The other boarders shook their heads. Mrs. Yagoda paused while filling her own plate with eggs. “She hasn’t been down yet. Why?”
I swallowed. “She’s not in her room. And her things are still there—her pocketbook and shoes, I mean. Her bed’s not made, and I thought…” I trailed off. “We should call the police.”
*
“Now, Miss Parkhurst, was there a young man in Miss Vale’s life?” asked Detective Tilton.
I sat in the parlor, my hands clasped between my knees. A quick search of the house had turned up no sign of Irene, and Mrs. Yagoda reluctantly agreed to summon the police. They’d glanced in Irene’s room, tramped around the garden, and, with the exception of Tilton, departed.
“No,” I said, shaking my head vehemently. “That is, she had acquaintances, but no one special.”
“Mmhm.” Tilton didn’t seem convinced. He tucked his notepad back into his pocket without bothering to write anything in it. “Chances are she had a sweetheart you didn’t know about and decided to run off with him, before her parents could find out. I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually.”
I gaped at him. “She wouldn’t have left without her pocketbook! It still has all her money in it.”
“She probably just forgot it,” Tilton replied, rising to his feet.
“But—but she’s gone,” I protested, following him out of the parlor to the front door.
“She left,” he corrected me. “There was no sign of forced entry. No indication of an intruder. You already said she woke you up with a nightmare. If someone had abducted her from her own bed, don’t you think you would have heard the commotion?”
“Perhaps they used chloroform,” I suggested weakly.
“They would still have to enter the house in the first place. And lugging an unconscious woman about isn’t as easy as the dime novels make it sound.” We reached the front door, and Tilton offered me a smile he probably thought was reassuring. “We see this sort of thing all the time, Miss Parkhurst. Trust me. There’s no need to put worry lines on that pretty face.”
I stood helplessly in the doorway and watched him walk away, humming a jaunty tune to himself.
*
“You seem troubled, Miss Parkhurst,” Mr. Quinn said.
I gasped and spun, putting my back to Dr. Whyborne’s desk. I’d arrived late to work, but as Dr. Whyborne had left town on some business he hadn’t fully explained to me, no one noticed my absence. As he’d only arranged to be gone for a short time, I hadn’t been given a different assignment, and my work at the moment consisted mainly of sorting his mail.
Mr. Quinn stood near the door, peering about the office with his strange, pale eyes. As I watched, he extended one long-fingered hand and caressed the books on Dr. Whyborne’s shelf.
“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Quinn?” I asked. “Did Dr. Whyborne forget to return a volume to the library? I can help you find it.”
Dr. Whyborne was not, to put it plainly, organized, and his office reflected it. Since becoming his personal secretary, I’d tried to help straighten it, and succeeded only to the extent that he no longer kept things stacked haphazardly on the floor. Every other surface sported small mountains of books and papers, although at least he’d cleared off the visitor’s chair at some point. Or, more likely, Dr. Putnam-Barnett or Mr. Flaherty had.
“No.” Mr. Quinn crossed to the desk and stared at Dr. Whyborne’s chair. “Sometimes I like to come in here, when no one else is around, and…contemplate.”
I made a mental note to suggest Dr. Whyborne have the lock to his office changed. “I…see.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I imagine you do. Not like that disagreeable fellow at the theater last night.” He sniffed delicately.
“Mr. Young?” I asked.
“Yes, quite. I don’t imagine he’ll stay long. He has neither the blood nor the temperament.” Mr. Quinn glanced at me, as though he hadn’t said anything particularly strange. “Is that what troubles you?”
“No.” I hesitated. Surely Mr. Quinn wasn’t really interested in my problems. But he’d asked, and I felt the need to unburden myself. “Irene Vale—the woman who was with us at the theater last night—is missing.” My shoulders drooped. “The police say she must have run away with a beau, but she wouldn’t have left her pocketbook and all her things behind if that were true. There’s no evidence anyone took her, though. It’s…strange.”
I glanced up to see Mr. Quinn watching me with unblinking eyes. “How fascinating,” he said. “I take it there was no sign of spontaneous combustion?”
“Dear heavens, no!”
“Pity. Do go on.”
“There’s nothing to go on with,” I confessed. “She had strange nightmares, and then she was gone.”
“Nightmares, you say.” Mr. Quinn tapped his chin with a spidery finger. “I do love a good nightmare, but I find most lack appreciation for them.”