Mr. Ember was spending a busy Sunday. As he stood in the empty
laboratory, realising Molloy’s defection and all that it involved, there
was no change in his impassive face. The web of his plan was broken.
Like some accurate machine his brain picked up the loose ravelled
threads and wove them into a new combination.
Molloy himself was no loss. His place could be filled a dozen times
over. As to any harm that he could do, unless he had gone straight to
the police, he could be reached—reached and silenced. And Ember knew his
Molloy. He would not go straight to the police. If he meant to sell
them, he would set about it with a certain regard for appearances. There
would be _pourparlers_, some dexterous method of approach which would
save his face and leave him an emergency exit. Ember checked over in his
mind the four or five places to which Molloy might have retreated. Then
there was the money. That they must have; but Molloy, once found, could
be scared into giving it up.
Ember let his eyes travel around the laboratory. The lists lay upon the
bench where Jane had put them not five minutes before. He frowned and
picked them up, stared at them, and frowned more deeply still. They had
been folded and refolded, doubled into a small package since he had last
handled them. Who had done it? The sheets had been smooth from the
typewriter when he gave them to Molloy. They had been handled and
creased, with the creases that come from tight folding. Had Molloy meant
to take them with him, and then at the last moment been afraid? It
looked like it. He turned over the pages, counting them. Suddenly his
eyes fixed, his fingers tightened their hold. There was a fresh smudge
of ink on the top of the fifth page—a smudge so fresh that the blue ink
had not yet turned black. That meant two things: Molloy had copied the
lists before he left, and he had only been gone an hour or two—that at
the outside, probably less.
In the moment that passed before Ember laid the papers down, Mr. Molloy
received his death sentence as duly and irrevocably as if it had been
pronounced by an Assize Judge in scarlet and ermine, white wig and black
cap.
Ember gave just a little nod, opened a safe that stood in the corner,
pushed the papers into it, and pocketed the key.
It was a little later that he found the first spot of candle grease. It
was half-way up one of the side passages, on the spot where Jane had
been standing when he and Molloy entered the laboratory the evening
before. He looked at it for a long time very thoughtfully before he took
his torch and proceeded to a systematic search of the passages.
He found no living person, but came upon dropped wax in three more
places, at the edge of the well, by the headland exit, and half-way down
the steps to the beach. He came slowly back along the main passage, and
stood for some time with his light focused on the sand which he had
spread at the foot of the stair. There was no footmark upon it, but he
was prepared to swear that it was not as he had left it. He had
scattered the sand loosely, and it was pressed down and too smooth. He
thought that it had been smoothed by a hand passing over it. He mounted
the first two steps. The thread of cotton which he had fastened across
the stairway was still there. He bent beneath it, came to the top, and
threw his light full upon the back of the panelled door. The second
piece of cotton was gone.
He flashed the ray upon the floor once—twice. The third time he found
what he was looking for, a fine black thread lying across the threshold.
It ran out of sight under the door. Some one had gone out that way since
Mr. Ember had come in. Who? Not Molloy—impossible that it could have
been Molloy.
Ember passed through the panel, closed it behind him, and walked slowly
and meditatively along the corridor to the library, still pursuing his
train of thought. Molloy would have blundered through that first piece
of cotton without ever feeling it at all, just as Molloy’s foot in its
heavy boot would have been unaware of the sand. If it was a woman who
had passed—now who would have used a candle in the passages? Not
Raymond. She had more than one electric torch which she used constantly
for night work. But Renata, the little soft-spoken stupid mouse of a
thing, if she had a fancy to go spying, she’d take a candle; yes, and
let it gutter too.
Mr. Ember’s instinct for danger had always reacted to this question of
Renata Molloy. Over and over again there had been the tremor, the
response, the warning prick. An extreme regret that he had not arranged
for a convenient accident to overtake Renata possessed Jeffrey Ember.
The omission, he decided, should be rectified with as little delay as
possible. He locked the library door and went to the telephone.
It took him half an hour to get the number that he wanted, but he
betrayed no impatience. When at last a man’s voice came to him, along
the wire, he inquired in the Bavarian dialect, “Is that you, Number
Five?” The voice said, “Yes,” whereupon Ember gave a password and waited
until he had received the countersign. He then began to issue orders,
using an unhurried voice. Every now and then he shivered a little in the
early morning cold, and shrugged his coat higher about his ears.
