"Not if one uses the police," he said. "It could, most probably, be soon achieved, if you requested the police to assist you."
"But, my dear sir," I protested. "I can't use the police. Miss Holladay, at least, has committed no crime; she has simply chosen to go away without informing us."
"You will permit me to say, then, Mistair Lester," he observed, with just a touch of irony, "that I fail to comprehend your anxiety concerning her."
I felt that I had made a mis-step; that I had need to go carefully.
"It is not quite so simple as that," I explained. "The last time we saw Miss Holladay, she told us that she was ill, and intended to go to her country home for a rest. Instead of going there, she sailed for France, without informing anyone—indeed, doing everything she could to escape detection. That conduct seems so eccentric that we feel in duty bound to investigate it. Besides, two days before she left she received from us a hundred thousand dollars in cash."
I saw him move uneasily on his bed; after all, this advantage of mine was no small one. No wonder he grew restless under this revelation of secrets which were not secrets!
"Ah!" he said softly; and again, "Ah! Yes, that seems peculiar. Yet, perhaps, if you had waited for a letter——"
"Suppose we had waited, and there had been no letter—suppose, in consequence of waiting, we should be too late?"
"Too late? Too late for what, Mistair Lester? What is it you fear for her?"
"I don't know," I answered; "but something—something. At least, we could not assume the responsibility of delay."