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Page 56
"Yes! I have been wondering whatever it could be. In fact, I rang
up his office this morning, but learned that he was out. It was a
serviette which he took away. Did you know that?"
"I did know it, Miss Abingdon. I called upon the analyst. I
understand you were out when Mr. Harley came. May I ask who
interviewed him?"
"He saw Benson and Mrs. Howett, the housekeeper."
"May I also see them?"
"Yes, with pleasure. But please tell me"--Phil Abingdon looked up
at him pleadingly--"do you think something--something dreadful has
happened to Mr. Harley?"
"Don't alarm yourself unduly," said Wessex. "I hope before the
day is over to be in touch with him."
As a matter of fact, he had no such hope. It was a lie intended
to console the girl, to whom the news of Harley's disappearance
seemed to have come as a terrible blow. More and more Wessex
found himself to be groping in the dark. And when, in response to
the ringing of the bell, Benson came in and repeated what had
taken place on the previous day, the detective's state of
mystification grew even more profound. As a matter of routine
rather than with any hope of learning anything useful, he
interviewed Mrs. Howett; but the statement of the voluble old
lady gave no clue which Wessex could perceive to possess the
slightest value.
Both witnesses having been dismissed, he turned again to Phil
Abingdon, who had been sitting watching him with a pathetic light
of hope in her eyes throughout his examination of the butler and
Mrs. Howett.
"The next step is clear enough," he said, brightly. "I am off to
South Lambeth Road. The woman Jones is the link we are looking
for."
"But the link with what, Mr. Wessex?" asked Phil Abingdon. "What
is it all about?--what does it all mean?"
"The link with Mr. Paul Harley," replied Wessex. He moved toward
the door.
"But won't you tell me something more before you go?" said the
girl, beseechingly. "I--I--feel responsible if anything has
happened to Mr. Harley. Please be frank with me. Are you afraid
he is--in danger?"
"Well, miss," replied the detective, haltingly, "he rang up his
secretary, Mr. Innes, last night--we don't know where from--and
admitted that he was in a rather tight corner. I don't believe
for a moment that he is in actual danger, but he probably has--"
again he hesitated--"good reasons of his own for remaining absent
at present."
Phil Abingdon looked at him doubtingly. "I am almost afraid to
ask you," she said in a low voice, "but--if you hear anything,
will you ring me up?"
"I promise to do so."
Chartering a more promising-looking cab than that in which he had
come, Detective Inspector Wessex proceeded to 236 South Lambeth
Road. He had knocked several times before the door was opened by
the woman to whom the girl Jones had called on the occasion of
Harley's visit.
"I am a police officer," said the detective inspector, "and I
have called to see a woman named Jones, formerly in the employ of
Sir Charles Abingdon."
"Polly's gone," was the toneless reply.
"Gone? Gone where?"
"She went away last night to a job in the country."
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