Search of house and grounds was fruitless.
Before half-past eleven the rainstorm was over, and a bright moon lighted the brothers and the men-servants to the discovery of just nothing at all.
Except to give an order, or make a suggestion, neither Bellamy spoke until they stood alone together in the hall.
They looked at each other like men who from dreams of hell have waked to find it.
Then the elder groaned, beside himself.
"The poor girl!" he said. "To think of her ill-used—murdered, perhaps!"
The younger man cut him short with a glance, which even through his agony pierced Randal as if the livid lightning of a god had been launched at the ineptitude of human compassion.
"Cut it out," said Dick. "That's a car coming. The father. Take him right back to town in it. You've got the pull. You can make the political coves get Scotland Yard and the police of the world working, before you'd get the county bobbies into their trousers."
The car drew up in front of the house.
"How shall I tell him?" said Randal.