The clang of the steel gate was the next really distinct impression
which Jane received. In a moment she was herself. It was just as if she
had been asleep, and then, to the jar of a striking clock, had come
broad awake. She listened intently.
That clang meant that the gate had been shut. One of the men had gone,
probably Ember. One of them certainly remained, for she could see that
the lights in the laboratory were still on. If it were Molloy, he would
come and find her. But it was just possible that it was Jeffrey Ember
who had remained behind, so she must keep absolutely still, she knew.
At this moment Jane felt that she had really had as much adventure as
she wanted for one day. She thought meekly of Henry, and soulfully of
her tea. Blotson would be laying it in the library. There would be
muffins. She was dreadfully thirsty. Jane could have found it in her
heart to weep. The thought of the slowly congealing muffins unnerved
her. She would almost have admitted that woman’s place is in the home.
There is no saying what depths she might not have arrived at, had the
return of the Anarchist Uncle not distracted her thoughts. The heavy
tread convinced her that it was not Mr. Ember, but she did not stir
until he came round the corner and flashed the light upon her face. Jane
blinked.
“Holy Niagara!” said Mr. Molloy. “It was the fright of my life you gave
me.”
Jane scrambled to her feet. She was not quite sure what the situation
demanded of her in the way of filial behaviour. Did one embrace one’s
Anarchist Parent? Or did one just lean against the wall and look dazed?
She thought the latter.
Molloy turned the light away, and then flashed it back again with great
suddenness. Jane shut her eyes. Mr. Molloy pursed his lips and emitted a
whistle which travelled rapidly up the chromatic scale and achieved a
top note of piercing intensity. Without a word he took Jane by the arm
and brought her out of her hiding-place into the lighted laboratory. He
then pushed her a little away, took a good look at her, and repeated his
former odd expletive:
“Holy Niagara!” he said in low but heartfelt tones.
Jane felt a little giddy, and she sat down on the bench. Her right hand
went out, feeling for support, and touched a sheaf of papers. Through
all the confusion of her thought she recognised that these must be the
lists from which Ember had been reading.
“What is it?” she said faintly.
Molloy put down his electric torch, came quite close to her, bent down
with a hand on either knee until his face was on a level with hers, and
said in what he doubtless intended for a whisper:
“And _where_ is me daughter Renata?”
Jane leaned back so as to get as far away from the flushed face as
possible. She opened her mouth without knowing what she was going to
say, and quite suddenly she began to laugh. She leaned her head against
the brick wall behind her, and the laughter shook her from head to foot.
“Glory be to God, is it a laughing matter?” said Mr. Molloy; “whisht, I
tell you, whisht, or you’ll be having Ember back.”
He straightened himself, and made a gesture in the direction of the
roof.
“It’s crazy she is,” he said.
Jane put her hand to her throat, gasped for breath, and stopped
laughing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was—you were—I mean, what did you say?”
“I said, where is me daughter Renata?” said Molloy in his deepest tones.
Jane gulped down a gurgle of laughter.
“Your daughter Renata?” she said.
“Me daughter Renata,” repeated Mr. Molloy sternly. “Where is she?”
Jane felt herself steadying.
“Why do you think—what makes you think——?”
“That you’re not my daughter? They say it’s a wise child that knows its
own father, but it’s a damn fool father that wouldn’t know his own
daughter.”
“_How_ do you know?” said Jane.
Molloy laughed.
“That’s telling,” he said; “but I don’t mind telling you. You’re my
niece Jane Smith and not my daughter Renata Molloy; and, even if I
wasn’t her father, I’d always know you from Renata, the way I could
always tell your two mothers apart when no one else could. Your mother
had a little mole on her left eyelid, just in the corner where it
wouldn’t show unless she shut her eyes. My wife hadn’t got it, and
that’s the way I could always tell her from her sister. And my daughter
Renata hasn’t got it, but you have; and when you blinked, in yonder, I
got a glimpse of it; and when I flashed the light on to you again and
you shut your eyes, I made sure. And now, perhaps you’ll tell me where
in all the world is Renata?”
Jane’s gaze rested intelligently upon Mr. Molloy. The corners of her
mouth lifted a little. The dimple showed in her left cheek.
