The clang of the steel gate was the next really distinct impression which Jane received. In a moment she was herself. It was just as if she had been asleep, and then, to the jar of a striking clock, had come broad awake. She listened intently.
That clang meant that the gate had been shut. One of the men had gone, probably Ember. One of them certainly remained, for she could see that the lights in the laboratory were still on. If it were Molloy, he would come and find her. But it was just possible that it was Jeffrey Ember who had remained behind, so she must keep absolutely still, she knew.
At this moment Jane felt that she had really had as much adventure as she wanted for one day. She thought meekly of Henry, and soulfully of her tea. Blotson would be laying it in the library. There would be muffins. She was dreadfully thirsty. Jane could have found it in her heart to weep. The thought of the slowly congealing muffins unnerved her. She would almost have admitted that woman’s place is in the home. There is no saying what depths she might not have arrived at, had the return of the Anarchist Uncle not distracted her thoughts. The heavy tread convinced her that it was not Mr. Ember, but she did not stir until he came round the corner and flashed the light upon her face. Jane blinked.
“Holy Niagara!” said Mr. Molloy. “It was the fright of my life you gave me.”
Jane scrambled to her feet. She was not quite sure what the situation demanded of her in the way of filial behaviour. Did one embrace one’s Anarchist Parent? Or did one just lean against the wall and look dazed? She thought the latter.
Molloy turned the light away, and then flashed it back again with great suddenness. Jane shut her eyes. Mr. Molloy pursed his lips and emitted a whistle which travelled rapidly up the chromatic scale and achieved a top note of piercing intensity. Without a word he took Jane by the arm and brought her out of her hiding-place into the lighted laboratory. He then pushed her a little away, took a good look at her, and repeated his former odd expletive:
“Holy Niagara!” he said in low but heartfelt tones.
Jane felt a little giddy, and she sat down on the bench. Her right hand went out, feeling for support, and touched a sheaf of papers. Through all the confusion of her thought she recognised that these must be the lists from which Ember had been reading.
“What is it?” she said faintly.
Molloy put down his electric torch, came quite close to her, bent down with a hand on either knee until his face was on a level with hers, and said in what he doubtless intended for a whisper:
“And where is me daughter Renata?”
Jane leaned back so as to get as far away from the flushed face as possible. She opened her mouth without knowing what she was going to say, and quite suddenly she began to laugh. She leaned her head against the brick wall behind her, and the laughter shook her from head to foot.
“Glory be to God, is it a laughing matter?” said Mr. Molloy; “whisht, I tell you, whisht, or you’ll be having Ember back.”
He straightened himself, and made a gesture in the direction of the roof.
“It’s crazy she is,” he said.
Jane put her hand to her throat, gasped for breath, and stopped laughing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was—you were—I mean, what did you say?”
“I said, where is me daughter Renata?” said Molloy in his deepest tones.
Jane gulped down a gurgle of laughter.
“Your daughter Renata?” she said.
“Me daughter Renata,” repeated Mr. Molloy sternly. “Where is she?”
Jane felt herself steadying.
“Why do you think—what makes you think——?”
“That you’re not my daughter? They say it’s a wise child that knows its own father, but it’s a damn fool father that wouldn’t know his own daughter.”
“How do you know?” said Jane.
Molloy laughed.
“That’s telling,” he said; “but I don’t mind telling you. You’re my niece Jane Smith and not my daughter Renata Molloy; and, even if I wasn’t her father, I’d always know you from Renata, the way I could always tell your two mothers apart when no one else could. Your mother had a little mole on her left eyelid, just in the corner where it wouldn’t show unless she shut her eyes. My wife hadn’t got it, and that’s the way I could always tell her from her sister. And my daughter Renata hasn’t got it, but you have; and when you blinked, in yonder, I got a glimpse of it; and when I flashed the light on to you again and you shut your eyes, I made sure. And now, perhaps you’ll tell me where in all the world is Renata?”
Jane’s gaze rested intelligently upon Mr. Molloy. The corners of her mouth lifted a little. The dimple showed in her left cheek.
“Renata,” she said in a very demure voice, “is in a safe place, like the money you went abroad for.”
Molloy looked at her uncertainly; in the end he laughed.
“Meaning you won’t tell me,” he said.
“Meaning that I’m not sure whether I’ll tell you or not.”
“Maybe it would be better if I didn’t know. That’s what you’re thinking?”
“Yes, that was what I was thinking.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Molloy. Then he laughed again. “I’ve the joke on Ember anyhow,” he said. “He thinks he’s got a patent for most of the brains in the country, and here he’s been led by the nose by a slip of a girl just out of school. And what’s more, he was taken in and I wasn’t. He’ll find that hard to swallow, will Mr. Jeffrey Ember. You’d not have taken me in, you know, even if I’d not had the mole to go by. And one of these fine days I shall twit Ember with that.”
“Are you so sure you’d have known me?” said Jane. “Why?”
“My dear girl,” said Mr. Molloy, “if you knew your cousin Renata, you’d not be asking me that. If I find a girl in an underground passage all in the dark, well, that girl is not my daughter Renata. And if, by any queer sort of chance, Renata had been in that hole where I found you, she’d have screamed blue murder when I turned the light on her. Then, at an easy guess, I should say you had Renata beat to a frazzle in the matter of brains. I’m not saying, mind you, that I’m an admirer of brains in a woman. It’s all a matter of opinion, and there’s all sorts in the world. But you’ve got brains, and Renata hasn’t, and Ember’s had you under his nose all this time without ever knowing the difference.”
Jane laughed.
“Perhaps I didn’t exactly obtrude my superior intelligence on Mr. Ember,” she said. Her eyes danced. “You’ve no idea how stupid I can be when I try, and I’ve been trying very hard indeed.”
“The devil you have?” said Mr. Molloy. “Well, you had Ember deceived and that’s a grand feather in your cap, I can tell you. He’s a hard one to deceive is Ember.”
Jane gurgled suddenly.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I deceived you, too. Yes, I did, I really did. You know the morning you went off to America, or rather the morning you went off not to America? At the flat? You said good-bye to me, not to Renata.”
“And where was Renata then?”
Jane twinkled.
“In the safe place,” she said.
“I’ll swear it was Renata the night before,” said Molloy.
“Yes, that’s clever of you. It was.”
Molloy was thinking hard.
“And which of you was it in the night when we thought the roof had fallen in, and came into Renata’s room to look out of the window? I’d my heart in my mouth, for I thought it was a bomb. Was it you or Renata sitting up in bed like a ghost?”
“That was me,” said Jane. “You couldn’t have been nearly so frightened as I was.”
“Then you changed places between eight and eleven that night?”
“We changed places,” said Jane, “just as you and Mr. Ember came home. I shut Renata’s door just as you opened the door of the flat. I was in the hall when the lift stopped.”
“Then I think I know how you did it,” said Molloy. He seemed interested. “But I’d like to know who put you up to it; and I’d like to know who gave the back entrance away; and I’d like to know how Renata, who hasn’t the nerve of a mouse, got down that blamed fire-escape alone.”
Jane dimpled again.
“You do want to know a lot, don’t you?” she said.
There was a pause. Then Jane said:
“And now, what happens next, please?”
“That,” said Molloy, “is just what I’m wondering.”
“I ought to be getting back, I think,” said Jane.
“Ah, ought you now?” said Mr. Molloy thoughtfully.
There was another pause. Jane thought she would leave Mr. Molloy to break it this time. She sat considering him. Her eyes dwelt upon him with a calm scrutiny which he found extremely embarrassing. The longer it continued, the more embarrassing he found it. In the end he said:
“You want me to let you go?”
Jane nodded.
“And not tell Ember?”
Jane gave another nod, cool and brief.
“Oh, the devil’s in it,” said Molloy, with sudden violence.
“You don’t need the devil; you’ve got Mr. Ember,” said Jane.
“And that’s true enough, for it’s the very devil and all he is, and, if I let you go, I’ll have him to reckon with—some day. I’d rather face the Day of Judgment myself.”
“I tell you what I think,” said Jane. “I think Mr. Ember is mad. That is to say, I think he is the sort of fanatic who sees what he wants and sets out to get it, without knowing half the difficulties and obstacles that block the way. When he does begin to know them he doesn’t care, he just goes along blind. Where a reasonable man would alter his plan to suit the circumstances, this sort of fanatic just goes on because he’s made his plan and will stick to it whatever happens. He isn’t governed by reason at all. He doesn’t care what risks he runs, or what risks he makes other people run. He goes right on, whatever happens. If the next step is over a precipice he’ll take it. He must go on. Mr. Ember is like that. I think he is mad.”
Mr. Molloy stared hard at Jane, then he nodded slowly three times.
“Now you’re not like that,” said Jane. “You’re reasonable. You don’t want to run appalling risks when there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by it. Of course, every one’s willing to run risks if it’s worth while. I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’ve done awfully dangerous things.”
“I have,” said Mr. Molloy, with simple pride. “There’s no one that’s done more for The Cause, or run greater risks. I could tell you things—but there, maybe I’d better not.”
Jane clasped her hands round her knees. She leaned back against the wall and regarded Mr. Molloy with what he took to be admiration.
“Now do tell me,” she said—“when you speak of The Cause, what do you mean?”
In her heart of hearts Jane had a pretty firm conviction that, to Mr. Molloy, The Cause stood for whatever promoted the wealth, welfare, and advancement of himself, the said Molloy.
“Ah,” said Mr. Molloy reverentially. He spread out his hands with a fine gesture. “That’s a big question.”
“Well, what I mean,” said Jane, “is this. What do you really call yourself? You know, I always used to call you ‘The Anarchist Uncle,’ but the other day some one said that there were no Anarchists any more, so I wondered what you really were. Are you a Socialist, or a Communist, or a Bolshevist, or what?”
A doubtful expression crossed Mr. Molloy’s handsome face.
“Well, now,” he said, “it would depend on the company I was in.”
Jane had a struggle with the dimple and subdued it.
“You mean,” she ventured, “that if you were with Socialists, you would be a Socialist; and if you were with Bolshevists, you would be a Bolshevist?”
“Well, it would be something like that,” admitted Mr. Molloy.
“I see,” said Jane. “And, of course, whatever you were, you’d naturally want to be sure that it was going to be worth your while. I mean you’d want to get something out of it?” She waited a moment, and then went on, with a complete change of voice and manner, “What are you going to get out of this?” She spoke with the utmost gravity. “If you don’t know, I can tell you. Disaster—at best a long term of imprisonment, at the worst death, the sort of death one doesn’t care about having in one’s family. The question is, is it worth it? You’re not in the least mad. You’re not a fanatic either. You are a perfectly sane and reasonable person, and you know that what I’m saying is the sane and reasonable truth. Isn’t it?”
“Faith, and wasn’t I saying so to Ember myself,” said Molloy in gloomy agreement. “We’ve got money enough, and we can live on it retired, so to speak. The life’s all very well when you’re young, but a man of my age isn’t just so keen on taking chances as he was, and that’s the truth. Then there’s the old times come over him, and he thinks of the place where he was born, and he thinks, maybe, he’d like to see it again. Why, with the money I’ve got,” said Mr. Molloy, “it’s a fine house I could have in Galway, and a car, and a horse or two. That’s what I’d like.”
Jane saw his face light up.
“It’s a fine town Galway,” he said, “and there are people I’d like to see there, and places too. The people would be changed, I’m thinking, but not the places. I’d like well enough to go up the river past Menlough again. It’s the grand woods there are there, and then there’s a place where you’d see nothing but reeds, and no way at all for a boat. But let you push through the reeds and a way there is, and you come out to the grey open water and the country round it just as bare as if you’d taken sand-paper to it. They used to say that the water went down to hell, but I’m not saying that I believe it; but deep it is, for no one’s ever touched the bottom. Many’s the stone I’ve dropped in there, and wakened in the night to wonder if it was still sinking; and many’s the time I’ve played truant, and gone there fishing for the great pike that they said was in it. Hundreds of years old he is by the tales, and once I could swear I saw him, only maybe it was only a cloud that was passing overhead. What I saw was just a grey shadow, and all at once it come over me that I should be getting back to my work. I was black frightened, that’s the truth, but I couldn’t tell you why.”
Jane looked at Mr. Molloy, and experienced some very strange sensations. He might sell her to Ember next moment, but for this moment he was utterly sincere and as simple as a child. His sentiments were not hypocrisy. They represented real feeling and emotion; but feeling, emotion, and sentiment had been trained to take the wall obediently at the bidding of what Mr. Molloy would call business. For all her youth, Jane felt a rush of pity for anything so played upon from without, so ungoverned from within as this big handsome man who stood there talking earnestly of his boyhood’s home.
“Why don’t you go back and see it all again?” she said.
“Well, I’d like to,” said Mr. Molloy, “but what good’ll my house in Galway do me if I waken up some fine night with a knife in me heart or a bomb gone off under me bed?”
It seemed a difficult question to answer.
Molloy began to pace the room.
“I must think,” he said.
All the time that Jane had been talking, part of her mind had been continually occupied with the question of the lists, those lists of towns and the agents in each who were to be entrusted with the work of destruction. It might not be so difficult to get hold of them, but to get hold of them without their being missed by Ember ... that was the difficulty. She had only to drop her right hand to the bench on which she sat and it touched the flimsy sheets.
Whilst Molloy was discoursing of his birthplace, she considered more than one plan. She must not precipitate Ember’s suspicions until she could place this evidence in Henry’s hands. If she took the lists and Ember missed them, he would suspect and accuse Molloy, and Molloy would most certainly exonerate himself at her expense. On the other hand, if she let the lists slip when they were under her hand, who was to say whether the opportunity would recur. Ember would return. He already distrusted Molloy, and what would be more likely than that he would remove such incriminating papers from Molloy’s care?
Then, quite suddenly, Jane knew what she must do. She didn’t want to do it, but she knew she must. She must get the papers now, she must copy them, and she must put them back before daybreak whilst the Anarchist Uncle was asleep. Jane had never contemplated anything which frightened her half so much as the idea of putting those papers back in that discouraging hour before the dawn, but she knew that it must be done.
