Blackie heard this, and returned with the lemonade on a small tin tray.

Once they had their glasses in their hands, Blackie said, “Come on then, Finn, spill it! What’s wrong? I can see ye are troubled.”

After a quick sip of lemonade, Finn said in a low tone, “It’s about Gwen. She never went home last night. Alf came ter tell me early on this morning, very edgy. Then he went back to get her mother. Mrs. Turner was upset, crying, and wailing. She and Alf had gone to the police station in Wortley Road. I ’spect they’re still at the station.”

Patrick exclaimed, “What are you saying, Finn? That Gwen has disappeared?”

Finn nodded. “In the blink of an eye.”

Blackie said, “Seemingly inter thin air. Ye see, last night, when Alf went ter pick her up from her house, ter go ter the Dance Hall, her mother explained she’d just left, gone on her own.”

“I see. What the plan was, they’d go together, is that it?” Patrick asked.

“That’s what Alf told us when he came to the Dance Hall, looking for her. He looked bothered,” Finn explained.

Blackie interjected, “She was there at one moment, ’cos Sarah Clough saw her going to the ladies’; then later Sarah had spotted her sitting alone drinking a lemonade.” Blackie glanced at Finn. “And ye said ye saw her leave, sure and ye told me that, and Sarah too.”

“When did Alf arrive?” Patrick wondered aloud.

“Mebbe ten minutes later. So they can’t have met outside, because they’d have come back into the Dance Hall,” Finn pointed out.

“True enough,” Blackie said. “And when Alf came in alone, he said there was not one soul on Town Street and he’d have bumped inter her if she’d been going home.”

“I understand, and so what did Alf do after that?”

“He said he’d go and look in the streets around Ridge Road,” Finn told Patrick, pulling a face. “So we volunteered to go too.”

“I see. And there was no sight of her, was there?”

“No, Uncle Patrick, there weren’t no one about last night. Empty streets. So we broke up. It was dark by then and I walked Sarah home.” A deep sigh escaped Blackie and a grim expression settled on his face as he added, “’Tis a mystery ter me, on the heads of the Blessed Saints it is, and it don’t bode well with me either. Something’s amiss here.”

Patrick stared at his nephew, a puzzled look crossing his face. “Are you suggesting some sort of foul play?” he finally ventured, not liking the sound of this story at all. It alarmed him. And he was concerned about the lad who worked for him.

Blackie took a deep breath and plunged. “I can’t help thinking she was grabbed, taken.”