“I stayed on until the son came home, and then I couldn’t. He was awful, and she thought him quite perfect, poor old soul. I came to London and got a job in an office, and a month ago I lost it. The firm was cutting down expenses, like everybody else. And then—well, I looked for another job, and couldn’t find one, and this morning my landlady locked the door in my face and kept my box. And that, Henry, is why I am thinking seriously of changing places with my Cousin Renata, who, at least, has a roof over her head and enough to eat.”
“Jane,” said Henry furiously, “you don’t mean to say—so that’s why you’re looking such a white rag!”
Jane was horrified to find that her eyes had filled with tears. She laughed, but the laugh was not a very convincing one.
“I did have a cup of coffee and two penny buns,” she began; and then Henry was fetching sandwiches from the sideboard and pressing a cup of hot chocolate into her not unwilling hands.
“They leave this awful stuff over a spirit lamp for my mother, and she always has sandwiches when she comes in. It’s better than nothing,” he added in tones of wrath.
“It’s not awful,” protested Jane; but Henry was not mollified.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why are you so hard up? Didn’t Mr. Carruthers provide for you?”
Jane’s colour rose.
“He hadn’t much, and what he had was an annuity. You know what Jimmy was, and how he forgot things. I am really quite sure that he had forgotten about its being an annuity, and that he thought that I should be quite comfortable.”
Henry swallowed his opinion of Mr. Carruthers.
“Was he your only relation?”
“Well,” said Jane, who was beginning to feel better, “you can’t really count Cousin Louisa; she was only Jimmy’s half-sister, and that makes her a sort of third half-cousin of my mother’s. Besides, she always simply loathed me.”
“And you’ve no other relations at all?”
“Only the Anarchist Uncle,” said Jane brightly. She gave him her cup and plate. “Your mother has simply lovely sandwiches, Henry. Thank you ever so much for them, but what will she do when she comes home and finds I have eaten them all?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.” Henry’s tone was very short. “Look here, Jane, you must let—er, er, I mean, won’t you let....” He stuck, and Jane looked at him very kindly.
“Nothing doing, Henry,” she said, “but it’s frightfully nice of you, all the same.”
There was a silence. When Jane thought it had lasted long enough, she said:
“So, you see, it all comes back again to Renata. Have you done your thinking, Henry?”
“Yes,” said Henry. He drew a chair to the table and sat down half turned to the fire—half turned to Jane. Sometimes he looked at her, but oftener his gaze dwelt intently on the rise and fall of the flames.
“What makes you think that your cousin is to be taken to Luttrell Marches? Did these people tell her so?”
“No,” said Jane—“of course not. As far as I can make out from Arnold Todhunter, Renata is locked in her room, but there’s another key and she can get in and out. She can move about inside the flat, but she can’t get out of it. Well, one night she crept out and listened, though you would have thought she had had enough of listening, and she heard them say that, as soon as her father was out of the way, they would send her to Luttrell Marches and let ‘Number One’ decide whether she was to be ‘eliminated.’ Since then she’s been nearly off her head with terror, poor kid. Now, Henry, it’s your turn. What about Luttrell Marches?”
Henry’s face seemed to have grown rigid. “It’s impossible,” he said in a low voice.
The clock above them struck ten, and he waited till the last stroke had died away.
“I don’t know quite what to say to you, but whatever I say is confidential. You’ve heard my mother talk of the Luttrells, and you may or may not know that my uncle died a year ago. You have also probably heard that his son, my Cousin Anthony, disappeared into the blue in 1915.”
“Then Luttrell Marches belongs to you?” For the life of her, Jane could not keep a little consternation out of her voice.
“No. If Tony had been missing for seven years, I could apply for leave to presume his death, but there’s another year to run. My mother—every one—supposes that I am only waiting until the time is up. As a matter of fact—Jane, I’m telling you what I haven’t told my mother—Anthony Luttrell is alive.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you. And you must please forget what I have told you—unless——”
“Unless?”
“Unless you have to remember it,” said Henry in an odd voice. “For the rest, Luttrell Marches was let during my uncle’s lifetime to Sir William Carr-Magnus. You know who I mean?”