As Mr. Molloy walked up and down frowning intently, there were moments when his back was turned towards Jane. The first time this happened Jane’s hand took hold of the thin papers and doubled them in half. The next time that it happened she doubled them again. She went on doubling them until the large thin sheaf had become a small fat wad. Then whilst Molloy’s back was turned she lifted her skirt and pushed the wad down inside her stocking top. When Molloy faced her again her hands were folded on her lap.
“I really must be going,” she said.
He threw her an odd, sidelong glance. It made Jane feel a little cold.
“Since you heard so much just now, I don’t doubt you heard Ember tell me just how convenient this place would be for putting some one that wasn’t wanted out of the way?”
“Yes, I heard what he said,” said Jane, “but I’m afraid Mr. Ember doesn’t know everything. As far as I remember, he described these passages as a place no one knew anything about.”
“He did,” said Molloy, staring.
Jane gave a little laugh, and felt pleased with herself because it sounded steady.
“Well, to my certain knowledge, three other people know the way in here,” she said.
Molloy showed signs of uneasiness.
“Meaning you and me and ... since you heard the rest, I’m supposing you heard me name Number One.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you and me at all,” said Jane. “I was thinking of two quite different people, and as to Number One, I could answer that better if I were sure who Number One was. The third person I’m thinking of may be Number One, or may not. I’m not sure.”
“I’m thinking,” said Molloy—“I’m thinking you know too much. I’m thinking you know a deal too much.”
Jane met his eyes full. Her own were steady, his were not.
“Are you going to tell Mr. Ember, and let him ‘eliminate’ me?”
Molloy gave a violent start.
“Where did you hear that?” he said.
“It wasn’t I who heard that, it was Renata. It was one of the things that made her so anxious to change places with me.”
“And what made you willing to change with her?” Molloy’s voice was harsh with suspicion.
“I hadn’t a job, or any relations to go to. I had exactly one-and-sixpence in the world. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night—that’s pretty awful for a girl, you know; and then ... Renata was so frightened.”
“She would be,” was Molloy’s comment. “And weren’t you frightened now?”
“I suppose I was,” said Jane.
“You had need to be.” The something that had made Jane feel cold before was in Molloy’s look and voice. “You had need to be more afraid than you’ve ever been in your life. Renata would have stayed quiet, but nothing would serve you but you must push, and poke, and pry. What were you doing here at all now, will you tell me that? Who showed you how to get down here? You say there are others who know the secret—who are they? Tell me that, will you ... who are they?” Molloy’s sudden passion took Jane by surprise. Her heart began to beat, and she had difficulty in controlling her voice.
“Which question am I to answer first?” she said. “Shall I begin at the beginning? I found the passages by accident....” Molloy gave an impatient snort. “Yes, I did really, on my word of honour. I couldn’t sleep and came down to get a book. I was standing in the shadow and I saw some one come out of the panelling. Next night I thought I’d try and find the place. The same person came downstairs and went through the door in the wall. I followed.”
“Was it Ember?”
“No, it wasn’t Mr. Ember.”
“Who was it?”
“I believe you know,” said Jane, speaking slowly.
“Was it a woman?” said Molloy. He dropped his voice to a whisper and looked over his shoulder.
Jane nodded.
“Glory be to God!” said Molloy. “Did you see her face?” Jane nodded again. Molloy came quite close, bent down, and whispered:
“Was it the old man’s daughter? Was it”—his voice dropped to the very edge of inaudibility—“was it Lady Heritage?”
Jane nodded for the third time.
Molloy spun round, went straight to the steel door, and, opening it, looked up the passage. After a moment he came back.
“You saw her face? Will you swear that you saw her face?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then you’ve seen more than I have. Do you know, I’ve never been sure. I’ve never really been sure. Ember’s talk, and—it was her face you saw, not that mask thing they wear in the laboratory, for that’s all I’ve seen? You saw her face?”
“Yes, I saw her face quite plainly,” said Jane. In her own mind something seemed to say with cold finality, “Then Lady Heritage is Number One.”
“Well.... Well.... Well.... Well....” said Mr. Molloy.
There was a long pause. He seemed lost in thought, but suddenly he turned on Jane with the question which she hoped he had forgotten:
“You were saying that there were two others who knew the secret—you saw them down here?—down here in the passages?”
“Yes,” said Jane, without hesitation, “I did. They were men. One of them had a beard. I couldn’t tell you their names or describe them any more than that.”
Molloy looked desperately puzzled.
“Ember may know,” he muttered.
“He may,” said Jane. “I should ask him.”
Molloy gave a grunt and began to walk up and down again. The simile of the rat in the drain which he had made use of in conversing with Ember came back upon him with unpleasant force. His thoughts were confused by an access of unreasoning fear. Every time the question of what to do with Jane presented itself, he shied away from it. Jane knew too much. There was no doubt about that. She knew too much.
In the circles frequented by Mr. Molloy self-preservation dictated a certain course with regard to the person who knew too much. After thirty years Molloy still disliked the contemplation of that course of action. He was of those who pass by upon the other side. He had a well-cultivated faculty for looking the other way. It occurred to him that, after all, Jane was Ember’s affair. Let her go back to the house, she was Ember’s affair, not his. He became instantly very anxious to see the last of Jane.
Just as she was wondering how long this rather horrid silence was going to last, he walked up to her in a purposeful manner, put his hand on her arm, and pulled her to her feet.
“You’d best be getting back,” he said shortly.
Jane felt as if some one had lifted a heavy weight off the top of her head. The weight must have been fear, and yet she did not know that she had been afraid.
At the gate Molloy turned to her.
“Can you get into the hall?” he said. “Without being seen, I mean.”
“I’m not sure, it’s awfully risky. But I could walk home from the headland, that would be much safer, and if I’ve been missed, it would account for my absence.”
Molloy bent a sulky look on her.
“The headland—you know that too?” he said. Then, with an impatient jerk he switched off the light, turned on his torch, and walked ahead of Jane in silence.
Never in all her life had Jane seen anything so beautiful as the clear rain-washed sky, the grey rain-stilled sea. The little thud of the stone closing between her and Mr. Molloy was one of the most delightful sounds that she had ever heard. She felt as if she had never really appreciated the daylight before. There were nice woolly clouds on the horizon. The damp air was fresh, not like the air in those abominable passages. There was a gorse bush with about two and a half yellow flowers on it, rather sodden with the rain. Jane regarded them with intense affection.
She walked down the gravel path, drawing long breaths and ready to sing with pure relief—“Ease after toyle, port after stormie seas.” She frowned, remembering the next line. After all, they were not out of the wood yet. An unpleasant proverb succeeded Spenser’s line—“He laughs longest who laughs last.”
“Rubbish,” said Jane out loud, and she began to run.
She came in with such a glowing colour that Mr. Ember, who met her in the hall, was moved to remark upon it.
“You seem to have enjoyed your walk. Where have you been?”
“Round by the headland,” said Jane.
The roll of typed paper pricked her knee beneath her stocking top. In her arms she carried a sheaf of yellow tulips. She made haste to her room and set the flowers in a jar on the broad window ledge where they could be plainly seen from the terrace. With all her heart she prayed that George Patterson, who was Anthony Luttrell, would see them. She did not know that George Patterson had ceased to exist, and that Anthony Luttrell, having taken the law into his own impatient hands, was on his way to London.
There had been an encounter with Raymond in the laboratory—her hand for a moment on his arm, his muscles rigid under her touch; not a word spoken on either side, not a word needed. The scene carried Anthony to his breaking-point. At the next roll-call George Patterson was missing. Meanwhile Raymond was behind a locked door, and Jane set yellow tulips on her window-sill.
Having made her signal, Jane turned her mind to the lists. She was afraid to keep them on her, and she was afraid to hide them anywhere else. If Molloy missed them, and had any means of communicating with Ember, she would be searched, and her room would be searched. Whatever happened to her, they must not recover the lists until she had copied them.
She remembered the trap-door in the cupboard, but it was just possible that Ember knew about it, not likely but possible. After five minutes’ profound thought, she went to a drawer into which she had emptied a quantity of odds and ends.
Renata, it appeared, had a mild taste for drawing. There were pencils, indiarubber, a roll of cartridge paper, and some drawing-pins. Jane took out the cartridge paper and the drawing-pins. She extracted the lists from her stocking top and smoothed them out flat. Then she opened the cupboard door, mounted on a chair drawn as close to the cupboard as possible, and pinned the lists on to the cupboard ceiling with a sheet of cartridge paper covering them. They just fitted in between two rows of hooks. Jane got down with a sigh of relief and unlocked her bedroom door.
The evening passed like a dream. Lady Heritage did not appear at all, and Jane found a strange unreality in the situation which kept her talking to Mr. Ember in set schoolgirl phrases whilst he condescended to her with more than a hint of sarcasm. She was glad when she could take a book and read.
It was eleven o’clock before she dared begin her night’s work, but she came up to her room with her plan all ready. First she took off her dress and put on a dressing-gown, just in case any one should come to the door. Then, having turned the key and switched off the light, she took a candle into the cupboard, set it on a shoe box, and took down the lists. She put a cushion on the floor, fetched Renata’s fountain pen and some sheets of foolscap which she had taken from the library, and began her work of copying. With the cupboard door shut there was no chance that any one would see her candle.
She wrote steadily, town after town, name after name. More towns, more names. As she finished each sheet, she checked it very carefully by its original. It was weary, monotonous work; but the weariness and the monotony were like a grey curtain which hung between her and something which she dreaded inexpressibly.
The idea of descending into the passage again, of creeping up to the laboratory in order to put back the lists before they were missed, filled her with shuddering repugnance. To allow her mind to dwell upon this idea was to become incapable of carrying it out. She therefore held her attention firmly to the endless names, and drove an industrious pen. She had to get up twice for more ink. Each time, as she stretched herself and walked the few paces to the table and back, the thought came to her like a cold breath, “It’s coming nearer.”
At last, in the dead stillness of the sleeping hours, the lists were finished. She pinned the copies on to the cupboard ceiling in the same way that she had pinned the originals, carefully covered with a piece of cartridge paper. Then she took the originals in her hand and faced the necessity for action. Her feet and hands were very cold. She felt as if it were days since she had had anything to eat. She wanted most dreadfully to go to bed and sleep. She wanted to have a good cry. What she had to do was to go down into slug- and possibly rat-haunted passages and risk waking an Anarchist Uncle out of his beauty sleep. Jane gave herself a mental shake.
“Don’t be a rabbit, Jane Smith,” she said. “It’s got to be done. You know that just as well as I do. If it’s got to be done, you can do it. Get going at once.”
She got going. First she put the lists back in her stocking top. Then she put on the old serge dress. Her fancy played hopefully with the thought that some day she would give herself the pleasure of burning that abominable garment. She extracted the maroon felt slippers from the paper parcel to which she had consigned them. They were still sopping. She put them on. They felt limp, damp, and discouraging, but they had the merit of making no noise. Then she took a good length of candle and a box of matches and opened her door.
“Well, here goes,” said Jane, and stepped into pitch darkness. This time she shut the door behind her. As she took her hand off the handle she felt as if she were letting go of her last hold on safety, an idiotic thought, as she instantly told herself. She knew by now just how many paces took one to the place where the light should have been burning, and just how many more to the stairhead. The rose window showed like a pattern painted on the dark. It gave no light, but it marked the position of the door.
Jane felt the soles of her feet stick and cling to the damp slippers as she crawled down the stairs. They just didn’t squelch and that was all; they only felt like it.
She hated moving the big chair in the dark, but it had to be done. Suppose she dropped it with a crash, suppose she pulled Willoughby Luttrell’s picture down when she was feeling for the catch; suppose a mouse ran over her foot—there is no end to the cheerful suppositions which will throng one’s brain in circumstances like these.
Jane did not drop the chair with a crash, neither did Willoughby Luttrell’s picture fall down, nor did a mouse run over her foot. She passed through the panelled door, shut it behind her, groped her way to the foot of the steps, and lighted the candle. It was then that the cheering thought that she might perhaps encounter Henry came to her, only to fade as she remembered how long past midnight it now was. However, if she had not Henry she had at least a light. It is much harder to be brave in the pitch dark even when, as in the present case, the darkness is really a protection.
Jane walked quite blithely up the second passage on the left until she came to the point where she knew that she must put the light out again. Molloy might be awake. She blew out her candle and began to feel her way forward. She came to the corner, and passed it. Moving very slowly and cautiously, she crept up to the steel gate and stood with her fingertips on it, listening, and thinking hard. She could feel that the door was ajar. That struck her as strange, very strange. If there ever was a man badly scared, Molloy was that man when she had said that the secret of the passages was not confined to himself and Ember. Yet he had gone to sleep leaving the gate ajar. Had he? Jane’s mind gave her a clear and definite answer. He hadn’t, he wouldn’t. She had been so sure that the gate would be shut, so ready with her plan. She was going to unfold the papers, push them between the bars, and jerk them as far across the room as possible. Molloy might think they had fallen from the bench, or, if he had his doubts, might well wish to avoid letting Ember know that Jane had been in the laboratory. All this she had so present in her thought, that to feel the gate give to her hand staggered her and set her shaking. She quieted herself and listened intently. Not a sound.
She did not somehow fancy that Molloy would be a quiet sleeper. She had anticipated snores of a certain rich bass quality. Here was silence in which one might have heard an infant draw its breath, a silence undisturbed, inviolate.
It was not only the silence which spoke to Jane. That odd, dim, only half-understood sense which some people possess, clamoured to her that the place was empty. As she stood there, and the seconds dragged into minutes, this sense became so insistent that she found herself resolving to act in obedience to its dictates.
