“of course not. As far as I can make out from Arnold Todhunter, Renata is locked in her room, but there’s another key and she can get in and out. She can move about inside the flat, but she can’t get out of it. Well, one night she crept out and listened, though you would have thought she had had enough of listening, and she heard them say that, as soon as her father was out of the way, they would send her to Luttrell Marches and let ‘Number One’ decide whether she was to be ‘eliminated.’ Since then she’s been nearly off her head with terror, poor kid. Now, Henry, it’s your turn. What about Luttrell Marches?”
Henry’s face seemed to have grown rigid. “It’s impossible,” he said in a low voice.
The clock above them struck ten, and he waited till the last stroke had died away.
“I don’t know quite what to say to you, but whatever I say is confidential. You’ve heard my mother talk of the Luttrells, and you may or may not know that my uncle died a year ago. You have also probably heard that his son, my Cousin Anthony, disappeared into the blue in 1915.”
“Then Luttrell Marches belongs to you?” For the life of her, Jane could not keep a little consternation out of her voice.
“No. If Tony had been missing for seven years, I could apply for leave to presume his death, but there’s another year to run. My mother—every one—supposes that I am only waiting until the time is up. As a matter of fact—Jane, I’m telling you what I haven’t told my mother—Anthony Luttrell is alive.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you. And you must please forget what I have told you—unless——”
“Unless?”
“Unless you have to remember it,” said Henry in an odd voice. “For the rest, Luttrell Marches was let during my uncle’s lifetime to Sir William Carr-Magnus. You know who I mean?”
“The Sir William Carr-Magnus?” said Jane, and Henry nodded.
Jane felt absolutely dazed. Sir William Carr-Magnus, the great chemist, great philanthropist, and Government expert!
“He is engaged,” said Henry, “on a series of most important investigations and experiments which he is conducting on behalf of the Government. The extreme seclusion of Luttrell Marches, and the lonely country all round are, of course, exactly what is required under the circumstances.”
Quite suddenly Jane began to laugh.
“It’s all mad,” she said, “but I’ve quite made up my mind. Renata shall elope, and I will go to Luttrell Marches. It will be better than the workhouse anyhow. You know, Henry, seriously, I have a lot of qualifications for being a sleuth. Jimmy taught me simply heaps of languages, I’ve got eyes like gimlets, and I can do lip-reading.”
“What?”
“Yes, I can. Jimmy had a perfectly deaf housekeeper, and it worried him to hear us shouting at each other, so I had her taught, and learned myself for fun.”
Henry crossed to the bookcase and came back with a photograph album in his hand. Taking a loose card from between the pages, he put it down in front of Jane, saying:
“There you may as well make your host’s acquaintance.”
Jane looked long at the face which was sufficiently well known to the public. The massive head, the great brow with eyes set very deep beneath shaggy tufts of hair, the rather hard mouth—all these were already familiar to her, and yet she looked long. After a few moments’ hesitation, Henry put a second photograph upon the top of the first, and this time Jane caught her breath. It was the picture of a woman in evening dress. The neck and shoulders were like those of a statue, beautiful and, as it were, rigid. But it was the beauty of the face that took Jane’s breath away—that and a certain look in the eyes. The word hungry came into her mind and stayed there. A woman with proud lips and hungry eyes, and the most beautiful face in the world.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Raymond Carr-Magnus. She is Lady Heritage, and a widow now—Sir William’s only child. He gave her a boy’s name and a boy’s education—brought her up to take his place, and found himself with a lovely woman on his hands. This was done from Amory’s portrait of her in 1915—the year of her marriage. She was at one time engaged to my Cousin Anthony. If you do go to Luttrell Marches, you will see her, for she makes her home with Sir William.”
Henry’s voice was perfectly expressionless. The short sentences followed one another with a little pause after each. Jane looked sideways, and said very quick and low:
“Were you very fond of her, Henry?”
And when she had said it, her heart beat and her hands gripped one another.
Henry took the photograph from her lap.
“I said she was engaged to Tony.”
“Yes, Henry, but were you fond of her?”
“Confound you, Jane. Yes, I was.”
“Well, I don’t wonder.”
Jane rose to her feet.
“I must be going,” she said. “I have an assignation with Arnold Todhunter, who is going to take me up a fire-escape and substitute me for Renata.”
Henry took out a pocket-book.
“Will you give me Molloy’s address, please?” And when she had given it: “You know, my good girl, there’s nothing on earth to prevent my having that flat raided and your cousin’s deposition taken.”
“No, of course not,” said Jane—“only then nobody will go down to Luttrell Marches and find out what’s going on there.”
She looked straight at Henry as she spoke.
“I’m going, whatever you say, and whatever you do, and I only came to you because——”
“Because——”
“Well, it seemed so sort of lonesome going off into situations of deadly peril with no one taking the very slightest interest.”
Jane’s voice shook absurdly on the last word. And in an instant Henry had his arm round her and was saying, “Jane—Jane—you shan’t go, you shan’t.”
Jane stepped back. Her eyes blazed. “And why?” she said.
She tried to say it icily, but she could not steady her voice. Henry’s arm felt solid and comfortable.
“Because I’m damned if I’ll let you,” said Henry very loud, and upon that the door opened and there entered Mrs. de Luttrelle March, larger, pinker, and more horrified than Jane had ever seen her. She, for her part, beheld Henry, his arms about a shabby girl, and her horror reached its climax when she recognised the girl as “that dreadfully designing Jane Smith.”
“Henry,” she gasped—“oh, Henry!”
Jane released herself with a jerk, and Mrs. de Luttrelle March sat down in the nearest chair and burst into a flood of tears. Her purple satin opera cloak fell away, disclosing a peach-coloured garment that clung to her plump contours and seemed calculated rather for purposes of revelation than concealment. Large tears rolled down her powdered cheeks, and she sought in vain for a handkerchief.
“Henry—I didn’t think it of you—at least not here, not under my very roof. And if you were going to break my heart like your father, it would have been kinder to do it ten years ago, because then I should have known what to expect, and anyhow, I should probably have been dead by now.”
She sniffed and made a desperate gesture.
“Oh, Henry, I can’t find it! Haven’t you got one, or don’t you care whether my heart’s broken? And I haven’t even got a handkerchief to cry with.”
Henry produced a handkerchief and gave it to her without attempting to speak. Years of experience had taught him that to stay his mother’s first flood of words was an impossibility.
Jane felt rather sick. Mrs. March was so very large and pink, and the whole affair so very undignified, that her one overmastering desire was to get away. She heard Henry’s “This is Miss Smith, Mother. She came to see me on business”; and then Mrs. March’s wail, “Your father always called it business too, and I didn’t think—no, I didn’t think you’d bring a girl in here when my back was turned.”
Jane stood up very straight, but Henry had taken her hand again.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a very low voice. “She—she had a rotten time when she was young”; then, in a tone that cut through Mrs. March’s sobs as an east wind cuts the rain, he said:
“My dear mother, you are making some extra-ordinary mistake. The last time that I saw Miss Smith was three years ago. I then asked her to marry me, and she refused. I would go on asking her every day from now to kingdom come if I thought that it was the slightest good. As it isn’t, I am only anxious to be of use to her in any possible way. She came here to-night to ask my advice on an official matter.”
Mrs. March fixed her very large blue eyes upon her son. They were swimming with tears, but behind the tears there was something which suddenly went to Jane’s heart—something bewildered and hurt, and rather ungrown-up.
“You always were a good boy, Henry,” said Mrs. March, and Henry’s instant rigid embarrassment had the effect of cheering Jane. She came forward and took the limp white hand that still clutched a borrowed handkerchief.
“I’m sure he’ll always be a good son to you, and I wouldn’t take him away from you for the world. He’s just a very kind friend. Good-night, Mrs. March.”
She went out without looking back, but Henry followed her into the hall.
“You’re not really going to plunge into this foolish affair?” he said as they stood for a moment by the door. It was Jane who opened it.
“Yes, I am, Henry. You can’t stop me, and you know it.”
Jane’s eyes looked straight into his, and Henry did know.
“Very well, then. Read the agony column in The Times. If I want you to have a message, it will be there, signed with the day of the week on which it appears. You understand? If the message is in The Times of Wednesday, it will be signed, ‘Wednesday.’ And if there are directions in the message, you will obey them implicitly.”
“How thrilling,” said Jane.
“Is it?”
Henry looked very tired.
“I don’t know if I’ve done right, but I can’t tell you any more just now. By the way, Molloy’s flat will be watched, and I shall know whether you go to Luttrell Marches or not. Good-bye, Jane.”
“Good-bye, Henry.”
Henry watched the lift disappear.
“This,” said Arnold Todhunter, “is the fire-escape.” His tone was that of one who says, “This is our Rembrandt.” Proud proprietorship pervaded his entire atmosphere.
“Ssh!” said Jane.
They stood together in a small back-yard. It seemed to be quite full of things like barrows, paving-stones, old tin cans, and broken crockery. Jane had already tripped over a meat tin and collided with two chicken coops and a dog kennel. She reflected that this was just the sort of back-yard Arnold would find.
Everything was very dark. The blackest shadow of all marked the wall that they were to climb. Here and there a lighted window showed, and Jane could see that these windows had rounded parapets jutting out on a level with the sill.
Arnold, meanwhile, was tugging at something which seemed to be a short plank.
“What on earth?” she whispered.
“We shall need it. I’d better go first.”
And forthwith he began to climb, clutching the plank with one hand and the iron ladder with the other.
Jane let him get a good start, and followed.
The ladder was quite easy to climb; it was only when one thought of how immensely far away the skyline had looked, that it seemed as if it would be very uncomfortable to look down instead of up, and to see that horrid little yard equally far below.
Jane did look down once, and everything was black and blurred and shadowy. It was odd to be clinging to the side of a house, with the dark all round one, and the steady roar of the London traffic dulled almost to nothingness.
The night was very still, and a little cold. Somewhere below amongst the tin cans a cat said, “Grrrwoosh,” not loud, but on a softly inquiring note. The inquiry was instantly answered by a long, piercing wail which travelled rapidly over four octaves, and then dwelt with soulful intensity upon an agonising top note.
With a muttered exclamation, Arnold Todhunter dropped his plank. It grazed Jane’s shoulder, and fell among the cats and crockery with a most appalling clatter.
Jane shut her eyes, gripped the ladder desperately, and wondered whether she would fall first and be arrested afterwards, or the other way about. Nothing happened. Apparently the neighbourhood was inured to the bombardment of cats.
After a moment Jane became aware of Arnold’s boots in close proximity to her head. A wave of fury swept away her giddiness, and she began to descend with a rapidity which surprised herself.
Once more they stood in the yard.
Once more Arnold groped for his plank.
“I’m going up first,” said Jane, in a low tone of rage. “I won’t be guillotined on a public fire-escape. Which floor is it?”
“The top,” said Arnold sulkily, and without more ado Jane went up the ladder.
It was exactly like a rather horrid dream. The ladder was very cold and very gritty, and you climbed, and climbed, and went on climbing without arriving anywhere.
Pictures of the Eiffel Tower and New York skyscrapers flitted through Jane’s mind. She also remembered interesting paragraphs about how many million pennies placed on end would reach to the moon. And at long, long last the escape ended at a window-sill with a parapet-enclosed space beneath it.
Jane sat down on the window-sill and shut her eyes tight. She had a horrid feeling that the building was rocking a little. After a moment Arnold crawled over the edge of the coping, dragging his plank. He was panting.
“This,” he said, with his mouth close to Jane’s ear—“this window only leads to the landing where the lift shaft ends. We’ve got to get across to the next one, which is inside Molloy’s flat. That’s what the plank is for.”
“You’re blowing down my neck,” said Jane.
Arnold Todhunter felt that he had never met a girl whom he disliked so much. Extraordinary that she should look so like Renata and be so different.
He knelt just inside the parapet, and pushed the board slowly out into the dark until it rested on the parapet of the next window.
“Will you go first, or shall I?” he whispered.
“I will.”
Jane felt sure that, if she had to watch Arnold balancing on that plank miles above the ground, she would never be able to cross it herself.
The reflection that it was Renata, and not she, who would have to make the descent fortified her considerably. Even so, she never quite knew how she crossed to the other window. It was an affair of clenched teeth and a mind that shut out resolutely everything except the next groping clutch of the hand—the next carefully taken step.
She sank against the window-sill and heard Arnold follow her. Just at the end he slipped; he seemed to change his feet, and then with a heavy thud pitched down on the top of Jane.
She thought he said “Damn!” and she was quite sure that she said “Idiot!”
There was an awful moment while they listened for the fall of the plank, but it held to the coping by a bare half-inch.
“Thank goodness I’m not Renata!” said Jane, with heartfelt sincerity. And—
“Thank goodness, you’re not!” returned Mr. Todhunter, with equal fervour, and at that moment the window opened.
There was a little sobbing gasp, and a girl was clinging to Arnold Todhunter and whispering:
“Darling—darling, I thought you’d never come.”
Arnold crawled through the open window, and from the pitch-black hall there came the sounds of demonstrative affection.
“Good gracious me, there’s no accounting for tastes!” said Jane, under her breath. And she too climbed down into the darkness.
