“My father!” she exclaimed huskily.
“And what of him?” I asked. “I called upon him a short time ago. Surely nothing has happened to him?”
“Well,” she replied, “it occurred like this. I got permission this day week to leave business at five o’clock, and, as usual, went home. When, however, I arrived at the shop I found it shut, and to my amazement a bailiff was in possession.”
“For debt?” I inquired.
“Yes. He showed me some papers, and said it would cost about four hundred pounds to settle both bill and costs of the court.”
“And your father? What was his explanation?” I asked, greatly interested and surprised.
“He wasn’t there,” she responded. “That’s the curious part about the whole affair. I made inquiries, and discovered that he had suddenly shut up the shop about noon three days before, and had gone off with a heavy trunk placed on a four-wheeled cab.”
“Does no one know where he’s gone?”
“Nobody,” she answered excitedly. “It’s so strange that he has not written me a single line in explanation. I can’t understand it.”
I paused for a few moments, deeply puzzled.