She pushed the gate and heard the alarm ring. With all her ears she listened for the sound of a man stirring, waking, and starting up. At the first movement she would have been away, and Molloy, new roused from sleep, would never have caught sight of her. There was no movement. The bell went on ringing, a little continuous trickle of metallic sound, not loud but as confusing as the buzzing of a mosquito.
Jane switched on the light, slipped round the gate, and closed it. The bell stopped ringing. The jarred silence settled slowly, as dust settles when it has been stirred. There was no one there. The unshaded light showed every corner of the chamber. Molloy’s bag was gone. Like a flick in the face came certainty. “He’s gone. Molloy’s gone too.”
Slowly, almost mechanically, Jane extracted the rolled-up lists from her stocking. She was still holding the unlighted candle in her left hand. The lists bothered her. She moved towards the bench to put them down, but first she laid the candle carefully on its side so as not to stub the wick, and, sitting down, began to smooth the papers out upon her knee. It was whilst she was doing this that she saw the note.
It lay on the end of the bench propped up against a book. It was addressed to Jeffrey Ember, Esquire. The capital E’s were magnificent flourishes; an underlining like an ornamental scroll supported the superscription. Jane, like other well-brought-up people, was not in the habit of opening letters not addressed to herself. It may be said, however, that no solitary scruple so much as raised its head on this occasion. She tore open the tough linen envelope, and unfolded a lordly sheet. Molloy wrote a good, bold hand and legible withal. Every word stood clear.
“My dear Ember,—I’m off. The place is getting altogether too crowded. I’ve seen Renata, and she tells me that there are two men use the passages. One has a beard, but she couldn’t tell me their names or describe them further. She knows all about the passages herself. She confessed to having found them through following Number One. She has also seen you come in and go out. I don’t think this place is very healthy, so I’m making my get-away whilst I can. drop the whole thing and get out quick is what I advise. I’m staunch, as you’ll find. Why did you take the lists after saying you’d leave them for me to look through? I’ll not work with a man that doesn’t trust me. You can write me at the old place.”
The letter was signed with a large Roman three. It appeared that Mr. Molloy was more careful over his own identity than over that of Mr. Jeffrey Ember.
Jane sat looking at the letter. It made her feel rather sick. If she had not come down, if she had shirked putting the papers back, if the letter addressed to Jeffrey Ember, Esquire, had reached Jeffrey Ember’s hands—well, it was a good enough death-warrant, and Molloy must have known that very well when he wrote it.
“It’s exactly like a Moral Tract,” said Jane. “I hated coming back, and I did it from a Sense of Duty, and this is the Reward of Virtue.”
She put the Reward of Virtue down rather gingerly on the bench beside her. She felt about touching it rather as she had felt when she touched the slug. She wanted to wash her hands. An odd creature Molloy. He had given her away exactly and completely, yet he had left her any small shred of protection which she might be supposed to derive from passing as his daughter.
Jane turned her thoughts from Molloy to the more pressing consideration of her own immediate course of action. Ember would come in the morning, and would find Molloy gone, and no word to say where he had gone, or why. The idea of following in Molloy’s footsteps presented itself vividly before Jane’s imagination. Why should she stay any longer at Luttrell Marches? The idea of getting away set her heart dancing. And what was there to stay for? She had all the evidence necessary to procure Ember’s arrest and the smashing of the conspiracy. The sooner she was out of Luttrell Marches and with her precious papers in a place of security the better. For a moment she contemplated taking the originals of the lists; Ember would naturally conclude that it was Molloy who had gone off with them. But on second thoughts she decided that it would be in the highest degree unwise to put Ember on his guard. His distrust of Molloy might be so great as to induce flight. She decided to leave the originals and to take the copies—but she had left the copies in her room pinned to the cupboard ceiling. Go back for them she could not. Even if she could have forced herself to the effort, the risk was too great. They must stay where they were, whilst she found Henry. The sooner she got off the better. She had no watch, but the night must be very far spent, and if Ember were to take it into his head to come back——
The bare idea brought Jane to her feet. She picked up her candle, lit it, and with feelings of extreme satisfaction set fire to Molloy’s letter, making a little pent roof of it like the beginning of a card house on the stone floor. She had often admired the way in which masses of compromising documents are consumed in an instant by the hero or heroine of the adventure novel. She used four matches before she considered that this particular letter was really harmless. The envelope took two more. Then she collected the ash very carefully, crumbled it up well, and scattered it amongst the rubble in the broken-down passage where Molloy had found her. Then, having taken a good look round to make sure that nothing compromising remained, she picked up her candle and passed through the gate, leaving the laboratory in darkness behind her. When she came to the turn she hesitated, and finally went straight on, following the passage which she had not yet explored, down which Molloy and Ember had come the day before. She was almost sure that it would lead back into the main corridor just short of the headland exit; but she had not gone more than a yard or two along it when she heard something that brought her heart into her mouth.
Almost as the sound reached her she had blown her candle out and was pinching the glow from the wick. For a moment the darkness was full of phantom tongue-shaped flames; then she stopped seeing them and saw instead a faint glow coming from the direction in which she herself had come on her way to the laboratory. Somebody was coming along the passage. If she had gone back by the same way that she had come, she would have met this somebody. As it was, she might escape notice. If the person were going to the laboratory, he would have to take a sharp turn to the left, a right-angled turn. The passage in which she was ran off at an acute angle, and the person approaching would have his back to her as he passed.
The glow became a beam. Next moment Ember passed without turning his head. Jane saw the back of his shoulder dark against the light from his torch, and caught a fleeting glimpse of his profile, just enough for recognition and no more. Indeed, it was the fur coat that she recognised as much as the man. She stood quite still whilst he switched on the electric light and passed into the laboratory, then she turned and walked away as quickly as she dared, feeling her way by the wall till a turn in the passage gave her enough courage to light her candle. She put the spent match in her pocket, looked ahead, and drew a sharp, almost agonised, breath.
About two feet from where she stood, and exactly in her path, was the black mouth of an uncovered well. Jane looked at it, and quite suddenly, she had no idea how, found herself sitting on the floor with hot wax running down her hand from the guttering candle. It seemed to be quite a little time before she could make sure of walking steadily enough to skirt the well. She went by it at last with averted head and fingers that, regardless of slime, clung to the wall.
As she had expected, the passage ran suddenly into the main corridor. She passed the headland exit, and once more was on unknown ground. The passage swung round to the right and began to slope downhill. Jane held her candle high and looked at every step; but there were no more traps. She quickened her pace almost to a run as the dreadful thought came to her that Ember might follow Molloy. The passage sloped more and more. Finally there were steps, smooth, worn, and damp, that went down, and down, and down. At the bottom of the steps a yard or two of peculiarly slimy passage, and then a blank stone wall. Obviously Jane had arrived.
She looked at the stone wall, and the stone wall presented a front of uncompromising blankness. She looked up and she looked down, she looked to the left and she looked to the right, she gazed at the ceiling and she gazed at the floor. Nowhere was there any sign of a catch, a knob, a spring, or a lever. There must be one, but where was it? She tapped the wall and stamped on the floor, but with no result. The door in the panelling opened from inside with an ordinary handle. She had not been close enough to Lady Heritage to see what she did to pivot the stone behind the bench on the headland. In any case, this exit might have been quite differently planned.
A most dreadful sense of discouragement came over her. To have got so far, to have been, as it were, halfway to safety and Henry, and to have to turn back again! Then for the first time it occurred to her that, even if she had got out and got away, she had no money and no hat. She looked down at the maroon slippers, and pictured herself descending ticketless upon a London platform in bedroom slippers whose original colour was almost obscured by green slime.
Jane wanted to laugh, and she wanted to cry. She did not know which she wanted most, but presently she found that the tears were running down her face. She kept winking them away, because it is not at all easy to climb slippery stone steps by the light of a guttering candle if your eyes keep filling with tears. The tears magnified the candle flame, and sometimes made it look like two or three little flames, which was dreadfully confusing. Jane stood still, wiped her eyes with determined energy, and then climbed up more steps and back along the way that she had come.
At the headland exit she stood still, taking breath and thought. Nothing would induce her to pass that well again. She would keep to the main passage, and, horrid thought, she would have to put out her light in case Ember should suddenly emerge from the side passage.
“Thinking about things makes them worse, not better,” said Jane to herself. “It’s perfectly beastly; but then it’s all perfectly beastly.”
She blew out the candle and moved slowly forward.
It seemed ages before she came past the opening where she had run into Henry to the foot of the steps. She went up three steps, raised her foot to take the fourth, and felt a hardly perceptible check. Instantly she drew back a shade, set her foot down beside the other, and put out a tentative, groping hand. There was a thread of cotton stretched from wall to wall at the level of her waist. If her movements had been less gentle she would have brushed through it without noticing. Then, as she stood there thinking, the thread between her fingers, something else came to her. The last yard of passage just at the stair foot had felt different—dry, gritty.
Jane descended the three steps backwards, and, crouching on the bottom one, put down her hand and felt the floor of the passage. There was sand on it, dry sand which had not been there when she came down, and in the dry sand her footprints would be clearly marked. Obviously Mr. Ember had his suspicions and his methods of verifying them: “Though what on earth he’d make of cork soles I don’t know,” said Jane. She decided not to worry him with this problem.
It was horribly dangerous, but she must have a light. She set her candle end on the step above her and struck a match. It made a noise like a squib and went out. She struck another and got the candle lighted.
The sand was yellow sand off the beach, but nice and dry. Two and a half of her footprints showed plainly on its smooth surface. Jane leaned forward and smoothed them out. Then she blew out her candle and felt safer. Feeling for the thread of cotton, she crawled beneath it, then very, very slowly up the rest of the steps, her hand before her all the way till she came to the door in the panelling. She opened it and slipped through into the hall.
The grey, uncertain light was filtering into it. Everything looked strange and cold. Jane closed the door, and never knew that a loose strand of cotton had fallen as she passed. Neither did she know that at that very moment Jeffrey Ember was standing by the open well mouth, the ray from his powerful electric torch focused upon a little patch of candle grease.
Anthony Luttrell caught a slow local train at Withstead—the sort of train that serves little country places all over England. It dawdled slowly from station to station, sometimes taking what appeared to be an unnecessary rest at a signal box as well. It finally reached Maxton ten minutes late, thereby missing the London express and leaving Anthony Luttrell with a two hours’ wait.
Waiting just at present was about as congenial an occupation as being racked. He walked up and down with a dragging, restless step, and tried unsuccessfully to shut off his torturing thoughts behind a safety curtain. The time dragged intolerably. Presently he left the platform and went up on to the bridge which ran from one side of the station to the other. Here he began his pacing again, stopping every now and then to watch a train come in or a train go out. From the bridge one could see all the platforms.
When an express rushed through, the whole structure shook and clouds of white steam blotted out everything. It was when the steam was clearing away, and the roar of the receding train was dying down, that Anthony noticed another local running in to the Withstead platform. He bent over the rail and watched the passengers get out—just a handful. There was a young woman with two children, two farmers, three or four nondescript women, and a big man with a suit-case. Anthony looked at the big man and went on looking at him. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar. The man came along the platform and began to mount the steps that led up to the bridge. Half-way up he put down his suit-case, took off his hat for a moment as if to cool himself, and stood there looking up. Then he replaced his hat, shifted the suit-case to the other hand, and came up the rest of the steps. He seemed hot.
He passed Anthony and went down the steps on to the London platform. Anthony followed him.
When the big man stood still and looked up, eight years were suddenly wiped out. Memory is a queer thing, and plays queer tricks. What Anthony’s memory did was to set him down in the year 1912, in the gallery of a hall in Chicago. There was a packed and rather vociferous audience. There was a big man on the platform, a big man who seemed hot. His speech was, in fact, of a sufficiently inflammatory nature to make any one feel hot. It breathed fire and fury. Its rolling eloquence must have involved a good deal of physical exertion. Suddenly, after a period, the speaker stopped and looked up at the gallery for applause. It came like a veritable cyclone. The meeting was subsequently broken up by the police.
Anthony remembered that the speaker’s name was Molloy. If Mr. Molloy had come from Withstead, it occurred to Anthony that his destination would probably be of interest.
The London train was due in ten minutes. When it came in, Molloy got into a third-class carriage, and Anthony followed his example.
It was at seven-thirty on Sunday morning that Mrs. March’s cook, who was sweeping the hall, was given what she afterwards described as a turn by the arrival of an odd-looking man who would give no name and insisted on seeing her master.
“Awful he looked with that ’orrid scar and his ’air that wild, and not giving me a chance to shut the door in his face, for he pushes in the moment I got it open—that’s what give me the worst turn of all—and walks into the dining-room as bold as brass, and says, ‘I want to see Captain March—and be quick, please.’”
When Henry came into the dining-room he shut the door behind him very quickly and looked as if he also had had a turn.
“Good Lord, Tony, what’s happened?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Anthony, with nonchalance.
“Then in Heaven’s name, why are you here?”
“I’m through, that’s all. You can’t say I didn’t give notice.”
“It’s not a question of what I say, it’s what Piggy’ll say.”
“Oh, I’ve got a sop for Piggy. I’ve been doing the faithful sleuth. I’ve trailed a man from Withstead to a highly genteel boarding-house in South Kensington; and as I last saw the gentleman addressing an I. W. W. meeting in Chicago, I imagine Piggy might be interested.”
“Who was it?” said Henry quickly.
“Molloy.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good man. You’re in luck. Molloy, under the interesting alias of Bernier, has just been selling the Government Formula ‘A.’ He was trailed over here with the swag and then lost sight of. For a dead cert he’s been to Luttrell Marches by the back way and seen Ember.”
Anthony turned away.
“There’s the devil to pay down there,” he said.... “No, no, the girl’s all right.... This is something I ought to have told you when you were down. I ought to have told you the whole thing. I couldn’t bring myself to.”
“Sit down, Tony. What is it?”
“No, I can’t sit.” He walked to the window and stood there, looking out. His hands made restless movements. He spoke, keeping his back to Henry:
“You didn’t go through all the passages?”
“No, I was going to to-night.”
