‘But what has become of Miss Lindon?’
‘I fancy that Miss Lindon, at this moment, is—somewhere; I don’t, just now, know exactly where, but I hope very shortly to be able to give you a clearer notion,—attired in a rotten, dirty pair of boots; a filthy, tattered pair of trousers; a ragged, unwashed apology for a shirt; a greasy, ancient, shapeless coat; and a frowsy peaked cloth cap.’
They stared at me, opened-eyed. Atherton was the first to speak.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean that it seems to me that the facts point in the direction of my conclusions rather than yours—and that very strongly too. Miss Coleman asserts that she saw Miss Lindon return into the house; that within a few minutes the blind was replaced at the front window; and that shortly after a young man, attired in the costume I have described, came walking out of the front door. I believe that young man was Miss Marjorie Lindon.’
Lessingham and Atherton both broke out into interrogations, with Sydney, as usual, loudest.
‘But—man alive! what on earth should make her do a thing like that? Marjorie, the most retiring, modest girl on all God’s earth, walk about in broad daylight, in such a costume, and for no reason at all! my dear Champnell, you are suggesting that she first of all went mad.’
‘She was in a state of trance.’
‘Good God!—Champnell!’
‘Well?’