This would never do. Archie went once more to the door, and struggled with it, but to no purpose.
Then he directed his efforts towards the window, which—being happily held by a crazy hasp—he succeeded at length in forcing open.
Entrance had now become easy. Archie pushed aside a few plants, and scrambled in—two or three small boys watching his proceedings from the pavement, and commenting thereon with interjections of "O my!"
The room was nearly dark; but Archie could see its emptiness. He went out into the passage, then to the kitchen, lastly upstairs, searching carefully. All in vain. No human being except himself was under the roof.
A feeling of great perplexity and trouble crept over Archie. He could not at all understand what this meant. Had he found his mother at home, vexed and silent still, he would not have been surprised; but to find no mother at all awaiting his return did startle him sorely.
It was plain that Mrs. Stuart had gone somewhere, locking the front door, and taking the key away with her; for Archie found no key within. When thoroughly convinced of her absence, he had to make his exit by the same mode as that by which he had entered. Derisive exclamations from the group of small boys greeted his reappearance through the window. Archie was in no mood to care for laughter. He passed them by, and began a series of close inquiries, speaking to one neighbour after another.
These inquiries were not without results. In a few minutes Archie learnt that his mother had not gone to Church. She had been seen to come out, dressed as usual, a short time after the bells ceased, and to set off, walking hurriedly, in just the other direction.
"I spoke to her, and she didn't answer," one woman said. "Seemed to me some'at had worried her. She looked queer-like. But she never do like to be asked nothing. I saw her go along the road, all of a scurry, and turn to the left there—towards the brick-fields."
Archie followed the clue thus obtained. By dint of further inquiries, he traced her steps all along the road "to the left," and down a lane beyond, as far as the very border of the brick-fields.
There evidence failed, and he came to a pause. It was not likely that Mrs. Stuart should have actually crossed those flat dull fields, with their piled up rows of bricks. Archie had indeed himself taken a solitary ramble round them that afternoon, brooding over the condition of things; but it seemed highly improbable that his mother should have done the same.