I t was Mr. Warde who, before the police arrived, organised and dispatched search parties. The visitors and servants from the Deanery, with his own and the Palace household, were scattered through the immediate neighbourhood, in less than half an hour from the first summons.
Marjorie was with her mother. Mr. Pelham—after a distracted visit to his own house, hoping against hope that he might still find the toddling child safe and rosy, sleeping in her cot—had brought servants back with him, whom he put under Mr. Warde's instructions. For Mr. Warde knew every inch of ground about, every possible danger into which the little feet might have strayed.
In the precincts of the cathedral, in the gardens throughout the neighbourhood, in every nook and secluded place, lights were soon flashing and voices calling.
All that anybody knew was little enough. Soon after eight—the hour at which Mr. Bethune and Marjorie had gone to the Deanery—nurse had gone to the garden to call the children in. She found it empty, and, pursuing her search into the cave, found reason to be alarmed. But she did not then alarm Mrs. Bethune. Returning to the house, which was strangely still, she had looked into the drawing-room.
"They have taken Barbara home," Mrs. Bethune explained. "They will soon be back, nurse. But it is getting late for the little ones."
She looked so quiet and calm on her sofa, resting, with the sense of her husband's love folding her round, that the nurse forbore to disturb her with her own sudden forebodings. But she put on her bonnet, and ran up to The Ridges, to satisfy herself against her fears. No Barbara was there; neither she nor the boys had been seen since the afternoon. Barbara's nurse—forgetting for a time her airs—accompanied her to the Canons' Court. Together they again searched the garden; the cathedral yard, where the darkness was settling down over the numerous graves and tombs; the shady Canons' Walk—calling anxiously the names of their respective charges. No signs were to be found of the children. Then nurse, without troubling her mistress, went to the Deanery, and asked for Mr. Bethune; and from him, when he reached his wife's side, had come the summons to Mr. Pelham and Marjorie.
A thorough examination of the cave, at nurse's suggestion, revealed the passage and its exit into the Palace grounds; resulting in Mr. Warde's systematic search throughout the parks and neighbourhood.
Marjorie recollected Sandy's visit to her room; and the discovery of the abstraction of the blanket from her bed seemed to prove that some larger scheme than merely running away must have been in the boys' heads.
Then a new fear was started. A visit to the little station at the bottom of the Green had seemed for a time to furnish a clue. The station-master reported that within the last week the two boys had been inquiring the price of tickets to Baskerton for a party of five. He had been struck with the answer to his question—"All under twelve." But the children had not travelled by the only train that evening. The Dean, who had made this inquiry, thereupon went home, and ordered his carriage, and had himself driven over to Baskerton. It was five miles away, famous for its picturesque scenery and fishing, and was the scene of all the picnic parties about. Across the parks and by-lanes, filled with roses and honeysuckle, it was only about three miles off. David and Sandy, he knew, were well acquainted with its delights; they had often been included in his own parties there.