“I don’t think so,” Mrs. Banbrock said thoughtfully. “I didn’t connect the two things at all. They didn’t really quarrel with their father, you know. It wasn’t harsh enough to be called a quarrel.”
“Did you see them when they left?”
“Assuredly! They left at about half-past twelve Friday afternoon. They kissed me as usual when they went, and there was certainly nothing in their manner to suggest anything out of the ordinary.”
“You’ve no idea at all where they might have gone?”
“None.”
“Can’t even make a guess?”
“I can’t. Among the names and addresses I have given you are some of friends and relatives of the girls in other cities. They may have gone to one of those. Do you think we should—?”
“I’ll take care of that,” I promised. “Could you pick out one or two of them as the most likely places for the girls to have gone?”
She wouldn’t try it.
“No,” she said positively, “I could not.”
From this interview I went back to the agency, and put the agency machinery in motion; arranging to have operatives from some of the Continental’s other branches call on the out-of-town names on my list; having the missing Locomobile put on the police department list; turning one photograph of each girl over to a photographer to be copied.
That done, I set out to talk to the persons on the list Mrs. Banbrock had given me. My first call was on a Constance Delee, in an apartment