“Miss Slade!” she exclaimed.  “Impossible, sir!  Miss Slade is a young lady of the very highest respectability—­she has resided in this hotel for three years!”

“I am quite prepared to believe that a residence of three months under your roof is enough to confer an irreproachable character on any one, ma’am,” replied the chief with a polite smile.  “But the fact remains, I have here a warrant for Miss Slade’s arrest—­never mind on what charge—­and here another empowering me to search her room or rooms, her trunk, any property she has in this house.  And as time presses I must ask you to give us every facility in the performance of our unpleasant duty.  But first a question or two.  Miss Slade is not at home?”

“She is not!” replied the manageress emphatically.

“And I think she did not return home last night?” suggested the chief.

“No—­she didn’t,” assented the much perplexed woman.  “That’s quite true.”

“Was that unusual?” asked the chief.

The manageress bit her lip.  She did not want to talk, but she had a vague idea that the law compelled speech.

“Well, I don’t know what it’s all about,” she said, “and I don’t want to say anything that would bring trouble to Miss Slade, but—­it was unusual.  For two reasons.  I’ve never known Miss Slade to be away from here for a night except when she went for her usual month’s holiday, and I’m surprised that she should stop away without giving me word or sending a telephone message.”

“Then her absence was unusual,” said the chief smiling.  “Now, was there anything else that was unusual, last night—­in connection with it?”

The manageress started and looked at her visitor as if she half suspected him of possessing the power of seeing through brick walls.

“Well,” she said, a little reluctantly, “there was certainly another of our guests away last night, too—­one who scarcely ever is away, and certainly never without letting us know that he’s going away.  And it’s quite true he’s a very great friend of Miss Slade’s—­somebody did say, jokingly, this morning, that perhaps they’d run away and got married.”

“Ah!” said the chief, with another smile.  “I scarcely think Miss Slade would contract such an important engagement at this moment, she has evidently much else to think about.  But now let us see Miss Slade’s apartment, if you please, and I shall be obliged to you, ma’am, if you will accompany us.”

Not only did the manageress accompany them, but the manager also, who just then arrived and was filled with proper horror to hear that such things were happening.  But, being a man, he knew that it is every citizen’s duty to assist the police, and he accepted his fate cheerfully, and bade his wife give the gentlemen every help that lay in her power.  After which both conducted the two visitors to Miss Slade’s room, and became fascinated in acting as spectators.

Miss Slade’s apartment was precisely that of any other young lady of refined taste.  It was a good-sized, roomy apartment, half bedroom, half sitting-room, and it was bright and gay with books and pictures, and evidences of literary and artistic fancies and leanings.  And Chettle, taking a first comprehensive look round, went straight to the mantelpiece and pointed out a certain neatly framed photograph to his superior.