The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith: A Golden Age Mystery Read online

  “The door!” he shouted. “The door!” Every man in the room looked where Fifteen was looking. Above the water-lilies and the storks, where the top panel of the door had shown, there was a dark, empty space. The door was open.

  Number Four whipped out a revolver and dragged the screen away. The door was open, and in the doorway stood a girl in her nightdress. Her hands were stretched out, as if she were feeling her way. Her eyes, of a greenish hazel in colour, were widely opened, and had a dazed expression. Her brown hair hung in two neat plaits. Her feet were bare. Molloy pushed forward quickly.

  “Well, there, if that wasn’t the start of our lives,” he said, “and no reason for it when all’s said and done. It’s my daughter, Renata, comrades, and she’s walking in her sleep. Now I’ll just take her back to her room and be with you again.”

  “A minute, I think, Molloy,” said Number Two. He got up slowly out of his chair, and came across to where the girl stood motionless, blinking at the light. “I said there was a most infernal draught. Will you come in, Miss Molloy?” he added politely, and took the girl by the hand. She yielded to his touch, and came into the room, shivering a little. Some one shut the door. Molloy, shrugging his shoulders, pulled the crimson cloth from the table and wrapped it about his daughter. The ink-soaked patch came upon her bare shoulder, and she cried out, cast a wild look at the strange and terrifying faces about her, and burst into a flood of tears.

  Molloy, standing behind her, looked around as she had looked, and his face darkened. Number Four had his back against the door, and his revolver in his hand. There was only one face in the whole circle that was not stamped with suspicion and fear, and behind the fear and the suspicion there was something icy, something ruthless. Number Two, with a slightly bored expression, was feeling in his waistcoat pocket. He produced a small glass bottle, extracted from it a tiny pellet, and proceeded to dissolve it in the glass of water which had stood neglected at Number Four’s right hand.

  “Now, Miss Molloy,” he said, but Molloy caught him by the wrist.

  “What the devil—” he stammered, and Number Two laughed.

  “My dear Molloy,” he said, “how crude! You might know me better than that.”

  He held the glass to Renata’s lips, and she took it and drank. When she had set down the glass, she felt her way to a chair and leaned back with closed eyes. The room seemed to whirl about her. A confusion of sound was in her ears, loud, angry, with sentences that came and went. “If she heard,”—then another—“How long was she there? Some one must have seen the door open.”

  “Who did, then?” Then in the harshest voice of all, “I don’t care if she’s Molloy’s daughter fifty times over, if she heard what Four said about The Process, she must go.” Go where?

  There was something cold and wet touching her shoulder. The cold seemed to spread all over her. Now her father was speaking. She had never heard his voice quite like that before. And now the man in the fur coat, the one who had given her the glass of water:

  “Yes, certainly, elimination if it is necessary. We’re all agreed about that. But let us make sure.” His voice had quite a gentle sound, but Renata’s heart began to beat with great thuds.

  “Miss Molloy,”—he was speaking to her now, and she opened her eyes and looked at him. His face was of a clear, even pallor. His eyes, light blue and without noticeable lashes, looked straight into hers. The veil was gone from them. They held a terrifying intelligence.

  Renata sat up. The crowd of men had cleared away. She, and her father, and the man in the fur coat were in an angle formed by the table and the black screen, which had been drawn close around them. Her father sat between her and the fire. His head was turned away, and he drummed incessantly on the table with the fingers of his right hand. Beyond the screen Renata could hear movements, and it came to her that the other men were there, waiting. The man in the fur coat spoke to her again. His voice was pleasant and cultivated, his manner reassuring.

  “You are better now? Please don’t be frightened. I am a doctor; your father will tell you that. Being wakened suddenly like that gave you a shock, but you are better now.”

  “Yes,” said Renata. She wished that her heart would stop beating so hard, and she wished that the man in the fur coat would stop looking at her.

  “Now, Miss Renata, I am your doctor, you know, and I want you to answer just a few questions. You have walked in your sleep before?”

