At ten o'clock she went over to the telephone and called up the office, asking to be connected with room 404. The reply she received, caused her a veritable shock.
"The room is vacant."
"Vacant?" she demanded. "You mean that Madame Vanderpoel and Mademoiselle de Vos are out?"
"They have gone—left the hotel. They gave up the room this morning and went away for good.... No, they didn't say where they were going or if they intended to return."
Patricia hung up the receiver and crept over to a chair by the window. A sort of black mist seemed to float before her eyes and her mind would register no impressions save trivial ones for a long while. She was aware of the distant roar of the city, borne across the more quiet stretches of the park outside her window, of the sparrows chattering in the branches, of the children romping in the quiet walks, the honking of an arriving automobile, and of little else.
Then gradually her numbed brain recovered its normal action. Virginie and her aunt were gone and without a single word to her, a single farewell! Could their abrupt and mysterious departure indicate any but one fact? After the strange disappearance of her father's sketch, what could it mean except that one or both of them were guilty and they were trying to conceal it by flight? One or both of them! No it could not be that Virginie was concerned. She would never, never believe that. And yet, if it were not so, why had Virginie gone away without a single word to the friend whom she declared she loved next best to her father? Surely she could have managed to say a word or two over the telephone, or scribble a tiny note! Perhaps she had written a note and it would arrive later in the mail. Patricia quite brightened for a few moments, at the thought. She would wait and see what the day's post brought. That would doubtless explain.
The morning hours dragged by. The weather was stifling and humid, and Patricia sat by one of the opened windows of the darkened room. Try as she would, she could not keep her depressed thoughts from picturing the darkest aspect of everything. How her pleasant life had changed since yesterday at this time, her bright hopes and plans collapsed like a fragile castle of cards! Who would have dreamed such a calamity could have befallen her?
At noon she telephoned down to the office to ask for the mail, and also, as she felt no appetite, requested that some crackers and a glass of milk be sent up at the same time, to the room. That was all the luncheon she felt she could possibly manage.
Chester Jackson arrived with the letters and her order a few moments later. The former she shuffled over nervously and hopefully. But they were only communications for her father, and nothing at all for her. The boy, watching her interestedly, noted the disappointment in her face.
"Miss your side-partner, don't you?" he queried.