“TheSir William Carr-Magnus?” said Jane, and Henry nodded.
Jane felt absolutely dazed. Sir William Carr-Magnus, the great chemist, great philanthropist, and Government expert!
“He is engaged,” said Henry, “on a series of most important investigations and experiments which he is conducting on behalf of the Government. The extreme seclusion of Luttrell Marches, and the lonely country all round are, of course, exactly what is required under the circumstances.”
Quite suddenly Jane began to laugh.
“It’s all mad,” she said, “but I’ve quite made up my mind. Renata shall elope, and I will go to Luttrell Marches. It will be better than the workhouse anyhow. You know, Henry, seriously, I have a lot of qualifications for being a sleuth. Jimmy taught me simply heaps of languages, I’ve got eyes like gimlets, and I can do lip-reading.”
“What?”
“Yes, I can. Jimmy had a perfectly deaf housekeeper, and it worried him to hear us shouting at each other, so I had her taught, and learned myself for fun.”
Henry crossed to the bookcase and came back with a photograph album in his hand. Taking a loose card from between the pages, he put it down in front of Jane, saying:
“There you may as well make your host’s acquaintance.”
Jane looked long at the face which was sufficiently well known to the public. The massive head, the great brow with eyes set very deep beneath shaggy tufts of hair, the rather hard mouth—all these were already familiar to her, and yet she looked long. After a few moments’ hesitation, Henry put a second photograph upon the top of the first, and this time Jane caught her breath. It was the picture of a woman in evening dress. The neck and shoulders were like those of a statue, beautiful and, as it were, rigid. But it was the beauty of the face that took Jane’s breath away—that and a certain look in the eyes. The word hungry came into her mind and stayed there. A woman with proud lips and hungry eyes, and the most beautiful face in the world.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Raymond Carr-Magnus. She is Lady Heritage, and a widow now—Sir William’s only child. He gave her a boy’s name and a boy’s education—brought her up to take his place, and found himself with a lovely woman on his hands. This was done from Amory’s portrait of her in 1915—the year of her marriage. She was at one time engaged to my Cousin Anthony. If you do go to Luttrell Marches, you will see her, for she makes her home with Sir William.”
Henry’s voice was perfectly expressionless. The short sentences followed one another with a little pause after each. Jane looked sideways, and said very quick and low:
“Were you very fond of her, Henry?”
And when she had said it, her heart beat and her hands gripped one another.
Henry took the photograph from her lap.
“I said she was engaged to Tony.”
“Yes, Henry, but were you fond of her?”
“Confound you, Jane. Yes, I was.”
“Well, I don’t wonder.”
Jane rose to her feet.
“I must be going,” she said. “I have an assignation with Arnold Todhunter, who is going to take me up a fire-escape and substitute me for Renata.”
Henry took out a pocket-book.
“Will you give me Molloy’s address, please?” And when she had given it: “You know, my good girl, there’s nothing on earth to prevent my having that flat raided and your cousin’s deposition taken.”
“No, of course not,” said Jane—“only then nobody will go down to Luttrell Marches and find out what’s going on there.”
She looked straight at Henry as she spoke.
“I’m going, whatever you say, and whatever you do, and I only came to you because——”
“Because——”
“Well, it seemed so sort of lonesome going off into situations of deadly peril with no one taking the very slightest interest.”
Jane’s voice shook absurdly on the last word. And in an instant Henry had his arm round her and was saying, “Jane—Jane—you shan’t go, you shan’t.”
Jane stepped back. Her eyes blazed. “And why?” she said.
She tried to say it icily, but she could not steady her voice. Henry’s arm felt solid and comfortable.
“Because I’m damned if I’ll let you,” said Henry very loud, and upon that the door opened and there entered Mrs. de Luttrelle March, larger, pinker, and more horrified than Jane had ever seen her. She, for her part, beheld Henry, his arms about a shabby girl, and her horror reached its climax when she recognised the girl as “that dreadfully designing Jane Smith.”
“Henry,” she gasped—“oh, Henry!”
