Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/227

 prentice's, lying folded on a chair. Wanting nothing there he passed to another, which he saw to have been Thomas Wraypoole's. There he made a closer examination. And he saw at once that if Thomas had flown he had left most of his old feathers behind him. There were drawers full of clothes and linen; he appeared to have taken nothing, or little, of his personal apparel. Toilet articles were left on the dressing table, the room, indeed, looked as if its regular occupant was expected to step into it at any moment. And it, at any rate, was quite tidy—the bed made; everything in its place; towel on the rack, water in the jug.

But the next room, a woman's, was in utter confusion, as if its late occupant had left it in a hurry. Garments were thrown here and there; drawers and trunks lay open; there was evidence that various things had been hurriedly selected out of other things and the discarded objects left anyhow; on the bed lay certain articles of feminine attire which apparently had been exchanged for others of a similar sort and cast aside: it needed little more than a glance to see that in this room a woman had hastily dressed herself for a journey and had had no time to put the place straight before she went.

Wedgwood stood for a moment looking round him. He was recreating the scene which had