It had already been established that nobody had seen Miss McCraw leaving the picnic party after lunch. Although for some unknown reason she must have suddenly decided to get up from under the tree where she had been reading and followed the four girls towards the Rock. ‘Unless,’ said the policeman, ‘the lady had some private arrangements of her own? To meet a friend or friends, for instance, outside the gates?’
‘Definitely no. Miss Greta McCraw, whom I have employed for several years, to my knowledge has not a single friend, or acquaintance even, on this side of the world.’
Her book had already been found with her kid gloves exactly where she had been sitting, by Rosamund, one of the senior girls. Both Mrs Appleyard and the policeman were agreed that a mathematics mistress, no matter how ‘smart at figures’ as Bumpher put it, could be fool enough to lose her way like anyone else, although the point was rather more delicately made. Even Archimedes, it was suggested, might have taken a wrong turning with his thoughts on higher things. All this the young policeman took down with much hard breathing and pencil licking. (Later, when the passengers in the drag on its outward journey were briefly questioned, it would be recalled by several witnesses, including Mademoiselle, that Miss McCraw had been talking rather wildly of triangles and short cuts, and had even suggested to the driver that they should go home by a different and quite impractical route.)
A continuous search of the Picnic Grounds and as much of the Hanging Rock as could be clambered over and observed at close quarters, had already been set in motion by the local police. One of the most baffling features, as already reported by Mr Hussey, was the absence of any kind of tracks other than some crushed bracken and the bruised leaves of a few bushes on the lower slopes of the eastern face of the rock. On Monday, unless the mystery had been solved, a black tracker was being brought from Gippsland, and – at the instigation of Colonel Fitzhubert – a bloodhound, for whom certain articles of the missing persons’ clothing were labelled by Miss Lumley and handed over at the constable’s request. A number of locals, including Michael Fitzhubert and Albert Crundall, were already assisting the police in the careful toothcombing of the surrounding scrub. News travels as fast in the Australian Bush as it does in a city, and by Sunday evening there was hardly a house within fifty miles of Hanging Rock where Saturday’s mysterious disappearance was not being discussed over the evening meal. As always, in matters of surpassing human interest, those who knew nothing whatever either at first or even second hand were the most emphatic in expressing their opinions; which are well known to have a way of turning into established facts overnight.
If Sunday the fifteenth had been a nightmare at the College, Monday the sixteenth was, if anything, worse; beginning with a ring at the hall door at six a.m. by a young reporter from a Melbourne newspaper on a flat-tyred bicycle, who had to be restored by Cook with breakfast in the kitchen and sent back newsless on the Melbourne Express. This unhappy youth was the first unwelcome caller of many, many more. The massive cedar door, rarely used except on ceremonial occasions, was opening and shutting from morning till night on a variety of callers, some well intentioned, others merely inquisitive, including a few male and female hyenas drawn quite frankly and openly by the smell of blood and scandal. None of these people were admitted. Even the curate from Macedon and his kind little wife, both dreadfully embarrassed, but imbued with a genuine desire to help in time of trouble, were dismissed like everyone else with a curt ‘not at home’ on the porch.
Meals were served with their customary clockwork precision, but only a few of the usually ravenous young women who sat down to the mid-day dinner did more than trifle with the roast mutton and apple pie. The seniors gathered together in little whispering groups. Edith and Blanche sniffed and slouched arm in arm for once uncorrected; the New Zealand sisters endlessly embroidered, murmuring of remembered earthquakes and other horrors. Sara Waybourne, who had lain awake all Saturday night waiting for Miranda to return from the picnic and kiss her good night as she always did, no matter how late the hour, flitted restlessly from room to room like a little ghost until Miss Lumley, whose head was pounding like a sledge hammer, produced some linen to be hemmed before tea. Miss Lumley herself, and the junior sewing mistress, when not engaged in running messages for the Head and other unrewarding duties, complained to their mutual satisfaction of being ‘put upon’ – a handy phrase which covered everyone in authority from the Almighty down. The essay on the Hanging Rock, still chalked up on the blackboard as the major exercise in English Literature for Monday, February the sixteenth, at eleven thirty a.m., was never so much as mentioned again. At last the sun sank behind the glowing dahlia bed; the hydrangeas shone like sapphires in the dusk; the statues on the staircase held aloft their pallid torches to the warm blue night. So ended the second dreary day.
By the morning of Tuesday the seventeenth, the two young men who had been the last to see the missing girls on Saturday afternoon had dictated their respective statements to the local police. Albert Crundall at the Woodend Station, and the Hon. Michael Fitzhubert in his Uncle’s study at Lake View. Both had affirmed their complete ignorance as to the subsequent movements of the four girls after they had crossed the creek near the pool and walked away in the direction of the lower slopes of the Hanging Rock. Michael with faltering tones and downcast eyes which seemed to have receded into his head since Sunday morning, when Albert had come galloping back from Manassa’s store with the news of the girls’ disappearance. Constable Bumpher had seated himself at the Colonel’s writing table with Michael opposite stiff on a highbacked chair.
After the usual formalities were completed, ‘I think, sir,’ said the policeman, ‘we had better start off with a few questions, just to get the general picture, so to speak.’ Young Mr Fitzhubert, with his shy charming smile and English good manners, was obviously the uncommunicative type. ‘Now then, when you saw the girls crossing the creek, did you recognize any of them?’
‘How could I? I have only been in Australia about three weeks and haven’t met any young girls.’
‘I see. Did you have any conversation with any of these girls – either before or after they crossed to the opposite bank?’
‘Certainly not! I’ve just told you, Constable, I didn’t even know any of them by sight.’ At which guileless reply the Constable permitted himself a dry grin, adding mentally, ‘Stone the crows! With that face and all that money?’ He asked, ‘How about Crundall? Did he speak to any of these girls?’
‘No. Only stared and whistled at them.’
‘What were your Uncle and Aunt doing while this was going on?’