Jane released herself with a jerk, and Mrs. de Luttrelle March sat down in the nearest chair and burst into a flood of tears. Her purple satin opera cloak fell away, disclosing a peach-coloured garment that clung to her plump contours and seemed calculated rather for purposes of revelation than concealment. Large tears rolled down her powdered cheeks, and she sought in vain for a handkerchief.
“Henry—I didn’t think it of you—at least not here, not under my very roof. And if you were going to break my heart like your father, it would have been kinder to do it ten years ago, because then I should have known what to expect, and anyhow, I should probably have been dead by now.”
She sniffed and made a desperate gesture.
“Oh, Henry, I can’t find it! Haven’t you got one, or don’t you care whether my heart’s broken? And I haven’t even got a handkerchief to cry with.”
Henry produced a handkerchief and gave it to her without attempting to speak. Years of experience had taught him that to stay his mother’s first flood of words was an impossibility.
Jane felt rather sick. Mrs. March was so very large and pink, and the whole affair so very undignified, that her one overmastering desire was to get away. She heard Henry’s “This is Miss Smith, Mother. She came to see me on business”; and then Mrs. March’s wail, “Your father always called it business too, and I didn’t think—no, I didn’t think you’d bring a girl in here when my back was turned.”
Jane stood up very straight, but Henry had taken her hand again.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a very low voice. “She—she had a rotten time when she was young”; then, in a tone that cut through Mrs. March’s sobs as an east wind cuts the rain, he said:
“My dear mother, you are making some extra-ordinary mistake. The last time that I saw Miss Smith was three years ago. I then asked her to marry me, and she refused. I would go on asking her every day from now to kingdom come if I thought that it was the slightest good. As it isn’t, I am only anxious to be of use to her in any possible way. She came here to-night to ask my advice on an official matter.”
Mrs. March fixed her very large blue eyes upon her son. They were swimming with tears, but behind the tears there was something which suddenly went to Jane’s heart—something bewildered and hurt, and rather ungrown-up.
“You always were a good boy, Henry,” said Mrs. March, and Henry’s instant rigid embarrassment had the effect of cheering Jane. She came forward and took the limp white hand that still clutched a borrowed handkerchief.
“I’m sure he’ll always be a good son to you, and I wouldn’t take him away from you for the world. He’s just a very kind friend. Good-night, Mrs. March.”
She went out without looking back, but Henry followed her into the hall.
“You’re not really going to plunge into this foolish affair?” he said as they stood for a moment by the door. It was Jane who opened it.
“Yes, I am, Henry. You can’t stop me, and you know it.”
Jane’s eyes looked straight into his, and Henry did know.
“Very well, then. Read the agony column inThe Times. If I want you to have a message, it will be there, signed with the day of the week on which it appears. You understand? If the message is inThe Timesof Wednesday, it will be signed, ‘Wednesday.’ And if there are directions in the message, you will obey them implicitly.”
“Howthrilling,” said Jane.
“Is it?”
Henry looked very tired.
“I don’t know if I’ve done right, but I can’t tell you any more just now. By the way, Molloy’s flat will be watched, and I shall know whether you go to Luttrell Marches or not. Good-bye, Jane.”
“Good-bye, Henry.”
Henry watched the lift disappear.
“This,” said Arnold Todhunter, “is the fire-escape.” His tone was that of one who says, “This is our Rembrandt.” Proud proprietorship pervaded his entire atmosphere.
“Ssh!” said Jane.
They stood together in a small back-yard. It seemed to be quite full of things like barrows, paving-stones, old tin cans, and broken crockery. Jane had already tripped over a meat tin and collided with two chicken coops and a dog kennel. She reflected that this was just the sort of back-yard Arnold would find.
Everything was very dark. The blackest shadow of all marked the wall that they were to climb. Here and there a lighted window showed, and Jane could see that these windows had rounded parapets jutting out on a level with the sill.
Arnold, meanwhile, was tugging at something which seemed to be a short plank.
“What on earth?” she whispered.
“We shall need it. I’d better go first.”
And forthwith he began to climb, clutching the plank with one hand and the iron ladder with the other.
Jane let him get a good start, and followed.
