That telegram had swept all the doings of the morning clear away from me.  Little I cared about the Carstairs affairs and all the mystery that was wrapping round them in comparison with the news which Murray had sent along in that peculiarly distressing fashion!  I would cheerfully have given all I ever hoped to be worth if he had only added more news; but he had just said enough to make me feel as if I should go mad unless I could get home there and then.  I had not seen Maisie since she and my mother had left Mr. Lindsey and me at Dundee—­I had been so fully engaged since then, what with the police, and Mrs. Ralston, and Mr. Portlethorpe, and the hurried journeys, first to Newcastle and then to Edinburgh, that I had never had a minute to run down and see how things were going on.  What, of course, drove me into an agony of apprehension was Murray’s use of that one word “unaccountably.”  Why should Maisie be “unaccountably” missing?  What had happened to take her out of her father’s house?—­where had she gone, that no trace of her could be got?—­what had led to this utterly startling development?—­what—­

But it was no use speculating on these things—­the need was for action.  And I had seized on the first porter I met, and was asking him for the next train to Berwick, when Mr. Gavin Smeaton gripped my arm.

“There’s a train in ten minutes, Moneylaws,” said he quietly.  “Come away to it—­I’ll go with you—­we’re all going.  Mr. Lindsey thinks we’ll do as much there as here, now.”

Looking round I saw the two solicitors hurrying in our direction, Mr. Lindsey carrying Murray’s telegram in his hand.  He pulled me aside as we all walked towards the train.

“What do you make of this, Hugh?” he asked.  “Can you account for any reason why the girl should be missing?”

“I haven’t an idea,” said I.  “But if it’s anything to do with all the rest of this business, Mr. Lindsey, let somebody look out!  I’ll have no mercy on anybody that’s interfered with her—­and what else can it be?  I wish I’d never left the town!”

“Aye, well, we’ll soon be back in it,” he said, consolingly.  “And we’ll hope to find better news.  I wish Murray had said more; it’s a mistake to frighten folk in that way—­he’s said just too much and just too little.”

It was a fast express that we caught for Berwick, and we were not long in covering the distance, but it seemed like ages to me, and the rest of them failed to get a word out of my lips during the whole time.  And my heart was in my mouth when, as we ran into Berwick station, I saw Chisholm and Andrew Dunlop on the platform waiting us.  Folk that have had bad news are always in a state of fearing to receive worse, and I dreaded what they might have come to the station to tell us.  And Mr. Lindsey saw how I was feeling, and he was on the two of them with an instant question.

“Do you know any more about the girl than was in Murray’s wire?” he demanded.  “If so, what?  The lad here’s mad for news!”