The Astonishing Adventure of Jane SmithWentworth, Patricia
General
The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith
Wentworth, Patricia
Adventure stories; Cousins -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories
Just before the laboratory turning Belcovitch came up with a quick run,
and that was the first that Henry heard of him. The next instant he felt
himself tripped, struggling desperately to keep his footing, slipped in
the slime, and came down choking, with a black silk muffler tightly
knotted about his throat. Belcovitch was a very neat operator. First the
trip, then the twist, and then the chloroform bottle. He had never made
a crisper job of it. He took Henry by the heels and proceeded to drag
him along the passage towards the laboratory, Henry being mercifully
oblivious of what was happening.
When Jane heard that faint dragging sound, she had just about half a
minute to decide which passage it came from, and to get away down the
other one. It really took her less than thirty seconds to realise that
some one was coming by the way that she herself had come, and to dart
into the slanting passage which held the well. A yard or two down she
turned and stood where she had stood to see Ember pass the day before.
Whoever was coming had no light. Of course they could see the light from
the laboratory and were steering by it. It was a man coming; she could
tell by the tread. He was dragging something—something heavy. What? Or
who? Jane sickened.
A dark figure passed between her and the glow that came from the
laboratory. She took three light steps, and saw that what he dragged
behind him was a senseless man—senseless or dead.
She heard Ember call out, “Belcovitch, is that you?” And a voice with a
strong foreign accent answered.
Then a great many things seemed to happen at once: the steel gate
opened; the helpless man was dragged in; and, as the gate fell to, there
came Raymond Heritage’s scream.
Jane shook from head to foot. The scream cut like a knife. Why did she
scream like that? Who was it? Who was it? Who _was_ it? She got her
answer in Raymond’s gasp of “Henry!”
An inner blackness, much, much worse than that intolerable dark which
had oppressed her, swept between Jane and everything in the world. When
Raymond said, “Henry!” the light went out of her world and left it
black. She heard Ember say, “Is he dead?” but she could not see
Belcovitch’s shrug and shake of the head. She leaned against the wall
and could not move. I suppose that in that moment she knew that she
really loved Henry. It hurt—dreadfully.
Then she heard Raymond’s voice again:
“What have you done to him? Devils, devils!” And Ember:
“My dear Raymond, calm yourself. He’s not dead, nothing so crude. Mr.
Belcovitch is an artist, and Captain March will come round in a minute
or two and be none the worse. I’m sorry you had a shock.”
Light, dazzling light flooded Jane’s consciousness. Henry wasn’t dead.
The dark was only a dream, and she was awake again. She was very much
awake, and her whole waking thought was bent upon the necessity of
getting help for Henry before that dream came true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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