§ 4
The taxi dropped them at the entrance of the Mews.
“I suppose it won’t matter our arriving together?” said Lambone. “He won’t think it’s something preconcerted?”
“He doesn’t have suspicions of that sort.”
But when they reached the studio a little surprise awaited them. Fay Crumb opened the door to them and her eyes looked paler and her neck longer and her face more absent-minded than ever.
“I’m so glad you’ve come at last,” she said in a flat, distraught voice. “You see—he’s gone!”
“Gone!”
“Completely. He’s been away since three. He went out alone.”
“But, Fay, you promised!”
“I know. I could see he was restless and I kept telling him you’d be back soon. It wasn’t so easy keeping him. He walked up and down and talked. ‘I must go out to my people,’ he said. ‘I feel they need me. I must be about my proper business.’ I didn’t know what to do. I just hid his hat. I never dreamt he’d go out without his hat—prim as he is. I just went upstairs for a moment to get something—I forget what now—but, anyhow, it wasn’t there, and I may have spent five minutes looking for it—and meanwhile he slipped out. He left the door open and I never heard him go. As soon as I knew he’d gone I ran up the Mews right up into Lonsdale Road and stood about there.... He’d vanished. I’ve been hoping he’d come back every moment since. Before you returned. But! He hasn’t come back.”
Her conviction was all too manifest that he would never come back.
“I’d have done anything—” she said.
Christina Alberta and Paul Lambone looked at one another. “This rather puts the lid on,” said Christina Alberta. “What are we going to do now?”