probability Ulrica Doyle had known, before she left, of her cousin’s disappearance. True, she had been to look for her, so that she could bid her good-bye, but it seemed incredible that, missing her in her usual haunts, she had not enquired of the members of her form to know where she might be found; and if she had done this, she must have learned of her disappearance from the recreation room during the second part of the afternoon. She probably knew, too, of her cousin’s illness of the previous afternoon and night, and ought to have made some attempt to find out how she was, and whether she had gone to bed again.
She turned to Maria Gartez.
“Did Ulrica know that Mary was lost?” she demanded.
“She said that somebody told her her cousin had been ill,” said Maria. “She went to find her directly after tea.”
“
“I did not ask. We played chess.”
“Yes, I know you did. What did she say when she came back?”
“I think she said: ‘You have the board ready. I will have black. Black will win.’ I do not remember anything else that she said.”
“So you settled down to play, and were still playing when I found you?”
“Yes. It was almost time to go to preparation when you came. I was very glad you came. I do not like preparation.”
“I see. You ought to have been at preparation whilst you were playing with me?”
“Yes. Ulrica had an excuse. She was to get ready to depart. I made it an excuse to play with you. Thank you very much for a very enjoyable game.” She curtsied. Her dark eyes were grave. She seemed perfectly serious.
“And she didn’t say a word about her cousin?”
“No. But about the board.”
“I see. Thank you, Maria. That is all.”
The Spanish child curtsied and, this time, went away. Meanwhile the Mother Superior had sent Sister Genevieve, the boarders’ matron, and Sister Lucia, the assistant Infirmarian, for the police. They were to walk across the moor to the village and to telephone to Kelsorrow from there. They were not to use the guesthouse telephone for fear of alarming the stepmother of the child.
Pending the arrival of the police, other search parties were formed. Reverend Mother Superior herself went into the boarders’ dormitory to do night-duty, and the older nuns and lay-sisters Catherine and Magdalene were left behind. Old Sister Catherine, they thought, could not help in any way; Sister Magdalene was to open the convent gate to the police and explain to them, more fully than could be done in a telephone call, exactly what had happened.
Then one party headed by Mother Benedict and including Mrs. Bradley, and the other headed by Mother Simon-Zelotes and including Mother Francis, set out to search the neighbourhood. Mrs. Bradley’s party carried the convent handbells, five in all, and the other party had whistles used in games periods. It was expected that enough noise would be made to keep the searchers in touch with one another and to warn the missing child of the approach of friends if she had wandered away and got lost. Mrs. Bradley had her electric torch and two spare batteries, and Mother Benedict carried a hurricane lamp. The others in their party, following two by two as long as the nature of the country allowed of this conventual method of progress, were absolutely silent. They were to explore the cliff-top and the sea-shore, and Mrs. Bradley wondered, as she led the way with Mother Benedict, whether theirs or that of the other party, who were to comb the heights and hollows of the moorland, was the more unpleasant and dangerous task.
Soon it became impracticable to continue in the close and unproductive formation of the crocodile, and so, obeying orders, the searchers spread, half of them circling round Mrs. Bradley and her torch, the rest with Mother Benedict and her lamp.
Apart from almost frightening a tramp to death, their search of the cliff-top in the direction of Hiversand Bay had no result whatever. They went back along the path until they came to a place where steps had been cut to make a descent to the beach. Here the two groups separated completely, Mrs. Bradley and her followers to go down to the shore, the others to continue the search along the cliffs and to try the opposite direction.
All were tired but unflagging, and Mrs. Bradley, not for the first time, admired without stint the soldierly courage and cheerfulness of the religious, as, impeded, one would suppose, by their habits, stumbling often in the unevenness of the way, they carried out the thorough, patient search. The thought in her own mind was that all her theories had been false; that the mysteries bore another character from that with which she had been crediting them, and that Mary Maslin was dead, and through her negligence.
She could hear Mother Benedict praying as they went down the dangerous path, not for her own safety— although, in that wild search, and in the darkness, all of them risked their lives—but for the health, life and safety of the child.
The path kept turning on itself in sharp-angled bends. The steps were unevenly cut and were slippery with rain. Twice Mrs. Bradley saved Mother Benedict from falling, and twice Mother Benedict saved her. The sound of the sea grew louder. A table of tides had indicated that they would reach the shore on an outgoing tide, and soon they were walking on shingle and stumbling on great heaps of seaweed, wet, salt and sticky, and of hideous, fishy fleshiness, left high by the out-going sea.
The sea boomed on the rocks which it was gradually uncovering. They could see them as they approached— great black shapes like leviathans sleeping in the waters, up to the buttocks in the brine which leapt at their heads and fell back, foaming and streaming. Even by night the sky was pale above the water, but the towering cliffs shut out the heavens to the south, for the convent faced north to the sea, owing to the shape of the bay on which it was built.
Clanging their bells like lepers warning the unspotted, or like those in charge of the “dead cart” in time of plague, the untidy little procession, weary, wet-footed, wet-skirted, muddy and hoarse—for they called the child’s name in addition to ringing the bells—walked for four miles up the coast, until they were two miles beyond the convent. Here the cliff was lower, and farther on it disappeared in sand-dunes covered with rough, spiked grass. Their shoes were full of sand, and they sat down as soon as they came to firm ground, and shook out the sand before they continued their journey. About a mile farther on, they heard the sound of a bicycle bell. Its continuous ringing attracted their attention. It was to bring them news that the child was found. The young policeman who was
