Then her strength gave way, and she sank down upon something soft, and shuddered. A faint sound made her look back.
One of the supports, loosened by her footstep, stirred, and then fell. It fell a long way.
Even her marvellous inapprehensiveness was shaken. But her still courage returned to her, the quiet confidence that enabled her to break in nervous horses with which her recklessly foolhardy brother could do nothing.
Janet rose slowly to her feet, catching them as she did so in something soft. Stamped into the charred grime of the concrete floor by the feet of the firemen were the remains of a sable cloak, which, as her foot touched it, showed a shred of rose-coloured lining. A step further her foot sank into a heap of black rags, evidently hastily flung down by one in headlong flight, through the folds of which gold embroidery and a pair of jewelled clasps gleamed faintly.
Janet stood still a moment in what had been the heart of the fire. The blast of the furnace had roared down that once familiar passage, leaving a charred, rent hole, half filled up and silted out of all shape by ashes. Nevertheless her way lay down it.
She crept stumbling along it with bent head. Surely the Brands' flat was exactly here, on the left, near the head of the staircase. But she could recognise nothing.
She stopped short at a gaping cavity that had once been a doorway, and looked through it into what had once been a bedroom. The fire had swept all before it. If there had once been a floor and walls, and ceiling and furniture, all was gone, leaving a seared, egg-shaped hole. From its shelving sides three pieces of contorted iron had rolled into the central puddle—all that was left of the bed.
Could this be the Brands' flat?