Poverty, perhaps; but then Judy would have enough and to spare when Howard died.
And Howard had already had one attack of angina pectoris that I knew of, and others possibly which he had concealed.
Judy was clearly very much in love.
Indeed, I felt that she could hardly keep her hands off the boy; that she wanted to touch his sleeve or rumple his hair; and that he, more shyly, less sure of himself, was quite desperately in love with her.
But he was business-like enough about the case. He wanted the story, or such part of it as he might have.
“It will leak out somehow,” he said.
“Probably Harrison will give it out himself; they’ll give out something, anyhow.
Somebody may have seen her, you know.
A lot of missing people are turned up that way.”
We were still arguing the matter, Judy taking Dick’s side of it, of course, when Jim Blake came in.
I can recall that scene now; the tap-tap of the glazier’s hammer as he repaired the broken pane in the drawing room, the lowered voices of Judy and Dick from the music room, whither they had retired with alacrity after Judy had dutifully kissed her uncle, and Jim Blake himself, sitting neatly in his chair, pale gray spats, gray tie, gray bordered silk handkerchief, and hair brushed neatly over his bald spot, explaining that he had felt ill that morning or he would have come earlier.
“Just the old trouble,” he said, and I noticed that he mopped his forehead.
“This wet weather—”
Some years ago he had been thrown from a borrowed hunter and had sprained his back.
Judy had always maintained that his frequent retirements to his bed as a result were what she called “too much food and drink.” But that day he looked really ill.
“Tell me about Sarah,” he said, and lighted a cigar with hands that I thought were none too steady.
He did not interrupt me until I had finished.
“You’ve had the police, you say?”
“I have indeed.
What else could I do?”
“Katherine doesn’t want it to get into the newspapers.”
“Why not?
There’s no family disgrace in it, is there? That’s idiotic.”
He took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead again.
“It’s queer, any way you take it.
You say Wallie was here last night?
What does he think?”
“He seems to think it’s mighty important to find her. As of course it is.”
“And she’d tied the dogs to a tree?
That’s curious.
Just where did you say they were?”
He sat silent for some time after that.
Judy was banging the piano in the next room, and the noise seemed to bother him.
“Infernal din!” he said querulously. And after a pause:
“How is Howard?
What does Judy think about him?”
“I don’t believe she knows very much.
He’s a secretive person; Katherine is worried, I know that.”
He seemed to ponder that, turning his cigar in his long, well-kept fingers.
“This girl who telephoned, this Florence, she hasn’t been identified yet?
They haven’t traced the call?”
“Not so far as I know.”
Asked later on to recall Jim Blake’s attitude that day, if it was that of an uneasy man, I was obliged to say that it was. Yet at the time it did not occur to me.
He was an orderly soul, his life tidily and comfortably arranged, and what I felt then was that this thing with its potentialities of evil had disturbed him, his small plans, possibly for that very afternoon, the cheerful routine of his days.
“I suppose they’ve searched the lot next door, and the park?”
“Inspector Harrison has been over it.”
He sat for some time after that, apparently thoughtful.
I realize now that he was carefully framing his next question.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “when was Howard here last?
Has he been here recently?”