Arnold appeared to be trying to explain Jane to Renata, whilst Renata alternated between sobs and kisses.
Jane lost her temper, suddenly and completely.
“For goodness’ sake, you two, come where there’s a light, and where we can talk sense. Every minute you waste is just asking for trouble. What’s that room with the light?”
It is difficult to be impressive in a low whisper, but Renata did stop kissing Arnold.
“My bedroom,” she said—“I’m supposed to be locked in.”
Jane groped in the dark and got Renata by the arm.
“Come along in there and talk to me. We’ve got to talk. Arnold can wait outside the window. I don’t want him in the least. You’re going to spend the rest of your life with him in Bolivia, so you needn’t worry. I simply won’t have him whilst we are talking.”
Arnold loathed Jane a little more, but Renata allowed herself to be detached from him with a sob.
Inside the lighted bedroom the two girls looked at one another in an amazed silence.
In height and contour, feature and colouring, the likeness was without a flaw.
Facing them was a small wardrobe of painted wood. A narrow panel of looking-glass formed the door. The two figures were reflected in it, and Jane, tossing her hat on to the bed, studied them there with a long, careful scrutiny.
The same brown hair, growing in the same odd peak upon the forehead, the same arch to the brow, the same greenish-hazel eyes. Renata’s face was tear-stained, her eyelids red and swollen—“but that’s exactly how I look when I cry,” said Jane. She set her hand by Renata’s hand, her foot by Renata’s foot. The same to a shade.
The other girl watched her with bewildered eyes.
“Speak—say something,” said Jane.
“What shall I say?”
“Anything—the multiplication table, the days of the week—I want to hear your voice.”
“Oh, Jane, what an odd girl you are!” said Renata—“and don’t you think Arnold had better come in? It must be awfully cold out there.”
“Presently,” said Jane. “It’s very hard to tell, but I believe that our voices are as much alike as the rest of us.”
She opened her bag, and took out The List and a pencil.
“Now, write something—I don’t care what.”
Renata wrote her own name, and then, after a pause, “It is a fine day.”
“Quite like,” said Jane, “but nearly all girls do write the same hand now. I can manage that. Now, tell me, where were you at school?”
“Miss Bazing’s, Ilfracombe.”
“When did you leave?”
“Two months ago.”
“Have you been in America?”
“Not since I was five.”
“Anywhere else out of England?”
“No.”
“What languages do you know?”
“French—I’m not good at it.”
“Well, that’s that. Now, Arnold tells me you heard them say you were to go to Luttrell Marches?”
Renata looked terrified.
“Yes, yes, I did.”
“You’re not supposed to know? They haven’t told you officially?”
“No—no, they haven’t told me anything.”
“Your father goes away to-morrow. Have they told you that?”
“I can’t remember,” said Renata, bursting into tears. “Oh, Jane, you don’t know what it’s like!—to be locked in here—to have them come and ask questions until I don’t know what I’m saying—and to know, to know all the time that if I make one slip I’m lost.”
“Yes, yes, but it’s going to be all right,” said Jane.
“I can’t sleep,” sobbed Renata, “and I can’t eat.” She held up her wrist and looked at it with interest. “I’ve got ever so much thinner.”
Jane could have slapped her. She reflected with thankfulness that Bolivia was a good long way off.
“Now, look here,” she said, “you talk about ‘they’—who are ‘they’?”
“There’s a man in a fur coat,” faltered Renata—“that is to say, he generally has on a fur coat; he always seems to be cold. He’s the worst; I don’t know his name, but they call him Number Two. He’s English. Then there’s Number Four. He’s a foreigner of some sort, and he’s dreadful—dreadful. I think—I think”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“my father is Number Three.” Then almost inaudibly, “Number One is at Luttrell Marches. It’s Number One who will decide about me—about me. Oh, Jane, I’m so dreadfully frightened!”
Renata’s eyes, wide and terrified, stared past Jane into vacancy.
“You needn’t be in the least frightened; you’re going to Bolivia,” said Jane briskly.
“I must tell some one,” said Renata, still in that whispering voice—still staring. “I didn’t tell them, I wouldn’t tell them, but I must tell some one. Jane, I must tell you what I heard.”
Quick as lightning Jane put her hand over the other girl’s mouth.
“Wait!” she said, and in the pause that followed two things stood out in her mind clear and sharp. If Renata told her secret, Jane’s danger would be doubled. If Renata did not tell it, the crime these men were planning might ripen undisturbed. Jane had a high courage, but she hesitated.
Her hand dropped slowly to her side. She saw Renata’s mouth open protestingly, and there came on her a wild impulse to stave things off, to have time, just a little time before she let that secret in.
“We’ve got to change clothes,” she said. “Quick, give me that skirt and take mine. Yes, put on the coat, and I’ll give you my shoes, too. My hat’s on the bed; you’d better put it on.”
Renata obeyed. A resentful feeling of being hustled, ordered about, treated like a child, was upon her; but Jane moved and spoke so quickly, and seemed so sure of herself, that there seemed no opening for protest. She thought Jane’s blue serge shabby and old fashioned—not nearly as nice as her own—and Jane’s shoes were terribly worn and needed mending.
“Now, listen,” said Jane.
“If Arnold likes to go to my rooms and pay up two weeks’ rent, he can get my box and all my other clothes for you. There’s not very much, but it’ll be better than nothing. I’ll write a line for him to take, and put the address on it. And will you please remember now and from henceforth that you are Jane Renata Smith, and not Renata Jane Molloy?”
Jane was scribbling a couple of lines as she spoke, and as she turned and gave the paper into Renata’s hand, she knew that she must decide now. The moment of grace was up, and whether she bade Renata speak or be silent, there could be no drawing back.
“What were you going to tell me?” she said.
Renata stood silent for a long minute. She was twisting and turning the slip of paper which Jane had given her. She looked down at her twisting fingers; her breath began to come more quickly. Then with great suddenness she pushed the note into her pocket, and caught at Jane with both hands.
“Yes, I must tell you—I must. It will be coming nearer all the time, and I must tell some one, or I shall go mad.”
“Tell me, then,” said Jane. “You were walking in your sleep, and you opened the door and heard—what did you hear?”
Jane’s eyes were bright and steady, her face set. She had taken her decision, and her courage rose to meet an unknown shock.
“I was walking in my sleep,” repeated Renata, in a low, faltering voice, “and I opened the door, and I heard——”
“What did you hear?”
“There was a screen in front of me, and just beyond the screen a man talking. I heard—oh, Jane, I heard every single word he said! I can’t forget one of them—if I could, if I only could!”
“What did you hear?” said Jane firmly.
Renata’s grip became desperate. She leant forward until her lips touched Jane’s ear. In a voice that was only a breath, she gave word for word, sentence by sentence, the speech in which Number Four had proclaimed the death sentence of the civilised world. It was just a bald transcript like the whisper of a phonograph record, as if the words and sentences had been stamped on an inanimate plate by some recording machinery, to be released again with utter regularity and correctness.
Every vestige of colour left Jane’s face as she listened. Only her eyes remained bright and steady. Something seemed to knock at her heart. Renata’s last mechanical repetition died away, and with a sob of relief she flung her arms round Jane.
“Oh, Jane, I do hope they won’t kill you! Oh, I do hope they won’t!”
“So do I,” said Jane.
She detached herself from Renata, and as she did so, both girls heard the same thing—from beyond the two closed doors the groan and grind of the lift machinery in motion.
“They’ve come back,” said Renata, in a whisper of terror.
Jane’s hand was on the electric-light switch before the words had left Renata’s lips.
As darkness sprang upon the room she had the door open. Her grip was on Renata’s wrist, her arm about Renata’s waist, and they were in the hall. It seemed pitch black at first, with a gloom that pressed upon their eyes and confused the sense of direction.
The lift rose with a steady rumble.
Then, as Jane stared before her, the oblong of the window sprang into view. She took a step forward and felt Renata’s head against her shoulder.
“I’m going to faint,” came in a gasp.
“Then you’ll never see Arnold again. Do you want to be caught like this?”
“Jane, I can’t.”
Jane dragged her on.
“Renata, you rabbit!—if they don’t kill you, I will. Faint in Bolivia as much as you like, but I forbid you to do it here.”
“Oh, Jane!”
Jane’s arm felt the weight of a limp, sagging figure, but they had reached the window. From the sill Arnold bent, listening anxiously.
“Quick!” gasped Jane.
And, as his arm relieved the strain, she pinched Renata with all her might. There was a sob—a gasp—Arnold lifted, Jane pushed, and somehow the thing was done. Arnold and Renata were outside, crouched down between the parapet and the window, whilst Jane leaned panting against the jamb.
As the lift stopped with a jerk, her rigid fingers drew the window down and fastened it. Now, horribly loud, the clang of the iron gate. Steps outside—voices—the grate of a key in the lock.
Jane knew now what Renata had felt. Easy, so easy to yield to this paralysis of terror, and to stand rooted there until they came! With all her might she pushed the temptation from her and roused to action.
Thank Heaven, she had had no time to put on Renata’s shoes!
After the first movement strength and swiftness came to her. She was across the hall without a sound. The bedroom door closed upon her. As it did so, the door of the flat swung wide.
Jane stood in the dark, her hand upon the door knob. Slowly, very slowly, she released it. As she leaned there, her head almost touching the panelling, she could hear two men talking in the hall beyond. They spoke in English, but only the outer sound of the words came to her.
With an immense effort she straightened herself, and was about to move away when a thought struck her like a knife-blow—the key—the second tell-tale key—if she had forgotten it!
Her hand slid back, touched the cold key, turned and withdrew it, moving with a steady firmness that surprised herself.
Then she made a half-turn and tried to visualise the room as she had seen it in the light.
Immediately opposite, the cupboard with the looking-glass panel. The window in the right-hand wall, and the bed between window and cupboard. At the foot of the bed a chair, and on the same side as the window a chest of drawers with a looking-glass upon it and Renata’s plain schoolgirlish brush and comb.
When she had placed everything, Jane began to move forward in the direction of the window. Her left hand touched the rail of the bed-foot, her right, groping, brushed the counterpane and rested on something oddly familiar. Her heart gave a sudden jerk, for this was her own bag, which Renata should have taken. She opened it with quick, trembling fingers, took out her handkerchief, and then stuffed the bag right down inside the bed.
A couple of steps brought her to the window, and she pressed closely to it, listening, and wished she dared to open it. There was no sound from outside. She leaned her forehead against the glass, and wondered how many years had passed since the morning. It seemed impossible for this day to come to an end.
Then quite suddenly a key turned in the lock, and the door opened, not widely, but as one opens the door of a room where some one is asleep. A man’s head was silhouetted against the hall light. Part of his shoulder showed in a dark overcoat.
He spoke, and a hint of brogue beneath a good deal of American twang informed Jane that this was her official father.
“Are you awake, Renata?”—and, as he asked the question, a second man came up behind him and stood there listening.
“Yes,” said Jane, muffling her voice with her handkerchief.
He hesitated a moment, and then said:
“Well, good-night to you”—and the other man, speaking over his shoulder, said in an easy, cultivated voice without any accent at all:
“Pleasant dreams, Miss Renata.”
Jane’s “Good-night” was just audible and no more, but obviously it satisfied the two men, for the door was shut, the key turned and withdrawn, and presently the hall light went out, and the darkness was absolute and unrelieved, except where the midnight sky showed just less black than the interior of the room.
After what seemed a long, long time, Jane undressed and got to bed. It was strange to grope for and find Renata’s neatly folded nightdress.
Presently she lay down, and presently she slept. Time ceased; the day was over.
She woke suddenly a few hours later. It was still dark. She came broad awake at once, and sat up in bed as if some one had called to her. Her mind was full of one horrifying thought.
The plank—what had Arnold done with the plank?
Impossible that he should have helped Renata down the fire-escape and carried the plank as well, and somehow Jane did not see Arnold troubling to come back for it.
One thing was certain; if Arnold had left the plank in its compromising position, it must be removed before daylight.
Jane got out of bed, shivering. She went to the window, opened it, and leaned out. The yard, mews, wall, and parapet—all were veiled in the same thick dusk. She strained her eyes, but it was impossible to distinguish anything. There was nothing for it but to cross that horrid little hall again, open the window, and make sure.
With the key in her hand, and mingled rage and terror in her heart, she felt her way to the door, opened it noiselessly, and crossed barefoot to the window. The hasp was stiff, it creaked, and the window stuck.
Recklessness took possession of Jane. With a jerk she pushed it up; as it chanced, recklessness made less noise than caution would have done. She leaned right out, and there, sure enough, was the plank.
Even Jane’s anger could provide her with nothing more cutting than, “How exactly like Arnold Todhunter.”
She stood quite still and considered.
A bold course was the only one. Remembering the plank’s previous fall and the perfect calm with which the neighbourhood had received it, she decided to take the same chance again—only, she must be quick and have it all planned in her head: first a shove to the plank, then down with the window and latch it, five steps—no, six—across the hall, and then her own door, and on no account must she forget the key.
