IRENE HAD CLEARED the tea-tray. Any anxiety she may have felt had left her appetite unsubdued. She brushed a crumb from her dress. She stood up. She was inclined to walk out, or to find what the obstruction would be.
Then she had an idea at which she paused. Was it not possible that they had sent for the valise which she had said had been delivered to Mrs. Collinson, and that they were only waiting to see that it was intact before releasing her, with the admission that all was well?
The tea, from which she was feeling no ill-effects, seemed to support that comfortable theory. And, if it were so, would it not be an undignified folly to make a fuss, and perhaps have an unpleasant altercation, for which a little patience would show that there had been no need?
It was a correct theory so far as that Snacklit's recollections of the Professor's advice had caused him to send a discreet and indirect messenger for the valise, and it was true that he had decided to reserve the question of how he should dispose of her until he should know that that had been done, and, as he hoped, all possibilities of other complications removed. It was too sanguine only in its assumption that, if the valise were found to have its lock intact and its contents undisturbed, there would be immediate freedom for her.
But hesitating over this possibility, she walked over to the window and looked down on to the garden. It was still solitary. Its high walls were such that she saw it could not be overlooked. If she should endeavour to reach it, would it provide an easier exit than she might find through the front premises? She saw nothing to encourage that hope. Solid wooden doors in the walls. . . . Almost certainly locked. . . . But someone - something - was coming under the window now. Coming from the direction of the yard into which she had been driven. It was a hand-truck being wheeled by two men. They crossed the broad path beneath the window to a door in the wall on the further side - the wall over which the chimney showed from which the thick black smoke rose, as she had seen it an hour before.
There was a large rug cast over that with which the truck was loaded. As the men put the truck down, and one pushed past it to unlock the door, the rug fell somewhat aside. It was adjusted almost at once, but what she had seen was beyond doubt. Two booted feet, and a man's leg.
&nbs`; ? ? ? The door opened. The truck was through. The door closed From the chimney over the wall the smoke rose.
Irene did not know that the blood had left her face, though she felt her heart beat so hard that she might have thought that it could be heard by anyone in the room. . . . She looked round and Snacklit was at her side. He must have seen what she had seen. Must have seen that she had seen it. He must have seen her fear. . . . And now she was going to faint.
"Miss Thurlow," she heard, "you had better sit down. There are one or two things I should like to ask you."
She did not faint. With a supreme effort of will she controlled her fear. As she sat down, each heartbeat was less than the one before. She looked straight at a man whose eyes did not meet hers as she answered: "Yes. What is it you want to know?"