The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith: A Golden Age Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  She turned and stood facing the windows. Up in the far corner a large cupboard filled the angle and blunted it. Jane had hung her serge dress there hours and hours ago. The knocking seemed to come from the cupboard, just where the room was at its darkest because next the lighted window.

  Jane crossed the floor very slowly, put both hands on the cupboard doors, and flung them wide. For a moment everything was quite black, then, with a most unpleasant suddenness, a narrow white ray cut the dark, and Henry’s voice said, “It’s only me.”

  Jane’s hand went to her lips, pressing them firmly. She would not have admitted that this action alone saved her from screaming. After a moment she gave a little gasp, and located Henry, or rather Henry’s head, which was almost under her feet.

  In the cupboard floor there was a square black hole, and, just above floor-level, Henry’s face looked up at her, tilted at an odd angle, whilst his one visible hand manipulated a small electric torch.

  “Wait,” said Jane, in a whisper.

  She went quickly to the door, locked it, removed the key, and put it in one of the dressing-table drawers. She did not know quite what made her do this, only suddenly when her eyes saw Henry, her mind had a vivid impression of that long corridor with its one faintly glimmering light.

  Then she sat down on the cupboard floor, close to Henry’s head, and breathed out:

  “Henry!—how on earth?”

  Henry, who appeared to be standing upon a ladder or something equally vertical, came up a few steps, sat down on the edge of the hole, and switched off his torch.

  “I had to see you,” he said. “This was my room in the old days, and Tony and I found this passage. It leads down to another cupboard in the garden room where they keep the tennis and croquet gear. How are you?—all right?”

  “Yes, quite all right.”

  “That’s good. Now which of us is going to talk first?”

  “I think I had better,” said Jane. “You see, I saw Renata, and she told me things, and I think, if you don’t mind, Henry, that I had better tell you everything that she told me.”

  “Yes, please.” He hesitated. “One minute, Jane, I just wanted to say, you don’t mind talking to me like this, do you? I wouldn’t have asked you to if there had been any other way—what I mean to say is…”

  Jane gave a very small laugh, which was instantly repressed. She reflected that it was pleasanter to suppress a laugh than a scream.

  “What you mean to say is, there aren’t any chaperons in this scene. You needn’t apologise, Henry. Sleuths never have chaperons—it’s simply not done; and, anyhow, I’m sure you’d make a beautiful one. Shall I go on?”

  It may be doubted whether Henry really cared about being described as a chaperon. His tone was rather dry as he said:

  “Go on, please.”

  As for Jane, who had prodded him on purpose just to see if anything would happen, she certainly felt a slight disappointment accompanied by a sense of increased respect.

  “You saw Renata. What did she tell you?”

  “She told me what she overheard,” said Jane, speaking slowly. “Henry, if I tell you what it was, will you promise me not to let any one guess that you know? If they were certain that I knew, I shouldn’t be alive to-morrow; and if they thought you knew the secret, you’d never get back to London alive.”

  “Who is ‘they,’ Jane?” said Henry.

  “I want to tell you about Renata first. She really did walk in her sleep, you know. She must have waked when she opened the door. She said the first thing she knew was the cold feel of the hall linoleum under her feet. The door was open, and she was standing just on the threshold. There was a screen in front of her, and beyond the screen a man talking. She heard every word he said, and I am sure that what she repeated to me was just exactly what she heard. The first words that she caught were ‘Formula “A.”’”

  Henry gave a violent start.

  “Good Lord!” he said under his breath. “You’re sure?”