The ladder was quite easy to climb; it was only when one thought of how immensely far away the skyline had looked, that it seemed as if it would be very uncomfortable to look down instead of up, and to see that horrid little yard equally far below.
Jane did look down once, and everything was black and blurred and shadowy. It was odd to be clinging to the side of a house, with the dark all round one, and the steady roar of the London traffic dulled almost to nothingness.
The night was very still, and a little cold. Somewhere below amongst the tin cans a cat said, “Grrrwoosh,” not loud, but on a softly inquiring note. The inquiry was instantly answered by a long, piercing wail which travelled rapidly over four octaves, and then dwelt with soulful intensity upon an agonising top note.
With a muttered exclamation, Arnold Todhunter dropped his plank. It grazed Jane’s shoulder, and fell among the cats and crockery with a most appalling clatter.
Jane shut her eyes, gripped the ladder desperately, and wondered whether she would fall first and be arrested afterwards, or the other way about. Nothing happened. Apparently the neighbourhood was inured to the bombardment of cats.
After a moment Jane became aware of Arnold’s boots in close proximity to her head. A wave of fury swept away her giddiness, and she began to descend with a rapidity which surprised herself.
Once more they stood in the yard.
Once more Arnold groped for his plank.
“I’m going up first,” said Jane, in a low tone of rage. “I won’t be guillotined on a public fire-escape. Which floor is it?”
“The top,” said Arnold sulkily, and without more ado Jane went up the ladder.
It was exactly like a rather horrid dream. The ladder was very cold and very gritty, and you climbed, and climbed, and went on climbing without arriving anywhere.
Pictures of the Eiffel Tower and New York skyscrapers flitted through Jane’s mind. She also remembered interesting paragraphs about how many million pennies placed on end would reach to the moon. And at long, long last the escape ended at a window-sill with a parapet-enclosed space beneath it.
Jane sat down on the window-sill and shut her eyes tight. She had a horrid feeling that the building was rocking a little. After a moment Arnold crawled over the edge of the coping, dragging his plank. He was panting.
“This,” he said, with his mouth close to Jane’s ear—“this window only leads to the landing where the lift shaft ends. We’ve got to get across to the next one, which is inside Molloy’s flat. That’s what the plank is for.”
“You’re blowing down my neck,” said Jane.
Arnold Todhunter felt that he had never met a girl whom he disliked so much. Extraordinary that she should look so like Renata and be so different.
He knelt just inside the parapet, and pushed the board slowly out into the dark until it rested on the parapet of the next window.
“Will you go first, or shall I?” he whispered.
“I will.”
Jane felt sure that, if she had to watch Arnold balancing on that plank miles above the ground, she would never be able to cross it herself.
The reflection that it was Renata, and not she, who would have to make the descent fortified her considerably. Even so, she never quite knew how she crossed to the other window. It was an affair of clenched teeth and a mind that shut out resolutely everything except the next groping clutch of the hand—the next carefully taken step.
She sank against the window-sill and heard Arnold follow her. Just at the end he slipped; he seemed to change his feet, and then with a heavy thud pitched down on the top of Jane.
She thought he said “Damn!” and she was quite sure that she said “Idiot!”
There was an awful moment while they listened for the fall of the plank, but it held to the coping by a bare half-inch.
“Thank goodness I’m not Renata!” said Jane, with heartfelt sincerity. And—
“Thank goodness, you’re not!” returned Mr. Todhunter, with equal fervour, and at that moment the window opened.
There was a little sobbing gasp, and a girl was clinging to Arnold Todhunter and whispering:
“Darling—darling, I thought you’d never come.”
Arnold crawled through the open window, and from the pitch-black hall there came the sounds of demonstrative affection.
“Good gracious me, there’s no accounting for tastes!” said Jane, under her breath. And she too climbed down into the darkness.
Arnold appeared to be trying to explain Jane to Renata, whilst Renata alternated between sobs and kisses.
Jane lost her temper, suddenly and completely.
“For goodness’ sake, you two, come where there’s a light, and where we can talk sense. Every minute you waste is just asking for trouble. What’s that room with the light?”
It is difficult to be impressive in a low whisper, but Renata did stop kissing Arnold.
