"Couldn't they tell you in the hotel at what time she went out?" he enquired.
But no! According to O'Farrell, his sister had not been seen. He had found her door unlocked, the room empty, and her hat and coat missing. "She told me she was going to bed," he added. "But the bed hasn't been disturbed."
"Nor need you be, I think," said I. "Perhaps your sister wants to frighten you. Children love that sort of thing. It draws attention to themselves. And sometimes they don't outgrow the fancy."
"Especially Suffragettes and Sinn Feiners," O'Farrell played up to me, unoffended. "Still, as a brother of one, I'm bound to search, if it takes all night. A sister's a sister. And mine is quite a valuable asset." He tossed me this hint with a Puck-like air of a private understanding established between us. Yes, "Puck-like" describes him: a Puck at the same time merry and malicious, never to be counted upon!
"I feel that Miss O'Farrell went out to take a walk because she was restless, and perhaps not very happy," Brian reproached us both. "Something may have happened—remember we're in the war zone."
"No one in Nancy's likely to forget that!" said I, dully resenting his defence of the enemy. "Brushing bombs out of their back hair every ten minutes or so! And listen—don't you hear big guns booming now, along the front? The German lines are only sixteen kilometres from here."
Brian didn't answer. His brain was pursuing Dierdre O'Farrell, groping after her through the night. "If she went out before that air raid, while we were at the Préfet's," he suggested, "she may have had to take refuge somewhere—she may have been hurt——"
"By Jove!" Puck broke in. "It scares me when you say that. You're a—a sort—of prophet, you know! I must find out what hospitals there are——"
"We'll go with you to the hotel," Brian promised. "They'll know there about the hospitals. And if the Préfet's still up, he'll phone for us officially, I'm sure."
"It's you who are the practical one, after all!" cried O'Farrell. And I guessed from a sudden uprush of Irish accent that his anxiety had grown sincere.