“I see. What’s happened to the woman?”
“Two days before the wedding, on the tenth, to be exact, she disappeared.”
“Leave any notes or anything?”
“Not a thing. She simply vanished into thin air, and hasn’t been heard from since.”
“If you didn’t want him to get married, why not let it go at that?” Bertha asked. “She had some reason for leaving. It’s probably something that would make her — well, even less desirable as a daughter-in-law.”
Whitewell made a little gesture with his hand. “I’ve thought of all that.”
“What’s the answer?”
“Philip. I told you she’d completely changed him. Frankly, I’m opposed to the match. But the circumstances surrounding her disappearance are such that I simply have to find her — for Philip’s sake if for nothing else. Philip isn’t sleeping; he isn’t eating. He’s going around in a half daze, losing weight, and looking like the devil.”
Bertha said, “All right, Donald will find her.”
He turned to me.