The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. Patricia Wentworth
“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