She drew a long breath, leaned out, and pushed. The board was heavier than she had supposed—harder to move. She had to pull it in, until the sudden weight and strain told her that it was clear of the coping upon which the farther end had rested. Then she pushed with all her might, and as it fell, her hands were on the window quick and steady. Next moment she was crouching in Renata’s bed, the clothes clutched about her, the door key cold in her palm. She pushed it far down beneath the clothes, and sat breathless—listening.
The crash with which the plank had landed seemed to have deafened her, but as the vibrations died away, she heard, sharp and unmistakable, the click of a latch and hurrying footsteps.
The next moment her door was opened and her light switched on. Quick as thought her hand was over her eyes and the sheet up to her chin.
Molloy stood in the doorway, and beyond him the other.
“What’s doing? Did you hear it?” he stammered, and then the other man pushed him aside.
“I’d like a look from your window if you’ll excuse me, Miss Renata,” he said, and crossed the room.
As he leaned out, Jane watched him from beneath her hand, and recalled Renata’s words, “He generally wears a fur coat; they call him Number Two.” This man wore a fur coat over pale blue silk pyjamas. When he turned, saying, “I can’t see a thing,” she was ready with her stammered, “What was it?”
“You heard it, then?” said Molloy.
“Such a fearful crash! It—it frightened me most dreadfully,”—and here Jane spoke the literal truth.
“I don’t know.” It was Molloy who answered again, but the other man’s eyes travelled round the room, and a feeling of terror came over Jane.
If she had forgotten anything, if there were one shred of incriminating evidence, those eyes would miss nothing! She felt as if they must pierce the bedclothes and see her bag and the hidden key, but he merely nodded to Molloy, and they left the room, switching out the light and locking the door.
Jane drew a long breath of relief, turned upon her side, and in five minutes was asleep again.
The day came in with a thick mist. Jane opened her eyes upon it sleepily.
She began to think what a strange dream she had had, and then, as sleep ebbed from her, she remembered that it was not a dream at all. She was Renata Molloy under lock and key, and in front of her stretched a day that might be even more crowded with adventure than yesterday.
She jumped out of bed, and as she dressed her eyes brightened and her courage rose. With Renata’s scissors she unpicked the initials which marked her underclothes. This was a game at which one must not make a single slip. Her bag worried her a little, but it was just such a plain leather bag as any one might possess. She ransacked it carefully, and frowned over an envelope addressed to Miss Jane Smith. What in the world was she to do with it?
There were no matches, so it could not be burned. After some thought she soaked it in water, scratched the name to shreds with a hairpin, and crumpling the wet paper into a ball, tossed it out of the window.
By the time her door was unlocked, she was very hungry. This time, it appeared, she was being summoned to bid the departing Mr. Molloy a fond farewell.
His luggage was already being carried out to the lift, and two or three men were coming and going. The man in the fur coat stood with his back to the window, smoking a cigarette. Obviously Molloy’s farewell was not to be said in private.
Jane looked at him with some curiosity—a tall man, strongly built, with a bold air and a florid complexion.
It was he who had opened the door, and he stood still holding the handle and looking, not at Jane, but over her shoulder. For this she felt grateful.
“Well, well then, I’m off,” said Molloy. “You’ll be a good girl and do as you’re bid, and I’ll be having you out to keep house for me in less than no time.”
From what she had seen of Renata, Jane fancied that a sob would meet the occasion. She therefore sobbed, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
“There, there,” said Molloy hastily.
He bent and deposited an awkward kiss upon the top of her head. Then he took his hand from the door and was gone.
The lift gate clanged, and Jane realised that the real adventure had begun.
The man by the window threw the end of his cigarette into the fireplace and came towards her.
“Parental devotion is a beautiful thing, isn’t it, Miss Renata? Suppose we have some breakfast.”
A meal, a proper meal, enough to eat! As she passed into the dining-room and beheld a ham, coffee, and boiled eggs, Jane felt as if she could confront any one or anything. Besides, the first trick was hers.
In the full light of day, and under those cold, pale eyes, she had passed as Renata.
She allowed herself to sigh and dab her eyes, and then—oh, how good was the rather stale bread, the London egg, and the indifferent ham.
The man watched her quizzically.
As she finished her second cup of coffee, he remarked that she had a good appetite, and there was something in his tone that cast a chill upon the proceedings.
Jane pushed back her chair.
“I’ve finished,” she said.
“Well, then,” said the man, “I think we must talk. Yes, sit down again, please. I won’t keep you very long.”
Jane did as she was told.
“Well, Molloy’s gone,” he said. “You know what that means? He’s washed his hands of you. Just in case—just in case, you’ve been relying on Molloy, I would like to point out to you that his own position is none too secure. The firm he works for has not been entirely satisfied with him for some time. It is, therefore, quite out of the question that he should influence any decision that may be come to with regard to yourself. His going off like this shows that he realises the position and accepts it. Self-preservation is Molloy’s trump suit, first, last, and all the time. I shouldn’t advise you to count upon trifles like parental devotion, or anything of that sort. In a word—he can’t help you, but I can.”
The man leaned forward as he spoke, and a sudden smile changed his features.
“Just be frank,” he went on. “Tell me what you really heard, and I’ll see you through.”
Jane let her eyes meet his. That smile had puzzled her; it was so spontaneous and charming, but it did not reach his eyes.
She looked and found them cold and opaque, and as she looked, she saw the pupils narrow, expand, and then narrow again.
He got up from his chair, walked to the mantelpiece, stopped for a light to his cigarette, and came back again with a thin blue haze of smoke about him.
“Perhaps I haven’t been altogether frank with you,” he said. “That little romance of mine about a firm of chemists who employ your father—you didn’t really believe it? No, I thought not. The fact is, that first night I took you for just a schoolgirl, and one can’t tell schoolgirls everything. But now, now I’m talking to you as a woman. I can’t tell you everything, even so, but I can tell you this. It’s a Government matter, a most important one, and it is vital that I should know just what you overheard.”
Jane looked down.
“I don’t understand,” she said in a low voice. “I was dreaming and I waked up suddenly. There was a screen in front of me, and some one on the other side of the screen called out very loud, ‘The door, the door!’ That’s what I heard.”
She felt the pale eyes upon her face. Then with an abrupt movement the man came over to her.
“Stand up,” he said.
Jane stood up.
“Look at me.”
Jane looked at him.
After what seemed like a very long time, he threw out his hand with an impatient gesture. It struck the table edge with a sharp rap, the spring that held his wrist watch gave, and the watch on its gold curb flew off and fell on the floor behind Jane.
She turned, glad of an excuse to turn, and bent to pick it up. The back of the watch was open; her fingers caught and closed it instantly, but not for nothing had she told Henry that she had gimlet eyes. The back of the watch contained a photograph, and Jane had seen the photograph before. Henry’s voice sounded in her ears. “It was done from Amory’s portrait of her, in 1915—the year of her marriage.”
Number Two, the man in the fur coat, Renata’s “worst of them all,” had in the back of his watch a photograph of Lady Heritage!
Jane laid the watch on the table without giving it a second glance.
As the watch slid back into its place beneath his shirt cuff, the man spoke with an entire change of manner.
“Well, Miss Renata, that was all very stiff and businesslike. You mustn’t hold it up against me, because I hope we’re going to be friends. Don’t you want to know your plans?”
Jane looked at him with a little frown.
“My plans?”
“What is going to happen to you. Oh, please, don’t look so grave! It’s nothing very dreadful. You have heard of Sir William Carr-Magnus?”
“Yes, of course,” said Jane. She hoped that she looked innocent and surprised.
“Well,” said the man in the fur coat, “I happen to be his secretary, and that reminds me, I don’t believe you know my name. Your father and his friends use a ridiculous nickname which sticks to me like a burr ... but let me introduce myself—Jeffrey Ember, and your friend, if you will have me.”
The charming smile just touched his face, and then he said in a quiet, serious way:
“Sir William’s daughter, Lady Heritage, has commissioned me to find her an amanuensis—companion—no, that’s not quite right either. She doesn’t want a trained stenographer, or a young person with a business training, but she wants a girl in the house—some one who’ll do what she’s told, write notes, arrange the flowers.... I dare say you can guess the sort of thing. She is willing to give you a trial, and your father has agreed. As a matter of fact, I’m taking you down there to-day.”
“Oh!” said Jane, because she seemed expected to say something, and for the life of her she could not think of anything else to say.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to submit to certain restrictions at Luttrell Marches. You see, Sir William is engaged upon some very important experiments for the Government, and all the members of his household have to conform to certain regulations. Their letters must be censored, and they must not leave the grounds, which are, however, extremely delightful and extensive. It isn’t much of a hardship, really.”
“Oh no,” said Jane in her best schoolgirl manner.
And there the interview ended.
They made the journey to Luttrell Marches by car, but, after the manner of Mrs. Gilpin’s post-chaise, it did not pick them up at the door. An ordinary taxi conveyed them to Victoria Station, and it was in the station yard that they and their luggage were picked up by the Rolls-Royce with the Carr-Magnus crest upon the door.
The mist was thinner, and as they came clear of London, the sun came out. The day warmed into beauty, and the green growth of the countryside seemed to be expanding before their eyes. So many long hedges running into a blur, so many miles of road all slipping past. Jane fell fast asleep, and did not know how long she slept.
It was in the late afternoon that they came into the Marsh country—great flat stretches of it, set with boggy tussocks and intersected by straight lanes of water. Purple-brown and green it stretched for miles. To the right a humped line of upland, but to the left, and as far as the eye could see in front, nothing but marsh. Then the road rose a little; the ground was firmer and carried a black pine or two.
They came to a three-cross way and turned sharply to the right. The ground rose more and more. They climbed a steep hill, zigzagging between banked-up hedges to make the rise, and came out upon a bare upland. Ahead of them one saw a high stone wall pierced by iron gates. The car stopped. Mr. Ember leaned out, and after a pause the gates swung inwards.
For a mile the drive lay through a flat waste of springing bracken, with here and there a group of wind-driven trees, then a second gate through a high fencing topped with wire. An avenue of trees led up to the house, a huge grey pile set against a sky full of little racing clouds.
Jane felt stiff and bewildered with the long drive. She followed Mr. Ember up a flight of granite steps and came into the great hall of Luttrell Marches with its panelled walls and dark old portraits of half-forgotten Luttrells.
Exactly opposite the entrance rose the stairway which was the pride of the house. Its beautiful proportions, the grapes and vine leaves of its famous carvings, were lighted from beneath by the red glow of a huge open fire, and from above by the last word in electric lighting.
Ember walked straight across the hall and up the stair, and Jane followed him.
She thought she knew exactly how a puppy must feel when, blinking from the warmth and straw of his basket, he comes for the first time into the ordered solemnity of his new master’s house.
And then she looked up and saw The Portrait.
It hung on the panelling at the top of the stair where the long corridors ran off to right and left, and it took Jane’s breath away—the portrait of Lady Heritage.
Amory had painted more than a beautiful woman standing on a marble terrace: he had painted a woman Mercury. The hands held an ivory rod—diamond wings rose from the cloudy hair. Under the bright wings the eyes looked out, looked far—dark, splendid, hungry eyes.
“The earth belongs to her, and she despises it,” was Jane’s thought.
She stood staring at the portrait. Nineteen-fifteen, Henry had said—the year when other women posed with folded linen hiding their hair and the red cross worn like a blazon. She could think of several famous beauties who had been painted thus. But this woman wore her diamond wings, though, even as she wore them, Fate had done its worst to her, for Anthony Luttrell was a name with other names in a list of missing, and no man knew his grave.
A sharp clang of metal upon metal startled Jane. She looked quickly to her right, and saw that a steel gate completely barred the entrance to the corridor on that side. It had just closed behind a curious white-draped figure.
“Ah, Jeffrey,” said a voice—a deep, rather husky voice—and the figure came forward.
Jane saw that it was a woman wearing a long white linen overall, and a curious linen head-dress, which she was undoing and pushing back as she walked. She pulled it off as she came up to them, saying, “It’s so hot in there I can hardly breathe, but too fascinating to leave. You’re early. Is this Miss Molloy?”
She put out her hand to Jane, and Jane, with her mind full of the portrait, looked open-eyed at its original.
Afterwards she tried to formulate her sensations, but, at the time, she received just that emotional shock which most people experienced when they first met Raymond Heritage.
Beautiful—but there are so many beautiful women. Charming? No, there was rather something that repelled, antagonised. In her presence Jane felt untidy, shabby, gauche.
Lady Heritage unbuttoned her overall and slipped it off. She wore a plain white knitted skirt and jersey. Her fingers were bare even of the wedding ring which Jane looked for and missed. Her black hair was a little ruffled, and above the temples, where Amory had painted diamond wings, there were streaks of grey.
Bewilderment came down on Jane like a thick mist, which clung about her during the brief interchange of sentences which followed, and went with her to her room.
It was a queer room with a rounded wall set with three windows and to right and left irregular of line, with a jutting corner here and a blunted angle there. It faced west, for the sun shone level in her eyes.
Crossing to the window, as most people do when they come into a strange room, she looked out and caught her breath with amazement.
The sea—why, it seemed to lie just beneath the windows!
They had driven up from the landward side, and this was her first hint that the sea was so near.
There was a wide gravel terrace, a stone wall set with formal urns full of blue hyacinths, the sharp fall of the cliff, and then the sea.
