‘I wish it was nonsense. For any sake don’t lose any time – get your hat and come with me at once. Bessie has disappeared and her mother is like a mad woman. Will you come at once?’
Certainly I would, but not the less I thought to myself as we hurried toward the path by the river, that girls had disappeared before now without being murdered. Still I knew quite well that deeds of blood had been done – who better? And I made what inquiries I could as we walked.
What I could gather from Archie’s despairing words was that Bessie and he had met on the previous night, not clandestinely, but with the mother’s knowledge and permission and that after they had strolled about the garden and grounds for an hour or so, they parted with a promise to see each other early in the morning. Bessie had bidden her mother the usual good night and retired to her own little room and had never been seen since.
‘When the servant and the mother were early astir this morning, they thought nothing of Bessie not being out of her room, supposing her with me; but when I, not meeting her by the river where I had promised to take her for a row in our boat, went up to the cottage and inquired for her, Mrs Elliot became quite alarmed and went to my poor darling’s room.’
‘Well?’
‘She was not there – the bed was cold, the window open, and the room marked with blood in several places.’
‘And that is all?’
‘All! My God, isn’t it enough! My poor darling has been murdered and, perhaps, worse! Oh, I shall go mad, Mark Sinclair! I shall go mad!’
‘Well, I shouldn’t at all wonder,’ I replied drily. ‘A good many folks have a habit that way if there is anything to be done. Wouldn’t it, perhaps, be better to keep your senses about you until you see how you may help or serve the interests of the girl you think has been wronged?’
A groan was my poor Archie’s only reply, and as we just then reached the cottage, no more passed between us. The servant showed us into a pretty little parlour, where Mrs Elliot sat weeping bitterly, and such a picture of despairing grief that I began to think there must be something more suspicious and decided about the girl’s disappearance than Archie had informed me of.
When my young friend had introduced me to the poor woman, he discreetly withdrew and left me to enter upon the business professionally. One look discovered to me both the appearance and character of Bessie’s mother. She was a small, pretty, colourless, little body, with a round, innocent looking face and an appealing look in her faded blue eyes. She took possession, as it were, of me as soon as I entered the room, and hung upon me all the trouble, as she had, doubtless, been in the habit of hanging troubles all of her life, like a weak, pretty parasite, helpless without its life-sustaining tree. She seemed to think that because I was a police-officer, I could do the impossible in the way of discovery, and offered me ‘everything she owned in the world’ if I would only find her ‘poor Bessie’ for her.
‘Archie says she is murdered, but I won’t believe it!’ she sobbed. ‘Who could have the heart to murder my darling girl? The best and the sweetest girl, Mr. Sinclair, that ever gladdened a mother’s heart. For God’s sake, don’t look so awfully serious! Don’t think it possible that Archie is right unless you want to see me die here under your very eyes!’
Women (especially young ones) are very pretty and very useful things sometimes, but they are also occasionally very silly and try a practical man’s temper immensely.
‘You don’t think Bessie is killed? Surely you don’t think anyone – anyone could be so wicked as to do my darling wrong?’
‘My, dear madam, how can I possibly form any opinion on the subject without knowing anything of the facts? Will you first tell me what occurred last night and then let me see Miss Elliot’s room?’
In a rambling sort of way she then told me pretty nearly the same story I had heard from Archie, but she was so incoherent that I called in Archie, and resigned her to his care, begging of him to take her in charge and see that she didn’t bother me while I made an examination and questioned the servant.
Having secured time to see and think uninterruptedly, I found my way to the little kitchen at the back, where, in a bewildered sort of way, I found the only female servant looking from the door idly yet with something of a fearful anxiety in her eyes. She was not a very young woman – perhaps thirty, and she was neither well-favoured or pleasant-looking. As I passed through the back door of the house toward that of the detached kitchen she looked at me half-wonderingly and half-frightened, as I thought, and opened her eyes and pursed her lips as I addressed her.
‘I want you to lead me to Miss Elliot’s bedroom, please, and to tell me what you know of her disappearance.’
‘What should I know of her disappearance?’ she asked sharply, and as she spoke with an impudent intonation, it seemed to me that her face was in some way familiar to me.
‘And who may you be that wants to get to see her room?’
‘You couldn’t guess, I suppose, miss?’
Her face flushed just slightly as she met my steady eye. ‘Yes, I think I could guess what you are, a policeman, I daresay. The mistress is making such a tune and cry, as if a young lady (with a sneering emphasis on the term) never left her mother’s house without leave before.’
‘When you were a young lady they doubtless did and didn’t go empty-handed. How’s your mother, Ann Dempsey?’
An ashy shade covered up, or rather replaced, the flush on her face, and it was delightful to me to see the terror in her face.
‘You are mistaken, sir. That is not my name,’ she managed to stammer.
‘I am not in the habit of making mistakes, and I took quite an interest in your handsome countenance the last time I had the pleasure of looking at it.’
‘Where was that?’
‘In the corridor at the City Police Court.’
‘It’s a black lie! I never was there in my life!’
‘That’ll do, Miss Dempsey,’ I said with a raised, warning finger. ‘I have no wish to interfere with you at present, so you’d better be civil. When I really want you I shall know how to lay my hand on you. No more talk, but show me the young lady’s apartment.
She went sulkily into the cottage, and I followed her. There was a little room at the end of the front verandah with a door window opening to the garden, and another door communicating with the little central passage. This had been poor Bessie Elliot’s room. Telling the woman to remain in the apartment while I examined it – a thing she seemed to do very unwillingly, by the way, – I looked around me.
The room was just such a pretty little chamber as you might expect a pretty and lovable girl of the middle class, and especially a pretty girl in love, to occupy. It was small and plainly furnished with plenty of ornamental bits of muslin and lace and ribbon about it. There were mosquito curtains to the tent bedstead, tied up with blue ribbons, and matting on the floor, and a large mirror decorated with lace on the lace-robed toilet. Many articles of feminine apparel lay about, but not untidily, and to my astonishment, the bed had not been disturbed, nor were there any articles of attire lying round that seemed to have been moved on the previous night.
‘Miss Elliot has not been to bed at all, then? Is this room just as she left it?’
‘Yes, at least I know of no one’s disturbing it.’
‘Oh, of course not – you are not likely to know much. Do you by any chance know who the man was who was hanging about this house late last night?’
Now I didn’t at all know that there had been a man about, but I knew the woman, and thought the guess a very safe one. That it was so could easily be seen from her face under my steady eye. She turned, as the saying is, all colours, but denied all knowledge of that or anything else at first.