“I don’t think his complexion is anything remarkable,” said Eve with a giggle. Then she added seriously, “But honest, Hattie May, if he’s just gone to Millport, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
“Of course not,” I agreed. “Maybe he had a breakdown—I dare say he’ll turn up any minute.”
“If it was a breakdown, he could have phoned me, couldn’t he? I tell you he’s got mixed up with that awful barber creature somehow. You can’t tell what may have happened with a man like that—a man that wears a wig and—and digs up gardens! How do we know,” she went on wildly, “what he dug that hole for—how do we know he wasn’t burying a b-bloody weapon or—or one of his victims!”
“Oh, for heavens sake, pull yourself together, Hattie May,” I said with some severity. I knew by experience that the best way to treat Hattie May when she began to get hysterical was to scold. If you tried sympathy and kind words, she just got worse.
“Yes,” chimed in Eve, “there’s simply no sense in your going on like this. Nothing has happened to Hamish. I’d be willing to bet my best embroidered slip on it. The thing for you to do is to come along with us right now to Old Beecham to call on a friend of Aunt Cal’s. And by the time you get back, you’ll very likely find Hamish eating his dinner at the Inn—see if you don’t.” Hattie May wiped her eyes on her dress skirt. “I c-can’t go c-calling in this dress,” she whimpered. “The s-seams all show! I’d be the laughingstock of Millport.”
“Oh, nobody’s going to notice it,” I said. “All you have to do is to act as if it was something new from Fifth Avenue! Come on, we’ll miss the bus if we don’t hurry.”
She got up uncertainly. “You don’t think we ought to go to the Police Station,” she faltered, “and report Hamish’s disappearance?”
“I don’t believe there is any,” I said. “Anyway there’ll be time enough to find out if Hamish isn’t back by dinner time.”
“I feel all in,” said Hattie May as we hurried her down the street. “It’s the shock, I suppose. You can’t think how I felt when I opened Hamish’s door and saw his bed all smooth and empty. It was just like a murder story. You know, when the valet goes to call his master and finds——”
“Oh, cut it, Hattie May,” Eve ordered. “There’s the bus—we’d better run!”