  “Yes,” said Renata—“oh yes.”

  “Often?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the first time?”

  “I think—I think I was five years old. They found me in the garden.”

  Molloy let out a great breath of relief. If she had forgotten, if her account had differed from his—well, well, their luck was in.

  There was a whispering from behind the screen. Number Two frowned.

  “And the last time?”

  “It was at school. I walked into another dormitory and frightened the girls.”

  The man in the fur coat nodded. “So your father said.” And for a moment Molloy stared over his shoulder at him. “And to-night? Do you dream on these occasions?”

  Renata was reassured. Every moment it was more like an ordinary visit to a doctor. She had been asked all these questions so often. Her voice no longer trembled as she answered. “Yes, I dream. I walk in my sleep because of the dream; now to-night…”

  “Yes, to-night?”

  “I dreamt I was back at school, and I thought I heard talking in the next dormitory. You know we are not allowed to talk, and I am—I mean I was a prefect. So I got up, and went to see what was the matter, and some one pulled the screen away, and there was such a light, and such a noise.” She put out a shaking hand, and Number Two patted it kindly.

  “Very startling for you,” he said. “So you opened the door and came in and heard us all talking. Can you tell me what was being said?” His hand was on Renata’s wrist, and he felt the pulses leap. She spoke a shade too quickly:

  “I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps I can help you. Your father, you know, travels for a firm of chemists, a firm in which I and my friends are also interested. We were discussing a new aniline dye which, we hope, will capture the markets of the world. Now did you hear that word—aniline—or anything like it? You see I want to find out just what woke you. What tiresome questions we doctors ask, don’t we?”

  He smiled, and Renata tried to collect her thoughts. They were in great confusion.

  Aniline—annihilate—the two words kept coming and going. If her head had been clearer she would almost certainly have fallen into the trap which had been laid for her. Molloy stopped drumming on the table and clenched his hand. With all his strength he was praying to the saints in whom he no longer believed. Behind the screen twenty-three men waited in a dead silence. Renata was not frightened any more, but she was tired—oh, so dreadfully tired. Annihilate—aniline—the words and their similarity of sound teased her. She turned from them with a little burst of petulance.

  “I didn’t hear anything like that. Oh, do let me go to bed! I only heard some one call out.…”

  “Yes?” said Number Two.

  “He said, ‘The door, the door!’ and then there were all those lights.”

  Chapter Two

  Jane Smith sat on a bench in Kensington Gardens. Her entire worldly fortune lay in her lap. It consisted of two shillings and eleven pence. She had already counted the pennies four times, because there really should have been three shillings She was now engaged in making a list in parallel columns of (a) those persons from whom she might seek financial assistance, and (b) the excellent reasons which prevented her from approaching them.

  Jane had a passion for making lists. Years and years and years ago Mr. Carruthers had said to her, “My dear, you must learn to be businesslike. I have never been businesslike myself, and it has always been a great trouble to me.” And then and there he and Jane had, in collaboration, embarked upon the
First List. It was a thrilling list, a list of toys for Jane’s very first Christmas tree. Since then she had made lists of her books, lists of her clothes, shopping lists, and an annual list of good resolutions.

  Jane stopped writing, and began to think about all those other lists. She had always showed them to Mr. Carruthers, and he had always gazed at them with the same vague benignness, and said how businesslike she was getting.

  Dear Cousin James—Jane was rich instead of poor when she thought about him. She looked across at the trees in their new mist of green, and then suddenly the thin April sunshine dazzled in her eyes and the green swam into a blur. Cousin James was gone, and Jane was alone in Kensington Gardens with two-and-elevenpence and a list.

  She opened and shut her eyes very quickly once or twice, and fixed her attention upon (a) and (b) in their parallel columns. At the top of the list Jane had written “Cousin Louisa,” and the reason against asking Cousin Louisa’s assistance was set down as, “Because she was a perfect beast to my darling Jimmy, and a worse beast to me, and anyhow, she wouldn’t.”

