We stared at each other, some of us seeking to understand, the others dreading to do so.
“What is that?” inquired Mme. Edith, with a mocking little smile. “In such a case, I fail to see how you find any mystery at all.” And she added with a flippant imitation of the reporter’s words and manner: “A body too many on the one side; an unexplained absence on the other! Everything is for the best.”
“Perhaps,” rejoined Rouletabille. “But the most frightful thing of all is that the unexplained disappearance comes just at the right time to make known to us, apparently, the identity of the ‘body too many.’ Madame, I deeply regret to tell you that the person for whose whereabouts we are unable to account, is none other than your uncle, Monsieur Bob.”
“Old Bob!” screamed the young woman. “Old Bob has disappeared!”
And we all cried out with her:
“Old Bob has disappeared?”
“Unfortunately, it is true!” said Rouletabille.
And he let the cane drop to the ground.
But the news of the sudden disappearance of Old Bob had so seized the Rances and the Darzacs that no one paid any attention to the cane as it fell.
“My dear Sainclair, will you be kind enough to pick up that cane?” asked Rouletabille.