“Renata,” she said in a very demure voice, “is in a safe place, like the
money you went abroad for.”
Molloy looked at her uncertainly; in the end he laughed.
“Meaning you won’t tell me,” he said.
“Meaning that I’m not sure whether I’ll tell you or not.”
“Maybe it would be better if I didn’t know. That’s what you’re
thinking?”
“Yes, that was what I was thinking.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Molloy. Then he laughed again. “I’ve the joke on
Ember anyhow,” he said. “He thinks he’s got a patent for most of the
brains in the country, and here he’s been led by the nose by a slip of a
girl just out of school. And what’s more, he was taken in and I wasn’t.
He’ll find that hard to swallow, will Mr. Jeffrey Ember. You’d not have
taken me in, you know, even if I’d not had the mole to go by. And one of
these fine days I shall twit Ember with that.”
“Are you so sure you’d have known me?” said Jane. “Why?”
“My dear girl,” said Mr. Molloy, “if you knew your cousin Renata, you’d
not be asking me that. If I find a girl in an underground passage all in
the dark, well, that girl is not my daughter Renata. And if, by any
queer sort of chance, Renata had been in that hole where I found you,
she’d have screamed blue murder when I turned the light on her. Then, at
an easy guess, I should say you had Renata beat to a frazzle in the
matter of brains. I’m not saying, mind you, that I’m an admirer of
brains in a woman. It’s all a matter of opinion, and there’s all sorts
in the world. But you’ve got brains, and Renata hasn’t, and Ember’s had
you under his nose all this time without ever knowing the difference.”
Jane laughed.
“Perhaps I didn’t exactly obtrude my superior intelligence on Mr.
Ember,” she said. Her eyes danced. “You’ve no idea how stupid I can be
when I try, and I’ve been trying very hard indeed.”
“The devil you have?” said Mr. Molloy. “Well, you had Ember deceived and
that’s a grand feather in your cap, I can tell you. He’s a hard one to
deceive is Ember.”
Jane gurgled suddenly.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I deceived you, too. Yes, I did, I
really did. You know the morning you went off to America, or rather the
morning you went off _not_ to America? At the flat? You said good-bye to
me, not to Renata.”
“And where was Renata then?”
Jane twinkled.
“In the safe place,” she said.
“I’ll swear it was Renata the night before,” said Molloy.
“Yes, that’s clever of you. It was.”
Molloy was thinking hard.
“And which of you was it in the night when we thought the roof had
fallen in, and came into Renata’s room to look out of the window? I’d my
heart in my mouth, for I thought it was a bomb. Was it you or Renata
sitting up in bed like a ghost?”
“That was me,” said Jane. “You couldn’t have been nearly so frightened
as I was.”
“Then you changed places between eight and eleven that night?”
“We changed places,” said Jane, “just as you and Mr. Ember came home. I
shut Renata’s door just as you opened the door of the flat. I was in the
hall when the lift stopped.”
“Then I think I know how you did it,” said Molloy. He seemed interested.
“But I’d like to know who put you up to it; and I’d like to know who
gave the back entrance away; and I’d like to know how Renata, who hasn’t
the nerve of a mouse, got down that blamed fire-escape alone.”
Jane dimpled again.
“You do want to know a lot, don’t you?” she said.
There was a pause. Then Jane said:
“And now, what happens next, please?”
“That,” said Molloy, “is just what I’m wondering.”
“I ought to be getting back, I think,” said Jane.
“Ah, ought you now?” said Mr. Molloy thoughtfully.
There was another pause. Jane thought she would leave Mr. Molloy to
break it this time. She sat considering him. Her eyes dwelt upon him
with a calm scrutiny which he found extremely embarrassing. The longer
it continued, the more embarrassing he found it. In the end he said:
“You want me to let you go?”
Jane nodded.
“And not tell Ember?”
Jane gave another nod, cool and brief.
“Oh, the devil’s in it,” said Molloy, with sudden violence.
“You don’t need the devil; you’ve got Mr. Ember,” said Jane.
“And that’s true enough, for it’s the very devil and all he is, and, if
I let you go, I’ll have him to reckon with—some day. I’d rather face the
Day of Judgment myself.”
