Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/136

 it's none of my fault that I can see!" she answered after a pause. "But the fact is, I don't know where Miss Mortover may be! She's not been here since night before last! She went out then, and she's never come back nor sent me any word. I don't know what to do about it. There's been a young gentleman here twice day—a young fellow that says he's paying his addresses to her, though I'm sure I never heard of it before, and the last time he called he said I ought to acquaint the police, and that if she wasn't back by the next time he called, to-night, he should do so himself. But I don't like going to the police"

"Look here, ma'am," broke in Wedgwood. "I may as well tell you I'm a police-officer. Detective-Sergeant Wedgwood. I'm investigating something—legal business we'll call it—in which Miss Mortover is concerned, and I want to see her about it. I've been to the refreshment room at the British Museum"

"The young man said he'd been there, too," interrupted the landlady.

"Just so! Miss Mortover hasn't been there for two days. Well, now, you say she went away from here night before last? Under what circumstances? Let me know all you can tell me!"

"Well, I don't know that the circumstances