“But could you be sure?” I persisted. “Absolutely sure that she wasn’t there?”
“I—I only opened the door for a second,” she said, “But I saw the bed. It hadn’t been slept in.”
“And this happened?” I suggested.
“Just before I came down to prayers,” she replied.
“Well, where is she?” I asked.
Miss Tattersall laughed. Now that we had left the dangerous topic of her means of obtaining evidence, she was sure of herself again.
“She might be anywhere by this time,” she said. “She and her lover obviously went off in the motor together at twelve o’clock. They are probably in London, by now.”
I did not give her confidence for confidence. I had practically promised Banks not to say that I had seen him on Jervaise Clump at five o’clock that morning, and I was not the least tempted to reveal that important fact to Miss Tattersall. I diverted the angle of our talk a trifle, at the same time allowing my companion to assume that I agreed with her conclusion.
“Do you know,” I said, “that the person I’m most sorry for in this affair is Mr. Jervaise. He seems absolutely broken by it.”
Miss Tattersall nodded sympathetically. “Yes, isn’t it dreadful?” she said. “At breakfast this morning I was thinking how perfectly detestable it was of Brenda to do a thing like that.”