  “Quite. Then he went on, and this is what he said: ‘You all have Formula “A.” You will go to your posts and from your directions you will prepare what is needful according to that formula, carrying out to the last detail the cipher instructions which each of you has received. As soon as the experiments relating to Formula “B” are completed, you will receive a summons in code. You will then assemble at the rendezvous given, and Formula “B,” with all instructions for its employment, will be entrusted to you. With Formula “A” you have the key. When Formula “B” is also complete you will have the lock for that key to fit; then the treasures of the world are yours. The annihilation of civilisation and of the human race is within our grasp. When the key has turned in the lock we only shall be left, and…’ Just then, Renata said, some one else cried out, ‘The door! The door!’ They pushed the screen away and pulled her in. She nearly fainted. When she revived a little, her father and Mr. Ember were trying to find out what she had heard. Fortunately for herself, she told me, at first it was all confusion. The only thing that stood out clearly was that shout at the end, but afterwards, when she was alone, it all came back. She said it was like a photographic plate developing, hazy at first, and then everything getting clearer and sharper until each detail came out. She repeated the whole thing as if it were a lesson.”

  “Wait,” said Henry. “My head’s going round. I want to sort things out.”

  Jane waited. She had been prepared for Henry to be impressed or incredulous. What took her by surprise was the puzzled note in his voice. “Lord, what a mix-up!” she heard him say.

  Then he addressed her again.

  “Did you ever play ‘Russian Scandal,’ Jane?” he said.

  “Yes, of course. But if you had heard Renata—the sort of queer mechanical way she spoke, exactly like a gramophone record—why, the words weren’t words she’d have used, and all that about Formula ‘A’—do you think that’s the sort of thing that a schoolgirl makes up?”

  “No,” said Henry unexpectedly. “I think it is quite possible that she overheard something about Formula ‘A,’ and I’d give a good deal to know just what she did hear.”

  “I’ve told you what she heard,” said Jane. “Jimmy always said I had a photographic memory, and I said the whole thing over to myself until I had it by heart. You see, I didn’t dare to write it down.”

  “Can you say it again?” said Henry. “I’d like to get it down in black and white, and have a look at it. At present it makes me feel giddy.”

  “You mustn’t write it down,” said Jane breathlessly. “Oh, you mustn’t, Henry! It’s not safe.”

  Henry turned on his torch, propped it against the wall, and produced a notebook and a pencil. The cold, narrow beam of light showed his knee, the white paper, a pencil with a silver ring, and Henry’s large, brown hand.

  “He has a horribly determined hand,” thought Jane.

  “Now,” said Henry, “will you start at the beginning and say it all over again, please?”

  Jane did so meekly, but her inward feelings were not meek. Once more she repeated, word for word, and sentence for sentence, the somewhat flamboyant speech of Number Four.

  Henry’s hand travelled backwards and forwards in the little lane of light, and, word for word, and sentence by sentence, he wrote it down. When he had finished, he read over what he had written. If he had not a photographic memory, he was, at any rate, aware that Jane in her repetition had not varied so much as a syllable from her first statement.

  He went on looking at what he had written. At last he said:

  “Jane, I think I must tell you something in confidence. Sir William, as you know, is conducting important experiments for the Government. How important you may perhaps have gathered from the extraordinary precautions which are taken to prevent any leakage of information. These experiments have resulted in two valuable discoveries represented, for purposes of official correspondence, by the terms Formula ‘A’ and Formula ‘B.’ Within the last week we have ha
d indisputable proof that Formula ‘A’ has been offered to a foreign power. That is the reason for my presence here. Now these are facts. Let them sink into your mind, then read over what I have just taken down, and tell me how you square those facts with Renata’s statement.”

  Jane picked up the notebook, stared at the written words, set Henry’s facts in the forefront of her mind, and remarked candidly:

  “It does make your head go round rather, doesn’t it?”

  Henry assented. They both sat silent. Then Jane put down the notebook.

  “Never mind about our heads going round,” she said. “Let me go on and tell you the rest of it. It isn’t only what Renata heard; it’s the things that keep happening—little things in a way, but oh, Henry, sometimes I think they are more frightening just because they are little things. I mean, supposing you know you’re going to be executed, you brace yourself up, and it’s all in the day’s work, but if you are out at a dinner-party and you suddenly find poison in the soup, or a bomb in the middle of the table decorations, it’s… well, it’s unexpected—and, and perfectly beastly.”

  Jane’s voice broke just for an instant.

