“Moved; have they? Then I’ve missed them. I suppose you couldn’t tell me where they’ve gone?”
The postman shook his head.
“Sorry, sir, but I couldn’t. If you was to go to the post office in Hendon they might know. But I couldn’t say nothing about it.”
Nor could the postman remember the exact date of the Dangles’ departure. It was five or six weeks since or maybe more, but he couldn’t say for sure.
Cheyne returned to Miss Merrill with his news. A sudden flitting on the Dangles’ part seemed indicated, born doubtless of panic at the disappearance of the supposed corpse, and if this was the cause of their move, no applications at the post office or elsewhere would bear fruit.
“We should have foreseen this,” Cheyne declared gloomily. “If you think of it, to make themselves scarce was about the only thing they could do. If I was alive and conscious they couldn’t tell how soon they might have a visit from the police.”
“Well, we’ve got to find them,” his companion answered. “I’ll begin by making inquiries at the house. No,” as Cheyne demurred, “it’s my turn. You stay here and listen.”
She slipped out on to the road, and passing through the gate of Laurel Lodge, rang the bell. The same elderly woman came to the door and Miss Merrill asked if Miss Dangle was at home.
The woman was communicative if not illuminating. No one called Dangle lived in the house, though she understood her predecessors had borne that name. She and her son had moved in only three weeks before, and they had only taken the house a fortnight before that. She did not know anything of the Dangles. Oh, no, she had not taken the house furnished. She had brought her own furniture with her. Indeed yes, moving was a horrible business and so expensive.
“That’s something about the furniture,” Miss Merrill said, when breathless and triumphant she had rejoined Cheyne. “If they took their furniture we have only to find out who moved it for them. Then we can find where it was taken.”