I could not say. Other questions, too, I had no answer for. I held my head between my hands trying to force the later impressions out—trying to recover something of that drive I seemed to have taken a hundred years ago in some other state of being. And as I stood so, sobbing inwardly and praying God to let me remember, I heard the inspector say the most horrible thing of all. And it was the horrible thing that gave me a moment of hope. He told my aunt that the police kept a list of "these houses."
A list.
He said the police were "expected to have an eye on such places." And no one contradicted him.
"Even if there are many," I burst out—"you have all these policemen here. You have hundreds more. Those houses in the list must all be searched——"
They would do what they could, he said.
I did not know why they should at the same time speak of doing all they could, and yet should look so hopeless. But I saw that nobody moved. My two companions talked in undertones. The men in uniform still stood in twos and threes. One near a high desk drummed with his fingers on an open book. The Healer folded his thin long hands upon the counter. In that horrible stillness I said suddenly, "Look at the clock!" The clock's hands too were folded, praying people to notice it was midnight.
They stirred a little at my voice. They looked at me and at the clock. The inspector said they were waiting for Mrs. Harborough's messenger. The messenger had gone out with a constable to make inquiry at the nearest cab shelter.
Why had they not told us that before!
My two companions followed me, talking low.