‘They closed the door, but after a short time one of the policemen emerged and departed, leaving the other inside. Alone, you understand, with Miss Trent. I nearly went to her aid but I did not like to as they had bade me gone. At any rate, the first constable returned after some little time and brought with him a nurse and a doctor, or such I took them to be, and after a short time again they all emerged and this time poor Miss Trent was with them and I cried out in dismay when I saw her, for she was in a dreadful way, quite unconscious and needing to be carried. What the matter was, nor how long she had been in such a way, I cannot say, nor what transpired afterwards, for they did not return and there was no one to ask. It has been quite a mystery. Though …’

And here she paused, wrinkling her brow and placing a finger on her bridge of her spectacles.

‘There was an incident last night. A drunken man came to her door and then, I believe, later attempted to break in via the rear garden—but whether it was the same man outside as the man who came to the door, I cannot say.’

She faltered as it seemed to dawn on her that the man who had come to the door last night was quite likely the man she now faced in her doorway. She looked at him doubtfully, and withdrew a little into her hallway.

Alasdair almost advanced after her but held back. ‘But where did they take her—do you know?’

‘It would be the hospital, would it not? The Sydney Hospital.’

‘And she was alive, you said, when they brought her out?’

‘Yes, to be sure. But that was three days ago.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: CINNAMON BISCUITS

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CINNAMON BISCUITS

That afternoon three ladies called for Mrs Dunlevy: Mrs Pyke, breathless in a hat crowded with clusters of glazed fruit; Mrs Rothe, who had never been breathless in her life, magnificent in white lace and ruffles; and Miss Dempsey in a prim white blouse and skirt. Like a shop girl, thought Alice, who was doubtful about any woman who kept house for an unmarried brother rather than find a husband for herself, though she liked the brother, Mr Ned Dempsey, as he had smiled at her once and placed a coin in the palm of her hand. In the drawing room Mrs Dunlevy waited with the silver tea things and Mrs Flynn’s cinnamon biscuits, freshly baked that morning.

‘That Miss Dempsey do not like my cinnamon biscuits,’ observed Mrs Flynn darkly when Alice had returned to the kitchen and relayed the names of the callers to her. ‘She complained last time they were not moist enough for her liking and though she liked cinnamon as a rule, she did not care for it in a biscuit.’