"There is only one thing against that. If a girl was given a lift on a lorry she would be in the cabin, even if it meant sitting on someone's knee. They wouldn't perch her up on top of the load. Especially as it was a rainy evening, you may remember…. No one ever came to The Franchise to ask the way, or to sell something, or to mend something-someone that the girl could have been with, even in the background?"
But no; they were both sure that no one had come, within the time the girl had been on holiday.
"Then we take it for granted that what she learned about The Franchise she learned from being high enough on one occasion to see over the wall. We shall probably never know when or how, and we probably could not prove it if we did know. So our whole efforts will have to be devoted, not to proving that she wasn't at The Franchise, but that she was somewhere else!"
"And what chance is there of that?" Mrs. Sharpe asked.
"A better chance than before this was published," Robert said, indicating the front page of the Ack-Emma. "Indeed it is the one bright spot in the bad business. We could not have published the girl's photograph in the hope of information about her whereabouts during that month. But now that they have published it-her own people, I mean-the same benefit should come to us. They have broadcast the story-and that is our bad luck; but they have also broadcast the photograph-and if we have any good luck at all someone, somewhere, will observe that the story and the photograph do not fit. That at the material time, as given in the story, the subject of the photograph could not possibly have been in the stated place, because they, personally, know her to have been elsewhere."
Marion's face lost a little of its bleak look, and even Mrs. Sharpe's thin back looked less rigid. What had seemed a disaster might be, after all, the means of their salvation.
"And what can we do in the way of private investigation?" Mrs. Sharpe asked. "You realise, I expect, that we have very little money; and I take it that a private inquiry is a spendthrift business."
"It does usually run away with more than one had bargained for, because it is difficult to budget for. But to begin with I am going, myself, to see the various people involved, and find out, if possible, on what lines any inquiry should be based. Find out what she was likely to do."
"Will they tell you that?"
"Oh, no. They are probably unaware themselves of her tendencies. But if they talk about her at all a picture must emerge. At least I hope so."