“My bedroom,” she said—“I’m supposed to be locked in.”
Jane groped in the dark and got Renata by the arm.
“Come along in there and talk to me. We’ve got to talk. Arnold can wait outside the window. I don’t want him in the least. You’re going to spend the rest of your life with him in Bolivia, so you needn’t worry. I simply won’t have him whilst we are talking.”
Arnold loathed Jane a little more, but Renata allowed herself to be detached from him with a sob.
Inside the lighted bedroom the two girls looked at one another in an amazed silence.
In height and contour, feature and colouring, the likeness was without a flaw.
Facing them was a small wardrobe of painted wood. A narrow panel of looking-glass formed the door. The two figures were reflected in it, and Jane, tossing her hat on to the bed, studied them there with a long, careful scrutiny.
The same brown hair, growing in the same odd peak upon the forehead, the same arch to the brow, the same greenish-hazel eyes. Renata’s face was tear-stained, her eyelids red and swollen—“but that’s exactly how I look when I cry,” said Jane. She set her hand by Renata’s hand, her foot by Renata’s foot. The same to a shade.
The other girl watched her with bewildered eyes.
“Speak—say something,” said Jane.
“What shall I say?”
“Anything—the multiplication table, the days of the week—I want to hear your voice.”
“Oh, Jane, what an odd girl you are!” said Renata—“and don’t you think Arnold had better come in? It must be awfully cold out there.”
“Presently,” said Jane. “It’s very hard to tell, but I believe that our voices are as much alike as the rest of us.”
She opened her bag, and took out The List and a pencil.
“Now, write something—I don’t care what.”
Renata wrote her own name, and then, after a pause, “It is a fine day.”
“Quite like,” said Jane, “but nearly all girls do write the same hand now. I can manage that. Now, tell me, where were you at school?”
“Miss Bazing’s, Ilfracombe.”
“When did you leave?”
“Two months ago.”
“Have you been in America?”
“Not since I was five.”
“Anywhere else out of England?”
“No.”
“What languages do you know?”
“French—I’m not good at it.”
“Well, that’s that. Now, Arnold tells me you heard them say you were to go to Luttrell Marches?”
Renata looked terrified.
“Yes, yes, I did.”
“You’re not supposed to know? They haven’t told you officially?”
“No—no, they haven’t told me anything.”
“Your father goes away to-morrow. Have they told you that?”
“I can’t remember,” said Renata, bursting into tears. “Oh, Jane, you don’t know what it’s like!—to be locked in here—to have them come and ask questions until I don’t know what I’m saying—and to know, to know all the time that if I make one slip I’m lost.”
“Yes, yes, but it’s going to be all right,” said Jane.
“I can’t sleep,” sobbed Renata, “and I can’t eat.” She held up her wrist and looked at it with interest. “I’ve got ever so much thinner.”
Jane could have slapped her. She reflected with thankfulness that Bolivia was a good long way off.
“Now, look here,” she said, “you talk about ‘they’—who are ‘they’?”
“There’s a man in a fur coat,” faltered Renata—“that is to say, he generally has on a fur coat; he always seems to be cold. He’s the worst; I don’t know his name, but they call him Number Two. He’s English. Then there’s Number Four. He’s a foreigner of some sort, and he’s dreadful—dreadful. I think—I think”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“my father is Number Three.” Then almost inaudibly, “Number One is at Luttrell Marches. It’s Number One who will decide about me—about me. Oh, Jane, I’m so dreadfully frightened!”
Renata’s eyes, wide and terrified, stared past Jane into vacancy.
“You needn’t be in the least frightened; you’re going to Bolivia,” said Jane briskly.
“I must tell some one,” said Renata, still in that whispering voice—still staring. “I didn’t tell them, I wouldn’t tell them, but I must tell some one. Jane, I must tell you what I heard.”
Quick as lightning Jane put her hand over the other girl’s mouth.
“Wait!” she said, and in the pause that followed two things stood out in her mind clear and sharp. If Renata told her secret, Jane’s danger would be doubled. If Renata did not tell it, the crime these men were planning might ripen undisturbed. Jane had a high courage, but she hesitated.
