“So I see. But where is she?” Bingo lifted his head high, snuffed the air, misliked it, and yawned.
The elderly lady had no more doubts. “She would be at Southover House, Sir. The family is expected on the 15th for a few days, on their way abroad.”
Senhouse jerked away all this surplusage. “The family? What family? It is Mrs. John Germain, I mean.”
Whatever caution may have lingered in the caretaker now disappeared, in the occasion of a treasured wonder to be revealed. “Oh, Sir, we don’t know anything about her. It’s all a mystery, Sir, and has been since Mr. John—passed away.”
“What do you mean by that?” she was asked.
Her cue! “She’s not been seen or heard of, Sir—not by her own family nor by ours. She went away by herself in July—after the event. Sir—and here’s October come round, and never heard of yet.”
Senhouse betrayed nothing; but his mind moved like lightning. “Tell me exactly what you mean,” he bade her; and she did, omitting nothing. He listened, made no comments, and gave no chances.
Then he asked her, “Do you know Mr. Duplessis’s address?”
She did not.
“His club?” She said she would call her husband.