Hewitt knelt and examined the toys without disturbing them. They were of very good quality, and represented a farmyard, with horses, carts, ducks, geese and cows complete. One of the carts had had a string attached so that it might be pulled along the floor.
“Now,” Hewitt said, rising, “you think, Mrs. Seton, that the child could not have toddled through the passage, and so into some other part of the house, without you hearing him?”
“Well,” Mrs. Seton answered with indecision, “I thought so at first, but I begin to doubt. Because he _must_ have done so, I suppose.”
They went into the passage. The door of the large morning-room was four or five yards further toward the passage leading to the hall, and on the opposite side. “The floor in this passage,” Hewitt observed, “is rather thickly carpeted. See here, I can walk on it at a good pace without noise.”
Mrs. Seton assented. “Of course,” she said, “if he got past here he might have got anywhere about the house, and so into the grounds. There is a veranda outside the drawing-room, and doors in various places.’
“Of course the grounds have been completely examined?”
“The weather has been very dry, unfortunately,” Hewitt said, “and it would be useless for me to look for footprints on your hard gravel, especially of so small a child. Let us come back to the room. Is the French window fastened as you found it?”
The French window was, as is usual, one of two casements joining in the centre and fastened by bolts top and bottom. “It is not your habit, I see,” Hewitt observed, “to open both halves of the window.”
“No; one side is always fastened, the other we secure by the bottom bolt because the catch of the handle doesn’t always act properly.”
“And you found that bolt fastened as I see it now?”
Hewitt lifted the bolt and opened the door. Four or five steps led parallel with the face of the wall to a sort of path which ran the whole length of the house on this side, and was only separated from a quiet public lane by a low fence and a thin hedge. Almost opposite a small, light gate stood in the fence, firmly padlocked.
“I see,” Hewitt remarked, “your house is placed close against one side of the grounds. Is that the side gate which you always keep locked?”