CHAPTER NINETEEN

THEY missed her at Nuns Farthing, of course, by tea time. Hilary heard them calling her in the garden, in the passage, and began to wonder too. At five o’clock Mrs. Pilton came up and looked in at his door, to see if Sabrina had fallen asleep up there. With one inscrutable glance round the empty room, she closed the door and went away again.

A little later he went out and sat on his stairs, listening. He was by no means as alarmed as Aunt Effie, with Switzerland on her guilty conscience, but he wanted to keep track of things. While he sat there, shamelessly waiting to eavesdrop, Aunt Effie came upstairs and went into Sabrina’s room. In a few minutes she came out again and hurried downstairs towards the study. Hilary followed to the top of the lower flight.

“Alan! Alan!” cried Aunt Effie at the study door. “Her dressing-case is gone, and her toilet things! She packed them up! She’s run away! Now will you ring up the police at Wells and give them a description?”

Father’s reply was inaudible to Hilary at the top of the stairs.

“Well, you’d better ring them up first and get them started on it. Say we’ll be there directly after dinner.  I’ll go and bring the car round now.”

Again Father was inaudible.

“Why, just tell them what she looks like and how old she is and when she was last seen!” said Aunt Effie impatiently. “You ought to know as much as that about your own daughter! She was wearing a blue dress and she took her tan-colored coat.”

Packed a bag and bolted, wondered Hilary, beginning to be concerned. Something on her mind. Something for which Aunt Effie was probably to blame.

He hung about the stairhead while they ate a hasty and unhappy meal, and before they had finished he ran down through the lower hall and got into the rumble seat of the waiting car. Whatever it was, he meant to be in on it from now on. He had no intention of sitting at home while they chivvied Sabrina round the countryside.

In a few minutes they came out, accompanied by Bella, who eyed the car with aversion and went off into fits of shrill yapping. Aunt Effie was distressed and inclined to argue with her.

“Oh, leave the dog at home, for heaven’s sake!” said Father furiously, from his seat in front.

“But usually she likes to ride, Alan! I can’t think what makes her act this way!”

“It’s hysterical,” said Father conclusively. “Probably needs to go to the vet. Do come along, Effie, we shall be all night at this rate!”

Very unwillingly Aunt Effie took her place behind the wheel, and they drove away, leaving Bella outraged and shrieking in the driveway.