"Now, ma'am," said the chief, "your husband the manager is out, and you are in sole and responsible charge, I understand? Pray don't be alarmed—this is nothing that concerns you or your affairs, personally, and we will endeavor to arrange everything so that you have no annoyance. The fact of the case is, we are police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard, and I hold two warrants, just granted by a justice of peace, which are in relation to an inmate of your hotel."
The manageress dropped into a chair and stared at her visitors. Police officers? Warrants? Justices? It was the first time in her highly respectable Bayswater existence that she had ever been brought into contact with these dreadful things. And—an inmate of her establishment!
"Oh, you must be mistaken!" she exclaimed in horror-stricken accents. "A warrant?—that means you want to arrest somebody. An inmate—surely none of my servants—"
"Nothing to do with servants," interrupted the chief. "I said an inmate.
Pray don't be alarmed. We want a young lady who is known to you as Miss
Mary Slade."
The manageress got up as quickly as she had sat down. For one moment she gazed at her visitor as if he had demanded her very life—the next her lip curled in scorn.
"Miss Slade!" she exclaimed. "Impossible, sir! Miss Slade is a young lady of the very highest respectability—she has resided in this hotel for three years!"
"I am quite prepared to believe that a residence of three months under your roof is enough to confer an irreproachable character on any one, ma'am," replied the chief with a polite smile. "But the fact remains, I have here a warrant for Miss Slade's arrest—never mind on what charge—and here another empowering me to search her room or rooms, her trunk, any property she has in this house. And as time presses I must ask you to give us every facility in the performance of our unpleasant duty. But first a question or two. Miss Slade is not at home?"
"She is not!" replied the manageress emphatically.
"And I think she did not return home last night?" suggested the chief.
"No—she didn't," assented the much perplexed woman. "That's quite true."