His thoughts swung to Miss Maud Silver who had done the trick again. “She knows people. She starts where we leave off. Sees something—discerns some motive, some mainspring, and then starts looking for the evidence. I suppose that’s the way it works, but I don’t know. She had nothing to go on here that I can see, and yet it all fits in. Well, I suppose we must be thankful this girl turned up before the inquest. We’d have made a holy show if she’d come along afterwards!”
He turned to look at Miss Silver, and met her warm and friendly smile. They sat on in silence, each with his own thoughts, until the door opened a little more quickly than it had closed. Frank Abbott, extraordinarily pale, halted upon the threshold and said in a hard, controlled voice,
“She isn’t in the house. Judy’s gone