  Henry’s hand came quickly through the torchlight, and rested on both hers. It was a satisfactorily large and heavy hand.

  She told him about her interview with Ember at the flat, and one by one she marshalled all the small happenings which had startled and alarmed her.

  Henry waited until she had quite finished. Then he said:

  “This lip-reading—you know, my dear girl, it’s a chancy sort of thing; it seems to me that there are unlimited possibilities of mistake.”

  “Some people are much easier to read from than others. Lady Heritage is very easy. I’m sure I was not mistaken; she was saying, ‘If she overheard anything, would she have the intelligence to be dangerous? That is what I ask myself,’ and she said, ‘Despise not thine enemy,’ and ‘Anything but Formula “A.”’ Now Mr. Ember is very difficult. I can’t really make him out at all. His lips don’t move. It’s no use not believing me, Henry. Look here, I’ll show you.”

  She caught up the little torch, and turned the light upon his face.

  “Say something,” she commanded.

  Henry’s lips formed the words, “Jane, I love you very much indeed”—and Jane switched off the light.

  “Henry, you’re a perfect beast! Play fair,” she said, in a low, furious whisper.

  “Sorry. Wasn’t it all right? Try again.”

  Jane allowed the ray to light up Henry’s mouth and chin. The hand that held the torch was not quite steady. This may have been the result of anger—or of some other emotion. As a result the light wavered a good deal.

  Henry’s lips moved, and Jane read aloud, “A sleuth should never lose its temper.”

  Henry’s hand caught the little shaking one that held the torch, and gave it a great squeeze.

  “How frightfully clever you are, and—oh, Jane, what a goose!”

  “I’m not,” said Jane.

  “But don’t you see that, with Renata’s story in your mind, you would be looking out for things? You couldn’t help it.”

  “What do you think, then, of Lady Heritage saying that Mr. Ember’s verdict was inclined to be ‘Guilty, but recommended to mercy,’ whereas she said that she herself doubted the guilt, but that if she did not, she would have no mercy at all? Do you know, that frightened me almost more than anything. I don’t know why. That wasn’t lip-reading; I heard the words with my own ears.”

  “But—don’t you see—” He paused. “Let’s get back to facts:—Formula ‘A’ has been stolen and offered for sale. Renata, undoubtedly, overheard something relating to Formula ‘A.’ Now, supposing Mr. Molloy or one of his friends to be the person who is doing the deal, don’t you see that the possibility of Renata having overheard something compromising would be sufficient to account for a good deal of alarm?

  “If Molloy and his friends had stolen Formula ‘A’ and were trying to dispose of it, it would naturally be of the highest importance to them to find out how much Renata knew, and to take steps which would ensure her silence. They would almost certainly try and frighten her—that’s how it seems to me.”

  “Then where does Mr. Ember come in?” said Jane. “He was there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Renata described him,” said Jane. “She said he was the worst of them all.”

  “She knew him by name?”

  “No. But… but”—a little chill breath of doubt played on Jane’s certainty—“she called him the man in the fur coat. The others spoke of him as Number Two.”

  “But you don’t know that it was Ember?”

  For a moment Jane felt that she was sure of nothing; then, with a swift revulsion, her old fears, suspicions, certainties, received vigorous reinforcement.

  “Henry,” she said, “listen. You’re on the wrong scent—I know you are. I can’t tell you how I know it, but I’m quite, quite sure. If you were an anarchist, and wanted to produce some horrible thing that would smash civilisation into atoms, how would you set about it?—where would you go? Don’t you see that the very safest place would be somewhere like this, somewhere where you could carry on your experiments under the cover of real experiments? It’s like the caterpillars that pretend to be sticks—what do you call it?—protective mimicry.”

  “Jane!” said Henry.

  “I’m sure that’s what they have done. I’m sure that there is something dreadful going on in this house. And if you can’t square what Renata heard with what you know of Formula ‘A,’ why, then I believe that there must be more than one Formula ‘A.’ Don’t you see how cunning it would be for them to take the name of a real Government invention to cover up whatever horrible thing it is that they are working at?”