  In moments of irreverence the late Mr. Carruthers—the Mr. Carruthers, author of five monumental volumes on Ethnographical Differentiation—had been addressed by his young ward and cousin as “darling Jimmy.”

  Professor Philpot came next. “A darling, but he is sitting somewhere in Central Africa in a cage learning to talk gorilla. I do hope they haven’t eaten him, or whatever they do do to people when they catch them.”

  It will be observed that Miss Smith’s association with the world of science had not succeeded in chastening her grammar.

  Jane’s pencil travelled down the list.

  “Mr. Bruce Murray. In Thibet studying Llamas.”

  “Henry”—Jane shook her head and solemnly put two thick black lines through Henry’s name. One cannot ask for financial assistance from a young man whose hand one has refused in marriage—“even if it was three years ago, and he’s probably been in love with at least fifteen girls since then.”

  “Henry’s mamma—well, the only time she ever loved me in her life was when I refused Henry, so I should think she was an Absolute Wash Out—and that’s the lot.”

  Jane folded up the list and put it into her handbag. Two silver shillings and eleven copper pennies, and then the workhouse!

  It was at this moment that a stout lady with a ginger-coloured pug sat heavily down upon the far end of Jane’s bench. The ginger-coloured pug was on a scarlet leather lead, and after seating herself the stout lady bent forward creaking, and lifted him to a place beside her.

  Jane wondered vaguely why a red face and a tightly curled fringe should go with a passion for bugled bonnets and pugs.

  “Was ’ums hungry?” said the stout lady.

  The pug breathed stertorously, after the manner of pugs, and his mistress at once produced two paper bags from a beaded reticule. From one of them she took a macaroon, and from the other a sponge finger. The pug chose the macaroon.

  “Precious,” cooed the stout lady, and all at once Jane felt entirely capable of theft and murder—theft from the stout lady, and murder upon the person of the ginger pug. For at the sight of food she realised how very, very hungry she was. Bread and margarine for breakfast six hours before, and the April air was keen, and Jane was young.

  The pug spat out the last mouthful of macaroon, ignored the sponge finger, and snorted loudly.

  “Oh, naughty, naughty,” said the stout lady. She half turned towards Jane.

  “You really wouldn’t believe how clever he is,” she observed conversationally; “it’s a cream bun he’s asking for as plain as plain, and yesterday when I bought them for him, he teased and teased until I went back for macaroons; though, of course, a nice plain sponge finger is really better for him than either. I don’t need the vet. to tell me that. Come along, a naughty, tiresome precious then.” She lifted the pug down from the seat, put the paper bags tidily back into her reticule, rose ponderously to her feet, and talked away, trailing the scarlet lead and cooing to the ginger pug.

  Jane watched her go.

  “Why don’t I laugh?” she said. “Why doesn’t she amuse me? One needn’t lose one’s sense of humour even if one is down and out.”

  It was at this unpropitious moment that the tall young man who had sat down unseen upon Jane’s other side, laid his hand upon hers and observed in stirring accents:

  “Darling.”

  Jane whisked round in an icy temper. Her greenish-hazel eyes looked through the young man in the direction of the north pole. He ought to have stiffened to an icicle then and there, instead of which he murmured, “Darling,” again, and then added—“but what’s the matter?” Jane stopped looking at him or through him. He had simply ceased to exist. She picked up her two shillings and her eleven pence, put them into her purse, and consigned her purse to her handbag. She then closed the handbag with a snap, and rose to her feet.

  “Renata!” exclaimed the young man in tones of consternation.

  Jane paused and allowed herself to observe him for the first time. She saw a young man with an intellectual forehead and studious brown eyes. He appeared to be hurt and surprised. She decided that this was not a would-be Lothario.

  “I think you have made a mistake,” she said, and was about to pass on.

  “But, Renata, Renata, darling!” stammered the young man even more desperately. Jane assumed what Cousin Louisa had once described as “that absurdly grand manner.” It was quite kind, but it induced the young man to believe that Jane was conversing with him from about the distance of the planet Saturn.

