“Is North married?”
“I don’t think so. At least, I’ve always thought him a bachelor, though nowadays you never can tell. He may have a wife, for all I know.”
“At any rate, Mrs Blackwood, he has most mysteriously disappeared. And I do hope if you know anything—anything at all, about the man, you will tell me. For, I don’t mind admitting I am greatly distressed and disturbed at this new development of the Varian case.”
“You connect Mr North’s disappearance with Betty Varian’s, then?”
“How can I help it? Both vanished from the same house. It proves, of course, that there is a secret exit, but it is strange that such cannot be found.”
“It is disappointing, Mr Wise, to find that such a famous detective as you cannot find a concealed entrance to a country house!”
“You are not more disappointed than I am, at that fact, Mrs Blackwood. I am chagrined, of course, but I am more frankly puzzled. The whole case is so amazing, the evidence so scanty,—clues are non-existent,—what can I do? I feel like saying I was called in too late,—yet, I’m not sure I could have done better had I been here at first. I can’t see where evidence has been destroyed or clues lost. It is all inexplicable.”
“You are delightfully candid and far from bumptious,” she said, smiling at him. “I feared you were of the know-it-all variety, and I see you aren’t.”
“Help me to know it all, Mrs Blackwood,” Wise urged. “I can’t help feeling you know more about Lawrence North than any one else up here. If so, can’t you tell me something of his life?”
“No, truly, Mr Wise, I don’t know any more than I’ve told you. He was up here last year,—this is my first season. But I don’t know of any one up here now, that knows him very well. He is a quiet, reserved sort of man,—and,—as a matter of fact, we are not a gossipy lot.”