The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. Patricia Wentworth
Jane made herself look away from Henry, forced herself to notice the room, the furniture, the pictures—anything that was commonplace and ordinary. This was decidedly Henry’s room and not his mother’s, from the worn leather chairs and plain oak table to the neutral coloured walls with their half-dozen Meissonier engravings. Not a flower, not a trifle of any sort, and one wall all books from ceiling to floor. Exactly opposite to Jane there was a fine print of “The Generals in the Snow.” The lowering, thunderous sky, heavy with snow and black with the omens of Napoleon’s fall, dominated the picture, the room. Jane looked at it, and looked away with a shiver, and as she did so, Henry was speaking:
“Jane, I don’t want to answer that question for a minute or two. I want to think. I want a little time to turn things over in my mind. Look here, come round to the fire and sit down comfortably. Let’s talk about something else for a bit. I want all your news, for one thing. Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself.”
Jane came slowly to the fireside. After all, it was pleasant just to put everything on one side, and be comfortable. Henry’s chair was very comfortable, and the day seemed to have lasted for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. She put out her hands to the fire, and then, because she noticed that they were still trembling a little, she folded them in her lap. Henry leaned against the mantelpiece and looked down at her.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Well, that summer at Upwater—you know we were lodging with the woman who had the post office—Jimmy and I stayed on after all the other visitors were gone. I expect it was rather irregular, but I used to help her. You see her son didn’t get back until eighteen months after the armistice, and she wasn’t really up to the work. In the end, you may say I ran that post office. I did it very well, too. It was something to do, especially after Jimmy died.”
“Yes, I heard. I wondered where you were.”
“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?”
“The Sir 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,