The tide was in, the sun low, and a wide golden path seemed to stretch almost from Jane’s feet to the far horizon. Overhead the little racing clouds that told of a wind high up were golden too.
The humped ridge of upland, which Jane had seen as they drove, ran out to sea on the right hand. It ended in low, broken cliff, and a line of jagged rocks of which only the points stood clear.
Jane turned from all the beauty outside to the ordered comfort within. Hot water in a brass can that she could see her face in, a towel of such fine linen that it was a joy to touch it, this pretty white-panelled room, the chintzes where bright butterflies hovered over roses and sweet-peas—she stood and looked at it all, and she heard Renata’s words, “At Luttrell Marches they will decide whether I am to be eliminated.”
This curious dual sense remained with her during the days that followed. Life at Luttrell Marches was simple and regular. She wrote letters, gathered flowers, unpacked the library books, and kept out of Sir William’s way.
Sir William, she decided, was exactly like his photograph, only a good deal more so; his eyebrows more tufted, his chin more jutting, and his eyes harder. For a philanthropist he had a singularly bad temper, and for so eminent a scientist a very frivolous taste in literature. One of Jane’s duties was to provide him with novels. She ransacked library lists and trembled over the results of her labours.
Sir William did not always join the ladies after dinner, but when he did so he would read a novel at a sitting and ask for more.
Mr. Ember was never absent, and when Lady Heritage talked, it was to him that her words were addressed. Sometimes she would disappear inside the steel gate for hours.
Jane soon learnt that the whole of the north wing was given up to Sir William’s experiments. On each floor a steel gate shut it off from the rest of the house. All the windows were barred from top to bottom.
She also discovered that the high paling where the avenue began had, on its inner side, an apron of barbed wire, and it was the upper strand of this apron which she had seen as they approached from outside.
Sir William’s experiments employed a considerable number of men. These, she learned, were lodged in the stables, and neither they nor any of the domestic staff were permitted to pass beyond the inner paling.
On the coast side there was a high wire entanglement—electrified.
There were moments when Jane was cold with fear, and moments when she told herself that Renata was a little fool who had had nightmare.
When Jane stood at her window and looked across the sea, she saw what might have been a picture of life at Luttrell Marches during those first few days. Such a smooth stretch of water, pleasant to the eye, where blue and green, amethyst, grey and silver came and went, and under the play of colour and the shifting light and shade of day and evening, the unchanging black of rocks which showed for an instant and then left one guessing whether anything had really broken the beauty and the peace.
Over the surface all was pleasant enough, but incidents, some of them almost negligible in themselves, kept recurring to remind Jane that there were rocks beneath the sea.
The first incident came up suddenly whilst she was writing Lady Heritage’s letters on the second day.
She had beside her a little pile of correspondence, mostly about trifles. Upon each letter there was scrawled, “Yes”—“No”—“Tell them I’ll think it over,” or some such direction.
Presently Jane arrived at a letter in French, upon which Lady Heritage had written, “Make an English translation and enclose to Mrs. Blunt.” Mrs. Blunt’s own letter lay immediately underneath. It contained inquiries about some conditions of factory labour amongst women in France.
The French letter was an excellent exposition of the said conditions.
Jane sat looking at it, and wondering whether Renata could have translated a single line of it, and how much ignorance it would behove her to display.
After a moment’s thought she turned round and said timidly, “May I have a dictionary, please?”
Lady Heritage looked up from the papers before her. She frowned and said:
“A dictionary?”
“Yes, for the French letter.”
“You don’t know French, then?”
Jane met the half-sarcastic look with protest.
“Oh yes, I do. But, if I might have a dictionary——”
Lady Heritage pointed to the bookcase and went back to her papers.
An imp of mischief entered into Jane.
She took the dictionary and spent the next half-hour in producing a translation with just the right amount of faults in it. She put it down in front of her employer with a feeling of triumph.
“Please, will this do?”
Lady Heritage looked, frowned, and tore the paper across.
“I thought you said you knew French?”
Jane fidgeted with her pen:
“Of course I know I’m not really good at it, but I looked out all the words I didn’t know.”
“There must have been a good many,” was Lady Heritage’s comment, and the imp made Jane raise innocent eyes and say:
“Oh, there were!”
She went back to her table, and Lady Heritage spoke over her shoulder to Mr. Ember, who appeared to be searching for a book at the far end of the room. She spoke in French—the low, rapid French of the woman to whom one language is the same as another.
“What do they teach at English schools, can you tell me, Jeffrey? This girl says she knows French, and if she can follow one word I am saying now——” She broke off and shrugged. “Yet I dare say she went to an expensive school. Now, I had a Bavarian maid, educated in the ordinary village school, and she spoke English with ease, and French better than any English schoolgirl I’ve come across. Wait whilst I try her in something else.”
She turned back to Jane.
“Just send the original to Mrs. Blunt—I haven’t time to bother with it—and make a note for me. I want it inserted after para three on the second page of that typewritten article that came back this morning.”
Jane supposed she might be allowed to know what a “para” was. She turned over the leaves of the typescript and waited for the dictation. The last sentence read, “Woman through all the ages is at the disposal and under the autocratic rule of man, but it is not of her own volition.”
She wondered what was to come next, and waited, keenly on the alert.
Lady Heritage began to speak:
“Write it in as neatly as possible, please; it’s only one sentence: ‘It is Man who has forced “das ewig Weibliche” upon us.’”
Jane wrote, “It is man——” and then stopped. She repeated the words aloud and looked expectant.
“‘Das ewig Weibliche’”—there was a slight grimness in Lady Heritage’s tone.
“I’m afraid—” faltered Jane.
“Never heard the quotation?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t know any German, then?”
“I’m so sorry,” said Jane.
“My dear girl, what did they teach you at that school of yours? By the way, where was it?”
“At Ilfracombe.”
“English education is a disgrace,” said Lady Heritage, and went back to her papers.
It was next day that she turned suddenly to Jane:
“By the way, you were at school at Ilfracombe—can you give me the name of a china shop there? I want some of that blue Devonshire pottery for a girls’ club I’m interested in.”
Jane had a moment of panic. Renata’s shoes had fitted her too easily. She had felt secure, and then to have her security shattered by a trifle like this!
“A china shop?” she said meditatively; then, after a pause, “It’s awfully stupid of me—I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name.”
Lady Heritage stared.
“A shop that you must have passed hundreds of times?”
“It’s very stupid of me.”
Lady Heritage smiled with a sudden brilliance. “Well, it is rather,” she said.
It was on the fourth day that Jane really caught her first glimpse of the black rocks.
She was writing in the library, dealing with an apparently endless stream of begging letters, requests for interviews, invitations to speak at meetings or to join committees.
In four days Jane had discovered that Lady Heritage was up to her eyes in a dozen movements relating to feminist activities, women’s labour, and social reform.
Newspapers, pamphlets, and reports littered a table which ran the whole length of the room. Jane was required to open all these as they came, and separate those which dealt with social reform and the innumerable scientific treatises and reviews. These latter arrived in every European language.
Jane sat writing. The day was clear and lovely, the air sun-warmed and yet fresh as if it had passed over snow. April has days like this, and they fill every healthy person with a longing to be out, to stop working, and take holiday.
The windows of the library looked out upon the gravel terrace above the sea. The sun was on the blue water.
Jane put down her pen and looked at the hyacinths in the grey stone urns. They were blue too. A yellow butterfly played round them. She sat up and went to the window.
Lady Heritage and Mr. Ember were walking up and down the terrace, Lady Heritage bareheaded, all in white with not even a scarf, and Jeffrey Ember with a muffler round his neck, and the inevitable fur coat. They were coming towards her, and Jane stood back so that the curtains made a screen. She watched Raymond Heritage as she had watched the sea and the flowers, for sheer joy in her beauty.
Raymond’s face was towards her, and she was speaking.
Not a word reached Jane’s ears, but as she looked at those beautiful lips, their movements spelt words to her—words and sentences. She would have drawn back or looked away, but the first sentence that she read riveted her attention too closely.
“Are you satisfied about her Jeffrey?”
Ember must have spoken, but his head was turned away. Then Raymond spoke again.
“Nor am I—not entirely. She seems intelligent and unintelligent by turns, unbelievably stupid in one direction and quick in another.” They passed level with the window, and so on to the end of the terrace. Jane went round the table to the other side of the window and waited for them to come back.
Ember’s face was towards her when they turned, too far away for her to see anything. But, as they came nearer, she saw that he was speaking. Not easy to read from, however, with those straight, thin lips that moved so little. There was only one word she was sure of—“overheard.”
It was too tantalising. If she had to wait until they reached the far end of the terrace and turned again, what might she not miss?
As the thought passed through her mind Lady Heritage stopped, walked slowly to the grey stone wall, and sat down on it, motioning to Ember to do the same.
Jane could see both faces now, and Raymond was saying, “If she overheard anything, would she have the intelligence to be dangerous?—that is what I ask myself.”
Ember’s lips just moved, but the movements made no sense.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Lady Heritage; “despise not thine enemy.”
She changed her position, leaned forward, displaying a statuesque profile, and appeared to be speaking fast and earnestly. Then Jane saw her lips again, and they were saying, “Anything but Formula ‘A.’”
Jane gripped the curtain which she held until the gold galon which bordered it marked her hand with its acorn pattern.
“Formula ‘A’!” everything swam round her while she heard Renata’s gasping voice:
“He said ‘With Formula “A” you have the key. When Formula “B” is also complete, you will have the lock for that key to fit; then the treasures of the world are yours.’”
The mist cleared from her eyes; she looked again.
Raymond Heritage had risen to her feet. Ember and she looked out to sea for a moment, then crossed the gravel towards the house. They were talking of the sunshine and the spring air.
“My bulbs have done well,” Lady Heritage said.
They passed out of sight.
Two days later Jane, coming down the corridor to the library, was aware of voices in conversation. She opened the door and saw Jeffrey Ember with his back to her. He had pulled a deep leather chair close to the fire, and was bending forward to warm his hands. Lady Heritage stood a yard or two away. She had a large bunch of violets in one hand; with the other she leaned against the black marble mantel.
She and Ember were talking in German. Both glanced round, and Raymond asked:
“What is it?”
“The letters for the post,” said Jane.
They went on talking whilst she sorted and stamped the letters.
“Which of us is the better judge of character, it comes to that.” Speaking German, Lady Heritage’s deep voice sounded deeper than ever.
“Do we take different sides then?”
“I don’t know. I thought your verdict was inclined to be ‘Guilty, but recommended to mercy,’ whereas mine——” She hesitated—stopped rather—for there was no hesitation in her manner.
Ember made a gesture with the hand that held his cigarette.
“Expound.”
“I doubt the guilt. But if I did not doubt, I should have no mercy at all.”
Jane went out with the letters, and when she was in the corridor again she put out her hand and leaned against the wall. It would be horrible enough, she thought, to be tried in an open court upon some capital count, but how far less horrible than a secret judgment where whispered words made unknown charges, where the trial went on beneath the surface of one’s pleasant daily life, and every word, every look, a turn of the head, an unguarded sigh, a word too little, or a glance too much might tip the scale and send the balance swinging down to—what?
Next day Lady Heritage was deep in her correspondence, when she suddenly flashed into anger. Pushing back her chair, she got up and began to pace the room. There was a letter in her hand, and as she walked she tore it across and across, flung the fragments into the fire, and pushed a blazing log down upon them with her foot.
Jane and Ember watched her—the former with some surprise and a good deal of admiration, the latter with that odd something which her presence always called out. She swung round, met his eyes, and burst into speech.
“It’s Alington—to think that I ever called that man my friend! I wonder if there’s a single man on this earth who would translate professions of devotion to one woman, into bare decent justice to all women.”
“What has Lord Alington done?” asked Mr. Ember, with a slight drawl.
Jane, with a thrill, identified the President of the Board of Trade.
“Nothing that I might not have expected. It is only women that are different, Jeffrey. Men are all the same.”
“And still I don’t know what he has done,” said Jeffrey Ember.
“Oh, it’s a long story! I’ve been pressing for women inspectors in various directions. It seems inconceivable that any one should cavil at a woman inspector wherever women are employed. You have no idea of what some of the conditions are. Stewardesses, for instance; I’ve a letter there from a woman who has been working on one of the largest liners—not a tramp steamer, mind you, but one of the biggest liners afloat. All the passengers’ trays, all the cabin meals had to be carried up a perpendicular iron stair like a fire-escape—not a permanent stair, you understand, but a ladder that is let up and down. Those wretched women had to go up and down it all day with heavy trays. They said they couldn’t do it, and were told they had to. And that’s a little thing compared to some of the other conditions. I want an inspector for them.”
“And Alington?”
Lady Heritage came to a halt by the long, piled-up table. She struck it with her open hand. “Lord Alington is just a man,” she said. “He stands for what men have always stood for, the sacred right of the vested interest. What man ever wants to alter anything? And why should he when the existing order gives him all he wants? It doesn’t matter where you turn, what you do, how hard you try, the vested interest blocks the way; you are up against the Established Order of what has always been. My God, how I’d like to smash it all, the whole thing, the whole smug sham which we call civilisation!”
