“How do you know that?” demanded Mr. Lindsey.

“Because,” answered Chisholm, “about nine o’clock this morning in comes one of the Heselton lads to Dunlop to tell him his mother had died during the night; and then, of course, they asked did Miss Dunlop get there in time, and the lad said they’d never set eyes on her.  And—­that’s all there is to tell, Mr. Lindsey.”

I was for starting off, with, I think, the idea of instantly mounting my bicycle and setting out for Heselton’s farm, when Mr. Lindsey seized my elbow.

“Take your time, lad,” said he.  “Let’s think what we’re doing.  Now then, how far is it to this place where the girl was going?”

“Seventeen miles,” said I, promptly.

“You know it?” he asked.  “And the road?”

“I’ve been there with her—­many a time, Mr. Lindsey,” I answered.  “I know every inch of the road.”

“Now then!” he said, “get the best motor car there is in the town, and be off!  Make inquiries all the way along; it’ll be a queer thing if you can’t trace something—­it would be broad daylight all the time she’d be on her journey.  Make a thorough search and full inquiry—­she must have been seen.”  He turned to Mr. Smeaton, who had stood near, listening.  “Go with him!” he said.  “It’ll be a good turn to do him—­he wants company.”

Mr. Smeaton and I hurried outside the station—­a car or two stood in the yard, and we picked out the best.  As we got in, Chisholm came up to us.

“You’d better have a word or two with our men along the road, Mr. Hugh,” said he.  “There’s not many between here and the part you’re going to, but you’d do no harm to give them an idea of what it is you’re after, and tell them to keep their eyes open—­and their ears, for that matter.”

“Aye, we’ll do that, Chisholm,” I answered.  “And do you keep eyes and ears open here in Berwick!  I’ll give ten pounds, and cash in his hand, to the first man that gives me news; and you can let that be known as much as you like, and at once—­whether Andrew Dunlop thinks it’s throwing money away or not!”

And then we were off; and maybe that he might draw me away from over much apprehension, Mr. Smeaton began to ask me about the road which Maisie would take to get to the Heseltons’ farm—­the road which we, of course, were taking ourselves.  And I explained to him that it was just the ordinary high-road that ran between Berwick and Kelso that Maisie would follow, until she came to Cornhill, where she would turn south by way of Mindrum Mill, where—­if that fact had anything to do with her disappearance—­she would come into a wildish stretch of country at the northern edge of the Cheviots.

“There’ll be places—­villages and the like—­all along, I expect?” he asked.