“We’re just as much in the dark as ever,” Terry remarked sadly. “We’ll have to start all over again.”
“Tell us about Dimitri,” Arden said to Serge. “You were, as far as we can tell, the last person who saw him a——” she started, she had almost said “alive.” So she began again. “Was he all right when you saw him last? Did he say anything about going away?”
“We sat talking and eating all evening,” Serge explained. “Russians are great eaters, you know. But Dimitri didn’t mention going away, and I left him in the best of spirits. Then I rowed back, got into my car, and drove on to New York.”
“That doesn’t help at all,” Sim wailed. “It only proves that Dimitri left very suddenly and probably against his will. He would have told you if he’d planned leaving, wouldn’t he?” she asked the young man.
“I am sure he had no thought of going,” Serge hastened to assure her. “He was too much interested in the portrait he was finishing.”
“You mean the one of me?” Arden asked simply.
“Yes; you’ve seen it?”
“We looked—after Dimitri——” Arden said sadly. “Do you think he would mind?”
Serge shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We have something more important to think about.”
“But the worst of it is,” Sim complained, “that we’re so helpless.”