“We expected them home yesterday,” Alfred Banbrock wound up his story. “When they had not come by this morning, my wife telephoned Mrs. Walden. Mrs. Walden said they had not been down there—had not been expected, in fact.”
“On the face of it, then,” I suggested, “it seems that your daughters went away of their own accord, and are staying away on their own accord?”
Banbrock nodded gravely. Tired muscles sagged in his fleshy face.
“It would seem so,” he agreed. “That is why I came to your agency for help instead of going to the police.”
“Have they ever disappeared before?”
“No. If you read the papers and magazines, you’ve no doubt seen hints that the younger generation is given to irregularity. My daughters came and went pretty much as they pleased. But, though I can’t say I ever knew what they were up to, we always knew where they were in a general way.”
“Can you think of any reason for their going away like this?”
He shook his weary head.
“Any recent quarrels?” I probed.
“N⸺” He changed it to: “Yes—although I didn’t attach any importance to it, and wouldn’t have recalled it if you hadn’t jogged my memory. It was Thursday evening—the evening before they went away.”
“And it was about—?”