“I ought to have told you. The big place under the terrace, you know—they’ve turned it into a laboratory. Molloy may have been working there, for all I know; he had the name of an expert chemist.”
“Yes, go on.”
“You’d have found it yourself to-night, but I couldn’t let you go blundering in unwarned. Ember might be there—any one might be there. It’s damnable, Henry, but I believe she’s up to her neck in it.”
Henry was silent. There seemed to be nothing to say. He also believed that Raymond Heritage was up to her neck in whatever secret enterprise was being developed at Luttrell Marches. He remembered the passion in her voice when she said, “I should like to smash it all,” and he remembered how she had sung, “Would we not shatter it to bits, and then re-mould it nearer to the heart’s desire?” Whatever the thing was, he believed she was in it up to her neck. So he was silent, and Anthony was grateful for his silence.
The silence was broken by a tapping, and a rustling, and the turning of a handle. The door opened very abruptly, and Mrs. de Luttrelle March made a precipitous entrance. She wore a pink silk négligé and a boudoir cap embroidered in forget-me-nots, also an expression of extreme terror—the cook’s description of their early visitor having prepared her to find Henry’s corpse stretched upon the hearth-rug. When a living and annoyed Henry confronted her, she clung to his arm and gazed round-eyed at the long, thin man who had swung round at her entrance. Uncertainty succeeded fear. Henry was saying, “Do go back to your room, Mother,” but it is doubtful whether she heard him.
Gradually her grasp of his arm relaxed. She walked slowly across the room, and stared with horrified amazement at Anthony.
He looked over her head at Henry, shrugged his shoulders just perceptibly, and made as if to turn back to the window again. Either that shrug, or the faintly sarcastic lift of the eyebrows that accompanied it, brought a sort of broken gasp to Mrs. March’s lips. She put out her hand, touched his coat sleeve with her finger-tips, and said:
“Anthony—it’s Anthony—oh, Henry, it’s Anthony!”
She backed a little at each repetition of the name, looked wildly round, and sinking on to the nearest chair, burst into tears.
“Henry—oh, please somebody speak,” she sobbed.
“It’s all right, Aunt Rosa. I’m not a ghost,” said Anthony in his driest voice.
Henry experienced a cold dread of what his mother would say next. She had talked so much and thought so incessantly of Luttrell Marches. Latterly she had been so sure of Henry’s ownership, and so proud of it. What would she say now—as she dropped her hands from her face and gazed with streaming eyes at Anthony, who regarded her quizzically?
“Tony, you’re so dreadfully changed. That fearful scar—oh, my dear, where have you been all this time? We thought you were dead. I don’t know how I recognised you. And you were such a pretty little boy, my dear. I used to be jealous because you had longer eyelashes than Henry, but you haven’t now.”
“Haven’t I?” said Anthony, with perfect gravity. He took his aunt’s plump white hand and gave it a squeeze and a pat. “It’s very nice of you to welcome me, Aunt Rosa. The scar isn’t as bad as it looks, and Henry’s going to lend me a razor and some clothes.”
It was later, when Anthony could be heard splashing in the bathroom, that Mrs. March beckoned Henry into her room, flung her arms round his neck, and burst into tears all over again.
“My poor boy,” she sobbed, “it’s so hard on you—about Luttrell Marches, I mean—do you mind dreadfully?”
“Not an atom. Besides, I knew Tony was alive; I always told you he would turn up.”
“I couldn’t think of any one but him at first,” said Mrs. March, sniffing gently. “Then afterwards it came over me Henry won’t have the place—and I couldn’t help crying because, of course, one does get to count on a thing, with every one saying to me as they did, ‘Of course your son comes into Luttrell Marches, such a beautiful place,’—and so it is, and I did think it was yours, and what I felt about it was, if I feel badly about it, what must Henry feel? You see, don’t you?”
Henry endeavoured to disengage himself.
“Yes, Mother, but you needn’t worry—you really needn’t. Look here, you dress and don’t cry any more. I’ve got to telephone.”
Mrs. March clasped her hands about his arm.
“Henry, wait, just a minute,” she said. “That Miss Smith—you’re not still thinking about her, are you?”
Henry laughed.
“I am,” he said.
“Well——” said Mrs. March. She fidgeted with Henry’s coat sleeve, bridled a little, and looked down at her mauve satin slippers. “Well—you know, my dear boy, I didn’t want to be unkind, but I simply couldn’t picture her at Luttrell Marches—as its mistress, I mean—and I’m sure you did think me unkind about it; but now that it’s all different—Tony coming back like this does make a difference, of course, and what I was going to say about it is this. If you really do care for her and it would make up to you for the disappointment, I wouldn’t hold out about it, not if you really wanted it, my dear, and really cared for her, only of course you’d have to be quite sure, because once you’re married you’re married, and there’s no way out of it except divorce, and, whether it’s the fashion now or not, I always have said and always will say, that it’s not respectable, it really isn’t, and it’s not a thing we’ve ever had in our family—not on either side,” added Mrs. March thoughtfully, after a slight pause for breath.
“I really do care for her, and I really am sure,” said Henry. He kissed his mother affectionately, and once more attempted to detach himself from her hold.
Mrs. March let go with one hand in order to dab her eyes with a scrap of pink-and-white chiffon. Then she looked up at her son fondly.
“Your eyelashes are much the longest,” she said.
Henry made an abrupt departure.
“Piggy’ll see you as soon as you can get there,” he told Anthony five minutes later—“at his house. I’m off to Luttrell Marches. I was going down anyhow to-night, but, things being as they are, I think I’ll get a move on. Piggy’s sending some one to the address you gave, to keep an eye on Molloy. He doesn’t want him arrested yet, as he’s in hopes that Belcovitch will roll up—that’s the other man concerned in the actual sale of the formula. He went to Vienna, but was in Paris yesterday. Good Lord, Tony, I’m glad you’ve got rid of that beastly beard!”
Sir Julian Le Mesurier’s study was an extremely pleasant room, friendly with books, and comforted by admirable chairs.
A Sabbath peace reigned outside in the deserted street. Within there was no peace at all. A crocodile hunt was in progress. Piggy, as a large and very fierce crocodile, was performing a feat described by himself as “trailing his sinuous length” across the floor, his objective a Persian carpet island upon which a small fat girl of three in a fluffy Sunday dress was lifting first one plump foot and then the other, whilst at regular intervals she uttered small but piercing screams. Upon the crocodile’s back sat a thin, determined little boy of six who battered continuously upon the crocodile’s ribs with the heels of a new pair of boots, whilst he shouted his defiance at the foe. At the far end of the room sat Lady Le Mesurier with a book. At intervals she looked up from it to say helplessly, “Piggy, it’s Sunday”—or “Baby’s got a new frock on, and I expect nurse will give notice if you tear it.”
“Not tear,” said the fat little girl, patting her skirts. Then she shrieked, for the crocodile made a sudden snap at the nearest ankle.
Upon this scene the door opened.
“Mr. Luttrell,” said an expressionless voice, and Anthony entered.
Lady Le Mesurier gathered her baby and her book, the crocodile unseated the small boy and arose, dusting its trousers. A well-trained family vanished, and Sir Julian shook hands and waved his visitor to a chair.
“Come up to report?” said Piggy.
“Not primarily,” began Anthony, but was cut short.
“You followed Molloy. Yes, I think I prefer to have it that way, if you don’t mind. You followed Molloy to this South Kensington address. How do you know he’s stopping there?”
“I asked the servant who was cleaning the knocker whether they had a room, and she said, ‘No’—that the gentleman who had just come in made them quite full up.”
“Well, I’ve sent a man to watch the place. Now, what have you to report from Luttrell Marches?”
Anthony looked straight over Sir Julian’s shoulder with a hard, level gaze, and spoke in a hard, forced voice:
“There are a number of secret passages and chambers under the house at Luttrell Marches. One of the passages has an exit outside the grounds on the seashore about a mile and a half from Withstead. The secret has been very carefully preserved until now. Each successive owner told his heir. No one else was supposed to know. My father told me. When he thought that I was dead, he also told my cousin, Henry March. Until I went to Luttrell Marches the other day I had no idea that any one else had discovered the secret. I have to report that the passages have not only been discovered, but made use of in a way which points to something of an illegal nature. One of the chambers is a fair-sized one: it has been turned into a laboratory——”
“Any sign that it has been used as such?”
“Every sign. Power has been diverted from the dynamos which were installed for the Government experiments and the passages have been wired, and some of the chambers fitted with electric light. The whole thing has been going on under Sir William’s very nose.”
“M’, I’ve had him here to see me—terribly gone to pieces, quite past his job, also very much annoyed with me for having sent Henry down. Now the question is, who’s been wiring the passages and using the laboratory?”
“Oh, Ember; there’s no doubt about that, I think.”
“And the sale of the formula? Ember?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Must have proof. No earthly good my being sure, or your being sure, or Henry’s being sure. We’ve got to have something so solid that, after Sir Dash Blank, K.C., has done his best to tear it into shreds, what’s left of it will convince a jury. Now who else is in it besides Ember and Molloy? In the household, I mean, down there at Luttrell Marches? Any one else?”
Anthony continued to look over Sir Julian’s shoulder. He remained silent. Piggy got up and walked to his writing-table. When he reached it he swung round, and asked again sharply:
“Any one else, Luttrell?”
There was still silence. Then Piggy said dryly:
“I take it that there is somebody else involved. I don’t wish to cross-examine you, but I must know one thing. Is it suspicion, moral certainty, or proof?”
“Moral certainty,” said Anthony Luttrell. He passed his tongue across his dry lips. Piggy did not look at him.
“Now, look here,” he said, “it seems to me that Luttrell Marches is about to be the centre of some unpleasant happenings. I think, I rather think, it would be advisable to induce any ladies who may be there to leave the place. Lady Heritage is there, is she not, and er, er, Miss...?”
“Miss Molloy.”
“Exactly. Miss—er, Molloy. Now I consider that these two ladies should leave at once. When I say at once I mean to-day. I should like you to go down—by car, of course, there won’t be any Sunday trains—and er, fetch them away, using such inducements and persuasions as you may think expedient. Only they must leave. You understand, they must leave to-day.”
Anthony rose stiffly.
“I’m afraid, sir,” he said, “that I must decline the responsibility. The reasons which made me leave Luttrell Marches make it impossible for me to return there.”
“I see,” said Piggy. He picked up a piece of indiarubber, and occupied himself for about a minute and a half in endeavouring to balance it upon the edge of a handsome brass inkstand with an inscription on it. When the indiarubber fell into the ink with a splash he fished it out, using a pen with a sharp nib as a gaff, dried it carefully on a new sheet of white blotting-paper, and turned again to Anthony.
“I’d like just to put a hypothetical case to you,” he said. “Government puts a certain very important and confidential piece of work into the hands of an eminent man, a man of European reputation and unblemished probity. Evidence comes to hand of things entirely incompatible with the secrecy and other conditions which were an honourable obligation. Worse suspicions of illegality and conspiracy. Cumulative evidence. Arrests. A public trial. Now, my dear Luttrell, can you tell me what would happen to the Government which had displayed such incompetence as, first, to commit a vital undertaking to a person capable of betraying it; and second, of permitting the consequent scandal to become public property in such a manner as to make this country a laughing-stock in the eyes of the world? It’s not a question that requires a great deal of answering, is it?”
“Sir William is not involved,” said Anthony harshly.
“My dear Luttrell, I was putting a hypothetical case. But if you wish to talk without camouflage I will do so—for five minutes. I will do so because I consider that the situation is one of the most serious which I have ever had to deal with. Sir William is not involved, but Sir William has become incompetent to control his household and incapable of perceiving that a dangerous conspiracy is being carried on under his roof. It’s not only the matter of the stolen formula. Your report of a hidden laboratory certainly tends to corroborate the very grave allegations made by Miss Molloy. A situation so entirely serious justifies me in demanding the sacrifice of your personal feelings and inclinations. I repeat, Lady Heritage and Miss Molloy must leave Luttrell Marches to-day. I don’t care what inducements you use. They must leave. I believe you can get them to leave. I don’t believe any one else can. I am detaining Sir William in town—it was not difficult to do so. What more natural than that his daughter should join him. My wife is expecting Miss Smith to pay us a visit. There must be no delay of any kind. You understand, Luttrell?”
There was a short tense pause.
Anthony stood as he had been standing during all the time that Sir Julian talked. He looked moodily out of the window. Now and then his face twitched, now and then he moved his hands with a sort of jerk. At last he said in a constrained voice:
“I—understand.”
“Very well,” said Piggy briskly. “Then you’d better be off. From the fact that you have shaved and returned to civilised raiment, I imagine that George Patterson is now obsolete, and that Mr. Luttrell has ceased to be a corpse in some unknown grave?”
“Yes, I’ve come back.” A pause—then, “Sir Julian—this—this duty is particularly unwelcome. If I undertake it, will you send me abroad again as soon as possible? England is distasteful, impossible—but, of course, I realise that I couldn’t go on being dead—there are too many legal complications, and it wasn’t fair on Henry.”
“Henry,” observed Piggy, “was becoming the object of most particular attentions from matchmaking mammas. My wife informs me that his stock has been very high for some months past. Gilt-edged, in fact. I’m afraid there will be a slump as soon as your resurrection is established. Henry, I think, will bear up. Well now, about sending you abroad—I can’t say for certain, but I rather think it could be managed, if you still wish it, you know. I wouldn’t be in a hurry, if I were you, Luttrell, about going abroad, but as to the matter in hand—well, hurry is the word. You’ll find a car outside with Inspector Davison. Take him along. I hope he won’t be needed, but—well—take him along.”
Mr. Ember was spending a busy Sunday. As he stood in the empty laboratory, realising Molloy’s defection and all that it involved, there was no change in his impassive face. The web of his plan was broken. Like some accurate machine his brain picked up the loose ravelled threads and wove them into a new combination.