“I tell you what I think,” said Jane. “I think Mr. Ember is mad. That is
to say, I think he is the sort of fanatic who sees what he wants and
sets out to get it, without knowing half the difficulties and obstacles
that block the way. When he does begin to know them he doesn’t care, he
just goes along blind. Where a reasonable man would alter his plan to
suit the circumstances, this sort of fanatic just goes on because he’s
made his plan and will stick to it whatever happens. He isn’t governed
by reason at all. He doesn’t care what risks he runs, or what risks he
makes other people run. He goes right on, whatever happens. If the next
step is over a precipice he’ll take it. He must go on. Mr. Ember is like
that. I think he is mad.”
Mr. Molloy stared hard at Jane, then he nodded slowly three times.
“Now you’re not like that,” said Jane. “You’re reasonable. You don’t
want to run appalling risks when there’s absolutely nothing to be gained
by it. Of course, every one’s willing to run risks if it’s worth while.
I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’ve done awfully dangerous things.”
“I have,” said Mr. Molloy, with simple pride. “There’s no one that’s
done more for The Cause, or run greater risks. I could tell you
things—but there, maybe I’d better not.”
Jane clasped her hands round her knees. She leaned back against the wall
and regarded Mr. Molloy with what he took to be admiration.
“Now do tell me,” she said—“when you speak of The Cause, what do you
mean?”
In her heart of hearts Jane had a pretty firm conviction that, to Mr.
Molloy, The Cause stood for whatever promoted the wealth, welfare, and
advancement of himself, the said Molloy.
“Ah,” said Mr. Molloy reverentially. He spread out his hands with a fine
gesture. “That’s a big question.”
“Well, what I mean,” said Jane, “is this. What do you really call
yourself? You know, I always used to call you ‘The Anarchist Uncle,’ but
the other day some one said that there were no Anarchists any more, so I
wondered what you really were. Are you a Socialist, or a Communist, or a
Bolshevist, or what?”
A doubtful expression crossed Mr. Molloy’s handsome face.
“Well, now,” he said, “it would depend on the company I was in.”
Jane had a struggle with the dimple and subdued it.
“You mean,” she ventured, “that if you were with Socialists, you would
be a Socialist; and if you were with Bolshevists, you would be a
Bolshevist?”
“Well, it would be something like that,” admitted Mr. Molloy.
“I see,” said Jane. “And, of course, whatever you were, you’d naturally
want to be sure that it was going to be worth your while. I mean you’d
want to get something out of it?” She waited a moment, and then went on,
with a complete change of voice and manner, “What are you going to get
out of this?” She spoke with the utmost gravity. “If you don’t know, I
can tell you. Disaster—at best a long term of imprisonment, at the worst
death, the sort of death one doesn’t care about having in one’s family.
The question is, is it worth it? You’re not in the least mad. You’re not
a fanatic either. You are a perfectly sane and reasonable person, and
you know that what I’m saying is the sane and reasonable truth. Isn’t
it?”
“Faith, and wasn’t I saying so to Ember myself,” said Molloy in gloomy
agreement. “We’ve got money enough, and we can live on it retired, so to
speak. The life’s all very well when you’re young, but a man of my age
isn’t just so keen on taking chances as he was, and that’s the truth.
Then there’s the old times come over him, and he thinks of the place
where he was born, and he thinks, maybe, he’d like to see it again. Why,
with the money I’ve got,” said Mr. Molloy, “it’s a fine house I could
have in Galway, and a car, and a horse or two. That’s what I’d like.”
Jane saw his face light up.
“It’s a fine town Galway,” he said, “and there are people I’d like to
see there, and places too. The people would be changed, I’m thinking,
but not the places. I’d like well enough to go up the river past
Menlough again. It’s the grand woods there are there, and then there’s a
place where you’d see nothing but reeds, and no way at all for a boat.
But let you push through the reeds and a way there is, and you come out
to the grey open water and the country round it just as bare as if you’d
taken sand-paper to it. They used to say that the water went down to
hell, but I’m not saying that I believe it; but deep it is, for no one’s
ever touched the bottom. Many’s the stone I’ve dropped in there, and
wakened in the night to wonder if it was still sinking; and many’s the
time I’ve played truant, and gone there fishing for the great pike that
they said was in it. Hundreds of years old he is by the tales, and once
I could swear I saw him, only maybe it was only a cloud that was passing
overhead. What I saw was just a grey shadow, and all at once it come
over me that I should be getting back to my work. I was black
frightened, that’s the truth, but I couldn’t tell you why.”
