The Safety Pin | Page 5

day--yesterday--wore on, I got another idea--that Mr. Deane probably had friends in the neighbourhood, and had gone to breakfast with them, and was staying on for the day with them. As the day passed, I got more certain that the second was the right idea--friends. You see--"
"A moment," interrupted Mellapont. He turned to Miss Pretty. "Has your guardian any friends or acquaintances in Southernstowe or neighbourhood?" he asked. "I mean--to your knowledge?"
"To my knowledge, no," replied Miss Pretty. "Indeed, I'm quite sure he hadn't. Mr. Deane had never been in Southernstowe before Monday, and he knew no one here, nor near here. We talked a good deal about Southernstowe when we were making our holiday plans. He wanted to see the cathedral, and the old walls, and the old churches and houses here--if he'd known anybody here or hereabouts I'm confident he'd have mentioned it. I know this--he'd never been in this part of England before."
"That seems to settle your second theory, Mr Belling," remarked Mellapont. "But you were about to observe--"
"I was only going to say that Mr. Deane's absence seemed to fit in with what he'd told me about his ward coming," said Belling. "He'd said that Miss Pretty wouldn't arrive until Wednesday afternoon. Very well!--he'd until Wednesday afternoon to do as he liked--no engagement that could keep him in. What more likely than that, if he had friends--I say if, mind you--in this place or neighbourhood he should stop with them until it was time to meet Miss Pretty. I think I was justified in thinking that. I've often had gentlemen come here, book a room, have their luggage put in it, stroll out to see somebody, and never come back for one, two, or three days. That's what I thought about this case--gone off to see somebody, and stopped."
"Theory!" said Mellapont. "Now let's get down to plain fact. Thee plain fact is that Mr. James Deane was in his bedroom, number seven, at the Chancellor Hotel at eleven o'clock on Monday night, and that at noon next morning he was gone. Now then, when did he go? Monday night or Tuesday morning? Mr. Belling!--let me have a word or two with the chambermaid we've heard about--fetch her in."
Belling left the room, and Mellapont, with a glance at the door, bent forward to Miss Pretty.
"Would your guardian be likely to have a good deal of money on him?" he asked, quietly. "Ready money?"
"Yes!" replied Miss Pretty, promptly. "He would! He'd have a lot on him. You see, we were going on the continent. Besides, he always had a lot of money on him when lie was travelling about--I've travelled with him before, often."
"And valuables, now? Watch, chain--that sort of thing?" suggested Mellapont. "Good jewellery?"
"He'd a lot of very valuable jewellery on him," said Miss Pretty. "It was rather a weakness of his."
"H'm!" murmured Mellapont, with a glance at Shelmore. "Ah!--it's as well to know that much, eh, Mr. Shelmore? Monday, as you'll remember, was quarterly fair-day, and there are always some queer characters about, and they hang on in the place until late next morning. However--but here's the chambermaid."

Belling came back, ushering in a young woman who looked curiously and enquiringly at the people awaiting her, but chiefly at the superintendent, who, on his part, gave her a keen, appraising glance as if estimating her quality as a reliable witness.
"Mary Sanders," said the landlord. "She it was who saw Mr. Deane last."
"Just so," assented Mellapont. "And that was--what time, Mary?"
"Just after eleven o'clock, Monday night, sir," replied the chambermaid, readily.
"When you took him some hot milk, saw him evidently ready to go to bed, and got his order for tea at seven o'clock next morning?"
"Yes, sir."
"And at seven o'clock next morning, when you went, he wasn't there?"
"No, sir."
"So he never drank the tea you took up?"
"Oh, no, sir!--the tea was never touched."
Mellapont became silent and remained silent for a full minute. The chambermaid, a self-possessed, alert-looking young woman, watched him steadily. Suddenly, he bent forward, looking hard at her, and whispered rather than spoke his next question.
"What about the bed, Mary? What about the bed?"
The chambermaid started and flushed a little.
"What--what do you mean, sir?"
"I mean--had the bed been slept in, Mary!--had the bed been slept in? Come, now, with your experience as a chambermaid, eh? But--I see you've got some idea of your own on this very important point. Out with it, Mary!"
The chambermaid smiled a little, glancing covertly at her master.
"Well, sir," she said. "I certainly did think something when the gentleman didn't come in before breakfast, and I'd looked more closely round the room, and more particularly at the bed. I think he'd got into bed, but he hadn't stopped in bed! I think he'd got out again pretty quick."
Mellapont slapped his hands on