Jane stared at her open-eyed. She had never dreamed that the statue could wake into such vivid life as this. The colour burned in Raymond’s cheeks, the sombre eyes were sombre still, but they held sparks as if from inward fire.
Ember touched the hand that was clenched at the table’s edge. A sort of tremor passed over her from head to foot. The colour died, the fire was gone. With a complete change of manner she said:
“Alington was hardly worth all that, was he?” Then without a change of key, but in German:
“Thank you, Jeffrey, the child’s eyes were nearly falling out of her head. It was stupid of me; I forgot. These things carry me away.”
The door opened on her last words, and Sir William came in. He was frowning, and appeared to be in a great hurry.
“Ridiculous business, ridiculous waste of time. These damned departments appear to think I’ve nothing to do with my time except to answer their infernal inquiries, and entertain any interfering jackanapes that they choose to let loose on me.”
“What is it Father?” said Lady Heritage—“Government inspection?”
“Nonsense,” said Sir William slowly. “Henry March wants to come down for the night.”
Jane bent forward over her papers. No one was looking at her, no one was thinking of her, but she had felt her cheeks grow hot, and was glad of an excuse to hide them.
She did not know whether she was very much afraid or very glad. A feeling unfamiliar but overwhelming seemed to shake her to the depths. She was quite unconscious of what was passing behind her.
At Henry’s name, Raymond Heritage uttered a sharp, “Oh no!” She came quickly forward as she spoke and caught the letter from Sir William’s hand.
“He can’t come—I can’t have him here—put him off, Father; you can make some excuse!”
“Nonsense!” said Sir William again. “It’s a nuisance, of course—it’s an infernal nuisance—but he’ll have to come, confound him!”
Then, as she made a half-articulate protest, he went on with increasing loss of temper:
“Good heavens! I can’t very well tell the man I won’t have him in what is practically his own house.”
It was Ember, not her father, who saw how frightfully pale Raymond became. In a very low voice she said:
“No, I suppose not.”
Sir William was fidgeting. He looked at Jane’s back.
“Of course, he’s coming down on business.”
Then he broke off and stared at Jane again.
Lady Heritage nodded.
“Miss Molloy,” she said. “You can take half an hour off.”
Henry arrived on the following day and was shown straight into Sir William’s study.
Half an hour later Sir William rang the bell and sent for Lady Heritage. He hardly gave her time to shake hands before he burst out:
“I said you must be told. I take all responsibility for your being told. After all, if I am conducting these experiments, something is due to me, though the Government appear to think otherwise. But I take all responsibility; I insist on your being told.”
He sat at his littered table, and all the time that he was speaking his hands were lifting and shuffling the papers on it. At his elbow stood a tray with tantalus and glasses and a syphon. Only one glass had been used.
“What is it?” said Raymond.
Her eyes went from her father to Henry.
Sir William’s hand was shaking. Henry wore a look of grave concern.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“It’s Formula ‘A’”—Sir William’s voice was just a deep growl. “He comes here, and he tells me that Formula ‘A’ has been stolen. I’ve told him to his face, and I tell him again, that it’s a damned impossibility.”
The shaking hand fell heavily upon the table and made the glasses ring.
“Formula ‘A’?” said Raymond—“stolen? Henry, you can’t mean it?”
“I’m afraid I do,” said Henry, at his quietest. “I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. We have the most indisputable evidence that Formula ‘A’ has been offered to—well, to a foreign power.”
The flush upon Sir William’s face deepened alarmingly. Under the bristling grey brows his eyes were hard with anger. He began to speak, broke off, swept his papers to one side, and, taking up the tantalus and the used glass, poured out a third of a glass of whisky. He let a small quantity of soda into it with a vicious jerk, and then sat with the glass between his hands, alternately sipping from it and interjecting sounds of angry protest.
“The information is, I’m afraid, correct.”
Henry’s tone, though studiously moderate, was extremely firm. “There is undoubtedly a leak, and, in view of Formula ‘B,’ it is vital that the leak should be found and stopped.”
He addressed himself to Lady Heritage:
“Sir William tells me that all employés correspond with the list in my possession, that none of them leave the enclosure, and that all letters are censored. By the way, who censors them?”
“Ember,” growled Sir William.
Lady Heritage elaborated the remark.
“Mr. Ember—Father’s secretary.”
She and Henry were both standing, with the corner of the writing-table between them. She saw inquiry in Henry’s face. He said:
“Who does leave the premises?”
“Father, once in a blue moon, I when I have any shopping to do, and, of course, Mr. Ember.”
“And when you go you drive, of course? What I mean is—a chauffeur goes too?”
Sir William made a sound between a snort and a laugh; Lady Heritage smiled. Both had the air of being pleased to catch Henry out.
“The chauffeur is Lewis, who was your uncle’s coachman here for twenty-five years. Are you going to suggest that he has been selling Formula ‘A’ to a foreign power? I’m afraid you must think again.”
“Who is Mr. Ember?”
Sir William exploded.
“Ember’s my secretary. He’s been my right hand for ten years, and if you’re going to make insinuations about him, you can leave my house and make them elsewhere. Why, damn it all, March!—why not accuse Raymond, or me?”
“I don’t accuse any one, sir.”
There was a pause, whilst the two men looked at one another. It was Sir William who looked away at last. He drained his glass and got up, pushing his chair so hard that it overturned.
“You want to see all the men to check ’em by that infernal list of yours, do you? The sooner the better then; let’s get it over.”
Later, as the men answered to their names in the long, bare room which had once been the Blue Parlour, Henry was struck with the strangeness of the scene. Here his aunt had loved to sit doing an interminable embroidery of fruits and flowers upon canvas. Here he and Anthony had lain prone before the fire, each with his head in a book and his heels waving aloft. Memories of Fenimore Cooper and Henty filled the place when for a moment he closed his eyes. Then, as they opened, there was the room all bare, the windows barred and uncurtained, the long stretcher tables with their paraphernalia of glass retorts, queer, twisted apparatus, powerful electric appliances, and this row of men answering to their names whilst he checked each from his list.
“James Mallaby.” He called the name and glanced from the man who answered it to the paper in his hand. A small photograph was followed by a description: “5 feet 7 inches, grey eyes, mole on chin, fair complexion, sandy hair.” All correct. He passed to the next.
“Jacob Moss—5 feet 5 inches, dark complexion, black hair and eyes, no marks....”
“George Patterson—5 feet 10 inches, sallow complexion, brown hair and beard, grey on temples, grey eyes, scar....”
The man who answered to the name of George Patterson stepped forward. He had the air of being taller than his scheduled height. His beard and hair were unkempt, and the scar set down against him was a red seam that ran from the left temple to the chin, where it lost itself in grizzled hair. He stooped, and walked with a dragging step.
Henry, who for the moment was speaking to Sir William, looked at him casually enough. He opened his list, and in turning the page, the papers slipped from his hand and fell. George Patterson picked them up. Henry went on to the next name.
Jane had keyed herself up to meeting him at teatime, but neither Henry nor Sir William appeared.
“Captain March is an extremely conscientious person,” said Lady Heritage. It was not a trait which appeared to commend itself to her. “I should think he must have interviewed the very black-beetles by now. Have you been passed, Jeffrey?”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Ember, “but it hasn’t taken away my appetite for tea.”
In fact it had not. It was Raymond who ate nothing.
Jane and Henry did not meet until dinner-time. As she dressed, Jane kept looking at herself in the glass. She was pale, and she must not look pale. She took a towel and rubbed her cheeks—that was better. Then a little later, when she looked again, her eyes were far too bright, her face unnaturally flushed.
“As if any one was going to look at you at all—idiot!” she said.
After this she kept her back to the mirror.
In all the books that she had ever read the secretary or companion invariably wore a dinner dress of black silk made, preferably, out of one which had belonged to a grandmother or some even more remote relative. In this garb she outshone all the other women and annexed the affections of at least two of the most eligible men.
Renata did not possess a black silk gown.
“Thank goodness, for I should look perfectly awful in it,” was Jane’s thought.
With almost equal distaste she viewed the white muslin sacred to prize-givings and school concerts. Attired in this garment Renata had played the “Sonata Pathétique” amidst the applause of boarders and parents. With this pale blue sash about her waist she had recited “How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” Jane tied it in a vicious knot. Her only comfort as she went downstairs was that it was impossible to look more like a schoolgirl and less like a conspirator.
Sir William and Henry were in the hall—Mr. Ember too, close to the fire as usual.
Sir William jerked his head in Jane’s direction and grunted, “Miss Molloy, my daughter’s secretary.” Henry bowed. Jane inclined her head.
Next moment they all turned to watch Raymond Heritage come down the stair.
She wore black velvet. Her neck and arms were bare. A long rope of pearls fell to her knee.
Jane wondered whether the world held another woman so beautiful, then looked quickly at Henry, and the same thought was visible upon Henry’s face.
Dinner was not a cheerful meal. Lady Heritage hardly opened her lips. Sir William sat hunched forward over the table; when addressed, the remark had to be repeated before he answered; he drank a good deal.
Jane considered that a modest silence became her, and the conversation was sustained with some effect of strain by Captain March and Mr. Ember. They talked fitfully of politics, musical comedy, the weather, and the American Exchange.
It was a relief, to Jane at least, when she and Lady Heritage found their way to the drawing-room.
Henry wondered at their using this large, formal room for so small a party. His aunt, he remembered, had kept it shut up for the most part. The sense of space was, however, grateful to Jane. The small circle of candlelight in the dining-room had seemed to shut them in, forcing an intimacy for which no one of them was prepared.
The Yellow Drawing-Room was a very stately apartment. The walls were hung with a Chinese damask which a hundred years had not robbed of its imperial colour. Beneath their pagoda-patterned blue linen covers Jane knew that the chairs and sofas wore a stiff yellow satin like a secret pride. Electric candles in elaborate sconces threw a cold, steady light upon the scene.
Lady Heritage sat by the fire, the Revue des Deux Mondes in her hand. Her eyes were on the page and never left it, but she was not reading. In fifteen minutes her glance had not shifted, and the page remained unturned.
Then the door opened, and the two younger men came in. Lady Heritage looked up for a moment, and then went back to her Revue. She made no attempt to entertain Captain March, who, for his part, showed some desire to be entertained.
“You are using the big rooms, I see. Aunt Mary always said they were too cold. You remember she always sat in the Blue Parlour, or the little oak room at the head of the stair.”
Raymond’s lip lifted slightly.
“I’m afraid the Blue Parlour would not be very comfortable now,” she said without looking up.
Henry possessed a persevering nature. He produced, in rapid succession, a remark about the weather, an inquiry as to the productiveness of the kitchen garden, and a comment upon the pleasant warmth of the log fire. The first and last of these efforts elicited no reply at all. To the question about the garden produce Lady Heritage answered that she had no idea.
Mr. Ember’s habitual expression of cynicism became a trifle more marked.
Jane had the feeling that the pressure in the atmosphere was steadily on the increase.
“Won’t you sing something, Raymond,” said Henry. His pleasant ease of manner appeared quite impervious to snubs.
Lady Heritage closed the Revue des Deux Mondes and, for the first time, looked full at Captain March. If he was startled by the furious resentment of that gaze he did not show it.
“And what do you expect me to sing, Henry?” she said—“the latest out of the Jazz Girls?”
“I don’t mind; whatever you like, but do sing, won’t you?”
Raymond got up with an abrupt movement. Walking to one of the long windows which opened upon the terrace, she drew the heavy yellow brocade curtain back with a jerk. Beyond the glass the terrace lay in deepest shadow, but moonlight touched the sea. She bent, drew the bolt, and opened half the door.
“The room is stifling,” she said. “Jeffrey, it’s your fault they pile the fire up so. I wish you’d sometimes look at a calendar and realise that this is April, not January.”
Then, turning, she crossed to the piano.
“If I sing, it will be to please myself, and I shall probably not please any one else.”
Ember came forward and opened the piano. He bent as he did so, and said a few words very low. She answered him.
Henry, left by the fireside with Jane, leaned forward conversationally, the last Punch in his hand.
“This is a good cartoon,” he said. “Have you seen it, Miss Molloy?”
And as she bent to look at the page, he added in that low, effaced tone which does not carry a yard:
“Which room have they given you?”
“I like the line,” said Jane in her clear voice, “and that very black shadow.” Then, in an almost soundless breath—“The end room, south wing.”
“Don’t go to bed,” said Henry. “Wonderful how they keep it up, week after week. I mean to say, it must put you off your stroke like anything, knowing you’ve got to come right up to time like that.”
“Your department doesn’t work by the calendar, then? You don’t have to bother about results?”
Ember strolled back to his favourite place by the fire as he spoke, and Lady Heritage broke into a resounding chord. She played what Henry afterwards described as “an infernal pandemonium of a thing.” It appeared to be in several keys at once, and marched from one riot of discord to another until it ended with a strident crash which set up a humming jangle of vibrations.
“Like that, Henry?” said Lady Heritage.
“No,” said Henry, monosyllabic in his turn.
