“But it’s incomprehensible,” he exclaimed. “I can’t make head nor tail of it. No one ever questioned that he’d gone.”
“No one said they’d seen him go but his sister,” came from Williams.
Bassett wheeled on him:
“Yes, you asked her. Didn’t she say she’d seen him?”
“No.” Rawson’s voice was dryly quiet. “I’ve thought of that. What she said was that he went. In all fairness to her she probably thought so—took it for granted as you all did—that he’d gone.”
“But why? What’s the meaning of it? If he’d missed the boat he’d have turned up, he’d be here now.”
“Oh, he didn’t miss the boat,” said Rawson.
“Well, then, what was he doing? What made him stay?” In the turmoil of his amazement, this sudden precipitation of a new mystery, Bassett had not yet grasped the sinister trend of the other’s thoughts.
“Why,” said Rawson slowly, “he might have been staying for a purpose.”
“What purpose?”