I dared not
remain unoccupied; I dared not meet his eyes; I trembled to see that
my hand was not wholly steady.
"That," he began slowly, at last, "seems to me a most--ah!--deeficult
affair, Mistair Lester. To search for three people through all
France--there seems little hope of success. Yet I should think it most
likely that they have gone to Paris."
I nodded. "That was my own theory," I agreed. "But to find them in
Paris, seems also impossible."
"Not if one uses the police," he said. "It could, most probably, be
soon achieved, if you requested the police to assist you."
"But, my dear sir," I protested. "I can't use the police. Miss
Holladay, at least, has committed no crime; she has simply chosen to
go away without informing us."
"You will permit me to say, then, Mistair Lester," he observed, with
just a touch of irony, "that I fail to comprehend your anxiety
concerning her."
I felt that I had made a mis-step; that I had need to go carefully.
"It is not quite so simple as that," I explained. "The last time we
saw Miss Holladay, she told us that she was ill, and intended to go to
her country home for a rest. Instead of going there, she sailed for
France, without informing anyone--indeed, doing everything she could
to escape detection. That conduct seems so eccentric that we feel in
duty bound to investigate it.
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