“But, madam, I must know,” replied Gillett. “Your daughter has placed herself in a very serious position by the statement she made to the police concerning the Cliff Farm murder, and it is important that I should see her at once. Where is she?”
“I decline to tell you.”
“You are behaving very foolishly, madam, in taking this course. Surely you do not think she can evade me by hiding from me. If that is her attitude I will deal with it by taking out a warrant for her arrest.”
“I must decline to discuss the matter any further with you.”
Mrs. Maynard moved towards the bell as she spoke, as though she would ring for a servant to show the detective out of the house. Gillett, seeing that further argument was useless, did not wait for the servant to be summoned, but left the room without another word.
He rode down to the Ashlingsea police station, with an uneasy feeling that his plans for the capture of Brett were not destined to work out as smoothly as he had hoped. It had seemed to him a simple matter then to see Miss Maynard in the morning, “frighten the truth out of her,” ascertain from her where her lover was hiding, and have him arrested as quickly as the telegraph wires could apprise the police in the particular locality he had chosen for his retreat. But he had overlooked the possibility of the hitch he had just encountered. Obviously the girl, in finding that Marsland had not been arrested, had begun to think that her plans had miscarried and had therefore decided to evade making any further statement to the police as long as she could.
Gillett was hopeful that Sergeant Westaway, with his local knowledge, would be able to tell him where she was likely to seek seclusion in order to escape being questioned.
He had not conceived the possibility of Miss Maynard having taken fright and disappeared from the town, because he deemed it impossible that she could have known that he was aware how she had tried to hoodwink the police. Yet that was the news that Sergeant Westaway conveyed to him when he mentioned the young lady’s name.
“She left Ashlingsea by the last train from here last night—the 9.30 to Staveley, which connects with the last train to London.”
“What!” exclaimed the detective. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve let the girl slip out of your hands? Why the blazes didn’t you stop her from going?”