Margaret looked at him critically. There was something in his manner suggestive of doubt and reservation.
“Do you mean an absolute blank? Did you find out nothing at all?”
Again Varney seemed to hesitate and Margaret’s attention sharpened.
“There isn’t much use in making guesses,” said he. “I found no definite traces of Dan. He hadn’t been at the ‘Ship,’ where I put up and where he used to stay when he went to Falmouth, and of course I couldn’t go round the other hotels making inquiries. But I went down the quay-side and asked a few discreet questions about the craft that had left the port since Monday, especially the odd craft, bound for small ports. I felt that if Dan had any reason for slipping off quietly, he wouldn’t go by a passenger boat to a regular passenger port. He would go on a cargo boat bound to some out-of-the-way place. So I found out what I could about the cargo boats that had put out of Falmouth; but I didn’t have much luck.”
Again he paused irresolutely, and Margaret asked, with a shade of impatience: “Did you find out anything at all?”
“Well, no; I can’t say that I did,” Varney replied in the same slow, inconclusive manner. “It’s disappointing in a way, especially as I really thought at one time that I had got on his track. But that turned out a mistake after all.”
“You are sure it was a mistake,” said Margaret, eagerly. “Tell me about it.”
“I picked up the clue when I was asking about a Swedish steamer that had put out on Tuesday morning. She had a lading of China clay and was bound for Malmo, but she was calling at Ipswich to pick up some other cargo. I learned that she took one or two passengers on board, and one of them was described to me as a big, red-faced man of about forty who looked like a pilot or a ship’s officer. That sounded rather like Dan; and when I heard that he was carrying a biggish suit-case and had a yellow oilskin coat on his arm, I made pretty sure that it was.”
“And how do you know that it was not Dan?”
“Why,” replied Varney, “it turned out that this man had a woman with him.”