“It isn’t like her,” Mrs. Yates insisted.
Duff grinned rather soberly. “She isn’t herself, these days.”
“She wandered off with somebody,” Mrs. Yates went on. “I didn’t see who. I’d wheeled into the kitchen to block a sweater, and she’d changed to that gorgeous brown dress she was to wear at the Fashion Parade today. She didn’t take the car and I don’t know who was to call for her. Scotty came by and they talked a while, and then he drove away and I had a glimpse of her standing out by the banyan. After that, somebody must have picked her up.”
Marian, who had gone into the stair hall, now called, “She certainly is getting absent-minded! She didn’t even take along the hat that goes with the new brown rig!” Marian came, then, carrying a hat the color of Eleanor’s eyes, with canary-yellow trimming.
It was not until then that Duff became alarmed. But alarm, when it appeared, was instant and formidable. She wouldn’t go without the hat. She was orderly. She was responsible. She had a good memory. And lately, she’d been almost vain; so much attention would have made anybody conscious of beauty. It was hard to imagine that Eleanor would barge away when somebody arrived to pick her up — without a hat that, obviously, was a main part of a planned costume for a very important social event.
As he felt ice inside himself, Duff instantly dissembled. “Maybe Scotty knows about it.”
He went to the phone and dialed. He got Scotty’s roommate and, presently, Scotty himself.
“Hi, you phony Sherlock!” Scotty said.
Duff frowned at the greeting and then realized that, as far as Scotty knew, his idea about the boxes had been mistaken and their trip to New York a blunder. He grinned tensely and asked about Eleanor.
“No,” young Smythe answered. “I didn’t see the Queen depart. I had a little colloquy with her around three, and I blew. I left her among the Yates trees and shrubs.”