Jane looked at Mr. Molloy, and experienced some very strange sensations.
He might sell her to Ember next moment, but for this moment he was
utterly sincere and as simple as a child. His sentiments were not
hypocrisy. They represented real feeling and emotion; but feeling,
emotion, and sentiment had been trained to take the wall obediently at
the bidding of what Mr. Molloy would call business. For all her youth,
Jane felt a rush of pity for anything so played upon from without, so
ungoverned from within as this big handsome man who stood there talking
earnestly of his boyhood’s home.
“Why don’t you go back and see it all again?” she said.
“Well, I’d like to,” said Mr. Molloy, “but what good’ll my house in
Galway do me if I waken up some fine night with a knife in me heart or a
bomb gone off under me bed?”
It seemed a difficult question to answer.
Molloy began to pace the room.
“I must think,” he said.
All the time that Jane had been talking, part of her mind had been
continually occupied with the question of the lists, those lists of
towns and the agents in each who were to be entrusted with the work of
destruction. It might not be so difficult to get hold of them, but to
get hold of them without their being missed by Ember ... that was the
difficulty. She had only to drop her right hand to the bench on which
she sat and it touched the flimsy sheets.
Whilst Molloy was discoursing of his birthplace, she considered more
than one plan. She must not precipitate Ember’s suspicions until she
could place this evidence in Henry’s hands. If she took the lists and
Ember missed them, he would suspect and accuse Molloy, and Molloy would
most certainly exonerate himself at her expense. On the other hand, if
she let the lists slip when they were under her hand, who was to say
whether the opportunity would recur. Ember would return. He already
distrusted Molloy, and what would be more likely than that he would
remove such incriminating papers from Molloy’s care?
Then, quite suddenly, Jane knew what she must do. She didn’t want to do
it, but she knew she must. She must get the papers now, she must copy
them, and she must put them back before daybreak whilst the Anarchist
Uncle was asleep. Jane had never contemplated anything which frightened
her half so much as the idea of putting those papers back in that
discouraging hour before the dawn, but she knew that it must be done.
As Mr. Molloy walked up and down frowning intently, there were moments
when his back was turned towards Jane. The first time this happened
Jane’s hand took hold of the thin papers and doubled them in half. The
next time that it happened she doubled them again. She went on doubling
them until the large thin sheaf had become a small fat wad. Then whilst
Molloy’s back was turned she lifted her skirt and pushed the wad down
inside her stocking top. When Molloy faced her again her hands were
folded on her lap.
“I really must be going,” she said.
He threw her an odd, sidelong glance. It made Jane feel a little cold.
“Since you heard so much just now, I don’t doubt you heard Ember tell me
just how convenient this place would be for putting some one that wasn’t
wanted out of the way?”
“Yes, I heard what he said,” said Jane, “but I’m afraid Mr. Ember
doesn’t know everything. As far as I remember, he described these
passages as a place no one knew anything about.”
“He did,” said Molloy, staring.
Jane gave a little laugh, and felt pleased with herself because it
sounded steady.
“Well, to my certain knowledge, three other people know the way in
here,” she said.
Molloy showed signs of uneasiness.
“Meaning you and me and ... since you heard the rest, I’m supposing you
heard me name Number One.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you and me at all,” said Jane. “I was thinking of two
quite different people, and as to Number One, I could answer that better
if I were sure who Number One was. The third person I’m thinking of may
be Number One, or may not. I’m not sure.”
“I’m thinking,” said Molloy—“I’m thinking you know too much. I’m
thinking you know a deal too much.”
Jane met his eyes full. Her own were steady, his were not.
“Are you going to tell Mr. Ember, and let him ‘eliminate’ me?”
Molloy gave a violent start.
“Where did you hear that?” he said.
“It wasn’t I who heard that, it was Renata. It was one of the things
that made her so anxious to change places with me.”
“And what made you willing to change with her?” Molloy’s voice was harsh
with suspicion.