Molloy himself was no loss. His place could be filled a dozen times over. As to any harm that he could do, unless he had gone straight to the police, he could be reached—reached and silenced. And Ember knew his Molloy. He would not go straight to the police. If he meant to sell them, he would set about it with a certain regard for appearances. There would be pourparlers, some dexterous method of approach which would save his face and leave him an emergency exit. Ember checked over in his mind the four or five places to which Molloy might have retreated. Then there was the money. That they must have; but Molloy, once found, could be scared into giving it up.
Ember let his eyes travel around the laboratory. The lists lay upon the bench where Jane had put them not five minutes before. He frowned and picked them up, stared at them, and frowned more deeply still. They had been folded and refolded, doubled into a small package since he had last handled them. Who had done it? The sheets had been smooth from the typewriter when he gave them to Molloy. They had been handled and creased, with the creases that come from tight folding. Had Molloy meant to take them with him, and then at the last moment been afraid? It looked like it. He turned over the pages, counting them. Suddenly his eyes fixed, his fingers tightened their hold. There was a fresh smudge of ink on the top of the fifth page—a smudge so fresh that the blue ink had not yet turned black. That meant two things: Molloy had copied the lists before he left, and he had only been gone an hour or two—that at the outside, probably less.
In the moment that passed before Ember laid the papers down, Mr. Molloy received his death sentence as duly and irrevocably as if it had been pronounced by an Assize Judge in scarlet and ermine, white wig and black cap.
Ember gave just a little nod, opened a safe that stood in the corner, pushed the papers into it, and pocketed the key.
It was a little later that he found the first spot of candle grease. It was half-way up one of the side passages, on the spot where Jane had been standing when he and Molloy entered the laboratory the evening before. He looked at it for a long time very thoughtfully before he took his torch and proceeded to a systematic search of the passages.
He found no living person, but came upon dropped wax in three more places, at the edge of the well, by the headland exit, and half-way down the steps to the beach. He came slowly back along the main passage, and stood for some time with his light focused on the sand which he had spread at the foot of the stair. There was no footmark upon it, but he was prepared to swear that it was not as he had left it. He had scattered the sand loosely, and it was pressed down and too smooth. He thought that it had been smoothed by a hand passing over it. He mounted the first two steps. The thread of cotton which he had fastened across the stairway was still there. He bent beneath it, came to the top, and threw his light full upon the back of the panelled door. The second piece of cotton was gone.
He flashed the ray upon the floor once—twice. The third time he found what he was looking for, a fine black thread lying across the threshold. It ran out of sight under the door. Some one had gone out that way since Mr. Ember had come in. Who? Not Molloy—impossible that it could have been Molloy.
Ember passed through the panel, closed it behind him, and walked slowly and meditatively along the corridor to the library, still pursuing his train of thought. Molloy would have blundered through that first piece of cotton without ever feeling it at all, just as Molloy’s foot in its heavy boot would have been unaware of the sand. If it was a woman who had passed—now who would have used a candle in the passages? Not Raymond. She had more than one electric torch which she used constantly for night work. But Renata, the little soft-spoken stupid mouse of a thing, if she had a fancy to go spying, she’d take a candle; yes, and let it gutter too.
Mr. Ember’s instinct for danger had always reacted to this question of Renata Molloy. Over and over again there had been the tremor, the response, the warning prick. An extreme regret that he had not arranged for a convenient accident to overtake Renata possessed Jeffrey Ember. The omission, he decided, should be rectified with as little delay as possible. He locked the library door and went to the telephone.
It took him half an hour to get the number that he wanted, but he betrayed no impatience. When at last a man’s voice came to him, along the wire, he inquired in the Bavarian dialect, “Is that you, Number Five?” The voice said, “Yes,” whereupon Ember gave a password and waited until he had received the countersign. He then began to issue orders, using an unhurried voice. Every now and then he shivered a little in the early morning cold, and shrugged his coat higher about his ears.
“You are promoted. You go up to Four and come on to the Council. I will notify you of the next meeting. Number Three is a traitor. He left here last night with copies of lists containing names of all agents. It is believed that it is his design to sell us. He has secreted a large sum of money, the property of the Council. Before he is eliminated he must be made to hand this over. Take down the following addresses; he may be at any one of them. Put Six and Seven on to finding and dealing with him immediately.” He read out the addresses, and paused whilst they were repeated. He then continued speaking:
“I shall require the motor-boat off Withstead Cove at nightfall. Yes, to-night, and without fail. A change of base is imperative. Proceed first to ...”—he gave another address—“and communicate also with Ten. If Belcovitch has arrived tell him that he is promoted to Three, and bring him with you. The Council can then meet, as Number One is here.”
A very slight gleam of something hard to define broke for a moment the dull impassivity of Ember’s voice as he pronounced the last words. Then he added:
“Repeat my instructions.”
He listened attentively whilst the voice reproduced his own words. Then he said:
“That is all. We shall meet to-night,” and rang off.
He had breakfast alone with Jane, and ate it with a good appetite. He talked very pleasantly too. Jane wondered why every succeeding moment left her more afraid. She had been up all night, of course. It must be that, yes, of course, it must be that. She faltered in the middle of some inane sentence and stopped. Ember’s eyes were fixed on her with an entire lack of expression, yet behind those blank windows she felt that there were strange guests. It was like looking at the windows of a haunted house, quite blank and empty, and yet at any moment out of them might look some unimaginable horror.
270
“You seem a little tired this morning, Miss Renata,” said Ember gently. “Why didn’t you follow Lady Heritage’s example and have your breakfast upstairs? You don’t look to me as if you had had much sleep. You haven’t been walking in your sleep again by any chance, have you?”
Jane clenched her foot in Renata’s baggy shoe.
“Oh, I hope I haven’t,” she said. “I don’t always know when I’ve been doing it. What made you think of it?”
“It just crossed my mind,” said Ember. “It’s a very dangerous habit, Miss Renata.”
Jane pushed her chair back and rose.
“I’m going into the garden,” she said; “this room is too hot for anything. It’s like....” A little devil suddenly commandeered her tongue. She reached the door, opened it, and flung over her shoulder:
“It’s like the snake house at the Zoo, Mr. Ember.”
She ran straight out into the garden after that, and stayed there. She had the feeling that it was safer to be in the open. She wanted to keep away from walls, and doors, and passages. She saw no one all the morning, and came back to lunch with her nerve steadier. As soon as lunch was over, she went out again. The hour in the house had brought her fears back with reinforcements. She began to count the hours before Henry could arrive. It was only half-past two, and perhaps he would not come till midnight.
The thought of the dark hours after sunset was like a black cloud coming nearer and nearer. If she could hide, if she could only get away and hide until Henry came. She felt as if it was quite beyond her to go back into the house and sit for hour after hour, perhaps alone with Jeffrey Ember, his blank eyes watching her, or to endure Raymond Heritage’s presence, and, looking at her, remember the line in Molloy’s letter: “Renata followed Number One.” It was Raymond she had followed. She had told Molloy that she had followed Raymond. Then Raymond, beyond doubt or cavil, was the Number One of that horrible Council. She could not bear it. She thought of Raymond’s voice breaking when she said “Anthony,” and she could not bear it. If she could only get away and hide until Henry came.
She went into the walled garden and walked up and down. Perhaps Anthony Luttrell would come to her as he had come once before. Presently she came to the tool-shed, stopped for a moment hesitating on the threshold, and then went in. There was a way into the passages from here; she was quite sure of it. If she could find the spring, she believed that she would be able to reach the cross-passage where she had run into Henry. She did not believe that Ember used it. Why should he, since it would be of no use to his schemes? If she could get into the passage and hide there, she need not go back to the house. She could wait there for Henry and catch him as he passed. She would be able to warn him too, and it came to her with startling suddenness that he stood very much in need of warning; so much had come to light in the forty-eight hours since he left.
It took Jane an hour to find the spring. She might not have found it then, but for the chance that made her slip and throw all her weight upon one place just under the wide potting-shelf. There was a creak, and one of the boards gave a little. She found a trap-door and steps beneath it.
There were some old sacks in the shed. Jane took one of them, climbed down the steps, and shut the trap-door again. She felt her way down to the level, spread the sack on the second step, and sat down. She felt utterly forlorn and weary.
Mr. Ember, having completed all his arrangements, went in search of Lady Heritage. She had sat silently through lunch and disappeared directly afterwards. Having failed to find her downstairs, Ember was about to pass along the upper corridor to the steel gate which shut off the north wing, when he noticed that the door of the small Oak Room on his left was standing ajar. He thought he heard a movement within, and, after pausing for a moment to listen, he pushed the door wide and looked in. As far as his knowledge went, Lady Heritage had never entered this room during the time that they had been in the house. He accepted the fact and could have stated the reasons for it. It had been the playroom, and the walls were covered with Anthony Luttrell’s school groups. The book shelves held his books, the cabinets his collections. In a very intimate sense it was his room.
Raymond Heritage stood at the far end of it now. She wore a dress of soft white wool bound with a plaited girdle from the ends of which heavy tassels swung. She had taken one of the groups from the wall and was looking at it with an intensity which closed her thought to all other impressions. She stood half turned from the door. Ember looked at her and, looking, experienced some strange sensations. This was Raymond Carr-Magnus, a younger, softer, lovelier woman than Raymond Heritage. The curious cold something, like transparent glass or very thin ice, which seemed to wall her from her fellows, was gone. It was as if the ice had dissolved leaving the air misty and tremulous.
The little flame which always burned in him took on brightness and intensity, and a second flame sprang up beside it, a flame that burned to a still white heat of anger because this change, this softening, was for Anthony Luttrell and not for Jeffrey Ember.
There was no sign of emotion, however, in face or expression as he moved slightly and said:
“Are you busy? May I speak to you for a few minutes?”
It was characteristic of Raymond that she did not appear in the least startled. She turned quite slowly, laid the photograph on the open front of the bureau by which she stood, and said:
“Now? Do you want me now?” A softness was in her voice as she spoke, and a dream in her eyes.
Her beauty struck Ember as a thing seen for the first time. He had to use great force to keep his answer on a note of indifference.
“If you can spare the time,” he said.
Raymond looked round her. There was a caressing quality in her glance.
“Yes; I’ll come downstairs,” she said.
This was Anthony’s room. She would not talk to another man in Anthony’s room. The thought may have been in her mind. The breath of it beat on Ember’s flames and fanned them higher still. He led the way downstairs and into Sir William’s study.
Raymond Heritage had passed from the despairing mood of her first interview with Anthony. Then to know him alive and to feel him unforgiving had stabbed her to the quick. But that phase had passed. During the many hours that she had spent alone the one amazing radiant thought that he was alive had come to dominate everything. The cold finality of death had been lifted. Instead of a blank wall, there opened before her an infinite number of ways, any one of which might lead her back to her lost happiness. She began to live in the past, to go over the old times, to make a dream her companion.
She came into the study with Ember and waited to hear what he wanted, giving him just that surface attention which he recognised and resented. His first words were meant to startle her.
“Lady Heritage,” he said, “you know, of course, that there are certain passages and rooms under this house?”
She did start a little, he thought. Certainly her attention deepened.
“Who told you that, Jeffrey?” she said, and hardly heard her own voice because Anthony’s rang in her ears insisting, “I know that you told Ember.”
“Mr. Luttrell told me,” said Ember.
She exclaimed incredulously. At least her thoughts were not wandering now. Ember felt a certain triumph as he realised it. He went on speaking quite quietly:
“It was when Sir William and I were down here the year before Mr. Luttrell died. He, Mr. Luttrell, was taken very ill and I sat up with him. In the night he was delirious. It was obvious that he had something on his mind. He began to talk about the passages and to say that the secret must not be lost. He took me for his nephew Henry March, and nothing would serve him but he must show me the entrance in the hall. He got out of bed, and was so much excited that I thought it best to give way. When he had shown me the spring he calmed down and went quietly back to bed. In the morning he had forgotten all about it.”
Raymond listened, frowning.
“Why do you tell me this?” she said. “I knew Mr. Luttrell had told Henry.”
“Henry March knows?” said Ember.
“Yes, I think so. Yes, I’m sure he does. Why, Jeffrey?”
Ember was too busy with his thoughts to speak for a moment. What an appalling risk they had run. If Henry March knew of the passages, then they had been on the very brink of the abyss all along. He spoke at last, very seriously:
“I want you to come down with me into the passages if you will. There’s something I want to show you—something which I think you ought to know.”
“Something wrong?”
“I think you ought to see for yourself. I’d rather not say any more if you don’t mind. I’ll show you what I mean. I really think you ought to come and see for yourself. This is a good time, as the servants are safely out of the way and Miss Molloy seems to have taken herself off.”
“Very well, I’ll come. I must get a cloak though, or I shall get into such a mess. Those passages simply cover one with slime.”
Ember stood still with his hand on the half-opened door.
“You’ve been down there?”
“Why, yes, once or twice.”
“Lately?” His voice was rather low.
“Yes, quite lately.”
Ember gripped the door.
“And how did you know—oh, I beg your pardon.”
“Yes, I don’t think we need go into that.” She spoke gently but from a distance. As she spoke she passed him and went through the hall and up the stairs. The heavy tassels of her girdle knocked softly against each shallow step.
Ember went on gripping the door until she came down again wrapped in a long black cloak. When he dropped his hand there was a red incised line across the palm. He saw that the cloak was smeared with green. How near to the edge they had been, how horribly near!
He opened the door and lighted her down the steps in silence, and in silence walked as far as the laboratory turning. When he turned to the left and flashed his light ahead of them, Raymond spoke:
“I’ve never been along that passage,” she said. “I know there are holes in some of them, and I’ve never liked the look of these side tunnels.”
“This one’s quite safe,” said Ember, and led the way.
Jane heard the murmur of their voices, and for a moment saw the faint glow of the light. Then the glow and the voices died again. It was dark, she was alone, she was cold, she wanted Henry, oh, how she wanted Henry.