Her hand dropped slowly to her side. She saw Renata’s mouth open protestingly, and there came on her a wild impulse to stave things off, to have time, just a little time before she let that secret in.
“We’ve got to change clothes,” she said. “Quick, give me that skirt and take mine. Yes, put on the coat, and I’ll give you my shoes, too. My hat’s on the bed; you’d better put it on.”
Renata obeyed. A resentful feeling of being hustled, ordered about, treated like a child, was upon her; but Jane moved and spoke so quickly, and seemed so sure of herself, that there seemed no opening for protest. She thought Jane’s blue serge shabby and old fashioned—not nearly as nice as her own—and Jane’s shoes were terribly worn and needed mending.
“Now, listen,” said Jane.
“If Arnold likes to go to my rooms and pay up two weeks’ rent, he can get my box and all my other clothes for you. There’s not very much, but it’ll be better than nothing. I’ll write a line for him to take, and put the address on it. And will you please remember now and from henceforth that you are Jane Renata Smith, and not Renata Jane Molloy?”
Jane was scribbling a couple of lines as she spoke, and as she turned and gave the paper into Renata’s hand, she knew that she must decide now. The moment of grace was up, and whether she bade Renata speak or be silent, there could be no drawing back.
“What were you going to tell me?” she said.
Renata stood silent for a long minute. She was twisting and turning the slip of paper which Jane had given her. She looked down at her twisting fingers; her breath began to come more quickly. Then with great suddenness she pushed the note into her pocket, and caught at Jane with both hands.
“Yes, I must tell you—I must. It will be coming nearer all the time, and I must tell some one, or I shall go mad.”
“Tell me, then,” said Jane. “You were walking in your sleep, and you opened the door and heard—what did you hear?”
Jane’s eyes were bright and steady, her face set. She had taken her decision, and her courage rose to meet an unknown shock.
“I was walking in my sleep,” repeated Renata, in a low, faltering voice, “and I opened the door, and I heard——”
“What did you hear?”
“There was a screen in front of me, and just beyond the screen a man talking. I heard—oh, Jane, I heard every single word he said! I can’t forget one of them—if I could, if I only could!”
“What did you hear?” said Jane firmly.
Renata’s grip became desperate. She leant forward until her lips touched Jane’s ear. In a voice that was only a breath, she gave word for word, sentence by sentence, the speech in which Number Four had proclaimed the death sentence of the civilised world. It was just a bald transcript like the whisper of a phonograph record, as if the words and sentences had been stamped on an inanimate plate by some recording machinery, to be released again with utter regularity and correctness.
Every vestige of colour left Jane’s face as she listened. Only her eyes remained bright and steady. Something seemed to knock at her heart. Renata’s last mechanical repetition died away, and with a sob of relief she flung her arms round Jane.
“Oh, Jane, I do hope they won’t kill you! Oh, I do hope they won’t!”
“So do I,” said Jane.
She detached herself from Renata, and as she did so, both girls heard the same thing—from beyond the two closed doors the groan and grind of the lift machinery in motion.
“They’ve come back,” said Renata, in a whisper of terror.
Jane’s hand was on the electric-light switch before the words had left Renata’s lips.
As darkness sprang upon the room she had the door open. Her grip was on Renata’s wrist, her arm about Renata’s waist, and they were in the hall. It seemed pitch black at first, with a gloom that pressed upon their eyes and confused the sense of direction.
The lift rose with a steady rumble.
Then, as Jane stared before her, the oblong of the window sprang into view. She took a step forward and felt Renata’s head against her shoulder.
“I’m going to faint,” came in a gasp.
“Then you’ll never see Arnold again. Do you want to be caught like this?”
“Jane, I can’t.”
Jane dragged her on.
“Renata, you rabbit!—if they don’t kill you, I will. Faint in Bolivia as much as you like, but I forbid you to do it here.”
“Oh, Jane!”
Jane’s arm felt the weight of a limp, sagging figure, but they had reached the window. From the sill Arnold bent, listening anxiously.
“Quick!” gasped Jane.
