"Well, old chap, to tell you the truth, I don't know. When she left she certainly said that she was going to them."
"But haven't you had any letters?"
"Not a blessed one."
Neil looked him all over with a sudden, sharp scrutiny that, to another man, would have been, to say the least of it, unpleasant.
"You say you haven't known all this time where she is?"
"I haven't known. I tell you she hasn't written to me. That's why I asked whether your sister had heard."
"And you haven't made the smallest effort to find out?"
"Why should I?" inquired Malcolm coolly. "She's of age, she knows her own mind, she had plenty of money, and she doesn't want to be harried about her private business. You don't know Isla, Neil, though you think you do, and the man who marries her will have a hard row to hoe. I can tell you that."
Drummond crushed back the desire to take Malcolm Mackinnon by the throat. He was not normal where Isla was concerned, and he took a far more serious view of the situation than there was any need to do.
"Do you mean to say that you haven't the shadow of a clue as to where she is or what she is doing? Haven't you any other friends in London to whom she could have gone?"