“Have you any ideas at all where Miss Farwell might have gone last night? To sleep?”
“No, sir. I thought she came to bed early, sir. I stayed up last night to close up the house. Mrs. Farwell told me then that Miss Farwell had gone to bed early and that we were to be quiet. I mean, sir, we stood just outside Miss Farwell’s door, talking in whispers, not to wake Miss Farwell, when Mrs. Farwell said good night to me. Mrs. Farwell thought just as I did that Miss Farwell was here in bed, asleep.”
“Would you be able to tell if any of Miss Farwell’s clothes were gone? A coat, for instance. It was cold last night. She was dressed in a low-necked, sleeveless dance frock. She couldn’t go away anywhere like that.”
“Oh, no, sir, she couldn’t. I’ll see, sir.”
Lewis went to the windows, one after another, and yanking the cords that worked the curtains, let in the light. From each cord dangled a heavy silk peacock for tassel. Ugh!
The maid turned from the open sliding doors of the wardrobe which took up one whole side of the room.
“Everything is here, sir. She hasn’t so many clothes! Lovely dresses, but not many. I’d know if anything was gone, I am sure.”
“What time did you lock the house up last night? If Miss Farwell had gone out for a walk, say, and came back after you locked it, could she have got in?”
“It was after you had all gone, I locked it. After the party. Around midnight. Miss Farwell hasn’t a key. There aren’t any. One of the servants bolts the doors and windows the last thing at night and that is the only time they are locked. If Miss Farwell had come to the door and found it locked, though, she had only to ring the bell. Somebody would have heard. Or she could have knocked on her father’s window. He has a bedroom right on the terrace.”
Although Doctor Pryne’s coolness was still consoling her somewhat, Elise’s face, during these rapid questions and answers, had gone gradually dead white and her knees were shaking. She presumed at this point to ask a question on her own part: “Oh, sir, do you think anything has happened? There’s the river beyond the meadows....”