And, as his arm relieved the strain, she pinched Renata with all her might. There was a sob—a gasp—Arnold lifted, Jane pushed, and somehow the thing was done. Arnold and Renata were outside, crouched down between the parapet and the window, whilst Jane leaned panting against the jamb.
As the lift stopped with a jerk, her rigid fingers drew the window down and fastened it. Now, horribly loud, the clang of the iron gate. Steps outside—voices—the grate of a key in the lock.
Jane knew now what Renata had felt. Easy, so easy to yield to this paralysis of terror, and to stand rooted there until they came! With all her might she pushed the temptation from her and roused to action.
Thank Heaven, she had had no time to put on Renata’s shoes!
After the first movement strength and swiftness came to her. She was across the hall without a sound. The bedroom door closed upon her. As it did so, the door of the flat swung wide.
Jane stood in the dark, her hand upon the door knob. Slowly, very slowly, she released it. As she leaned there, her head almost touching the panelling, she could hear two men talking in the hall beyond. They spoke in English, but only the outer sound of the words came to her.
With an immense effort she straightened herself, and was about to move away when a thought struck her like a knife-blow—the key—the second tell-tale key—if she had forgotten it!
Her hand slid back, touched the cold key, turned and withdrew it, moving with a steady firmness that surprised herself.
Then she made a half-turn and tried to visualise the room as she had seen it in the light.
Immediately opposite, the cupboard with the looking-glass panel. The window in the right-hand wall, and the bed between window and cupboard. At the foot of the bed a chair, and on the same side as the window a chest of drawers with a looking-glass upon it and Renata’s plain schoolgirlish brush and comb.
When she had placed everything, Jane began to move forward in the direction of the window. Her left hand touched the rail of the bed-foot, her right, groping, brushed the counterpane and rested on something oddly familiar. Her heart gave a sudden jerk, for this was her own bag, which Renata should have taken. She opened it with quick, trembling fingers, took out her handkerchief, and then stuffed the bag right down inside the bed.
A couple of steps brought her to the window, and she pressed closely to it, listening, and wished she dared to open it. There was no sound from outside. She leaned her forehead against the glass, and wondered how many years had passed since the morning. It seemed impossible for this day to come to an end.
Then quite suddenly a key turned in the lock, and the door opened, not widely, but as one opens the door of a room where some one is asleep. A man’s head was silhouetted against the hall light. Part of his shoulder showed in a dark overcoat.
He spoke, and a hint of brogue beneath a good deal of American twang informed Jane that this was her official father.
“Are you awake, Renata?”—and, as he asked the question, a second man came up behind him and stood there listening.
“Yes,” said Jane, muffling her voice with her handkerchief.
He hesitated a moment, and then said:
“Well, good-night to you”—and the other man, speaking over his shoulder, said in an easy, cultivated voice without any accent at all:
“Pleasant dreams, Miss Renata.”
Jane’s “Good-night” was just audible and no more, but obviously it satisfied the two men, for the door was shut, the key turned and withdrawn, and presently the hall light went out, and the darkness was absolute and unrelieved, except where the midnight sky showed just less black than the interior of the room.
After what seemed a long, long time, Jane undressed and got to bed. It was strange to grope for and find Renata’s neatly folded nightdress.
Presently she lay down, and presently she slept. Time ceased; the day was over.
She woke suddenly a few hours later. It was still dark. She came broad awake at once, and sat up in bed as if some one had called to her. Her mind was full of one horrifying thought.
The plank—what had Arnold done with the plank?
Impossible that he should have helped Renata down the fire-escape and carried the plank as well, and somehow Jane did not see Arnold troubling to come back for it.
One thing was certain; if Arnold had left the plank in its compromising position, it must be removed before daylight.
Jane got out of bed, shivering. She went to the window, opened it, and leaned out. The yard, mews, wall, and parapet—all were veiled in the same thick dusk. She strained her eyes, but it was impossible to distinguish anything. There was nothing for it but to cross that horrid little hall again, open the window, and make sure.
With the key in her hand, and mingled rage and terror in her heart, she felt her way to the door, opened it noiselessly, and crossed barefoot to the window. The hasp was stiff, it creaked, and the window stuck.
