“Oh, yes, he can walk quite well. But he could scarcely have come out from the room without my hearing him. The two rooms, the morning-room and the small sitting-room, are on opposite sides of the same passage.”
“Do the doors face each other?”
“No; the door of the small room is farther up the passage than the other. But in any case he was nowhere in the house.”
“But if he left the room he must have got out somehow. Is there no other door?”
“Yes, there is a French window, with the lower panels of wood, in the room; it gives on to a few steps leading down into the garden; but that was closed and bolted on the inside.”
“You found no trace whatever of him, I take it, on the whole premises?”
“Not a trace of any sort, nor had anybody about the place seen him.”
“Did you yourself actually see him in this room, or have you merely the nurse’s word for it?”
“I saw her put him there. She left him playing with a box of toys. When I went to look for him the toys were there, scattered on the floor, but he had gone.” Mrs. Seton sank on the arms of her maid and her breast heaved.
“I’m sure,” Hewitt said, “You’ll keep your nerves as steady as you can, Mrs. Seton: much may depend on it. If you have nothing else to tell me now, I think I will come to your house at once, look at it, and question your servants myself. Meantime, what has been done?”