"I've heard from Northborough," he said. "I 'phoned Waters, the manager there, to run across to the 'Golden Apple' and make inquiries. The 'Golden Apple' people say that Oliver left there at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. He was alone. He simply walked out of the hotel. And they know nothing more."
CHAPTER II
GREY ROCK AND GREY SEA
The three men stood for a while silently looking at each other. Copplestone, as a stranger, secretly wondered why the two managers seemed so concerned; to him a delay of half an hour in keeping an appointment did not appear to be quite as serious as they evidently considered it. But he had never met Bassett Oliver, and knew nothing of his ways; he only began to comprehend matters when Rothwell turned to Stafford with an air of decision.
"Look here!" he said. "You'd better go and make inquiry at Northborough. See if you can track him. Something must be wrong—perhaps seriously wrong. You don't quite understand, do you, Mr. Copplestone?" he went on, giving the younger man a sharp glance. "You see, we know Mr. Oliver so well—we've both been with him a good many years. He's a model of system, regularity, punctuality, and all the rest of it. In the ordinary course of events, wherever he spent yesterday, he'd have been sure to turn up at his rooms at the 'Angel' hotel last night, and he'd have walked in here this morning at half-past twelve. As he hasn't done either, why, then, something unusual has happened. Stafford, you'd better get a move on."
"Wait a minute," said Stafford. He turned again to the groups behind him, repeating his question.
"Has anybody anything to tell?" he asked anxiously. "We've just heard that Mr. Oliver left his hotel at Northborough yesterday morning at eleven o'clock, alone, walking. Has anybody any idea of any project, any excursion, that he had in mind?"
An elderly man who had been in conversation with the leading lady stepped forward.
"I was talking to Oliver about the coast scenery between here and Northborough the other day—Friday," he remarked. "He'd never seen it—I told him I used to know it pretty well once. He said he'd try and see something of it on Sunday—yesterday, you know. And, I say—" here he came closer to the two managers and lowered his voice—"that coast is very wild, lonely, and a good bit dangerous—sharp and precipitous cliffs. Eh?"
Rothwell clapped a hand on Stafford's arm.