In the cupboard floor there was a square black hole, and, just above floor-level, Henry’s face looked up at her, tilted at an odd angle, whilst his one visible hand manipulated a small electric torch.
“Wait,” said Jane, in a whisper.
She went quickly to the door, locked it, removed the key, and put it in one of the dressing-table drawers. She did not know quite what made her do this, only suddenly when her eyes saw Henry, her mind had a vivid impression of that long corridor with its one faintly glimmering light.
Then she sat down on the cupboard floor, close to Henry’s head, and breathed out:
“Henry!—how on earth?”
Henry, who appeared to be standing upon a ladder or something equally vertical, came up a few steps, sat down on the edge of the hole, and switched off his torch.
“I had to see you,” he said. “This was my room in the old days, and Tony and I found this passage. It leads down to another cupboard in the garden room where they keep the tennis and croquet gear. How are you?—all right?”
“Yes, quite all right.”
“That’s good. Now which of us is going to talk first?”
“I think I had better,” said Jane. “You see, I saw Renata, and she told me things, and I think, if you don’t mind, Henry, that I had better tell you everything that she told me.”