“No one ever likes to hear the truth,” said Raymond. “You all want something pleasant, something smooth, something like this”—her fingers slipped into the “Blue Danube” waltz. She played it exquisitely, with a melting delicacy of touch and a beautiful sense of rhythm. After a dozen bars or so she stopped suddenly, leaned her elbow on the keyboard, and through the little clang of the impact said:
“Well?”
“That’s topping,” said Henry. He looked across at her admiringly—the long sweep of the ebony piano, the white keyboard with the black notes standing clear, Raymond in her velvet and pearls, and behind her the imperial yellow of China.
“Soothing syrup,” she said. “You’re not up to date, Henry, I’m afraid. The moderns show us things as they are, and we don’t like it, but the soothing syrups lose their power to soothe once you find out that they are just ... dope.”
“I wish you’d sing,” said Henry.
She looked across him at Ember, and an expression difficult to define hardened her face.
“This isn’t modern, but will you like it?” she said, and preluded. Then she began to sing in a deep mezzo:
“The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting its little Hour or two—is gone.
Here in this battered Caravanserai,
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his Way.”
The notes came heavy and tragic. In her voice there seemed to be gathered all the tragedy, all the emotion of human life. The sound fell almost to a whisper:
“The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting its little Hour or two—is gone.”
Suddenly the voice rose ringing like a trumpet, a great chord crashed out:
“Waste not your Hour!”
The deep octaves followed. Then she passed into modulating phrases and began to sing again.
“Her voice is nearly as beautiful as she is,” thought Jane, “but somehow—she shakes one.”
“Ah Love, could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits, and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?”
With the last word she rose, turned from the piano and the room, and went out to the terrace.
Henry got up, strolled casually across the room, and followed her. She was standing by the low parapet looking over the sea. The night was still, the scent of hyacinths was heavy on the air, but every now and then a breath—something not to be called a wind—came up from across the water and brought with it cold, and a tang of salt.
The moon was still behind the house, but near to clearing it, and though they stood in the dusk, Henry could see Lady Heritage’s features as though through a veil.
Her icy mood was broken; the tears were rolling down her cheeks. She turned on him with a flame of anger.
“Why did you come? Why did you come? Do you know what Father said to me yesterday? I said I wouldn’t have you here, and he said—he said, ‘Good heaven! how can I keep the man away from what is practically his own house?’ Is it yours now?—have you come to see your property?”
Henry looked at her gravely.
“No, it is not mine yet,” he said, “and I came for a very different reason, as I think you know.”
“And you expected me to welcome you ... as if it wasn’t enough to be here, to live here—without——” She broke off, gripping the rough stone of the parapet with both hands. “You ask me why I don’t use the Oak Room—do you forget how you and I and Tony used to roast chestnuts there, and tell ghost stories—till we were afraid to go to bed? If there were no worse ghosts than those.... Do you know, every time you come into the room I expect to see Anthony behind you, and when you speak I catch myself listening for his voice?... Do you still wonder why I don’t use the Oak Room? What are men made of?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry. “Did I hurt you, Raymond? I’m sorry if I did, but it wasn’t meant.”
She sank down upon the parapet. All the vehemence went out of her.
“You see,” she said in a whispering voice—“you see, I can’t forget. God knows how hard I’ve tried. Every one else has forgotten, but I can’t forget. If I could, I should sleep—but I can’t. Henry, have you ever tried very hard to forget anything?”
“Yes,” said Henry.
“Will you tell me what it was?”
“I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Oh well, it doesn’t matter, and if you really understand, you know that the more one tries the more vivid it all becomes.”
“It’s Tony?” asked Henry.
“Yes, it’s Tony,” said Raymond, in an odd voice—“but it’s not because he’s dead—I don’t want you to think that. I could have borne that; I could have borne anything if I could have seen him once again, or if he had known that I cared, but he went away in anger and he never knew.”
“I didn’t know,” said Henry—“I’m sorry.”
Lady Heritage looked away across the sea. The moonlight showed where the jagged line of rocks cut sharp through the sleeping water.
“There’s a verse in the Bible—do you ever read the Bible, Henry? I don’t, but I remember this verse; one was taught it as a child. ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’ I let the moon rise and go down on mine.” She spoke very, very quietly. “Anthony stood there, just by that urn. He said, ‘You’ll have all the rest of your life to be sorry in....’ That was the last thing he said to me. He never forgave, and he never wrote. I didn’t think any man would let me go so easily, so I married John Heritage to show that I didn’t care. And, whilst we were on our honeymoon, I saw Anthony’s name in the list of missing. Now, do you wonder that I hate you for coming here, and for being alive, and taking Tony’s place? And do you wonder that there are times when I hate everything so much that I’d like well enough to see this whole sorry scheme shattered to bits—if it could be done?”
“I’m not so keen on this shattering business, Raymond,” said Henry. “Don’t you think there’s been about enough of it? There are a lot of rotten things, and a lot of good things, and they’re all mixed up. If you start shattering, the odds are you bring down everything together.”
“Well?” said Raymond, just one word, cold and still.
There was a little pause. Then she laughed.
“Is Henry also among the preachers?” she said mockingly. “You should take Orders; a surplice would be becoming.”
Henry was annoyed to feel that he was flushing.
“Shall I go on preaching?” he said, and as he spoke, Mr. Ember came through the open glass door with a cloak over his arm.
“I am a relief expedition,” he announced. “You must be frozen. Never trust a moonlight night.”
He put the wrap about Raymond’s shoulders, but she did not fasten it.
“I’m coming in,” she said.
She and Ember passed into the lighted room. Henry stood still for a minute, listened acutely; then he followed them.
There was a hedge of stiffly growing veronica bushes at the foot of the terrace wall. After Henry had gone in, the man called George Patterson came out from behind the bushes at the far end of the terrace. He walked slowly with a dragging step, keeping in the shadow of the house, and he made his way to the far end of the north wing.
Inside the Yellow Drawing-Room Henry was bidding his hostess good-night, and announcing his intention of taking a moonlight stroll.
Presently he emerged upon the terrace, descended the steps on the right, and made his way in the direction taken by George Patterson.
When Jane reached her own room, she stood a long time in front of the glass frowning at herself. It might be safe to look so exactly like a schoolgirl, but it was very, very humiliating. Henry had never glanced at her once. That, of course, was all in the line of safety too. Also, why should Henry look at her? Why should she wish him to do so? She was not in love with him; she had, in fact, refused him—could it be that there was a little balm in this thought? What did it matter to her how long he looked at Raymond Heritage?
She took off the white muslin dress and put it away.
The worst part of being Renata was, not the risk, but having to wear Renata’s clothes. All the things were good, horribly good, and they were all quite extraordinarily dull. “If your shoes want mending, and your things are threadbare, every one knows it’s because you’re poor, and not because you like being down at heel and out at elbows. But Renata’s things must have cost quite a lot, and, of course, every one thinks they are my choice.”
By some deflected line of reasoning “every one” meant Henry.
Jane folded up the pale blue sash and shut it sharply into a drawer. Then she put on Renata’s dressing-gown. It was made of crimson flannel, very thick and soft, with scalloped edges to the collar and cuffs—“exactly like one’s grandmother’s petticoat.”
She rumpled the bedclothes and disarranged the pillows. Then she put out the light, sat down on the window-seat, and waited.
The blind was up; she had slipped behind the chintz curtains. The terrace lay beneath her, only half in shadow now. There was no sound in the house, no sound from the sea. The line of shadow moved backwards inch by inch.
When Jane sat down to wait, she told herself that she would not listen and strain; she would just sit there quite peacefully, and if anything was going to happen—well, let it happen. But as she sat there, she became afraid against her will, aware once more of that sense of pressure which had come upon her in the drawing-room. It was as if something was steadily approaching not her alone, but all of them—as if their thoughts and actions were being, at one and the same time, dictated by an outside force and scrutinised—watched—spied upon.
With all her might she resisted this sensation and the fear that it suggested. But, as the night passed to midnight and beyond, a strange feeling of being one watcher in a slumbering household detached itself from the general confusion, and she began to long with great intensity for something—anything—to happen.
Once something moved in the foot-wide strip of shadow against the house. Jane caught her breath and then saw that it was only a cat, a half-grown kitten rather, beloved of the cook. It came out into the moonlight and walked solemnly the entire length of the terrace with delicately taken steps and a high waving tail. It was as soundless and black as the shadow out of which it had come, and presently it was gone again, and second by second, minute by minute, slow, interminable, the night dropped away. In the hall a clock struck the quarters. The silence, shattered for a moment, closed again.
When the rapping came, it brought the oddest sense of interruption. Jane sprang to her feet, stood for a moment catching at her self-control, and then went noiselessly to the door. She listened before opening it, and could hear nothing; and, as she listened, the knocking came again, but from behind her.
Bewildered, she edged the door open and looked out. A shaded light burned far away to the left. The long, dim corridor was empty. She shut the door.
Some one was knocking—somewhere—but where?
She turned and stood facing the windows. Up in the far corner a large cupboard filled the angle and blunted it. Jane had hung her serge dress there hours and hours ago. The knocking seemed to come from the cupboard, just where the room was at its darkest because next the lighted window.
Jane crossed the floor very slowly, put both hands on the cupboard doors, and flung them wide. For a moment everything was quite black, then, with a most unpleasant suddenness, a narrow white ray cut the dark, and Henry’s voice said, “It’s only me.”
Jane’s hand went to her lips, pressing them firmly. She would not have admitted that this action alone saved her from screaming. After a moment she gave a little gasp, and located Henry, or rather Henry’s head, which was almost under her feet.
In the cupboard floor there was a square black hole, and, just above floor-level, Henry’s face looked up at her, tilted at an odd angle, whilst his one visible hand manipulated a small electric torch.
“Wait,” said Jane, in a whisper.
She went quickly to the door, locked it, removed the key, and put it in one of the dressing-table drawers. She did not know quite what made her do this, only suddenly when her eyes saw Henry, her mind had a vivid impression of that long corridor with its one faintly glimmering light.
Then she sat down on the cupboard floor, close to Henry’s head, and breathed out:
“Henry!—how on earth?”
Henry, who appeared to be standing upon a ladder or something equally vertical, came up a few steps, sat down on the edge of the hole, and switched off his torch.
“I had to see you,” he said. “This was my room in the old days, and Tony and I found this passage. It leads down to another cupboard in the garden room where they keep the tennis and croquet gear. How are you?—all right?”
“Yes, quite all right.”
“That’s good. Now which of us is going to talk first?”
“I think I had better,” said Jane. “You see, I saw Renata, and she told me things, and I think, if you don’t mind, Henry, that I had better tell you everything that she told me.”
“Yes, please.” He hesitated. “One minute, Jane, I just wanted to say, you don’t mind talking to me like this, do you? I wouldn’t have asked you to if there had been any other way—what I mean to say is....”
Jane gave a very small laugh, which was instantly repressed. She reflected that it was pleasanter to suppress a laugh than a scream.
“What you mean to say is, there aren’t any chaperons in this scene. You needn’t apologise, Henry. Sleuths never have chaperons—it’s simply not done; and, anyhow, I’m sure you’d make a beautiful one. Shall I go on?”
It may be doubted whether Henry really cared about being described as a chaperon. His tone was rather dry as he said:
“Go on, please.”
As for Jane, who had prodded him on purpose just to see if anything would happen, she certainly felt a slight disappointment accompanied by a sense of increased respect.
“You saw Renata. What did she tell you?”
“She told me what she overheard,” said Jane, speaking slowly. “Henry, if I tell you what it was, will you promise me not to let any one guess that you know? If they were certain that I knew, I shouldn’t be alive to-morrow; and if they thought you knew the secret, you’d never get back to London alive.”
“Who is ‘they,’ Jane?” said Henry.
“I want to tell you about Renata first. She really did walk in her sleep, you know. She must have waked when she opened the door. She said the first thing she knew was the cold feel of the hall linoleum under her feet. The door was open, and she was standing just on the threshold. There was a screen in front of her, and beyond the screen a man talking. She heard every word he said, and I am sure that what she repeated to me was just exactly what she heard. The first words that she caught were ‘Formula “A.”’”
Henry gave a violent start.
“Good Lord!” he said under his breath. “You’re sure?”
“Quite. Then he went on, and this is what he said: ‘You all have Formula “A.” You will go to your posts and from your directions you will prepare what is needful according to that formula, carrying out to the last detail the cipher instructions which each of you has received. As soon as the experiments relating to Formula “B” are completed, you will receive a summons in code. You will then assemble at the rendezvous given, and Formula “B,” with all instructions for its employment, will be entrusted to you. With Formula “A” you have the key. When Formula “B” is also complete you will have the lock for that key to fit; then the treasures of the world are yours. The annihilation of civilisation and of the human race is within our grasp. When the key has turned in the lock we only shall be left, and....’ Just then, Renata said, some one else cried out, ‘The door! The door!’ They pushed the screen away and pulled her in. She nearly fainted. When she revived a little, her father and Mr. Ember were trying to find out what she had heard. Fortunately for herself, she told me, at first it was all confusion. The only thing that stood out clearly was that shout at the end, but afterwards, when she was alone, it all came back. She said it was like a photographic plate developing, hazy at first, and then everything getting clearer and sharper until each detail came out. She repeated the whole thing as if it were a lesson.”
