There was no answer from the kitchen.
“I don’t want her to stay out there, washing up. Ray, boy, call her in.”
Ray got up and opened the door of the kitchen. It was in darkness.
“Bring the lamp, father,” he called, and John Bennett came hurrying after him.
The door of the kitchen was closed but not bolted. Something white lay on the floor, and Ray stooped to pick it up. It was a torn portion of the apron which Ella had been wearing.
The two men looked at one another, and Ray, running up to his room, came down with a storm lantern, which he lit.
“She may be in the garden,” he said in a strained voice, and, throwing open the door, went out into the storm.
The rain beat down unmercifully; the men were wet through before they had gone a dozen yards. Ray held the light down to the ground. There were tracks of many feet in the soft mud, and presently he found one of Ella’s. The tracks disappeared on to the edge of the lawn, but they were making straight for the side gate which opened into a narrow lane. This passage-way connected the road with a meadow behind Maytree Cottage, and the roadway gate was usually kept chained and padlocked. Ray was the first to see the car tracks, and then he found that the gate was open and the broken chain lay in the muddy roadway. Running out into the road, he saw that the tracks turned to the right.
“We had better search the garden first to make absolutely sure, father,” he said. “I will arouse some of the cottagers and get them to help.”
By the time he came back to the house, John Bennett had made a thorough search of the garden and the house, but the girl had disappeared.