“I hadn’t a job, or any relations to go to. I had exactly
one-and-sixpence in the world. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep
that night—that’s pretty awful for a girl, you know; and then ... Renata
was so frightened.”
“She would be,” was Molloy’s comment. “And weren’t you frightened now?”
“I suppose I was,” said Jane.
“You had need to be.” The something that had made Jane feel cold before
was in Molloy’s look and voice. “You had need to be more afraid than
you’ve ever been in your life. Renata would have stayed quiet, but
nothing would serve you but you must push, and poke, and pry. What were
you doing here at all now, will you tell me that? Who showed you how to
get down here? You say there are others who know the secret—who are
they? Tell me that, will you ... who are they?” Molloy’s sudden passion
took Jane by surprise. Her heart began to beat, and she had difficulty
in controlling her voice.
“Which question am I to answer first?” she said. “Shall I begin at the
beginning? I found the passages by accident....” Molloy gave an
impatient snort. “Yes, I did really, on my word of honour. I couldn’t
sleep and came down to get a book. I was standing in the shadow and I
saw some one come out of the panelling. Next night I thought I’d try and
find the place. The same person came downstairs and went through the
door in the wall. I followed.”
“Was it Ember?”
“No, it wasn’t Mr. Ember.”
“Who was it?”
“I believe you know,” said Jane, speaking slowly.
“Was it a woman?” said Molloy. He dropped his voice to a whisper and
looked over his shoulder.
Jane nodded.
“Glory be to God!” said Molloy. “Did you see her face?” Jane nodded
again. Molloy came quite close, bent down, and whispered:
“Was it the old man’s daughter? Was it”—his voice dropped to the very
edge of inaudibility—“was it Lady Heritage?”
Jane nodded for the third time.
Molloy spun round, went straight to the steel door, and, opening it,
looked up the passage. After a moment he came back.
“You saw her face? Will you swear that you saw her face?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then you’ve seen more than I have. Do you know, I’ve never been sure.
I’ve never really been sure. Ember’s talk, and—it was her face you saw,
not that mask thing they wear in the laboratory, for that’s all I’ve
seen? You saw her face?”
“Yes, I saw her face quite plainly,” said Jane. In her own mind
something seemed to say with cold finality, “Then Lady Heritage is
Number One.”
“Well.... Well.... Well.... Well....” said Mr. Molloy.
There was a long pause. He seemed lost in thought, but suddenly he
turned on Jane with the question which she hoped he had forgotten:
“You were saying that there were two others who knew the secret—you saw
them down here?—down here in the passages?”
“Yes,” said Jane, without hesitation, “I did. They were men. One of them
had a beard. I couldn’t tell you their names or describe them any more
than that.”
Molloy looked desperately puzzled.
“Ember may know,” he muttered.
“He may,” said Jane. “I should ask him.”
Molloy gave a grunt and began to walk up and down again. The simile of
the rat in the drain which he had made use of in conversing with Ember
came back upon him with unpleasant force. His thoughts were confused by
an access of unreasoning fear. Every time the question of what to do
with Jane presented itself, he shied away from it. Jane knew too much.
There was no doubt about that. She knew too much.
In the circles frequented by Mr. Molloy self-preservation dictated a
certain course with regard to the person who knew too much. After thirty
years Molloy still disliked the contemplation of that course of action.
He was of those who pass by upon the other side. He had a
well-cultivated faculty for looking the other way. It occurred to him
that, after all, Jane was Ember’s affair. Let her go back to the house,
she was Ember’s affair, not his. He became instantly very anxious to see
the last of Jane.
Just as she was wondering how long this rather horrid silence was going
to last, he walked up to her in a purposeful manner, put his hand on her
arm, and pulled her to her feet.
“You’d best be getting back,” he said shortly.
Jane felt as if some one had lifted a heavy weight off the top of her
head. The weight must have been fear, and yet she did not know that she
had been afraid.
At the gate Molloy turned to her.
“Can you get into the hall?” he said. “Without being seen, I mean.”
“I’m not sure, it’s awfully risky. But I could walk home from the
headland, that would be much safer, and if I’ve been missed, it would
account for my absence.”
Molloy bent a sulky look on her.
“The headland—you know that too?” he said. Then, with an impatient jerk
he switched off the light, turned on his torch, and walked ahead of Jane
in silence.