"All right," he said. "There's no need to be forward." She inferred from this last remark that she had his blessing.
"There's some of the juniors meet Mr Adams of a night time. If we could only find which, we'd put an end to that, double quick."
"Who's we?" he asked, surprised into going on with it.
"Why, the seniors."
"Miss Baker and Miss Edge don't know, then?"
"Those two old pussies," she protested. "They'll never learn what really happens here. But that's why it's so silly your saying what you just did. You and he are the same age, anyway there can't be more between you than there is between me and one of the juniors."
"You're out of your mind, child. I'm old enough to be the man's father. And in any case, I don't like this."
"I'm sorry," she said, with an extraordinary look of innocence.
"That's all right. I've forgotten all about it," he repeated severely. But he straightened his back, and took off the spectacles once more, to wipe them.
"Then you will come to the dance tonight," she announced.
"I might," he said. "Will Miss Edge and Miss Baker be in attendance?"
"Of course. They've come back already, like I told. Anyway they only go up for the day, Wednesdays. No, they had to come home in a rush because of Mary and Merode. And when we gave them all the start we could."
"What?" he protested, laughing at last. "If this is any more of your nonsense then I don't want it, that's all."
"Well you see," she said, "Mary was almost forever on orderly duty. Edge said she always was so neat. Marion's the senior today and when Mary didn't turn up, because I promise I never heard a word about Merode till later, Marion asked what she should tell the old grumps. And sure enough Edge spotted Mary wasn't there at once, so Marion told her like I said, that Mary had gone to Matron."
"I don't understand a word," he protested more cheerfully still, and went back to his work.
"Oh, you are dense," she cried. "D'you know while I stand here to pass the time of day with you my arms are simply dropping from all these branches for the dance?" She was indeed a lovely sight as she stood before him. But he laughed once more.
"Then you'd better rid yourself," he said.
"You are in a dreadful mood today. Goodbye for now," she said, and went off, happily pouting.
"Now dear our Directives," Baker said as Marchbanks left the room. "Be careful, do dear. You said yourself the child should not be cross-examined."
"But, Baker, she has not been crossexamined, has she?" Edge cried out, and pushed the saucer away with its empty cup. "If she has, this is the first I have heard."
"Her parents are not living, dear. If they hold an Enquiry they'll call it cross-examination."
"Oh, it does so aggravate one, Baker. Because she holds the answer to Mary's whereabouts."
"Wherever the poor child may be, with her parents away in Brazil, she can stay for a while yet," Miss Baker said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, rather in the same way that Mr Dakers had patted his mouth at breakfast.
"Why, what on earth do you mean?" Miss Edge protested. "You are surely not going to suggest. .?"
"I suggest nothing, dear," Baker insisted in a tired voice. "All I say is that Mary can't have got very far, unless of course she has a conveyance. We left instructions about the station and the coaches, and now you have a policeman to see you. No, we must remember the poor mite was sick."
"I know nothing of it," Edge objected. "Her name is not down on Matron's list."
"But don't you recollect, dear? It was you who asked what had happened to Mary at breakfast, and Marion told you she'd gone to Matron!'
"So she did," Miss Edge exclaimed. "That puts an entirely different complexion on the matter. In fact, when I come to consider, I cannot understand how Marchbanks has not been able to drag the wretched girl back to us already. So unnecessary, too, to send for the Inspector. Because he will need some good reason to explain our bringing him up here. The staff simply will not take in what I keep drumming into them about undesirable publicity."
"We haven't found her yet, dear."
But Edge had now gone to the opposite extreme, was overconfident. "Why," she said, and left her desk to go over to the window, "the whole affair is a mare's nest, something tells me." Miss Baker had also risen. She moved over to the telephone.
"And such a shame," Miss Edge continued, holding on to folded curtains at either side with both hands, to face a bright prospect as though crucified. "What a very real shame to torture our nerves in this glorious weather just when the old Place is at its own great best."
"Madam here," Baker said into the receiver. "Would you have Marion sent along at once."
The child must have been expecting it, for, in next to no time, there was her knock on the door.
"Marion," Miss Edge asked, as though Baker had telephoned on her instructions. "When did Mary go to Matron?"
"I couldn't say, ma'am."
"But you told us at breakfast, surely you recollect."
"Yes ma'am."
"When did you see her last then, child?"
"I didn't see her, ma'am."
"You didn't see her?" Edge echoed, an ugly note in her voice. "Oh but, excuse me, you must have. You told us." Marion stood in silence. She looked guilty. "You mean you connived at this disappearance, Marion? Just when my sixth sense had led me to ask you where she was. You say now she never went to Matron?"
"They told me she had, ma'am."
"And who was that, pray?"
"The other girls, ma'am."
"Then you never even saw her this morning?" Miss Baker asked, white about the lips once she found her fears confirmed.
"No ma'am." There was a silence. Edge came away from the window, went right up to the child.
"You can go now, Marion," she said. "But we shall have to see you later about the whole wretched business, once we have got right to the bottom of it. I fear you may not have been quite straight with us, child."
"But I…" the girl began, raising limpid, spaniel's eyes to Miss Edge, and that were filling with easy tears, when the lady broke in on her.
"Yes, you can go, Marion," she repeated. "Perhaps you did not quite catch what I said?"
A call to Matron told them she had not seen Mary since last night.
"If you would manage the Inspector I'll just have a word with Matron, I think," Baker informed Edge.
"I shall get rid of the man," this lady agreed, with decision.
When the sergeant came he mopped his brow.
"Such lovely weather we have had, and it continues," Edge said, as she took him by the hand. "Tell me, would you like a glass of beer after your long ride?" she asked, for she had not reached the position she now held without learning the ways of this world.
"Thank you, ma'am," the sergeant accepted. He sat down before the two desks, one of which lay vacant. His face was traditional, the colour of butcher's meat. When she had ordered his ale over the telephone, she asked, "And how is my friend the Inspector?"
"Ah," the sergeant said. "He was put out, there you are. He asked me to make his excuses, ma'am."
"Yes, the paper work does not grow less, does it?"
"There you are," the man repeated, in agreement. Edge bit her lip with impatience to be rid of him, for she felt there was so little time, and then, at that very instant, a scheme began to form in her mind. "It's not often he gets outside," the sergeant ended.
"Now, this is your beer," Edge announced brightly as one of the juniors on orderly duty carried it in. "Wonders will never cease. They have not forgotten the opener. Time was when a great Place like this brewed its own. You prefer yours in draught, perhaps? But then those days are not missed, not as we are now," she said, with fervour.
He hastily agreed. Behind his big, blank face he wondered once more. He took a pull at the glass. As might have been expected, the beer was flat.