“Henry,” she said, “listen. You’re on the wrong scent—I know you are. I can’t tell you how I know it, but I’m quite, quite sure. If you were an anarchist, and wanted to produce some horrible thing that would smash civilisation into atoms, how would you set about it?—where would you go? Don’t you see that the very safest place would be somewhere like this, somewhere where you could carry on your experiments under the cover of real experiments? It’s like the caterpillars that pretend to be sticks—what do you call it?—protective mimicry.”
“Jane!” said Henry.
“I’m sure that’s what they have done. I’m sure that there is something dreadful going on in this house. And if you can’t square what Renata heard with what you know of Formula ‘A,’ why, then I believe that there must be more than one Formula ‘A.’ Don’t you see how cunning it would be for them to take the name of a real Government invention to cover up whatever horrible thing it is that they are working at?”
There was a dead silence.
“Another Formula ‘A’?” said Henry slowly. Then, with an abrupt change of manner:
“Leave it—all of it—and tell me some things I want to know. Sir William, for instance—he was put out at my coming down, I know—but what is he like as a rule? He does not always drink as much as he did to-night, does he?”
“I think he does. Henry, I think he takes too much—I do, really; and he’s frightfully irritable. But that’s not what strikes me most. The thing I notice is that he doesn’t seem to do any work. Mr. Ember is supposed to be his secretary, but he really does all his work with Lady Heritage. She goes on all the time. She spends hours in the laboratories. I believe she works there till ever so late, but Sir William just sticks in his study and broods. I thought how strange it was from the very first day.”
“And Lady Heritage? Put all this mysterious business on one side and tell me what you make of her?”
Jane hesitated.
“She’s—she’s disturbing. I think she has too much of everything, and it seems to upset the balance of everything she touches. She’s too beautiful for one thing, and she has too much intellect, and too much, far too much, emotion. I think she is dreadfully unhappy too, with the sort of unhappiness that makes you want to hurt somebody else. You know what she sang this evening. I think she really feels like that, and would like to smash—everything. That’s why....” Jane broke off suddenly; her voice dropped to the least possible thread, “Oh, what’s that—what’s that?”