“You are promoted. You go up to Four and come on to the Council. I will
notify you of the next meeting. Number Three is a traitor. He left here
last night with copies of lists containing names of all agents. It is
believed that it is his design to sell us. He has secreted a large sum
of money, the property of the Council. Before he is eliminated he must
be made to hand this over. Take down the following addresses; he may be
at any one of them. Put Six and Seven on to finding and dealing with him
immediately.” He read out the addresses, and paused whilst they were
repeated. He then continued speaking:
“I shall require the motor-boat off Withstead Cove at nightfall. Yes,
to-night, and without fail. A change of base is imperative. Proceed
first to ...”—he gave another address—“and communicate also with Ten. If
Belcovitch has arrived tell him that he is promoted to Three, and bring
him with you. The Council can then meet, as Number One is here.”
A very slight gleam of something hard to define broke for a moment the
dull impassivity of Ember’s voice as he pronounced the last words. Then
he added:
“Repeat my instructions.”
He listened attentively whilst the voice reproduced his own words. Then
he said:
“That is all. We shall meet to-night,” and rang off.
He had breakfast alone with Jane, and ate it with a good appetite. He
talked very pleasantly too. Jane wondered why every succeeding moment
left her more afraid. She had been up all night, of course. It must be
that, yes, of course, it must be that. She faltered in the middle of
some inane sentence and stopped. Ember’s eyes were fixed on her with an
entire lack of expression, yet behind those blank windows she felt that
there were strange guests. It was like looking at the windows of a
haunted house, quite blank and empty, and yet at any moment out of them
might look some unimaginable horror.
“You seem a little tired this morning, Miss Renata,” said Ember gently.
“Why didn’t you follow Lady Heritage’s example and have your breakfast
upstairs? You don’t look to me as if you had had much sleep. You haven’t
been walking in your sleep again by any chance, have you?”
Jane clenched her foot in Renata’s baggy shoe.
“Oh, I hope I haven’t,” she said. “I don’t always know when I’ve been
doing it. What made you think of it?”
“It just crossed my mind,” said Ember. “It’s a very dangerous habit,
Miss Renata.”
Jane pushed her chair back and rose.
“I’m going into the garden,” she said; “this room is too hot for
anything. It’s like....” A little devil suddenly commandeered her
tongue. She reached the door, opened it, and flung over her shoulder:
“It’s like the snake house at the Zoo, Mr. Ember.”
She ran straight out into the garden after that, and stayed there. She
had the feeling that it was safer to be in the open. She wanted to keep
away from walls, and doors, and passages. She saw no one all the
morning, and came back to lunch with her nerve steadier. As soon as
lunch was over, she went out again. The hour in the house had brought
her fears back with reinforcements. She began to count the hours before
Henry could arrive. It was only half-past two, and perhaps he would not
come till midnight.
The thought of the dark hours after sunset was like a black cloud coming
nearer and nearer. If she could hide, if she could only get away and
hide until Henry came. She felt as if it was quite beyond her to go back
into the house and sit for hour after hour, perhaps alone with Jeffrey
Ember, his blank eyes watching her, or to endure Raymond Heritage’s
presence, and, looking at her, remember the line in Molloy’s letter:
“Renata followed Number One.” It was Raymond she had followed. She had
told Molloy that she had followed Raymond. Then Raymond, beyond doubt or
cavil, was the Number One of that horrible Council. She could not bear
it. She thought of Raymond’s voice breaking when she said “Anthony,” and
she could not bear it. If she could only get away and hide until Henry
came.
She went into the walled garden and walked up and down. Perhaps Anthony
Luttrell would come to her as he had come once before. Presently she
came to the tool-shed, stopped for a moment hesitating on the threshold,
and then went in. There was a way into the passages from here; she was
quite sure of it. If she could find the spring, she believed that she
would be able to reach the cross-passage where she had run into Henry.
She did not believe that Ember used it. Why should he, since it would be
of no use to his schemes? If she could get into the passage and hide
there, she need not go back to the house. She could wait there for Henry
and catch him as he passed. She would be able to warn him too, and it
came to her with startling suddenness that he stood very much in need of
warning; so much had come to light in the forty-eight hours since he
left.
It took Jane an hour to find the spring. She might not have found it
then, but for the chance that made her slip and throw all her weight
upon one place just under the wide potting-shelf. There was a creak, and
one of the boards gave a little. She found a trap-door and steps beneath
it.
There were some old sacks in the shed. Jane took one of them, climbed
down the steps, and shut the trap-door again. She felt her way down to
the level, spread the sack on the second step, and sat down. She felt
utterly forlorn and weary.