At that moment Jane’s idea of Paradise was to be able to put her head down on Henry’s shoulder and cry. It was not, perhaps, a very exalted idea, but it was very insistent.
When Ember switched on the light, swung open the steel gate, and stood aside for her to pass, Lady Heritage uttered a sharp exclamation.
“Jeffrey, what’s this?” she said.
“That is what I wanted you to see,” replied Ember.
She crossed the threshold, walked a pace or two into the room, and looked around her with eyes from which all dreaminess had vanished. Bewilderment took its place.
“Who did this? What does it mean?” she asked.
Ember did not answer her until he too was within the chamber. He pushed the steel gate with his hand and it fell to with a clang.
“It is, as you see, a well-equipped laboratory,” he said—“worth coming to see, I think.”
“Yes, but, Jeffrey——”
“You are interested? I thought you would be; won’t you sit down?”
She looked about her with puzzled eyes.
“Do sit,” said Ember in his quiet, friendly way. “You will find this chair more comfortable than the benches.”
He brought it forward as he spoke—a high-backed chair with arms. It struck her then as a curious piece of furniture to find in a laboratory.
“Brought here on purpose for you,” said Ember.
But Raymond did not sit. Instead she rested her hands lightly on the back of the chair, and, looking across it, said:
“Jeffrey, what does all this mean?”
“I’m going to tell you,” said Ember seriously. “I have brought you here to tell you, only I wish you would sit down.”
“No, thank you. Jeffrey, what is this place?”
“A laboratory,” said Ember. “As you see, a laboratory, and the scene of some extremely interesting experiments.”
“Carried out by you?”
“Carried out by me ... and some others.”
“You have brought other people in here? Jeffrey, I think that was inexcusable.”
“I have not yet attempted to excuse myself.”
For a moment his eyes met hers. She saw something, a spark, a flash, from the flames within. It was her first hint that there was, or could be, a flame there at all. It startled her in just the same degree that an actual spark touching her flesh would have startled her—not more.
He spoke again at once.
“Just now I called this place a laboratory. If I were a poet”—he laughed easily—“I might have used another word. I might have said, ‘This is the crucible out of which has come the new Philosopher’s Stone.’”
Raymond lifted her eyebrows.
“You’ve not been touched by that mediæval dream?” she said. “This is the twentieth century, Jeffrey.”
“Yes,” said Ember slowly. “Yes, the twentieth century, and I said ... ‘a new Philosopher’s Stone.’ The mediæval alchemists dreamed of something that would turn all it touched to gold, that would transmute the baser metals. I have found something which will touch this base civilisation, this rotten fabric with which we have surrounded ourselves, and dissolve it. And when it is in solution there will be gold and to spare.”
“What do you mean?” said Lady Heritage.
Ember met her frown with a smile.
“Was it a week ago that I heard you say, ‘If I could smash it all’? And didn’t you sing:
“‘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?’
You sang that as if you meant it, Raymond. You sang it with all your heart in your beautiful voice. Well, Fate has conspired for you and given this sorry scheme of things into your hands to shatter—to shatter and re-mould.”
Raymond had been leaning a little forward over the back of the chair, touching it lightly. She straightened herself when Ember used her name, and looked at him with a sort of grave displeasure. He laughed a little.
“Do you begin to understand?” he said.
“I don’t think, Jeffrey, that I want to understand,” said Lady Heritage.
“How like a woman,” said Mr. Ember. “Here is what you cried out for. Here is opportunity, power, the greatest adventure that ever has been or ever will be, and you are afraid to face it. I offer you the throne of the world—and you don’t wish to understand.”
The extreme quiet of his voice was in sharp contradiction to the flamboyant words. Raymond looked at him in some anxiety.
“You’re not well,” she began, and then stopped before the sarcasm of his glance.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “This is a business proposition. You’ve had poetry, but I can give you prose if you prefer it. I have discovered something—I won’t at this moment go into details—which enables me to smash up civilisation as you’d smash a rotten egg. Every city, every town of the so-called civilised world is accounted for, divided amongst my agents. They only await my signal. Those alone whom we mark for survival will survive, the rest are eliminated. Remains a world at our disposal to recreate. In that world I am supreme—and you. Is that plain enough?”
Her face showed deep distress and concern.
“Jeffrey, indeed you’re not well,” she repeated.
“Am I not?”
He came a step towards her and saw her draw back, as it were, involuntarily. “Have I not made you understand yet? Perhaps a little documentary evidence will assist you?” He took a quick step towards her, looked at her full, and said in a different voice, “Raymond, I’m in dead earnest—dead sober earnest.” Then with a sudden movement he turned away and went across to the safe in the far corner of the chamber. With his back to Raymond he unlocked it, and occupied himself for a minute or two with the picking out of some papers. When he turned she was at the gate with her hand on it. He spoke at once in his most ordinary voice:
“That’s a safety-catch. It won’t open without the key.”
“Will you open it, please?”
He said, “No, Raymond,” in a tone of cool finality, and she lost colour a little.
“Jeffrey,” she began, then paused and bit her lip.
“Raymond.”
A scarlet patch of anger came suddenly to her cheek and she was silent until it had died again. Long years of self-control do not go for nothing. When she spoke at last there was only sadness in her voice:
“Jeffrey, I have valued our friendship—very much.”
“I hope,” he said, “that you will value my love even more.”
Her hand dropped from the door. She did not answer. The hope of moving him died. She drew her cloak about her, crossed the floor slowly, and seated herself in the chair. She did not look at Ember.
When the last faint murmur of voices ceased, and the dark silence closed about her, Jane sat quite still for a while. It is very difficult indeed to keep one’s eyes open in the dark. Jane found that her lids dropped, or else that the blackness became full of odd traceries that worried and disturbed her. She felt as if she had been there for hours and hours; and she knew that it really might be hours before Henry came.
She got up and walked slowly to where the passage came out into the main corridor. She stood under the arch and looked towards the laboratory turning. She had only to feel her way as far as that, turn up it, and she would come within sight of the lighted chamber where Ember and Lady Heritage were talking. The laboratory drew her, and the light drew her. She began to move cautiously along the corridor. She had on light house-shoes which made no sound.
The little glow which presently relieved the blackness cheered her unreasonably. It was a danger signal and she knew it, but it cheered her.
“One would rather be doing something dangerous than just mouldering in the pitch dark,” she told herself, and edged slowly nearer and nearer to the light.
She was now at the corner, and could look round it and through the steel bars into part of the laboratory. The disadvantage of her position was that she might be taken in the rear by any one who came along either the passage that she herself had come up or the slanting passage with the well in it which ran into the other at an acute angle, about six feet from where she was standing.
Jane, however, knew of no one who was at all likely to arrive except Henry. She therefore did not trouble about her rear, but looked with all her eyes into the laboratory. She saw Lady Heritage sitting in a tall chair, a little turned away. Her right elbow rested on one arm, and her chin was in her hand. Her eyes were downcast. She was speaking in a cold, gentle voice:
“I have not many friends—I thought you were my friend. Was it all lies, Jeffrey?”
Mr. Ember came into view for a moment. He must have been at the far end of the room. He came down it now, walked past Lady Heritage, and turned to face her. Jane saw his profile. He was smiling faintly.
“I am not fond of lies,” he said; “they are very entangling—so hard to keep one’s head and remember what one has said. Now the truth is so simple and easy; besides, you may believe it or not, I really do dislike lying to you. I have always told you the truth where it was humanly possible to do so. Even in the matter of Miss Molloy——”
Lady Heritage exclaimed suddenly and sharply, lifting her chin from her hand and throwing her head back:
“Renata Molloy! She’s in this wretched conspiracy of yours, I suppose?”
Ember laughed.
“No,” he said.
“Then what is she?”
“I wish I knew,” said Ember, speaking soberly enough.
“But what you told me wasn’t true?”
“Some of it was. I was really rather pleased with my neat dovetailing. I’ll run over it, and you’ll see that I told the truth whenever I could. All that about my having known Molloy in Chicago—solid fact. Then I think I said that I ran across him again in London, and found he had taken Government service with Scotland Yard—that was fiction, and so was the yarn about his warning me that foreign agents were on the track of the Government formula. But it’s perfectly true that he has a daughter, and that she sometimes walks in her sleep. When I told you that she had come in—sleep walking—during an important conversation about the Government formula, and that neither Molloy nor I was sure how much she had heard, I was mingling fact and fiction. Renata Molloy happened in on a meeting of The Great Council—that is the Council of the managing agents from all the countries within the scope of our operations, and no one knew what she had heard, or what she understood. When I told you that I thought she would be safer down here under my own eye, and that I was not sure whether she had been got at, I was speaking very serious fact indeed. They’d have killed her then and there if corpses were just a little easier to dispose of in London. I now very much regret that we didn’t chance it.”
A trembling bewilderment had descended upon Jane. She saw Raymond stare for a moment at Ember with a curious horrified look and then drop her chin upon her hand again. Ember came a step nearer.
“Having disposed of that,” he said, “I should be glad if you would just look at these papers. Documentary evidence, as I said just now, is convincing. This is a short summary of our plans which has been issued to all managing agents. This is a list of those agents. They form The Great Council. These four names”—he paused—“I should have told you that there was an Inner Council. It is the Inner Council which really runs everything. There are four members. I come Second, Molloy was Third, and Belcovitch, who will be here presently, is Number Four.”
Jane’s heart beat faster and faster. She heard that Belcovitch would be there presently, but she could not tear herself away. She saw Raymond Heritage put out her left hand for the papers and glance at them indifferently, saw her brow contract as she read, saw her drop the first two papers upon her lap and lift the third. There was a dead silence whilst she read it. It was the list which gave the names of the Inner Council. She let it drop from her hand and an extraordinary rush of colour transformed her.
“What is my name doing there?” she said. Her voice was not loud, but it rang.
Ember turned upon her a face from which all blankness and coldness had vanished.
“Your name?” he said. “Why, the whole thing has been built up round your name. The head of the Council, the inspiration of the movement, the driving force—you, you, Raymond, you. You are as indissolubly knit with the plan as if you had conceived it. The whole Council, The Great Council, knows you as Number One of The Four who are the Inner Council. The work has been done here under your auspices.” His air of excitement vanished suddenly, his voice dropped to an ordinary note. “I told you it was a business proposition. I assure you that it has been most adequately worked out. In the painful and improbable event of criminal proceedings, you would be cast for the chief rôle. A wealth of corroborative detail has been provided. In business, as you know, one has to think of everything. I’m showing you the penalty of failure, but we shan’t fail. I’m showing what success will mean. Think of it—the absolute power to say, ‘This shall be done.’ The absolute power to impose your will! The absolute power to blot out of existence whatever crosses it!” A gleam came into his eyes like nothing that Jane had ever seen before. “Raymond, I’m not a visionary or a madman. The thing is within my grasp. I’m offering it to you. It’s yours for the taking.”
Raymond did not speak. She only lifted her eyes and looked at him. It was a long look. Whilst it lasted Jane held her breath. Raymond looked down again; there was silence.
Into the silence came a distant sound—a faint dragging sound.
Henry left his car at The Three Farmers on the Withstead road, and proceeded with energy towards the beach. He was glad enough to walk after the long drive.
The day was chilly, the air full of moisture, and a thin, cold mist was rising off the marshes. What breeze there was came from the land and took the mist only a few hundred yards out to sea. The motor-boat telephoned for by Mr. Ember earlier in the day ran into it as she came into Withstead Cove to land a passenger. The passenger, who was Mr. Belcovitch, was very glad indeed to be landed. He had no nautical tendencies, and would have preferred danger on dry land to safety at sea. He made his way up the beach and, confused by the mist, went into the wrong cave. As he turned to come out of it, having discovered his mistake, he heard footsteps, and promptly sheltered himself behind a convenient buttress.
Henry walked briskly past and, as Mr. Belcovitch stared after him, disappeared into the next cave. He disappeared and he did not return. Belcovitch heard a familiar sound, the sound made by the pivoting stone as it swung back into its place. He recognised it, and became a prey to some rather violent emotions, of which fear, hatred, and a desire to annihilate Henry were the chief. Henry was unknown to him, therefore Henry was not one of them. His walk, his carriage, his whole appearance marked him out as belonging to that class which Mr. Belcovitch made a profession of detesting. He possessed the secret of the passages, and was therefore in the highest degree dangerous.
Belcovitch followed him as rapidly and as silently as a man can follow whose very existence has for many years depended on his proficiency in these respects. He closed the stone behind him with a good deal more care than Henry had taken, and, having done so, went up the steps at a surprising rate and in a moment had his quarry in view. Henry had switched on a torch and was proceeding at a moderate rate down the main passage. Belcovitch, moving after him like a cat, did some rapid thinking. It would be very easy to shoot, but it would make a noise. He fingered a length of lead piping in one of his pockets and thought with impassioned earnestness of the back of Henry’s neck. Yet, supposing that Ember knew of Henry’s visit—he did not want any unpleasantness with Ember. It would probably be better not to kill Henry in case it should prove that Ember would rather have him alive. It was always better to be on good terms with Ember. Molloy had fallen out with him, and it appeared that at this very moment two comrades were on their way to eliminate Molloy. All this very rapidly.
He decided not to kill Henry. It was a pity, because there was a most convenient well into which he could have dropped him. He decreased the distance between them and unfastened the black silk muffler which he wore instead of collar and tie.
Henry pursued his unconscious path, his mind occupied with Jane, and plans, and Jane, and Ember, and Anthony, and Raymond, and Jane again. It is to be regretted that he did not look behind him. The villain ought not to be able to steal upon the hero in the dark without being heard, but Henry had not had Mr. Belcovitch’s advantages. The latter had all the tricks of the half-world at his command, and Henry had not.
Just before the laboratory turning Belcovitch came up with a quick run, and that was the first that Henry heard of him. The next instant he felt himself tripped, struggling desperately to keep his footing, slipped in the slime, and came down choking, with a black silk muffler tightly knotted about his throat. Belcovitch was a very neat operator. First the trip, then the twist, and then the chloroform bottle. He had never made a crisper job of it. He took Henry by the heels and proceeded to drag him along the passage towards the laboratory, Henry being mercifully oblivious of what was happening.
