Superintendent Bell looked at him compassionately. “And I’m sure I hope you’re right, sir,” he said. “But it don’t look that way to me. If she wanted to disappear for a joke why did she go and do it like this? These young ladies on the stage, they value their comforts. She goes off walking at night with nothing but what she stood up in. If you ask me to believe she meant to do the vanishing act when she went out of her house, I can’t see how it’s likely.”
“Strictly speakin’,” said Reggie, “nothing’s likely. Why did she go out, Bell? To keep an appointment with her murderer?”
“I don’t see my way, sir. I own it. But there’s her garden goes down to the river--suppose she just tumbled into the water--she might be there now.”
“The bag,” said Reggie dreamily. “The bag, Bell. It didn’t float upstream, and yet we found it above her garden. She couldn’t have been walking along the bank. The towpath is the other side. The bag came into the river from a boat--or from the grounds of another house.”
Lomas laughed. “My dear Fortune, I like your earnest simplicity. It’s a new side to your character and full of charm. I quite agree the bag is interesting. I think it’s conclusive. A neat and pretty touch. The little lady threw it into the river to give her disappearance glamour.”
“Rather well thrown,” said Reggie. “Say a quarter of a mile. Hefty damsel.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, she may have taken a boat, she may have crossed and walked up the towpath.”
“Just to get her bag into the river above her house? Why would she want to put it in above her house? She couldn’t be sure that it would stay there. It might have sunk. It might have drifted a mile farther.”
Lomas shrugged. “Well, as you say. But we don’t know that the bag was lost that night at all. She may have dropped it out of a boat any time and anywhere.”
“Yes, but plenty of boats go up and down that reach. And we found it bright and early the morning after she vanished. Why didn’t anybody else find it before? I rather fancy it wasn’t there, Lomas.”
“What’s your theory, Mr. Fortune?” said Bell eagerly.
“My dear fellow! Oh, my dear fellow! I don’t know the lady.”
“They say she’s a sportive maiden,” Lomas smiled. “I’ll wager you’ll have a run for your money, Bell.”