– now!’ Her voice rose a little. ‘I shall feel safer when I have told everything.’
‘As you please,’ said the lawyer.
He sat down in one of the big arm-chairs facing the couch. In a low voice Jane began her story.
‘I came over on the Lusitania to take up a post in Paris. I was fearfully keen about the war, and just dying to help somehow or other. I had been studying French, and my teacher said they were wanting help in a hospital in Paris, so I wrote and offered my services, and they were accepted. I hadn’t got any folk of my own, so it made it easy to arrange things.
‘When the Lusitania was torpedoed, a man came up to me. I’d noticed him more than once – and I’d figured it out in my own mind that he was afraid of somebody or something. He asked me if I was a patriotic American, and told me he was carrying papers which were just life or death to the Allies. He asked me to take charge of them. I was to watch for an advertisement in The Times. If it didn’t appear, I was to take them to the American Ambassador.
‘Most of what followed seems like a nightmare still. I see it in my dreams sometimes … I’ll hurry over that part. Mr Danvers had told me to watch out. He might have been shadowed from New York, but he didn’t think so. At first I had no suspicions, but on the boat to Holyhead I began to get uneasy. There was one woman who had been very keen to look after me, and chum up with me generally – a Mrs Vandemeyer. At first I’d been only grateful to her for being so kind to me; but all the time I felt there was something about her I didn’t like, and on the Irish boat I saw her talking to some queer-looking men, and from the way they looked I saw that they were talking about me. I remembered that she’d been quite near me on the Lusitania when Mr Danvers gave me the packet, and before that she’d tried to talk to him once or twice. I began to get scared, but I didn’t quite see what to do.
‘I had a wild idea of stopping at Holyhead, and not going on to London that day, but I soon saw that would be plumb foolishness. The only thing was to act as though I’d noticed nothing, and hope for the best. I couldn’t see how they could get me if I was on my guard. One thing I’d done already as a precaution – ripped open the oilskin packet and substituted blank paper, and then sewn it up again. So, if anyone did manage to rob me of it, it wouldn’t matter.
‘What to do with the real thing worried me no end. Finally I opened it out flat – there were only two sheets – and laid it between two of the advertisement pages of a magazine. I stuck the two pages together round the edge with some gum off an envelope. I carried the magazine carelessly stuffed into the pocket of my ulster.
‘At Holyhead I tried to get into a carriage with people that looked all right, but in a queer way there seemed always to be a crowd round me shoving and pushing me just the way I didn’t want to go. There was something uncanny and frightening about it. In the end I found myself in a carriage with Mrs Vandemeyer after all. I went out into the corridor, but all the other carriages were full, so I had to go back and sit down. I consoled myself with the thought that there were other people in the carriage – there was quite a nice-looking man and his wife sitting just opposite. So I felt almost happy about it until just outside London. I had leaned back and closed my eyes. I guess they thought I was asleep, but my eyes weren’t quite shut, and suddenly I saw the nice-looking man get something out of his bag and hand it to Mrs Vandemeyer, and as he did so he winked …
‘I can’t tell you how that wink sort of froze me through and through. My only thought was to get out in the corridor as quick as ever I could. I got up, trying to look natural and easy. Perhaps they saw something – I don’t know – but suddenly Mrs Vandemeyer said “Now,” and flung something over my nose and mouth as I tried to scream. At the same moment I felt a terrific blow on the back of my head …’
She shuddered. Sir James murmured something sympathetically. In a minute she resumed:
‘I don’t know how long it was before I came back to consciousness. I felt very ill and sick. I was lying on a dirty bed. There was a screen round it, but I could hear two people talking in the room. Mrs Vandemeyer was one of them. I tried to listen, but at first I couldn’t take much in. When at last I did begin to grasp what was going on – I was just terrified! I wonder I didn’t scream right out there and then.
‘They hadn’t found the papers. They’d got the oil-skin packet with the blanks, and they were just mad! They didn’t know whether I’d changed the papers, or whether Danvers had been carrying a dummy message, while the real one was sent another way. They spoke of’ – she closed her eyes – ‘torturing me to find out!’
‘I’d never known what fear – really sickening fear – was before! Once they came to look at me. I shut my eyes and pretended to be still unconscious, but I was afraid they’d hear the beating of my heart. However, they went away again. I began thinking madly. What could I do? I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand up against torture very long.
‘Suddenly something put the thought of loss of memory into my head. The subject had always interested me, and I’d read an awful lot about it. I had the whole thing at my finger-tips. If only I could succeed in carrying the bluff through, it might save me. I said a prayer, and drew a long breath. Then I opened my eyes and started babbling in French!
‘Mrs Vandemeyer came round the screen at once. Her face was so wicked I nearly died, but I smiled up at her doubtfully, and asked her in French where I was.
‘It puzzled her, I could see. She called the man she had been talking to. He stood by the screen with his face in shadow. He spoke to me in French. His voice was very ordinary and quiet but somehow, I don’t know why, he scared me, but I went on playing my part. I asked again where I was, and then went on that there was something I must remember – must remember – only for the moment it was all gone. I worked myself up to be more and more distressed. He asked me my name. I said I didn’t know – that I couldn’t remember anything at all.
‘Suddenly he caught my wrist, and began twisting it. The pain was awful. I screamed. He went on. I screamed and screamed, but I managed to shriek out things in French. I don’t know how long I could have gone on, but luckily I fainted. The last thing I heard was his voice saying: “That’s not bluff!” Anyway, a kid of her age wouldn’t know enough.’ I guess he forgot American girls are older for their age than English ones, and take more interest in scientific subjects.
‘When I came to, Mrs Vandemeyer was sweet as honey to me. She’d had her orders, I guess. She spoke to me in French – told me I’d had a shock and been very ill. I should be better soon. I pretended to be rather dazed – murmured something about the “doctor” having hurt my wrist. She looked relieved when I said that.
‘By and by she went out of the room altogether. I was suspicious still, and lay quite quiet for some time. In the end, however, I got up and walked round the room, examining it. I thought that even if anyone was watching me from somewhere, it would seem natural enough under the circumstances. It was a squalid, dirty place. There were no windows, which seemed queer. I guessed the door would be locked, but I didn’t try it. There were some battered old pictures on the walls, representing scenes from Faust.’
Jane’s two listeners gave a simultaneous ‘Ah!’ The girl nodded.
‘Yes – it was the place in Soho where Mr Beresford was imprisoned. Of course at the time I didn’t even know if I was in London. One thing was worrying me dreadfully, but my heart gave a great throb of relief when I saw my ulster lying carelessly over the back of a chair. And the magazine was still rolled up in the pocket!
‘If only I