When Jane heard that faint dragging sound, she had just about half a minute to decide which passage it came from, and to get away down the other one. It really took her less than thirty seconds to realise that some one was coming by the way that she herself had come, and to dart into the slanting passage which held the well. A yard or two down she turned and stood where she had stood to see Ember pass the day before. Whoever was coming had no light. Of course they could see the light from the laboratory and were steering by it. It was a man coming; she could tell by the tread. He was dragging something—something heavy. What? Or who? Jane sickened.
A dark figure passed between her and the glow that came from the laboratory. She took three light steps, and saw that what he dragged behind him was a senseless man—senseless or dead.
She heard Ember call out, “Belcovitch, is that you?” And a voice with a strong foreign accent answered.
Then a great many things seemed to happen at once: the steel gate opened; the helpless man was dragged in; and, as the gate fell to, there came Raymond Heritage’s scream.
Jane shook from head to foot. The scream cut like a knife. Why did she scream like that? Who was it? Who was it? Who was it? She got her answer in Raymond’s gasp of “Henry!”
An inner blackness, much, much worse than that intolerable dark which had oppressed her, swept between Jane and everything in the world. When Raymond said, “Henry!” the light went out of her world and left it black. She heard Ember say, “Is he dead?” but she could not see Belcovitch’s shrug and shake of the head. She leaned against the wall and could not move. I suppose that in that moment she knew that she really loved Henry. It hurt—dreadfully.
Then she heard Raymond’s voice again:
“What have you done to him? Devils, devils!” And Ember:
“My dear Raymond, calm yourself. He’s not dead, nothing so crude. Mr. Belcovitch is an artist, and Captain March will come round in a minute or two and be none the worse. I’m sorry you had a shock.”
Light, dazzling light flooded Jane’s consciousness. Henry wasn’t dead. The dark was only a dream, and she was awake again. She was very much awake, and her whole waking thought was bent upon the necessity of getting help for Henry before that dream came true.
Ember and Belcovitch would murder him if they had time. Raymond would make what time she could, but in the end they would murder him unless Jane could get help.
She turned, holding to the wall, and moved along the passage. When she had taken a step or two something happened which she could never think of without self-abasement. Her nerve went suddenly, and she began to run. It was only for a dozen steps; then her self-control came into play. She pulled up panting, and, after listening for a moment, crept the rest of the way, reached the steps, and came out into the empty hall, dirty, wet, and as white as a sheet.
As soon as she had the panel shut she ran across the hall and down the corridor to the library. She shut the library door with a sharp push, and was across the room and taking down the telephone receiver before the sound of the bang had died away.
“Exchange!” she said, “Exchange!” and clenched her hand as she waited for the reply. It came with a dreamy accent, the voice of a girl disturbed in the middle of Sunday afternoon. Nobody should be telephoning in the middle of Sunday afternoon.
“Can you look up a London number for me? Sir Julian Le Mesurier”—she spelt it. “Please be very quick; please, it’s important.”
“Righto,” said the dreamy voice incongruously.
Silence fell. Jane held on to the telephone, and tried to control her breathing, which came in gasps. The room seemed full of mist; she shut her eyes.
When Jane started to run down the laboratory passage Jeffrey Ember was superintending the removal of the black silk muffler from Henry’s neck. When they rolled Henry over on to his face he groaned, and when they tied his hands behind his back with the muffler he tried to kick, whereupon Ember produced a piece of rope and they tied his ankles too.
The sound of Jane’s running feet had come very faintly upon Ember’s ear. Henry was groaning and kicking, and Belcovitch was cursing in a steady undertone. It was not until he rose to get the piece of rope that his mind took hold of that faint sound and began to analyse it. There had been a sound in the passage outside—some one moving—some one running. Yes, that was it, some one running, light foot and very fast.
Ember finished tying Henry up and got to his feet.
“There was some one in the passage just now,” he said. “I must go and see. There was something; I heard something. It was like some one running.” He spoke as if to himself, and then turned to Raymond.
“You will stay where you are in that chair—otherwise....” He swung round to Belcovitch.
“If she moves, shoot Captain March at once,” he said, and was gone, leaving the gate ajar behind him.
In the library Jane waited for her call. It came with startling loudness—a bell that seemed to ring inside her head—and then the dreamy voice drawling, “Here y’are.”
In Piggy’s study Isobel Le Mesurier said, “Hullo!”
“Is that Lady Le Mesurier?” said Jane.
“Yes, speaking.”
“Please tell your husband——”
And Isobel’s charming, friendly voice, “He’s here. Won’t you speak to him yourself?”
Jane’s hearing, always acute, was strung to an extraordinary pitch. She could hear the girl at the exchange speaking to some one; she could hear Isobel saying, “Piggy, you’re wanted”; and behind these sounds, on the extreme edge of what was perceptible, she heard the click of the panel and Ember’s footsteps as he crossed the polished floor. She knew that they were Ember’s footsteps, and she heard them coming nearer.
Sir Julian was speaking:
“Who is it?”
Jane heard her own voice, and it sounded small and far away.
“Jane Smith, speaking from Luttrell Marches. They’ve got Henry in the passages. He’s hurt. They’ve got a motor-boat in Withstead Cove. Help as quickly as you can. Some one’s coming.”
Ember was half-way down the corridor. Piggy was speaking:
“Anthony Luttrell’s on his way—should be with you any minute.”
Ember turned the handle. Jane called out:
“Oh, can’t you get me that number—oh, can’t you get it quickly?...” And, as the door opened sharply, she dropped the receiver and turned.
Ember came in—a new Ember. There was something terrifying in his look, and he said harshly:
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to telephone,” said Jane. “They take such ages.”
Mr. Ember’s look was terrifying, but Jane was not terrified. As she dropped the receiver something happened to her which she did not understand. Within the last half-hour she had felt an extremity of fear and sudden anguish, violent relief, and again intensest fear and suspense. From this moment none of these things came near her. She moved among them, but they did not touch her at all. The thing was like a play in which she had her part duly written and rehearsed. There was no sense of responsibility, only a stage upon which she must play her part; and she knew her part very well. She did not have to think, or plan, or contrive. She knew what to do, and how and when to do it. From the moment that she dropped the receiver at the telephone she never faltered for an instant.
Ember looked at her with eyes which saw every tell-tale stain upon her dress and hands. The something in his gaze which should have been frightening became intensified.
“Lady Heritage wants you in the study,” he said.
Jane knew very well that he said the study because the study was next to the door in the panelling. If she refused to go, he would stun her or shoot her here. She did not refuse, and walked down the corridor by his side in silence. They crossed the hall, and Ember kept between her and the stairs. Jane walked meekly beside him with downcast eyes until he passed ahead of her to open the study door. In that moment she turned on her heel, sprang for the stairs and raced up them, running as she had never run in her life.
Ember would not risk shooting her in the hall—she felt sure of that—but he was after her like a flash, and she had very little start. She reached for the newel at the top and jumped the last three steps, with Ember about two yards behind. Then down the corridor with a rush and into her room, and the door banged and locked as he reached it.
Jane wasted no time. She thought that Ember would hesitate to break down the door until he had at least tried promises and threats, but she was taking no chances. She heard him speaking as she opened the cupboard door and locked herself inside it. His voice was only a murmur as she heaved up the trap-door in the floor and climbed carefully down the ladder upon which Henry had stood that night which seemed like weeks and weeks ago. The catch in the wall at the bottom was a simple handle like the one behind the panelling. She emerged into the garden room, opened the window, dropped out of it, and ran quickly and lightly along the terrace, keeping close to the wall of the house.
Ember talked through the door for five minutes. His remarks ranged from persuasive promises to threats, which lost nothing from being delivered in a chilly whisper. At the end of the five minutes he put his shoulder against the lock and broke it. He found an empty room and a locked cupboard. When he had broken the cupboard door and discovered nothing more exciting than Renata’s schoolgirl wardrobe, he went to the open window and stared incredulously at the drop to the terrace. Jane had turned the corner of the house and was out of sight.
Ember came downstairs with the knowledge that he must complete his business quickly if he meant to bring it to any conclusion other than disaster.
He went straight to the library and rang up the Withstead exchange.
“The young lady who was telephoning just now, did she get the number she wanted? She did? Would you kindly tell me which number it was?”
There was a pause, and then the information came: Sir Julian Le Mesurier! There was certainly no time to be lost. Molloy and his daughter both traitors, both spies, both in Government pay! Molloy should be reckoned with by now, and some day without fail he would reckon with Renata.
He came into the hall, and released the spring of the hidden door. As the panel turned under his hand, he heard the purr of a motor coming nearer. It drew up. The bell clanged. Mr. Ember stepped into the darkness and closed the panel behind him.
Anthony Luttrell’s distaste for his errand had certainly not lessened during the long drive from town. He stood now on his own doorstep facing a strange butler, and heard a formal “Not at home,” in response to his inquiry for Lady Heritage.
“And Miss Molloy?” he asked.
“Not at home,” repeated Blotson.
If this was a reprieve it was an unwelcome one. Anthony would very much have preferred to get the thing over.
“I will wait,” he said briefly, and walked past Blotson into the hall. “I am Mr. Luttrell,” he explained, and Blotson’s resentment diminished very slightly. After a moment’s hesitation he threw open the study door and ushered Anthony into the room.
“If Lady Heritage is in the house she will see me,” said Anthony. “If she is out I should like to see Miss Molloy or, failing her, Mr. Ember.” He walked to the window and stood there looking out until Blotson returned.
“Lady Heritage is out, sir, and Miss Molloy is out. Mr. Ember was in just now, but he must have stepped out again.”
“I will wait,” said Anthony for the second time.
When Blotson had gone, he stood quite still, following out a somewhat uneasy train of thought. As the minutes passed, uneasiness merged into anxiety.
Jane ran the whole way to the walled garden. Once inside its door she made herself walk in order to get her breath. When she came into the potting-shed she knew just what she was going to do, and set about doing it in a quiet, businesslike way. From a stack of pots she took about half a dozen, broke all but two of them, and gathered the sherds into the lap of her dress. She put the two unbroken pots on the top of the sherds. Then she took a sharp pruning-knife from the shelf, opened the trap-door, and went down the steps.
As soon as she came into the main corridor she began to put down the broken sherds, taking care to make no noise. She laid a trail of them up to the laboratory turning, and then all along the turning itself, disposing them in the middle of the fairway in such a manner as to ensure that they should not fail to be seen by any one flashing a light along the passage. She put the last two or three sherds in a little pile about a yard short of the arch leading to the slanting passage with the well in it. As she bent down there she heard Belcovitch maintaining an impassioned Slavonic monologue within the laboratory.
She stood in the archway, threw her two unbroken pots against the opposite wall with all her might, and then ran back down the well passage until it turned.
Everything happened just as she knew that it would happen.
Belcovitch stopped talking and swore. It was a polysyllabic curse, very effective. Then the steel gate was flung open, and in three languages Mr. Belcovitch demanded of the silence an account of what was happening. His voice ran away into a hollow echo, and died miserably.
Jane heard him stamp back into the chamber, cursing, and return. This time he flashed a light before him. Flattened against the wall, Jane saw its glow reflected from the side of the passage in which she was. Belcovitch had seen the sherds and was exclaiming and muttering. She heard him pass the arch.
Jane stole to the mouth of the slanting passage. Belcovitch was two yards away on her left, flashing his light down the tunnel, seeing more broken pots, and more and more, and swearing all the time, not loudly but with considerable earnestness. Jane slipped like a shadow across behind him and round the corner. The steel gate was wide open. She ran through it and into the lighted laboratory.
Henry lay on the stone floor in front of her, bound hand and foot. He had rolled over on to his side and was staring at the gate. Raymond had risen to her feet, and was taking a half-step towards Henry as Jane came running in.
“Shut the gate,” said Henry in a sharp whisper.
“There’s another way out, and I don’t think they know it. Quick, Jane, quick!”
Jane slammed the gate. She had the pruning-knife in her hand, and she was down on her knees and at work on the black silk muffler before the sound of the slam reached Mr. Belcovitch. When it did reach him he spun round and came back at a run with a revolver in his hand and murderous fury in his heart.
Jane cut through the last shred of silk, and because Belcovitch’s hand was shaking with rage his first bullet missed her and Henry handsomely.
“Get up against the wall, quick!” Henry commanded.
As he spoke he was himself half rolling, half scrambling towards the wall. His ankles were still tied, but his arms were free. The second bullet just missed his head. Jane cried out, and then they were both out of the line of fire. Henry was breathing hard.
“Give me the knife,” he panted, and began to saw at some of the toughest rope he had ever come across.
Raymond had remained standing. She had retreated almost to the end of the room and wore a look of extreme surprise.
“Why do you call her Jane?” she asked. Her deep voice came through the racket with strange irrelevance.
Belcovitch continued to make the maximum amount of noise in which it is possible for a man and a revolver to collaborate. He banged the steel gate in the intervals of firing, and he cursed voluminously.
The rope gave, and Henry was half-way on to his feet when there was a sudden cessation of all the sounds. Raymond gave a warning cry, and Henry caught at Jane’s shoulder and straightened himself. The steel gate was opening.
Jane said, “Henry—oh, Henry darling!” and there came in Mr. Jeffrey Ember, very cool and deadly, with his little automatic pistol levelled. Just behind him came Belcovitch, a silent Belcovitch, at his master’s heel.
“Touching scene,” said Ember. “Captain March, if you don’t put your hands up at once I shall shoot Miss Molloy. From her last exclamation, I should imagine that you’d rather I didn’t. Miss Molloy, go across to the opposite wall and stand there. Belcovitch, kindly keep your revolver against that young lady’s temple, but don’t let it off till I give you leave. Raymond, I should be glad if you would resume your chair. A brief conversation is, I think, necessary, and I should prefer you to be seated.”
