‘My dear girl!’
Abbershaw moved to her side. ‘What’s the matter? Who’s vanished?’
The girl looked at him in stupid amazement. ‘He went from my side just as if he had disappeared into the air,’ she repeated. ‘I was just talking to him – I turned away to look at Chris for a moment – I heard a sort of thud, and when I turned round he’d gone.’
She began to cry noisily.
‘Yes, but who? Who?’ said Wyatt impatiently. ‘Who has vanished?’
Anne peered at him through her tears.
‘Why, Albert!’ she said, and burst into louder sobbing. ‘Albert Campion. They’ve got him because he made fun of them!’
CHAPTER X
The Impetuous Mr Abbershaw
A hasty search revealed the fact that Mr Campion had indeed disappeared, and the discovery, coupled with Chris Kennedy’s experience of the morning, reduced the entire company to an unpleasant state of nerves. The terrified Anne Edgeware and the wounded rugby blue comforted each other in a corner by the fire. Prenderby’s little fiancée clung to his hand as a frightened child might have done. The others talked volubly, but every minute the general gloom deepened.
In the midst of this the lunch gong in the outer hall sounded, as if nothing untoward had happened. For some moments nobody moved. Then Wyatt got up. ‘Well, anyway,’ he said, ‘they seem to intend to feed us – let’s go in, shall we?’