Recklessness took possession of Jane. With a jerk she pushed it up; as it chanced, recklessness made less noise than caution would have done. She leaned right out, and there, sure enough, was the plank.
Even Jane’s anger could provide her with nothing more cutting than, “How exactly like Arnold Todhunter.”
She stood quite still and considered.
A bold course was the only one. Remembering the plank’s previous fall and the perfect calm with which the neighbourhood had received it, she decided to take the same chance again—only, she must be quick and have it all planned in her head: first a shove to the plank, then down with the window and latch it, five steps—no, six—across the hall, and then her own door, and on no account must she forget the key.
She drew a long breath, leaned out, and pushed. The board was heavier than she had supposed—harder to move. She had to pull it in, until the sudden weight and strain told her that it was clear of the coping upon which the farther end had rested. Then she pushed with all her might, and as it fell, her hands were on the window quick and steady. Next moment she was crouching in Renata’s bed, the clothes clutched about her, the door key cold in her palm. She pushed it far down beneath the clothes, and sat breathless—listening.
The crash with which the plank had landed seemed to have deafened her, but as the vibrations died away, she heard, sharp and unmistakable, the click of a latch and hurrying footsteps.
The next moment her door was opened and her light switched on. Quick as thought her hand was over her eyes and the sheet up to her chin.
Molloy stood in the doorway, and beyond him the other.
“What’s doing? Did you hear it?” he stammered, and then the other man pushed him aside.
“I’d like a look from your window if you’ll excuse me, Miss Renata,” he said, and crossed the room.
As he leaned out, Jane watched him from beneath her hand, and recalled Renata’s words, “He generally wears a fur coat; they call him Number Two.” This man wore a fur coat over pale blue silk pyjamas. When he turned, saying, “I can’t see a thing,” she was ready with her stammered, “What was it?”
“You heard it, then?” said Molloy.
“Such a fearful crash! It—it frightened me most dreadfully,”—and here Jane spoke the literal truth.
“I don’t know.” It was Molloy who answered again, but the other man’s eyes travelled round the room, and a feeling of terror came over Jane.
If she had forgotten anything, if there were one shred of incriminating evidence, those eyes would miss nothing! She felt as if they must pierce the bedclothes and see her bag and the hidden key, but he merely nodded to Molloy, and they left the room, switching out the light and locking the door.
Jane drew a long breath of relief, turned upon her side, and in five minutes was asleep again.
The day came in with a thick mist. Jane opened her eyes upon it sleepily.
She began to think what a strange dream she had had, and then, as sleep ebbed from her, she remembered that it was not a dream at all. She was Renata Molloy under lock and key, and in front of her stretched a day that might be even more crowded with adventure than yesterday.
She jumped out of bed, and as she dressed her eyes brightened and her courage rose. With Renata’s scissors she unpicked the initials which marked her underclothes. This was a game at which one must not make a single slip. Her bag worried her a little, but it was just such a plain leather bag as any one might possess. She ransacked it carefully, and frowned over an envelope addressed to Miss Jane Smith. What in the world was she to do with it?
There were no matches, so it could not be burned. After some thought she soaked it in water, scratched the name to shreds with a hairpin, and crumpling the wet paper into a ball, tossed it out of the window.
By the time her door was unlocked, she was very hungry. This time, it appeared, she was being summoned to bid the departing Mr. Molloy a fond farewell.
His luggage was already being carried out to the lift, and two or three men were coming and going. The man in the fur coat stood with his back to the window, smoking a cigarette. Obviously Molloy’s farewell was not to be said in private.
Jane looked at him with some curiosity—a tall man, strongly built, with a bold air and a florid complexion.
It was he who had opened the door, and he stood still holding the handle and looking, not at Jane, but over her shoulder. For this she felt grateful.
“Well, well then, I’m off,” said Molloy. “You’ll be a good girl and do as you’re bid, and I’ll be having you out to keep house for me in less than no time.”
From what she had seen of Renata, Jane fancied that a sob would meet the occasion. She therefore sobbed, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
“There, there,” said Molloy hastily.
He bent and deposited an awkward kiss upon the top of her head. Then he took his hand from the door and was gone.