The Astonishing Adventure of Jane SmithWentworth, Patricia
General
The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith
Wentworth, Patricia
Adventure stories; Cousins -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories
She remembered the trap-door in the cupboard, but it was just possible
that Ember knew about it, not likely but possible. After five minutes’
profound thought, she went to a drawer into which she had emptied a
quantity of odds and ends.
Renata, it appeared, had a mild taste for drawing. There were pencils,
indiarubber, a roll of cartridge paper, and some drawing-pins. Jane took
out the cartridge paper and the drawing-pins. She extracted the lists
from her stocking top and smoothed them out flat. Then she opened the
cupboard door, mounted on a chair drawn as close to the cupboard as
possible, and pinned the lists on to the cupboard ceiling with a sheet
of cartridge paper covering them. They just fitted in between two rows
of hooks. Jane got down with a sigh of relief and unlocked her bedroom
door.
The evening passed like a dream. Lady Heritage did not appear at all,
and Jane found a strange unreality in the situation which kept her
talking to Mr. Ember in set schoolgirl phrases whilst he condescended to
her with more than a hint of sarcasm. She was glad when she could take a
book and read.
It was eleven o’clock before she dared begin her night’s work, but she
came up to her room with her plan all ready. First she took off her
dress and put on a dressing-gown, just in case any one should come to
the door. Then, having turned the key and switched off the light, she
took a candle into the cupboard, set it on a shoe box, and took down the
lists. She put a cushion on the floor, fetched Renata’s fountain pen and
some sheets of foolscap which she had taken from the library, and began
her work of copying. With the cupboard door shut there was no chance
that any one would see her candle.
She wrote steadily, town after town, name after name. More towns, more
names. As she finished each sheet, she checked it very carefully by its
original. It was weary, monotonous work; but the weariness and the
monotony were like a grey curtain which hung between her and something
which she dreaded inexpressibly.
The idea of descending into the passage again, of creeping up to the
laboratory in order to put back the lists before they were missed,
filled her with shuddering repugnance. To allow her mind to dwell upon
this idea was to become incapable of carrying it out. She therefore held
her attention firmly to the endless names, and drove an industrious pen.
She had to get up twice for more ink. Each time, as she stretched
herself and walked the few paces to the table and back, the thought came
to her like a cold breath, “It’s coming nearer.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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