be ready, then, when you came round." His two equally sandy sisters
clucked their approval.

"All serene," Ronnie agreed.

He was on the bottom step of the stairs when the Hall door was thrown wide
open and Frank Jervaise returned.

He stood there a moment, posed for us, searching the ladder of our
gallery; and the spirit of the night-stock drifted past him and lightly
touched us all as it fled up the stairs. Then he came across the Hall, and
addressing his sister, asked, in a voice that overstressed the effect of
being casual, "I say, Olive, you don't happen to know where Brenda is, do
you?"

I suppose our over-soul knew everything in that minute. A tremor of dismay
ran up our ranks like the sudden passing of a cold wind. Every one was
looking at Ronnie.

Olive Jervaise's reply furnished an almost superfluous corroboration. She
could not control her voice. She tried to be as casual as her brother, and
failed lamentably. "Brenda was here just now," she said. "She--she must be
somewhere about."

Ronnie, still the cynosure of the swarm, turned himself about and stared
at Frank Jervaise. But it was Gordon Hughes who demonstrated his power of
quick inference and response, although in doing it he overstepped the
bounds of decency by giving a voice to our suspicions.

"Is the car in the garage? Your own car?" he asked.