He stood not far from the entrance, dominating the room. The gate had been closed by Belcovitch. Ember waited till his instructions had been carried out; then he came a little nearer to Lady Heritage and said:
“Time presses, Raymond. I must go. I wish that there were more time, for indeed I would rather not have hurried you.”
Jane, with the muzzle of Belcovitch’s revolver cold against her temple, found her attention caught by Ember’s words. Time ... yes, that’s what they wanted—time. Piggy had said that Anthony might arrive at any moment. When he did arrive and found that they were all mysteriously absent, surely his first thought would be to search the passages. She raised her voice and said insistently:
“Mr. Ember.”
Ember threw her a dangerous look.
“Be quiet,” he said shortly.
“There was something I wanted to tell you,” said Jane.
“Out with it then, and be quick.”
“You called me Miss Molloy just now....”
“No, Jane, no!” said Henry violently.
Mr. Ember echoed the remark made by Lady Heritage.
“Why do you call her Jane?” he inquired.
“That is what I was going to tell you,” said Jane.
“You called me Miss Molloy, and I just thought I would like you to know that I’m not Renata Molloy. It would make an untidy sort of finish if you went away thinking that I was, and I hate things untidy.”
“You’re a little devil,” said Ember ... “a little devil.”
Jane stuck her chin in the air.
“Well, I’m not Renata Molloy anyhow,” she said. “No one would ever have called her a devil. She was a white rabbit—a nice, quiet, tame white rabbit.”
Jane’s voice failed suddenly on the last word. Yet Mr. Ember had not looked at her again. His eyes went past her to Belcovitch, and it was to Belcovitch that he spoke.
“No, not yet,” he said, “but if she speaks again you can shoot.”
A long, slow shudder swept Jane. She leaned against the wall and was silent, and she shut her eyes because she could not bear to see Henry’s face. Ember turned back to Raymond.
“I’m sorry to hurry you.” His voice was low and confidential. “What I have to offer, you know. It is yours for the taking. Please don’t make any mistake. I have to change my base, it is true—I have even to change it with some haste—but neither that nor anything else can now affect my purpose and its achievement. What I offered is, without any shadow of uncertainty, mine to offer and yours to take, if you will ... if you will, Raymond?”
Raymond’s sombre gaze dwelt on him as he spoke. The whole scene affected her as one is affected by something which is taking place at a great distance. She did not seem able to adjust her mental focus to it. Her mind seemed to be divided into two parts. One of them was entirely and unreasonably preoccupied with the relationship between Jane and Henry, and the reason why Henry should have addressed Renata Molloy as Jane. These thoughts seemed to circle as continuously, and with as little aim, as goldfish in a glass bowl. The other part of her mind was bruised and sick because Jeffrey Ember had been her friend. When he said, “Will you, Raymond?” she did not speak. She looked at him in silence, and presently made a slow gesture of refusal.
Ember came a step nearer.
“I told you,” he said, “that I was in dead earnest. Perhaps you don’t realise just what I mean by that. I’ve played for a high stake, and I mean to have what I’ve played for or nothing. I’ve played for you, and if....” He broke off. “Let me put it this way. Either we make the future together or there’s no future for either of us. I’m speaking quite soberly when I tell you this. Think well before you answer, but don’t be too long. If there is to be no future our present will end here and now. This place is mined, and if I press that unobtrusive knob, which you may notice above the safe, the end will be quite a dramatic one. I have always had some such contingency in view, and this makes as good a stepping-off place as any other. Think before you refuse, Raymond.”
She shook her head again. Her eyes never left his face. Ember made an impatient gesture.
“Are your friends going to thank you?” he said. “You are taking the heroic pose, and forgive me if I say that it’s a little unworthy of you. I expected something less obvious. Take my offer, and I guarantee to leave Captain March and Miss Molloy here unharmed. Can any woman resist sacrificing herself? Come, will you save them, Raymond?”
Lady Heritage spoke for the first time:
“I suppose that I must be a fool because I trusted you.... I did trust you, Jeffrey ... but I don’t know what you have ever seen in me to make you suppose that I am such a fool as to trust you again ... now.”
Her words and her voice caused a change in Ember, a change as difficult to define as to describe. It is best realised by its effect upon those present. Some impression of shock was received in varying degree by them all. Henry March had, perhaps, the most vivid sense of it. In Belcovitch it bred panic.
Whilst Ember was speaking the hand that held the revolver to Jane’s temple had become more and more unsteady. The muzzle knocked cold against her cheek bone and jabbed against her ear. Jane wondered when the thing would go off. So, it is to be imagined, did Henry, for he was grey about the mouth and his forehead was wet.
Ember did not speak for a moment. Then he said:
“Touché!” in a queer, bitter voice.
Belcovitch began to mutter in an undertone that gradually became louder. His hand shook more and more.
“Sure, Raymond?” said Jeffrey Ember. “Quite, quite sure?”
He came up quite close, and laid his right hand lightly on her shoulder. It was the first time that he had touched her.
She said just the one word, “Yes.” For a moment his hand closed hard upon her. Then he sprang back with a laugh.
“All right, then we go up together.” And, as he spoke, he made for the corner where a little vulcanite knob showed above the steel safe.
With a sort of howl Belcovitch whirled to meet him. They crashed together and grappled, Ember silent, Belcovitch torrential in imprecation and fighting as a man frenzied with terror does fight. His revolver dropped from his hand, and Ember stumbled over it.
Like a flash Henry had Raymond by the arm, whilst his eyes commanded Jane and he pointed to the passage that led out of the laboratory on the extreme right. It was the one that Jane had explored first, and as she ran into it she remembered that it ended in a small chamber full of packing-cases. In a panting whisper she said:
“It’s full of boxes.”
“Then we must shift them,” said Henry, and, groping in the almost dark, he began to pull the cases away from the right-hand wall.
“A light—he can’t find the spring without a light.”
Raymond heard her own voice saying this, and then she ran back down the passage and into the laboratory.
Belcovitch had put his torch down on the bench from which Jane had taken the lists. Its exact position was, as it were, photographed on Raymond’s consciousness. She reached, snatched it, and was back again in the least possible space of time. As she came, she saw Ember and Belcovitch swaying, struggling—horribly near the corner. And as she went she had an impression of Belcovitch falling and, as he fell, dragging Ember down with desperate, clawing hands. Then she was trying to steady her hand and throw the light upon the wall space which Henry had cleared; but the beam wavered and shook, shook and wavered; and Jane took the torch out of her hand, setting it on one of the packing-cases.
“It should be here. It should be just here”—Henry spoke in a muttering whisper; then with sharp irritation, “Nearer with that light, Jane.”
Jane held it closely to the wall. Henry’s hands slid up and down, feeling ... pressing. Once they heard Belcovitch shout, and all the time the sound of the struggle filled their straining ears. Some one fired a shot—and Henry found the spring. A slab of stone swung outwards, pivoting as the other doors had done.
Henry pushed Jane through the opening, flung his arm round Raymond, dragged her through and slammed the stone into place. They were in the narrow alley-way between the row of veronica bushes and the terrace wall, on the spot where Mr. George Patterson had stood listening to Raymond’s voice. The air, the daylight, the mist, seemed wonderful beyond words. Jane never again beheld a mist without remembering that joyful lift of the heart which came to her when the stone shut and she drew her first long, free breath. Henry gave her no time to savour the joys of freedom.
“Run, run like blazes!” he shouted.
Jane ran. Once she started she felt as if nothing would ever stop her. She heard Henry just behind her; she heard him urging Raymond on, and they came out of the alley-way round the end of the terrace, round the side of the house.
Then it came.
The ground shook; there was a muffled thud and a long, heavy rumble that died slowly. Then with a terrific crash two of the stone urns along the terrace wall fell and broke. As the noise ebbed there came the tinkling sound of splintered glass falling upon stone.
Jane stopped running as if she had been shot, and reeled up against Henry, who put his arms round her and held her tight. Up to that very moment the feeling of unreality, of playing a part in a play for which she had no responsibility whilst her real self looked on remotely—this feeling had dominated her. Now it was as if the curtain fell and she, Jane, was left groping amongst events that terrified her. She trembled very much, and clung to Henry, who was at that moment the one really safe and solid thing within reach.
Raymond did not pause or turn her head, but walked straight on towards the house.
The last rumble of the explosion had hardly died away before Anthony Luttrell had flung open the study door, and was making his way at a run towards the Yellow Drawing-Room.
At the glass door which led on to the terrace he halted, opened it wide, and stood on the step looking out. Some glass was still falling from the broken windows on this side of the house. All the terrace on the right of where he stood was like a drawing in which the perspective has gone wrong. There was a great bulge in one place, and some of the paving-stones were tilted aslant, whilst others had fallen in, leaving a gaping hole over which a cloud of dust was settling.
Anthony turned his back upon all this and came back with great strides into the hall. Without so much as a look behind him to see whether he was observed, he loosened the spring, pushed open the door in the panelling and there halted, suddenly remembering the need of a light. He went back for a torch, and then passed down the steps without waiting to close the door.
That something appalling had happened was obvious. With the self-control without which it is impossible to meet an emergency Anthony kept his thought focused upon what he was doing. At the bottom of the steps the way was still clear. He saw Jane’s broken pots and wondered what on earth they were doing there. Then he turned into the laboratory passage, flashing the light ahead of him. Half-way along the passage the roof had fallen in.
Anthony turned, came back into the main corridor, ran along it until he came to the place where the well passage joined it. Here he turned off, made his way cautiously past the well, and again found a mass of stone and rubble blocking his path. A cold horror came over him, and all those thoughts to which he had barred his mind came insistently nearer, pressing past those barriers and taking his consciousness by storm. He came back into the hall and shut the door in the panelling.
The hall was quite empty, but the voice of Blotson could be heard at no great distance. It was raised in exhortation and rebuke. Obviously he rallied a staff which inclined to hysteria, for one could hear a woman’s sobs and a subdued chorus of perturbation and nervous inquiry.
Anthony went to the front door and flung it open. His car stood at a little distance, the inspector and the chauffeur in close conversation. Anthony did not see them. He only saw Raymond Heritage, who was coming slowly up the steps. She was bareheaded, and her face was very pale. She wore a white dress with a black cloak over it. She stumbled twice as she climbed the steps and, if Anthony was only conscious of seeing her, she did not appear to be conscious of seeing any one at all.
It was only when the hand which she put out in front of her actually touched Anthony that she lifted her eyes and looked at him. Then she said in an odd, piteous sort of voice:
“Tony.”
“What is it? What has happened, Raymond? Are you all right?”
“I must speak to you—I must,” she said, catching at his arm and drawing him towards the study. They went in, and when the door was shut she turned to him with the tears running down her face.
“Tony, you heard? I think he’s dead. That place downstairs was mined, and he tried to kill us all, only we got away, Henry, the girl, and I. But Jeffrey’s dead—yes, I think he must be dead, and I know now what you thought. I didn’t know what you meant before, but I know now. You were wrong, Tony. Oh, Tony, won’t you believe me? I didn’t tell him about the passages, and I didn’t know anything until to-day. They can tell you I was speaking the truth—Henry and Miss Molloy; but, oh, Tony, can’t you believe me, just me?”
Anthony looked at her, and looked. His face was twitching. As her voice broke on the last two words he dropped to his knees, flung his arms about her, and hid his face in the folds of her cloak.
By the time that Jane and Henry came into the house Blotson had set all his machinery running once more. He himself presented a magnificent front to two of the most dishevelled people whom he had ever been called upon to receive. It was not until afterwards when it came home to Henry how much green slime there was in his wildly ruffled hair, and how little the original colour of his collar could be discerned, that he realised how marvellous had been the unflinching calm of Blotson. He referred neither to the explosion nor to Henry’s appearance. In point of fact, what were emergencies and accidents that Blotson should notice them? The hour being five o’clock, it was his business to announce tea. He announced it.
“Tea is served in the library,” he said, and passed upon his way.
But in the library the tea cooled while Henry, very much relieved to find that the wires had not been cut, galvanised the Withstead exchange and got on to a distinctly relieved Sir Julian.
They arranged, speaking in Italian, that an explosion had occurred in the course of an important experiment in Sir William’s laboratory. It was agreed to notify Sir William and the press. The loss of two lives was greatly to be deplored. When this was finished Piggy became less official.
“That girl of yours is a brick; you can tell her so from me. She’s all right, I hope?”
Henry said “Yes,” that Jane was quite all right. He sounded a trifle puzzled.
Piggy laughed.
“Didn’t you know she had rung me up to say you’d been nobbled? Most businesslike communication I’ve ever had from a lady in all my life. Told me they’d got a motor-boat in Withstead Cove. And, thanks to her, we ought to have gathered it in. I got through to the coastguard station at once. Now look here, what’s the likelihood of laying hands on Ember’s papers?”
“Ember’s papers?” repeated Henry. “Well, there was a safe down there, and that’s where he’d be most likely to keep them; but I expect they’re all gone to blazes, as the door was open.”
At this point Jane’s voice came in breathlessly:
“Henry, wait, keep him on the line!” she said, and was gone.
“It’s Jane, sir,” said Henry. “I think she’s gone to get something.”
In the middle of Piggy’s subsequent instructions Jane came back. She held a bundle of closely written sheets. She spread them before Henry’s eyes, holding them fan-wise like a hand at cards.
“I’d forgotten them till you said that about the papers—I’d actually forgotten them. It’s lists of his agents in all the big towns everywhere. I sat up all night copying them because I didn’t dare keep the originals. I keep forgetting you don’t know what’s been happening. But tell him, Henry, tell him we’ve got the lists.”
Henry told him.
Jane heard Sir Julian answer, and then Henry hung up the receiver and hugged her.
“What did he say? Henry, you’re breaking my ribs! What did he say?”
“Jane, you’re a brick, and a wonder, and a darling, and he said—he said, ‘Bless you, my children!’”