“Wait,” said Henry. “My head’s going round. I want to sort things out.”
Jane waited. She had been prepared for Henry to be impressed or incredulous. What took her by surprise was the puzzled note in his voice. “Lord, what a mix-up!” she heard him say.
Then he addressed her again.
“Did you ever play ‘Russian Scandal,’ Jane?” he said.
“Yes, of course. But if you had heard Renata—the sort of queer mechanical way she spoke, exactly like a gramophone record—why, the words weren’t words she’d have used, and all that about Formula ‘A’—do you think that’s the sort of thing that a schoolgirl makes up?”
“No,” said Henry unexpectedly. “I think it is quite possible that she overheard something about Formula ‘A,’ and I’d give a good deal to know just what she did hear.”
“I’ve told you what she heard,” said Jane. “Jimmy always said I had a photographic memory, and I said the whole thing over to myself until I had it by heart. You see, I didn’t dare to write it down.”
“Can you say it again?” said Henry. “I’d like to get it down in black and white, and have a look at it. At present it makes me feel giddy.”
“You mustn’t write it down,” said Jane breathlessly. “Oh, you mustn’t, Henry! It’s not safe.”
Henry turned on his torch, propped it against the wall, and produced a notebook and a pencil. The cold, narrow beam of light showed his knee, the white paper, a pencil with a silver ring, and Henry’s large, brown hand.
“He has a horribly determined hand,” thought Jane.
“Now,” said Henry, “will you start at the beginning and say it all over again, please?”
Jane did so meekly, but her inward feelings were not meek. Once more she repeated, word for word, and sentence for sentence, the somewhat flamboyant speech of Number Four.
Henry’s hand travelled backwards and forwards in the little lane of light, and, word for word, and sentence by sentence, he wrote it down. When he had finished, he read over what he had written. If he had not a photographic memory, he was, at any rate, aware that Jane in her repetition had not varied so much as a syllable from her first statement.
He went on looking at what he had written. At last he said:
“Jane, I think I must tell you something in confidence. Sir William, as you know, is conducting important experiments for the Government. How important you may perhaps have gathered from the extraordinary precautions which are taken to prevent any leakage of information. These experiments have resulted in two valuable discoveries represented, for purposes of official correspondence, by the terms Formula ‘A’ and Formula ‘B.’ Within the last week we have had indisputable proof that Formula ‘A’ has been offered to a foreign power. That is the reason for my presence here. Now these are facts. Let them sink into your mind, then read over what I have just taken down, and tell me how you square those facts with Renata’s statement.”
Jane picked up the notebook, stared at the written words, set Henry’s facts in the forefront of her mind, and remarked candidly:
“It does make your head go round rather, doesn’t it?”
Henry assented. They both sat silent. Then Jane put down the notebook.
“Never mind about our heads going round,” she said. “Let me go on and tell you the rest of it. It isn’t only what Renata heard; it’s the things that keep happening—little things in a way, but oh, Henry, sometimes I think they are more frightening just because they are little things. I mean, supposing you know you’re going to be executed, you brace yourself up, and it’s all in the day’s work, but if you are out at a dinner-party and you suddenly find poison in the soup, or a bomb in the middle of the table decorations, it’s ... well, it’s unexpected—and, and perfectly beastly.”
Jane’s voice broke just for an instant.
Henry’s hand came quickly through the torchlight, and rested on both hers. It was a satisfactorily large and heavy hand.
She told him about her interview with Ember at the flat, and one by one she marshalled all the small happenings which had startled and alarmed her.
Henry waited until she had quite finished. Then he said:
“This lip-reading—you know, my dear girl, it’s a chancy sort of thing; it seems to me that there are unlimited possibilities of mistake.”
“Some people are much easier to read from than others. Lady Heritage is very easy. I’m sure I was not mistaken; she was saying, ‘If she overheard anything, would she have the intelligence to be dangerous? That is what I ask myself,’ and she said, ‘Despise not thine enemy,’ and ‘Anything but Formula “A.”’ Now Mr. Ember is very difficult. I can’t really make him out at all. His lips don’t move. It’s no use not believing me, Henry. Look here, I’ll show you.”
She caught up the little torch, and turned the light upon his face.
“Say something,” she commanded.
Henry’s lips formed the words, “Jane, I love you very much indeed”—and Jane switched off the light.
“Henry, you’re a perfect beast! Play fair,” she said, in a low, furious whisper.
“Sorry. Wasn’t it all right? Try again.”
Jane allowed the ray to light up Henry’s mouth and chin. The hand that held the torch was not quite steady. This may have been the result of anger—or of some other emotion. As a result the light wavered a good deal.
Henry’s lips moved, and Jane read aloud, “A sleuth should never lose its temper.”
Henry’s hand caught the little shaking one that held the torch, and gave it a great squeeze.
“How frightfully clever you are, and—oh, Jane, what a goose!”
“I’m not,” said Jane.
“But don’t you see that, with Renata’s story in your mind, you would be looking out for things? You couldn’t help it.”
“What do you think, then, of Lady Heritage saying that Mr. Ember’s verdict was inclined to be ‘Guilty, but recommended to mercy,’ whereas she said that she herself doubted the guilt, but that if she did not, she would have no mercy at all? Do you know, that frightened me almost more than anything. I don’t know why. That wasn’t lip-reading; I heard the words with my own ears.”
“But—don’t you see——” He paused. “Let’s get back to facts: Formula ‘A’ has been stolen and offered for sale. Renata, undoubtedly, overheard something relating to Formula ‘A.’ Now, supposing Mr. Molloy or one of his friends to be the person who is doing the deal, don’t you see that the possibility of Renata having overheard something compromising would be sufficient to account for a good deal of alarm?
“If Molloy and his friends had stolen Formula ‘A’ and were trying to dispose of it, it would naturally be of the highest importance to them to find out how much Renata knew, and to take steps which would ensure her silence. They would almost certainly try and frighten her—that’s how it seems to me.”
“Then where does Mr. Ember come in?” said Jane. “He was there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Renata described him,” said Jane. “She said he was the worst of them all.”
“She knew him by name?”
“No. But ... but”—a little chill breath of doubt played on Jane’s certainty—“she called him the man in the fur coat. The others spoke of him as Number Two.”
“But you don’t know that it was Ember?”
For a moment Jane felt that she was sure of nothing; then, with a swift revulsion, her old fears, suspicions, certainties, received vigorous reinforcement.
“Henry,” she said, “listen. You’re on the wrong scent—I know you are. I can’t tell you how I know it, but I’m quite, quite sure. If you were an anarchist, and wanted to produce some horrible thing that would smash civilisation into atoms, how would you set about it?—where would you go? Don’t you see that the very safest place would be somewhere like this, somewhere where you could carry on your experiments under the cover of real experiments? It’s like the caterpillars that pretend to be sticks—what do you call it?—protective mimicry.”
“Jane!” said Henry.
“I’m sure that’s what they have done. I’m sure that there is something dreadful going on in this house. And if you can’t square what Renata heard with what you know of Formula ‘A,’ why, then I believe that there must be more than one Formula ‘A.’ Don’t you see how cunning it would be for them to take the name of a real Government invention to cover up whatever horrible thing it is that they are working at?”
There was a dead silence.
“Another Formula ‘A’?” said Henry slowly. Then, with an abrupt change of manner:
“Leave it—all of it—and tell me some things I want to know. Sir William, for instance—he was put out at my coming down, I know—but what is he like as a rule? He does not always drink as much as he did to-night, does he?”
“I think he does. Henry, I think he takes too much—I do, really; and he’s frightfully irritable. But that’s not what strikes me most. The thing I notice is that he doesn’t seem to do any work. Mr. Ember is supposed to be his secretary, but he really does all his work with Lady Heritage. She goes on all the time. She spends hours in the laboratories. I believe she works there till ever so late, but Sir William just sticks in his study and broods. I thought how strange it was from the very first day.”
“And Lady Heritage? Put all this mysterious business on one side and tell me what you make of her?”
Jane hesitated.
“She’s—she’s disturbing. I think she has too much of everything, and it seems to upset the balance of everything she touches. She’s too beautiful for one thing, and she has too much intellect, and too much, far too much, emotion. I think she is dreadfully unhappy too, with the sort of unhappiness that makes you want to hurt somebody else. You know what she sang this evening. I think she really feels like that, and would like to smash—everything. That’s why....” Jane broke off suddenly; her voice dropped to the least possible thread, “Oh, what’s that—what’s that?”
As she spoke, her hand met Henry’s on the switch of the torch. The light went out. Jane clung to one of the hard, strong fingers as she listened with all her ears. She heard a footstep, light and unmistakable, and it stopped upon the threshold.
There were about twenty seconds of really terrifying silence, and then the handle of the door turned slowly. Jane heard the creak of the hinge, the minute rattle of the latch. Then the handle was released, but slowly and with the least possible noise. There was another silence.
Jane pinched Henry as hard as she could, and though this, of course, relieved the strain she felt dreadfully afraid that she would scream unless something broke through this dreadful quiet.
Something did break through it next moment, for there came a low knocking on the door, and with the first sound of that knocking Jane recovered herself. With an extraordinary quickness and lightness she was on her feet and out of the cupboard, the cupboard was shut, and Jane, her shoes noiselessly discarded, was sitting on the side of a rumpled bed, a fold of the sheet across her mouth, inquiring in sleepy, muffled accents:
“What is it? Who’s there?”
The knocking had gone on steadily. Now it stopped, and a voice said, “It is I, Lady Heritage. Open the door.”
Jane threw back the bedclothes so as to cover the chair at the bed-foot—a chair upon which there should have been a neatly folded pile of clothes—pulled off her stockings, and took the key out of the dressing-table drawer.
“Oh, what is it?” she said, and fumbled at the lock.
Next moment the door was open, and she saw Lady Heritage in her white linen overall and head-dress, the latter pushed back and showing her hair.
Lady Heritage saw a startled girl in a red flannel dressing-gown. Between the moonlight and the light from the passage there was a sort of dusk. Lady Heritage put her hand on the switch, but did not pull it down. Instead, she said quickly:
“I saw a light under the door. Are you ill?”
Jane rubbed her eyes.
“A light?” she said.
Raymond crossed the room quickly and felt each of the electric bulbs.
“A light?” said Jane again.
Lady Heritage went back to the door and turned all the lights on.
“Do you always lock yourself in?” she said. “And why did you take the key out of the door?”
“Was it wrong? They say that if you lock your door and put the key away, even if you walk in your sleep, you don’t go out of the room. I shouldn’t like to walk in my sleep in a big house like this, and perhaps wake up in a cellar or out on the terrace.”
Lady Heritage did an odd thing. Something flashed across her face as Jane was speaking, and she put both hands on the girl’s shoulders and pulled her round so that she faced the light.
Jane met, for a moment, a most extraordinary look. It did not seem to go through her as Mr. Ember’s scrutiny had done, but it shook her more. She looked down and said shakily:
“What is it? Oh, please tell me if I have vexed you—oh, please....”
Lady Heritage took her hands away.
“I had forgotten you walked in your sleep,” she said. “I don’t like locked doors as a rule, but I suppose you had better keep yours fastened. I shouldn’t like you to walk into the sea and get drowned, or break your neck falling off the terrace. Get back to your bed. I’m just going to mine. I’ve been working late.”
She went out, and it was a long, long time before Jane, who had heard the soft footfalls die away in the distance, dared open the door and take a hasty look along the corridor. It was quite empty.
After another pause she went to the cupboard door and opened it. The flooring stretched unbroken; there was no square hole, and no Henry. She sat down on the floor, hesitated, and then knocked lightly.
Under her very hand a board rose with a little jerk—a line of light showed, and Henry’s voice said softly:
“All clear?”
“Yes, be quick, I daren’t wait.”
“Who was it?”
“Lady Heritage.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know. She said she saw a light. Henry, she frightens me, she really does.”
The board rose a little higher.
“A sleuth who gets frightened is no earthly——” said Henry firmly. “Now look here, Jane, I can get you out of this quite easily if you want to come. You are the only person in the house whom I haven’t interviewed. Mr. Ember said that of course I shouldn’t want to see you, as you did not get here until after the leakage must have taken place. I made no comment at the time, but it is perfectly open to me to insist on seeing you, to say that I am not satisfied with the interview, and to take you back to London for further interrogation.”
Henry had opened the trap door about a foot. His face, lighted from below, looked very odd with the chin almost resting on a board at Jane’s feet and the trap held up by one hand and only just clearing his hair. Jane would have wanted to laugh if his last suggestion had appalled her less.
“Oh, you mustn’t,” she said. “If you do that, it’s all up. Mr. Ember would never, never, never, allow you to interview me. He’d be afraid of what I might say, and he’d find some awful way of keeping me quiet. As to letting me go off to London with you, well, if we started we’d certainly never get there. And oh, Henry, please, please go away. I’m sure they suspect something, and if she comes again, or if he comes—oh, Henry, do go.”
“All right,” said Henry. “Now, Jane, look here. I’m off before breakfast, but I can make an excuse to come down at any time if you want me. If anything is going wrong, or you get frightened, or if you want to get out of it write for patterns of jumper wool to the Misses Kent, Hermione Street, South Kensington. It’s a real wool shop and they’ll send you real patterns, but Miss Kent will ring me up the minute she gets your letter. I’ll come down straight away, and you look out for me here.”
