XXVIIJim went straight back to Miss Silver.
“No one knows anything about her. She has simply vanished,” he said.
Miss Silver picked up her knitting and sat in silence for a minute or two. Then she looked up at him standing on her hearthrug and said,
“It would be better if you sat down, Mr. Fancourt.”
“I don’t feel as if I could.”
“Nevertheless it will be better ... Thank you. What do you think has happened?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought the whole way up in the train. It seems to me there are only two ways of it. Either she went off herself, or she was taken.”
“That is reasonable.”
“If she went off herself, why did she leave her purse?”
“She could have been in a very great hurry.”
“What hurry?”
“That we do not know. But you say that yesterday when you went down something had happe
