satisfy herself that all was well with William Bannister. She had given
Mamie specific instructions as to his care on her departure; but you
never knew. Perhaps her keen eye might be able to detect some deviation
from the rules she had laid down.
It detected one at once. The nursery was empty. According to schedule,
the child should have been taking his bath.
She went downstairs again. Keggs was waiting in the hall. He had
foreseen this return. He had allowed her to go upstairs with his story
but half heard because that appealed to his artistic sense. This story,
to his mind, was too good to be bolted at a sitting; it was the ideal
serial.
"Keggs."
"Madam?"
"Where is Master William?"
"I fear I do not know, madam."
"When did he go out? It is seven o'clock; he should have been in an
hour ago."
"I have been making inquiries, madam, and I regret to inform you that
nobody appears to have seen Master William all day."
"What?"
"It not being my place to follow his movements, I was unaware of this
until quite recently, but from conversation with the other domestics, I
find that he seems to have disappeared!"
"Disappeared?"
A glow of enjoyment such as he had sometimes experienced when the
ticker at the Cadillac Hotel informed him that the man he had backed in
some San Francisco fight had upset his opponent for the count began to
permeate Keggs.
"Disappeared, madam," he repeated.
"Perhaps Mrs. Winfield took him with her to Tuxedo."
"No, madam. Mrs. Winfield was alone. I was present when she drove
away."
"Send Mamie to me at once," said Mrs. Porter.
Keggs could have whooped with delight had not such an action seemed to
him likely to prejudice his chances of retaining a good situation. He
contented himself with wriggling ecstatically. "The young person is not
in the house, madam."
"Not in the house? What business has she to be out? Where is she?"
"I could not tell you, madam." Keggs paused, reluctant to deal the
final blow, as a child lingers lovingly over the last lick of ice-cream
in a cone. "I last saw her at about five o'clock, driving off with Mr.
Winfield in an automobile."
"What!"
Keggs was content. His climax had not missed fire. Its staggering
effect was plain on the face of his hearer. For once Mrs. Porter's
poise had deserted her. Her one word had been a scream.
"She did not tell me her destination, madam," went on Keggs, making all
that could be made of what was left of the situation after its artistic
finish. "She came in and packed a suit-case and went out again and
joined Mr. Winfield in the automobile, and they drove off together."
Mrs. Porter recovered herself. This was a matter which called for
silent meditation, not for chit-chat with a garrulous butler.
"That will do, Keggs."
"Very good, madam."
Keggs withdrew to his pantry, well pleased. He considered that he had
done himself justice as a raconteur. He had not spoiled a good story in
the telling.
Mrs. Porter went to her room and sat down to think. She was a woman of
action, and she soon reached a decision.
The errant pair must be followed, and at once. Her great mind, playing
over the situation like a searchlight, detected a connection between
this elopement and the disappearance of William Bannister. She had long
since marked Kirk down as a malcontent, and she now labelled the absent
Mamie as a snake in the grass who had feigned submission to her rule,
while meditating all the time the theft of the child and the elopement
with Kirk. She had placed the same construction on Mamie's departure
with Kirk as had Mr. Penway, showing that it is not only great minds
that think alike.
A latent conviction as to the immorality of all artists, which had been
one of the maxims of her late mother, sprang into life. She blamed
herself for having allowed a nurse of such undeniable physical
attractions to become a member of the household. Mamie's very quietness
and apparent absence of bad qualities became additional evidence
against her now, Mrs. Porter arguing that these things indicated deep
deceitfulness. She told herself, what was not the case, that she had
never trusted that girl.
But Lora Delane Porter was not a woman to waste time in retrospection.
She had not been in her room five minutes before her mind was made up.
It was improbable that Kirk and his guilty accomplice had sought so
near and obvious a haven as the studio, but it was undoubtedly there
that pursuit must begin. She knew nothing of his way of living at that
retreat, but she imagined that he must have appointed some successor to
George Pennicut as general factotum, and it might be that this person
would have information to impart.
The task of inducing him to impart it did not daunt Mrs. Porter. She
had a just confidence in her powers of cross-examination.
She went to the telephone and called up the garage where Ruth's
automobiles were housed. Her plan of action was now complete. If no
information were forthcoming at the studio, she would endeavour to find
out where Kirk had hired the car in which he had taken Mamie away. He
would probably have secured it from some garage near by. But this
detective work would be a last resource. Like a good general, she did
not admit of the possibility of failing in her first attack.
And, luck being with her, it happened that at the moment when she set
out, Mr. Penway, feeling pretty comfortable where he was, abandoned his
idea of going out for a stroll along Broadway and settled himself to
pass the next few hours in Kirk's armchair.
Mr. Penway's first feeling when the bell rang, rousing him from his
peaceful musings, was one of mild vexation. A few minutes later, when
Mrs. Porter had really got to work upon him, he would not have
recognized that tepid emotion as vexation at all.
Mrs. Porter wasted no time. She perforated Mr. Penway's spine with her
eyes, reduced it to the consistency of summer squash, and drove him
before her into the studio, where she took a seat and motioned him to
do the same. For a moment she sat looking at him, by way of completing
the work of subjection, while Mr. Penway writhed uneasily on his chair
and thought of past sins.
"My name is Mrs. Porter," she began abruptly.
"Mine's Penway," said the miserable being before her. It struck him as
the only thing to say.
"I have come to inquire about Mr. Winfield."
As she paused Mr. Penway felt it incumbent upon him to speak again.
"Dear old Kirk," he mumbled.
"Nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Porter sharply. "Mr. Winfield is a
scoundrel of the worst type, and if you are as intimate a friend of his
as your words imply, it does not argue well for your respectability."
Mr. Penway opened his mouth feebly and closed it again. Having closed
it, he reopened it and allowed it to remain ajar, as it were. It was
his idea of being conciliatory.
"Tell me." Mr. Penway started violently. "Tell me, when did you last
see Mr. Winfield?"
"We went to Long Beach together this afternoon."
"In an automobile?"
"Yes."
"Ah! Were you here when Mr. Winfield left again?"
For the life of him Mr. Penway had not the courage to say no. There was
something about this woman's stare which acted hypnotically upon his
mind, never at its best as early in the evening.
He nodded.
"There was a young woman with him?" pursued Mrs. Porter.
At this moment Mr. Penway's eyes, roving desperately about the room,
fell upon the bottle of Bourbon which Kirk's kindly hospitality had