“Do you mean you’ll come and stay? Won’t they suspect something?”
“They won’t know,” said Henry. “Don’t ask me why, but send for me if you want me, and be very sure that I shall come. Got that address all right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll be off.”
“Yes, please go.”
As a preliminary to going, Henry came up a step higher, set the torch on the floor, and took Jane by the hand.
“Don’t get frightened, Jane,” he said. “I hate you to be frightened.”
“I’m not, not really.”
Henry came up another step; the trap now rested on his shoulders.
“Oh, Henry, please....”
“I’m going,” said Henry. He continued to hold Jane’s hand and appeared immovable. Jane could of course have taken her hand away and left the cupboard, but this did not occur to her till afterwards.
Quite suddenly Henry kissed her wrist, and a piece of the red flannel cuff. The next minute he was really gone. Perhaps it had occurred to him that he was a chaperon.
Jane lay awake for a long time.
Henry went away by an early train, and Jane came down to what, as a child, she had once described as a crumpled kind of day. She remembered “darling Jimmy” looking at her in a vague way, and saying in his gentle, cultivated voice:
“Crumpled, my dear Jane? What do you mean by crumpled?”
And Jane, frowning and direct:
“I mean a thing that’s got crumps in it, Jimmy darling,” and when Mr. Carruthers did not appear to find this a sufficient explanation, she had burst into emphatic elucidation:
“I was cross, and Nurse was cross, and you were cross. Yes, you were, and I had only just opened the study door ever so little; and I didn’t mean to upset the milk or to break the soap-dish; and oh, Jimmy, you must know what a crump is, and this day has been just chock-full of them. That’s why I said it was crumpled.”
The day of Henry’s departure was undoubtedly a crumpled day. To start with, a letter from Mr. Molloy awaited Jane at the breakfast table. It began, “My dear Renata,” and was signed, “Your affectionate father, Cornelius R. Molloy.” Mr. Ember remarked at once upon the unusual circumstance of there being a letter for Miss Molloy, and Jane, acting on an impulse which she afterwards regretted, replied:
“It’s from my father. Do you want to see what he says?”
“Thank you,” said Jeffrey Ember. He glanced casually at the bald sentences in which Mr. Molloy hoped that his daughter was well, and expressed dislike of the climatic conditions which he had encountered on the voyage. His eyes rested for a moment upon the signature, and quite suddenly he cast a bombshell at Jane.
“What does the ‘R’ stand for?” he said.
Jane had the worst moment of panic with which her adventure had yet provided her. She was about to say that she did not know, and take the consequences, when Mr. Ember saved her.
“Is it Renatus?” he asked. Jane broke into voluble speech.
“Oh no,” she said, “my name has nothing to do with his. I was called Renata after an aunt, my mother’s twin sister. They were exactly alike and devoted to each other, and I was called after my Aunt Renata, and her only daughter was called after my mother.” Here Jane bit the tip of her tongue and stopped, but she had not stopped in time. Mr. Ember’s eyes had left Molloy’s signature and were fixed upon her face.
“And your mother’s name?” he said.
“Jane,” faltered Jane.
“And are you and your cousin as much alike as your mothers were?”
Jane stared at her plate. She stared so hard that the gilt rim seemed to detach itself and float like a nimbus above a half-finished slice of buttered toast.
“I—I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t remember my mother, and I never saw my aunt.” Once again she bit her tongue, and this time very hard indeed. She had been within an ace of saying, “My Aunt Jane——”
“But you have seen your cousin; by the way, what is her surname?”
“Smith—Jane Smith.”
“You have seen your cousin, Jane Smith? Are you alike?”
“I have only seen her once.” Jane grasped her courage, and looked straight at Mr. Ember. He either knew something, or this was just idle teasing. In either case being afraid would not serve her. A spice of humour might.
“You’re frightfully interested in my aunts and cousins,” she said. “Do you want to find another secretary just like me for some one? But I’m afraid my Cousin Jane isn’t available. She’s married to a man in Bolivia.”
At this point Lady Heritage looked over the edge of The Times with a frown, and the conversation dropped. Jane finished her buttered toast, and admired herself because her hand did not shake.
Lady Heritage seemed to be in a frowning mood. This, it appeared, was not one of the days when she disappeared behind the steel grating with Ember, leaving Jane to pursue her appointed tasks in the library. Instead, there was a general sorting of correspondence and checking of work already done, with the result that Jane found herself being played upon, as it were, by a jet or spray of hot water. The temperature varied, but the spray was continuous. A letter to which Lady Heritage particularly wished to refer was not to be found, a package of papers wrongly addressed had come back through the Dead Letter Office, and an unanswered invitation was discovered in the “Answered” file. By three o’clock that afternoon Jane had been made to feel that it was possible that the world might contain a person duller, more inept, and less competent than herself—possible, but not probable.
“I think you had better go for a walk, Miss Molloy,” said Lady Heritage; “perhaps some fresh air....” She did not finish the sentence, and Jane, only too thankful to escape, made haste from the presence.
Ember had been right when he said that the grounds were extensive.
Jane skirted the house and made her way through a space of rather formally kept garden to where a gravel path followed the edge of the cliff. For a time it was bordered by veronica and fuchsia bushes, but after a while these ceased and left the bare down with its rather coarse grass, tiny growing plants, tangled brambles, and bright yellow clumps of gorse. The path went up and down. Sometimes it almost overhung the sea. Always a tall hedge of barbed wire straggled across the view and spoilt it.
The fact that a powerful electric current ran through the wire and made it dangerous to touch added to the dislike with which she regarded it.
111
It was a grey afternoon with a whipping wind from the north-west that beat up little crests of foam on the lead-coloured waves and made Jane clutch at her hat every now and then. She thought it cold when she started, but by and by she began to enjoy the sense of motion, the wind’s buffets, and the wide, clear outlook. At the farthest point of the headland she stopped, warm and glowing. The path ran out to the edge of the cliff. On the landward side the rock rose sharply, naked of grass, and heaped with rough boulders. A small cave or hollow ran inwards for perhaps four feet. In front of it, in fact almost within it, stood a stone bench pleasantly sheltered by the overhanging rock and curving sides of the hollow. Jane felt no need of shelter. Instead of sitting down, she climbed upon the back of the bench and, steadying herself against a rock, looked out over the wire and saw how the cliff fell away, sheer at first, and then in a series of jagged, tumbled steps until the rocks went down into the sea.
After a time Jane scrambled down and was hesitating as to whether she would turn or not when a sound attracted her attention.
The path ended by the stone bench, but there seemed to be quite a practicable grassy track beyond.
The sound which Jane had heard was the sound made by a stone which has become displaced on a hillside. It must have been a very heavy stone. It fell with a muffled crash. Then came another sound which she could not place. She looked all round and could see nothing.
Something frightened her.
All at once she realised that she was a long way from the house and quite out of sight. Turning quickly, she began to walk back along the way that she had come, but she had not gone a dozen paces before she heard scrambling footsteps behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the man George Patterson standing beside the stone seat which she had just left. He made some sort of beckoning sign with his hand and called out, but a puff of wind took away the words, and only a hoarse, and as she thought, threatening sound reached her ears.
Without waiting to hear or see any more she began to run, and with the first flying step that she took there came upon her a blind, driving panic which sent her racing down the path as one races in a nightmare.
George Patterson started in pursuit. He called again twice, and the sound of his voice was a whip to Jane’s terror. After at the most a minute he gave up the chase, and Jane flew on, pursued by nothing worse than her own fear.
Just by the first fuchsia bush she ran, blind and panting, into the very arms of Mr. Ember. The impact nearly knocked him down, and it may be considered as certain that he was very much taken aback.
Jane came back to a knowledge of her whereabouts to find herself gripping Mr. Ember’s arm and stammering out that something had frightened her.
“What?” inquired Ember.
“I—don’t—know,” said Jane, half sobbing, but already conscious that she did not desire to confide in Jeffrey Ember.
“But you must know.”
“I don’t.”
With a little gasp Jane let go, and wished ardently that her knees would stop shaking. Ember looked at her very curiously.
Jane had often wondered what his queer cold eyes reminded her of. Curiously enough, it was now, in the midst of her fright, that she knew. They were like pebbles—the greeny-grey ones which lie by the thousand on the seashore. As a rule they were dull and hard, just as the pebbles are dull and hard when they are dry. But sometimes when he was angry, when he cross-questioned you, or when he looked at Lady Heritage the dullness vanished and they looked as the pebbles look when some sudden wave has touched them. Jane did not know when she disliked them most.
They brightened slowly now as they fixed themselves upon her, and Ember said:
“Do you know, I was hoping I might meet you. We haven’t had a real talk since you came.”
“No,” said Jane.
Her manner conveyed no ardent desire for conversation.
“Shall we walk a little?” pursued her companion; “the wind’s cold for standing. I really do want to talk to you.”
Jane said nothing at all. If Ember wished to talk, let him talk. She was still shaky, and not at all in the mood for fencing.
“Well, how do you like being here? How do we strike you?”
Ember spoke quite casually, and Jane thought it was strange that he and Henry should both have asked her the same question. Her reply, however, differed.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Don’t you? My dear Miss Renata, what a really extraordinary number of things you—don’t know! You don’t know what frightened you, and you don’t know whether you like us or not.”
Jane’s temper carried her away.
“Oh yes, I do,” she said viciously, and looked full at the bright pebble eyes.
Ember laughed.
“What do you think of Lady Heritage? Wonderful, isn’t she?”
“Oh yes,” said Jane. “She’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Too beautiful, don’t you think?”
If she desired to interest Jeffrey Ember, it appeared that she had succeeded. His attention was certainly arrested.
“Why too beautiful?”
Jane had an impulse towards frankness.
“I think she’s too ... everything. She has so many gifts, it does not seem as if there could be scope for them all.”
Ember looked at Jane for a moment. Then he looked away. In that moment Jane saw something—she could not really tell what. The nearest that she could get to it was “triumph.” Yes, that was it, triumph.
As he looked away he said, very low, “She will have scope enough,” and there was a little tingling silence.
He broke it in an utterly unforeseen manner. With an abrupt change of voice he asked:
“Ever learn chemistry?”
“No,” said Jane, and then wondered whether she was telling the truth about Renata.
“’M—know what a formula is?”
Jane put a dash of ignorant conviction into her voice:
“Oh, I think so—oh yes, of course.”
“Well, what is it?”
She looked puzzled.
“It’s difficult to explain things, isn’t it? Of course I know ‘formulate,’ and er—‘formal.’ But it’s—it’s something learned, isn’t it?”
Ember’s sarcastic smile showed for a moment. With a horrid inward qualm Jane wondered whether she had overdone Renata’s ignorance.
“A formula is a prescription,” said Ember slowly. “If you remember that, I think you’ll find it all quite simple. So that Formula ‘A’ is simply a prescription for making something up, labelled ‘A’ for convenience’ sake.”
Jane let her eyes become quite round.
“Is it?” she said in the blankest tone at her command. “But ... but what is Formula ‘A,’ Mr. Ember?”
“That, my dear Miss Renata, is what a good many people would like to know.”
“Would they? Why?”
“They would. In fact, some of them—person or persons unknown—wanted to know so much that they have gone to the length of stealing Formula ‘A.’ That, at least, is Captain March’s opinion, and the reason for his visit here. So I should be careful, very careful indeed, about betraying any knowledge of Formula ‘A.’”
Jane whisked round, stared blankly, and said in largest capitals:
“ME?”
Then, after a pause, she burst out laughing. “What do you mean?”
“You either know, or you don’t know,” said Jeffrey Ember. “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. If you do, I have just given you a warning. A very valuable Government secret has been stolen, and if Captain March were to suspect that you were in any way involved—well, I suppose ... I need not tell you that the consequences would be serious beyond words.”
Jane gazed at him in a breathless delight which she hoped was not apparent. The day had been singularly lacking in pleasantness, but it was undoubtedly pleasing to receive a solemn warning of the dreadful fate that might overtake her if Henry should suspect that she knew anything about Formula “A.”
“But I haven’t the slightest idea what Formula ‘A’ can be,” she said. “It sounds frightfully exciting. Do tell me some more. Was it stolen? And how could anything be stolen here?”
“Who frightened you?” he said suddenly.
Jane caught her breath.
“It was a stone,” she said. “I don’t know why it frightened me so. It fell over the edge of the cliff and gave me a horrid nightmare-ish sort of feeling. I started running and then I couldn’t stop. It was frightfully stupid of me.”
They walked on a few paces. Then Ember said:
“Captain March will probably come down here again. I managed to save you from an interview with him this time, but if he comes again, and if he sees you, remember there is only one safe way for you—you know nothing, you never have known anything, as far as you are concerned there is nothing to know. You shouldn’t find that difficult. You have quite a talent for not knowing things. Improve it.” He paused, smiled slightly, and went on, “You said just now that it was frightfully stupid of you to be frightened. Sometimes, Miss Renata, it is a great deal more stupid not to be frightened. Believe me, this is one of those times.”
They walked home in silence.