The newcomer stopped short on the threshold as she caught sight of a stranger, and she glanced with sharp inquisitiveness at Copplestone as he rose from his chair.
"Oh!I supposed you were alone, Mrs. Wooler," she exclaimed. "You usually are, you know, so I came in anyhowsorry!"
"Come in," said the landlady. "Don't go, Mr. Copplestone. This is Miss Adela Chatfield. Your father has just been to see this gentleman, Addieperhaps he told you?"
Addie Chatfield dropped into a chair at Mrs. Wooler's side, and looked the stranger over slowly and carefully.
"No," she answered. "My father didn't tell mehe doesn't tell me anything about his own affairs. All his talk is about minethe iniquity of them, and so on."
She showed a fine set of even white teeth as she made this remark, and her eyes sought Copplestone's again with a direct challenge. Copplestone looked calmly at her, half-smiling; he was beginning, in his youthful innocence, to think that he already understood this type of young woman. And seeing him smile, Addie also smiled.
"Now I wonder whatever my father wanted to see you about?" she said, with a strong accent on the personal pronoun. "For you don't look his sort, and he certainly isn't yoursunless you're deceptive."
"Perhaps I am," responded Copplestone, still keeping his eyes on her. "Your father wanted to see me about the strange disappearance of Mr. Bassett Oliver. That was all."
The girl's glance, bold and challenging, suddenly shifted before Copplestone's steady look. She half turned to Mrs. Wooler, and her colour rose a little.
"I've heard of that," she said, with an affectation of indifference. "And as I happen to know a bit of Bassett Oliver, I don't see what all this fuss is about. I should say Bassett Oliver took it into his head to go off somewhere yesterday on a little game of his own, and that he's turned up at Norcaster by this time, and is safe in his dressing-room, or on the stage. That's my notion."
"I wish I could think it the correct one," replied Copplestone. "But we can soon find out if it isthere's a telephone in the hall. YetI'm so sure that you're wrong, that I'm not even going to ring Norcaster up. Mr. Bassett Oliver hasdisappeared here!"
"Are you a member of his company?" asked Addie, again looking Copplestone over with speculative glances.
"Not at all! I'm a humble person whose play Mr. Oliver was about to produce next month, in consequence of which I came down to see him, and to find this state of affairs. Andhaving nothing else to doI'm now here to help to find himalive or dead."
"Oh!" said Addie. "Soyou're a writer?"
"I understand that you are an actress?" responded Copplestone. "I wonder if I've ever seen you anywhere?"
Addie bowed her head and gave him a sharp glance.
"Evidently not!" she retorted. "Or you wouldn't wonder! As if anybody could forget me, once they'd seen me! I believe you're pulling my leg, though. Do you live in town?"
"I live," replied Copplestone slowly and with affected solemnity, "in chambers in Jermyn Street."
"And do you mean to tell me that you didn't see me last year in The Clever Lady Hartletop?" she exclaimed.
Copplestone put the tips of his fingers together and his head on one side and regarded her critically.
"What part did you play?" he asked innocently.
"Part? Why, the part, of course!" she retorted. "Goodness! Why, I created it! And played it to crowded houses for nearly two hundred nights, too!"
"Ah!" said Copplestone. "But I'll make a confession to you. I rarely visit the theatre. I never saw Lady Hartletop. I haven't been in a theatre of any sort for two years. So you must forgive me. I congratulate you on your success."
Addie received this tribute with a mollified smile, which changed to a glance of surprised curiosity.
"You never go to the theatre?and yet you write plays!" she exclaimed. "That's queer, isn't it? But I believe writing people are queerthey look it, anyhow. All the same, you don't look like a writerwhat does he look like, Mrs. Wooler? Oh, I knowa sort of nice little officer boy, just washed and tidied up!"
The landlady, who had evidently enjoyed this passage at arms, laughed as she gave Copplestone a significant glance.
"And when did you come down home, Addie?" she asked quietly. "I didn't know you were here again."
"Came down Saturday night," said Addie. "I'm on my way to Edinburghbusiness there on Wednesday. So I broke the journey herejust to pay my respects to my worshipful parent."
"I think I heard you say that you knew Mr. Bassett Oliver?" asked Copplestone. "You've met him?"
"Met him in this country and in America," replied Addie, calmly. "He was on tour over there when I wasthree years ago. We were in two or three towns together at the same timedifferent houses, of course. I never saw much of him in London, though."
"You didn't see anything of him yesterday, here?" suggested Copplestone.
Addie stared and glanced at the landlady.
"Here?" she exclaimed. "Goodness, no! When I'm here of a Sunday, I lie in bed all day, or most of it. Otherwise, I'd have to walk with my parent to the family pew. Nomy Sundays are days of rest! You really think this disappearance is serious?"
"Oliver's managerswho know him best, of coursethink it most serious," replied Copplestone. "They say that nothing but an accident of a really serious nature would have kept him from his engagements."
"Then that settles it!" said Addie. "He's fallen down the Devil's Spout. Plain as plain can be, that! He's made his way there, been a bit too daring, and slipped over the edge. And whoever falls in there never comes out again!isn't that it, Mrs. Wooler?"
"That's what they say," answered the landlady.
"But I don't remember any accident at the Devil's Spout in my time."
"Well, there's been one now, anywaythat's flat," remarked Addie. "Poor old BassettI'm sorry for him! Well, I'm off. Good-night, Mr. Copplestoneand perhaps you'll so far overcome your repugnance to the theatre as to come and see me in one some day?"
"Supposing I escort you homeward insteadnow?" suggested Copplestone. "That will at least show that I am ready to become your devoted"
"Admirer, I suppose," said Addie. "I'm afraid he's not quite as innocent as he looks, Mrs. Wooler. Wellyou can escort me as far as the gates of the park, thenI daren't take you further, because it's so dark in there that you'd surely lose your way, and then there'd be a second disappearance and all sorts of complications."
She went out of the inn, laughing and chattering, but once outside she suddenly became serious, and she involuntarily laid her hand on Copplestone's arm as they turned down the hillside towards the quay.
"I say!" she said in a low voice. "I wasn't going to ask questions in there, butwhat's going to be done about this Oliver affair? Of course you're stopping here to do something. What?"
Copplestone hesitated before answering this direct question. He had not seen anything which would lead him to suppose that Miss Adela Chatfield was a disingenuous and designing young woman, but she was certainly Peeping Peter's daughter, and the old man, having failed to get anything out of Copplestone himself, might possibly have sent her to see what she could accomplish. He replied noncommittally.
"I'm not in a position to do anything," he said. "I'm not a relativenot even a personal friend. I daresay you know that Bassett Oliver wasone's already talking of him in the past tense!the brother of Rear-Admiral Sir Cresswell Oliver, the famous seaman?"
"I knew he was a man of what they call family, but I didn't know that," she answered. "What of it?"