  There was a dead silence.

  “Another Formula ‘A’?” said Henry slowly. Then, with an abrupt change of manner:

  “Leave it—all of it—and tell me some things I want to know. Sir William, for instance—he was put out at my coming down, I know—but what is he like as a rule? He does not always drink as much as he did to-night, does he?”

  “I think he does. Henry, I think he takes too much—I do, really; and he’s frightfully irritable. But that’s not what strikes me most. The thing I notice is that he doesn’t seem to do any work. Mr. Ember is supposed to be his secretary, but he really does all his work with Lady Heritage. She goes on all the time. She spends hours in the laboratories. I believe she works there till ever so late, but Sir William just sticks in his study and broods. I thought how strange it was from the very first day.”

  “And Lady Heritage? Put all this mysterious business on one side and tell me what you make of her?”

  Jane hesitated.

  “She’s—she’s disturbing. I think she has too much of everything, and it seems to upset the balance of everything she touches. She’s too beautiful for one thing, and she has too much intellect, and too much, far too much, emotion. I think she is dreadfully unhappy too, with the sort of unhappiness that makes you want to hurt somebody else. You know what she sang this evening. I think she really feels like that, and would like to smash—everything. That’s why…” Jane broke off suddenly; her voice dropped to the least possible thread, “Oh, what’s that—what’s that?”

  As she spoke, her hand met Henry’s on the switch of the torch. The light went out. Jane clung to one of the hard, strong fingers as she listened with all her ears. She heard a footstep, light and unmistakable, and it stopped upon the threshold.

  There were about twenty seconds of really terrifying silence, and then the handle of the door turned slowly. Jane heard the creak of the hinge, the minute rattle of the latch. Then the handle was released, but slowly and with the least possible noise. There was another silence.

  Jane pinched Henry as hard as she could, and though this, of course, relieved the strain she felt dreadfully afraid that she would scream unless something broke through this dreadful qui
et.

  Something did break through it next moment, for there came a low knocking on the door, and, with the first sound of that knocking Jane recovered herself. With an extraordinary quickness and lightness she was on her feet and out of the cupboard, the cupboard was shut, and Jane, her shoes noiselessly discarded, was sitting on the side of a rumpled bed, a fold of the sheet across her mouth, inquiring in sleepy, muffled accents:

  “What is it? Who’s there?”

  The knocking had gone on steadily. Now it stopped, and a voice said, “It is I, Lady Heritage. Open the door.”

  Jane threw back the bedclothes so as to cover the chair at the bed-foot—a chair upon which there should have been a neatly folded pile of clothes—pulled off her stockings, and took the key out of the dressing-table drawer.

  “Oh, what is it?” she said, and fumbled at the lock.

  Next moment the door was open, and she saw Lady Heritage in her white linen overall and head-dress, the latter pushed back and showing her hair.

  Lady Heritage saw a startled girl in a red flannel dressing-gown. Between the moonlight and the light from the passage there was a sort of dusk. Lady Heritage put her hand on the switch, but did not pull it down. Instead, she said quickly:

  “I saw a light under the door. Are you ill?”

  Jane rubbed her eyes.

  “A light?” she said.

  Raymond crossed the room quickly and felt each of the electric bulbs.

  “A light?” said Jane again.

  Lady Heritage went back to the door and turned all the lights on.

  “Do you always lock yourself in?” she said. “And why did you take the key out of the door?”

  “Was it wrong? They say that if you lock your door and put the key away, even if you walk in your sleep, you don’t go out of the room. I shouldn’t like to walk in my sleep in a big house like this, and perhaps wake up in a cellar or out on the terrace.”

  Lady Heritage did an odd thing. Something flashed across her face as Jane was speaking, and she put both hands on the girl’s shoulders and pulled her round so that she faced the light.

  Jane met, for a moment, a most extraordinary look. It did not seem to go through her as Mr. Ember’s scrutiny had done, but it shook her more. She looked down and said shakily: