"Mrs. Price, something's happened!"
Suzanne screamed out:
"Where is she?"
"I don't know—but—but—I haven't got her—she's gone. Mrs. Price—"
Suzanne screamed again, putting her hands against the sides of her head, her face, between them, a livid mask.
"Gone—gone where? Is she dead?"
The girl shook her head, swallowing on a throat dried to a leathern stiffness:
"No—no—nothing like that. But—the taxi—it went, disappeared while I was in Justin's. I was in there buying the candy and when I came out it was gone. I looked everywhere; I couldn't believe it; I thought she'd come back here—run away from me for a joke."
Suzanne, holding the sides of her head, stared like a mad woman, then gave a piercing cry, thin and high, a wild, dolorous sound. Only the solidity of the house prevented it from penetrating to the lower regions where Aggie McGee and her aunt were comfortably lunching.
"Listen, Mrs. Price." Esther took her hands and drew them down. "The driver may have made a mistake, taken her somewhere else—he couldn't—"