  “I think,” she said, “that you must be taking me for my cousin, Renata Molloy.”

  “But I’m engaged to her—no, I mean to you—oh, hang it all, Renata, what’s the sense of a silly joke like this?”

  Jane looked at him keenly. “What is my cousin’s middle name?” she inquired.

  “Jane. I hate it.”

  “Thank you,” said Jane. “My name is Jane Renata Smith, and I am Renata Jane Molloy’s first cousin. Our mothers were twin sisters, and I have always understood that we were very much alike.”

  “Alike!” gasped the young man. Words seemed to fail him.

  Jane bowed slightly and began to walk away, but, before she had gone a dozen paces, he was beside her again.

  “If you’re really Renata’s cousin, I want to talk to you—I must talk to you. Will you let me?”

  Jane walked as far as the next seat, and sat down with resignation.

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “It’s Todhunter—Arnold Todhunter.” He seemed a trifle breathless. “My sister Daphne was at school with Renata, and she came to stay with us once in the holidays. I said we were engaged, didn’t I? Only, nobody knows it. You won’t tell Mr. Molloy, will you?”

  “I’ve never spoken to Mr. Molloy in my life,” said Jane. “There was a most awful row when my aunt married him, and none of us have ever met each other since. My aunt died years and years ago. I think Mr. Molloy is an Anarchist of some sort, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Mr. Todhunter, with violence. He banged the back of the iron seat with his hand. Jane reflected that he must be very much in love if he failed to notice how hard it was.

  “Yes, yes, he is,” repeated Mr. Todhunter, “and worse; and Renata is in the most dreadful position. I must talk to somebody or I shall go mad.”

  “Well, you can talk to me,” said Jane soothingly. “I have always wanted to meet Renata, and I should love to hear all about her.”

  Mr. Todhunter hesitated.

  “Miss Smith—you did say Smith, didn’t you?—it’s so difficult to begin. You’ll probably think I’m mad, or trying it on, but it’s like this: I’ve just qualified as an engineer, and I’ve got a job in South America. Naturally I wanted to see Mr. Molloy. Renata wouldn’t let me. She hardly knows her father, and she’s most awfully scared of him. We used to meet in the Park. Then one day she didn’t come. She went on no
t coming, and I nearly went mad. At last I went to Molloy’s flat and asked to see her. They said she had left town, but it was a lie. Just before the door shut, I heard her voice.” Mr. Todhunter paused. “Look here, you won’t give any of this away, will you? You know, it’s awfully confusing for me, your being so like Renata. It makes my head go round.”

  “Go on,” said Jane.

  “Well, the bit I don’t want you to tell any one is this—I mean to say, it’s confidential, absolutely confidential: when I was at the Engineering School, I knew a chap who had got mixed up with Molloy’s lot. He didn’t get deep in, you’ll understand. They scared him, and he backed out. Well, I remembered a yarn he had told me. He was in Molloy’s flat one night, and it was raided. And I remembered that he said a lot of them got away down the fire-escape into a yard, and then out through some mews at the back. Well, I went and nosed about until I found that fire- escape, and I got up it, and I found Renata’s room and talked to her through the window. It’s not so dangerous as it sounds, because they lock her in the flat at night, and go out. And she’s in a frightful position—oh, Miss Smith, you simply have no idea of what a frightful position she’s in!”

  “I might have, if you would tell me what it is,” said Jane dryly. She found Mr. Todhunter diffuse.

  “Well, she’s a prisoner, to start with. They keep her locked in her room.”

  “Who’s they?” interrupted Jane.

  Mr. Todhunter rumpled his hair. “She doesn’t even know their names,” he said distractedly. His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s the most appalling criminal organisation, Miss Smith. Molloy’s one of them, but they won’t even let Molloy see her alone now. You see, they think she overheard something. They don’t know whether she did or not. If they were sure that she did, they would kill her.”