Was there nothing that would give him a clue at once? He could not think coolly yet; utterly useless with this nervous ague-fit on him! He knew it would subside in time, and he would be able to think. But for now, was there nothing?
For instance, in the appearance of the bed? Yes—something! Surely his recollection did not deceive him. Should not the bed, by rights, be "turned down," and be yawning, as it were, for its occupant? Would there not be, normally, some appearance of night-clothes; if not laid out on the coverlid as though courting their contents, at least beneath the pillow? He threw it aside; there was nothing.
On the dressing-table, then? Yes!—the brushes and combs were not there. They might be in the drawer, though. But how about those stoppered bottles? One was clear in his memory—square, with horizontal corrugations and a flat disc with a statement, hazarded by a writer in gold, that it contained eau-de-Cologne. Where was it? Not on that table, nor the chimney-piece. A great fear was on him that she had gone! Then it flashed upon him that if she had, she would have taken her jewels with her. Where did she keep them? In the top wardrobe-drawer. It would be locked, but he and she had a secret knowledge that one key opened all the drawers alike. He felt like an over-sensitive detective; but he got the key and opened it. The jewel-case was there, sure enough, but—not locked! He opened it, and saw at a glance that none of her favourites were there. Oh yes—she had gone! Marianne was gone—there was no doubt of it now!
He dropped back, feeling sick, on a chair, face to face with reality. Event agrees ill with men of Challis's temperament, the sort that can become unhealthily excited by the puppets of their own imagination. That railway accident yesterday was bad enough! But this—think of it!—at home, with the children to tell in the morning!
He tried to think—what next? Rouse the servants? Of course; but which servant? Nurse by preference, certainly. Procul absit Steptoe, and even Miss Harmood! He rose, feeling weak; and without his lamp, for all the house was navigable in the glorious moonlight, found his way to the nursery. Nurse slept in the little room just off it on the landing. But the rooms had a door between, in case of anything in the night. That is nurse's phrase, not ours.
Just as Challis was framing in his mind the question he should ask—and all forms that suggested themselves seemed to intensify the position—the thought crossed his mind that it would be a relief to see those youngsters asleep in the moonlight. Surely it would!—or, would it? He would risk it. He opened the nursery-door furtively, and stole in. But darkness reigned—curtain-darkness; shutter-darkness. Challis knew that little girls that sleep exposed to moonbeams suffer in some mysterious way—go blind, or go silly, or are witched away by bogles. He wasn't sure which. He tiptoed to the window, and could let in the light without noise, for, as it turned out, there was no shutter. What of the bed? He knew how nice they were in bed. All children are.
But the bed was empty.
Mrs. Steptoe, roused from her first sleep, which was about two hours old, and a promising sample, thought at first that she was back in Tallack Street, and that the noise was her lamented husband, the worse for liquor. Further revived, her decision that it might be thieves, and that her choice of action would lie between affecting sleep and calling "Police!" from the window, was short-lived; and she followed it up by referring her master's cries to fire. Harmood's consciousness passed through analogous phases, but with this difference: that the second one did not suggest immediate action. A servant who had just given warning might surely go on pretending to be asleep, unblamed. Was she there at all, technically?
However, the thought of the great terror "Fire!" brings the laziest from his bed. Neither waited to be sure that she was being called by name, but ran out on the landing above, belonging to the attics, to be encountered by Challis's voice from below, shouting madly, "What has become of your mistress? Where are the children? Where on earth are you all? Come down at once!" and so on.