Missing From Home by Mary Burchell Page A

herself to make the right reply.
    “If he thinks I just didn’t see—”
    “Clare!” He was beside her now, just a trifle out of breath. “I’m sorry I was so long. I ran into a friend from Munich who has just arrived in London.”
    “Did you really?” She managed to look at him with just exactly the right amount of passing interest. Nothing m ore, nothing less. “There wasn’t any message, of course ? ”
    “No, I’m afraid not. It wasn’t very likely, you know. Don’t be too disappointed.”
    “I’m not disappointed,” she assured him. And to herself she said, “It’s just that all the joy’s gone out of me again. And not only for Pat.”
    “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to drive you home ? ”
    “Quite sure, thank you. And I’m grateful for your coming with me this morning.”
    “It was the least I could do !”
    She supposed it was. Even if a beautiful, well - dressed woman from Munich also had claims upon his attention.
    “Besides, I wanted to come,” he reminded her urgently. “And we still have to decide what else we should do about Pat. I’ll come round this evening—or tomorrow, shall I ? ”
    “What else can we do?” She sounded bitterly dispirited again. “We know she’s in no physical danger, as you said. She’s gone away of her own accord. Presumably she will come back—if at all—in her own time.”
    “Don’t talk like that!” he cried in a shocked tone. “As though you’re almost resigned to her staying away.”
    “But if people choose to go away—and stay away — there isn’t very much anyone else can do about it, is there, Greg?”
    He looked uncomfortable, then a trifle resentful. “We could still go to the police,” he insisted. “She’s under age and still the responsibility of her parents.”
    “Oh, those phrases don’t cut so much ice as when we were young,” Clare exclaimed sadly. “Provided we have no reason to think she is in danger—”
    “We don’t know if she is in danger or not,” he cried, suddenly reversing all his comforting arguments of an hour ago. “We know she was physically capable of marching out of that hotel in Westcliff just an hour or so before we came in. But we don’t know where she is and why she went—or with whom she went. Anything could have happened, even since then. We can’t just leave things there. What’s the matter, Clare? It’s as though all the life and determination had suddenly gone out of you.”
    “Perhaps it has. I feel so—so tired and dispirited. I can’t think or make plans any more. I’ll feel better when I’ve had some lunch, I expect. It’s late and—”
    “Stay and have lunch with me here,” he said impulsively.
    But she experienced such a revulsion of feeling at the very idea of being under the same roof as that woman—perhaps having to meet her—that she cried, “Oh, no!” with such distasteful emphasis that he recoiled.
    “Well, of course not if you feel so strongly about it,” he said stiffly.
    “It isn’t that! Oh, Greg, I’m sorry.” Too late she put a placatory hand on his arm, but her confused air gave little support to her apology. “It’s just that I must go home to Marilyn now. She’ll be wondering what has happened. She too has her anxieties, poor child.”
    “Yes, of course.”
    He followed her out of the hotel and saw her into the car. She wondered if she imagined, or actually detected, a faint degree of relief in his manner now that he was parting company with her.
    “I’ll come this evening,” he assured her. “Or, if not, I’ll phone and we can decide on a meeting tomorrow to discuss things.”
    “Very well.” She managed to smile faintly before she drove away. But she supposed that his “if not” covered alternative arrangements that he might very well make to spend the evening with the woman who had greeted him so warmly.
    Marilyn was very sweet and sympathetic when she reached home. She had lunch ready and listened with utmost attention to