The Safety Pin | Page 4

gone upstairs, he rang the bell for her, and asked for a glass of hot milk. She came down and got it for him; when she went back with it, Mr. Deane, according to what she told me next morning, was in his pyjamas and dressing gown, sitting in an easy chair and reading a book. He asked her to bring him some China tea and a dry biscuit at seven o'clock sharp next morning. She bade him good-night and went away, leaving him there sipping his hot milk, and reading his book-and there you are!"
"There he was--late on Monday night--anyway," remarked Shelmore. "Well-but let's get to seven o'clock, Tuesday morning. What about that?"
"Seven o'clock Tuesday morning, the chambermaid took up the tea and biscuits," continued Belling. "There was no response to her knock, so she went into the room. There was no one there. She thought Mr. Deane had gone to the bathroom, so she set down the tea and went away. But presently she took hot water there. Still he wasn't there. And we've never seen or heard of him since. As I said before, the last person who ever saw him in this house was the chambermaid, late on Monday night, when, apparently, he was about to get into bed--ready for bed, anyway!"
"Did the chambermaid notice if the bed had been slept in?" enquired Shelmore. "I mean on Tuesday morning?"
"Oh, yes! I asked her about that. It had. Certainly it had--I went up there myself afterwards and saw that it had."
Shelmore glanced at Miss Pretty. She was listening intently to the conversation, and already a puzzled look was fixing itself on her face. Suddenly she put a question to Belling, in prompt, direct fashion.
"When did you first miss my guardian?" she asked.
Belling gave Shelmore a smile which seemed to suggest that a man would more readily understand the situation than a woman.
"Well, miss," he replied, turning to his questioner, "probably not until the morning was well advanced. We had a good many guests in the house yesterday morning, and I was very busy. It was, I should say, about eleven o'clock before it suddenly struck me that I hadn't seen Mr. Deane about. Then I made enquiry of the chambermaid, and heard all that I've told you. She, of course, thought the gentleman had risen early and gone out for a walk before breakfast--so many gentlemen do."
"That means that his clothes had gone with him!" said Miss Pretty, sharply. "He wouldn't go out in his pyjamas! But did no one see him go out?"
"Yes," observed Shelmore, rising from his chair, "that's it!--did no one see him go out? Because he must have gone out between last thing at night and first thing next morning. But there's only one thing to do. Belling--we shall have to consult the police. I see your telephone's in the corner. You don't mind if I ring up the City Hall? There's no time to be lost in an affair of this sort."
He crossed over to the telephone...within a couple of minutes he turned to his companions. "That's all right." he said. "Mellapont's coming over himself--Superintendent Mellapont."
CHAPTER II
- WHAT ABOUT THE BED?
There presently strode into the landlord's private parlour a man, who, had he been in plain clothes instead of in a smart, tightly-fitting, black-braided blue uniform, would have been set down by nine people out of ten as a Life-Guardsman in mufti. A very tall, heavily-built man, with a keen, determined face, he turned a sharp, enquiring glance on Miss Cynthia Pretty in the same second wherein he nodded, half-carelessly, to Belling and Shelmore.
"Evening, Mr. Belling--even, Mr. Shelmore," he began. "What's all this?--gentleman disappeared from the Chancellor? This young lady's guardian, eh? Yes?--well. What are the surface facts, now?"
He dropped into a chair and sat, listening attentively, while Shelmore briefly explained matters. Then he turned alertly on the landlord.
"Why didn't you put yourself in communication with me, Mr. Belling, as soon as you missed this gentleman?" he asked, with something of judicial severity in his tone. "It's a good deal more than twenty-four hours since you missed him, and this is the first I've heard of it!"
Belling spread out his hands and shook his head.
"That's all very well, superintendent," he retorted, "but if you'd been in this business as many years as I have, you'd know that hotel guests do strange things! The only notion I had at first was that this gentleman had gone out for a walk, gone further than he intended, got breakfast somewhere, and would turn up for lunch at the usual time. I took the trouble to go up and look at his room, and saw that the bed had been slept in--that confirmed my first idea. Then, later, when he didn't come in, and as the