If this was a reprieve it was an unwelcome one. Anthony would very much have preferred to get the thing over.
“I will wait,” he said briefly, and walked past Blotson into the hall. “I am Mr. Luttrell,” he explained, and Blotson’s resentment diminished very slightly. After a moment’s hesitation he threw open the study door and ushered Anthony into the room.
“If Lady Heritage is in the house she will see me,” said Anthony. “If she is out I should like to see Miss Molloy or, failing her, Mr. Ember.” He walked to the window and stood there looking out until Blotson returned.
“Lady Heritage is out, sir, and Miss Molloy is out. Mr. Ember was in just now, but he must have stepped out again.”
“I will wait,” said Anthony for the second time.
When Blotson had gone, he stood quite still, following out a somewhat uneasy train of thought. As the minutes passed, uneasiness merged into anxiety.
Jane ran the whole way to the walled garden. Once inside its door she made herself walk in order to get her breath. When she came into the potting-shed she knew just what she was going to do, and set about doing it in a quiet, businesslike way. From a stack of pots she took about half a dozen, broke all but two of them, and gathered the sherds into the lap of her dress. She put the two unbroken pots on the top of the sherds. Then she took a sharp pruning-knife from the shelf, opened the trap-door, and went down the steps.
As soon as she came into the main corridor she began to put down the broken sherds, taking care to make no noise. She laid a trail of them up to the laboratory turning, and then all along the turning itself, disposing them in the middle of the fairway in such a manner as to ensure that they should not fail to be seen by any one flashing a light along the passage. She put the last two or three sherds in a little pile about a yard short of the arch leading to the slanting passage with the well in it. As she bent down there she heard Belcovitch maintaining an impassioned Slavonic monologue within the laboratory.
She stood in the archway, threw her two unbroken pots against the opposite wall with all her might, and then ran back down the well passage until it turned.
Everything happened just as she knew that it would happen.