"Poor old Soames!" Cardyn remarked. "I hope he will get to the Daventry Arms all right. I don't think you will find anything here, inspector."
"Very likely not," the inspector assented. He was diving about in the cupboards and the waste-paper baskets. A scrap of paper seemed to have a fatal fascination for him. He spent the minutes Cardyn was restlessly counting, looking for Dorothy Fyvert's appearance, in examining with microscopic care a heap of old boots thrown carelessly in one of the corners.
"What are you looking for there?" Cardyn inquired impatiently at last.
"A pair of shoes—size eight," he answered, proceeding with his search, while Cardyn stared in mingled consternation and surprise.
But at the end of half an hour's search the inspector stood up. "Nothing to be done here to-day, anyhow. It is getting time those people were here—and, by Jove, they are!" as they heard a taxi stop before the front door, and an almost simultaneous ring.
Both men hurried back to the hall. Dorothy was on the top step. The inspector frowned as he saw that behind her stood Margaret Balmaine and the rector of North Coton.
"This bids fair to upset my apple-cart very considerably," he ejaculated.
Dorothy literally sprang in and caught his hands. "Maureen, has she been here?"
"Not a sign of her! Not a word but your telegram. Now, Miss Fyvert, just tell me as quickly and as quietly as you can what has happened!"
The inspector stepped back as he spoke; the others followed and stood round him, Margaret Balmaine slipping her arm through Dorothy's.
Both girls looked white and frightened. Dorothy was trembling from head to foot, her great brown eyes were full of tears.
"Oh, inspector, you will find her for me. Our mother left her in my charge." Her voice broke.
The inspector patted her hand. "I know just how bad you are feeling, Miss Fyvert. I am a family man, you know." He produced his notebook. "Now, you say the child has disappeared—where from?"
"We—we don't know," Dorothy cried. "When we got to North Coton Rectory, she just wasn't there—that was all."
"When did you see her last?"
"At Overend Junction," Dorothy answered, keeping back her emotion by a supreme effort.
Cardyn, watching, could see the muscles in her pretty throat pulsing and throbbing.
"She wouldn't come in the carriage with us. She would travel with the maids, and the doctor said she was to be contradicted as little as possible and, as it didn't seem to matter much, I let her go. At Overend we changed to the little branch to North Coton. It is a big, noisy Junction, and, as I had a lot of things to worry me, I thought Maureen was safe enough with the maids; and I did not look for her at North Coton Station. I shall reproach myself for ever that I did not. But Mrs. Fyvert was taken ill in the train and we were all busy looking after her. Naturally, the maids believed that Maureen was in our compartment, while we thought she was with them. It was not until we were in the hall at the Rectory that I asked for her and found that nobody knew where she was. Uncle Augustus saw her at Overend just before the train started."
"I think I saw her then, my dear," corrected the rector. "It is my impression that I did. But my mind is much preoccupied just now, so that I should not like to say more. Still, I believe that one of the maids—"
"Yes, yes. Susan, my maid," Dorothy said feverishly. "She says that Maureen was with them at Overend, but that while she was looking after the luggage the child slipped away. The only clue we have at all to her disappearance is that Susan remarked that she saw some one on the platform very like Alice. You remember the housemaid that Maureen was so fond of. Oh, Inspector Furnival, can you find her for us?"
The inspector blew his nose vigorously. "Of course we shall find her. We will start at once. One moment—" He went into the library to the telephone. "That is all right," he said, coming back. "I have called up the police at Overend and put them on the track, and also given directions to one of our best men to go down at once. It ought not to be a difficult matter, though I wish we had not lost so much time at the outset."
"I didn't think we had," Dorothy said ruefully. "My first thought was to send that wire to you."
The inspector gave a queer smile.
"Yes, but that did not give us many particulars to work upon. However, all's well that ends well, and I expect we shall be able to restore Miss Maureen to you safe and sound within the next few hours."
"Oh, inspector, you really think so!"
All Dorothy's hard-won composure gave way now, and she burst into sobs.
The inspector patted her hand again. "There! There! you must not fret. Everything will come out all right in the end. And now to think where the child would be likely to go. You have another sister, Miss Fyvert?"
"Yes. Mrs. St. John Lavis—my half-sister, really. My mother was twice married. But Maureen would not go to her. She has seen very little of her of late years, and they never got on very well. Besides, Mrs. Lavis is abroad just now."
"You speak of the child's liking for this Alice Grey," the inspector questioned abruptly. "What was the secret of it?"
"Secret! There couldn't be any secret about it," Dorothy said. "Lady Anne appointed Alice to wait upon Maureen while she was here in the holidays, and the child took a fancy to her—that was all. Maureen was always capricious in her likes and dislikes."
"I thought it was a very curious liking myself," Margaret Balmaine observed, speaking for the first time. "And I must say that of late Maureen looked as if she were frightened to death. It was not only that she was ill, but she was scared—scared to death! She used to be the jolliest, liveliest little thing on earth—too jolly for me, a good deal. But lately there didn't seem to be a bit of spirit left in her. I shall always say it was very wrong to keep her in this house after Lady Anne's death. It has been a terrible atmosphere for us all. It must have been appalling for a delicate child like Maureen."
"But Maureen was never considered delicate," Dorothy contradicted. "And the police wouldn't have let me go until yesterday, or Alice. And the very idea of leaving us was enough to send Maureen into a frenzy. Besides everybody was strictly forbidden to speak to her of Aunt Anne's death."
"Not much use forbidding children to gossip with servants, as far as my experience goes," Miss Balmaine contradicted. "I remember, when I was a child staying in Derby, that I spent half my time gossiping with the servants while my governess was away."
"Ah, yes. A fine old town, Derby," the inspector said in a bland tone that those who knew the Ferret best meant mischief. "I know that part of the country very well myself. It is a beautiful old town. Then you were in England when you were a child, Miss Balmaine?"
Was it a spasm of fear that shot over Margaret Balmaine's face? Even the inspector watching her between his narrowed eyelids could not tell. If it were, she recovered herself in a moment.
"England!" she repeated with a light laugh.
"No, I never was in England until a few months ago. I thought you knew that, inspector. Oh, I see! it was my saying Derby that misled you. Derby is the name of the settlement nearest to us at that time at home. Just a tiny, tiny place, while I believe Derby in England is, as you say, a beautiful old town. There is a Melbourne in England too, I understand—quite a small place, while Melbourne in Australia is one of our great, magnificent cities. Funny, isn't it? Things seem topsy-turvy, don't they?"
"They often do in life!" the inspector said dryly. "But now to return to Miss Maureen. The first thing I want is a detailed description of her, please, Miss Fyvert. Now her full name—"
"Mary Frances Adelaide Fyvert. But she has always been called Maureen. She was eleven last October."
The inspector was writing