It detected one at once. The nursery was empty. According to schedule,
the child should have been taking his bath.
She went downstairs again. Keggs was waiting in the hall. He had
foreseen this return. He had allowed her to go upstairs with his story
but half heard because that appealed to his artistic sense. This story,
to his mind, was too good to be bolted at a sitting; it was the ideal
serial.
"Keggs."
"Madam?"
"Where is Master William?"
"I fear I do not know, madam."
"When did he go out? It is seven o'clock; he should have been in an
hour ago."
"I have been making inquiries, madam, and I regret to inform you that
nobody appears to have seen Master William all day."
"What?"
"It not being my place to follow his movements, I was unaware of this
until quite recently, but from conversation with the other domestics, I
find that he seems to have disappeared!"
"Disappeared?"
A glow of enjoyment such as he had sometimes experienced when the
ticker at the Cadillac Hotel informed him that the man he had backed in
some San Francisco fight had upset his opponent for the count began to
permeate Keggs.
"Disappeared, madam," he repeated.
"Perhaps Mrs. Winfield took him with her to Tuxedo."
"No, madam. Mrs. Winfield was alone. I was present when she drove
away."
"Send Mamie to me at once," said Mrs.
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