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, “Iknowthat 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 ... ‘anewPhilosopher’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 conspireTo grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,Would we not shatter it to bits, and thenRe-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?’
“‘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? Whowasit? 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.