Andrew was thunderstruck.

“Good God!” he exclaimed.  “Why, Berners, this is one of the strangest things I ever heard of.  What are you doing about it?”

“I am employing detectives,” the Duke answered.  “I do not see what else I could do.  They have been down to the Red Hall.  In fact I believe one of them is still in the vicinity.  Your brother’s story as to his departure seems to be quite in order, although no one at the railway station is able to remember his travelling by that train.  They seem to remember the car, however, which is practically the same thing, and several people saw Major Forrest bringing it back early in the morning.”

“Did any one,” Andrew asked slowly, “see Lord Ronald in the car on his way to the station?”

“Not a soul,” the Duke answered.

Andrew was honestly perplexed.  Jeanne’s statement that she had seen Forrest leaving the Red Hall with the car empty except for himself, he had never regarded seriously.  Even now he could only conclude that she had been mistaken.

“Have any large cheques been presented against your brother’s account?” he asked.

The Duke shook his head.

“Not one,” he answered.

“Have the detectives any clue at all?”

“Not the ghost of one,” the Duke answered.  “Ronald had a few harmless little entanglements, but absolutely nothing that could have proved of any anxiety to him.  He had several engagements during the last ten days which I know that he meant to keep.  Something must have happened to him, God knows when or where!  But here we are at the club.  Andrew, I see that you have no umbrella, so I need not repeat the old joke about the bishops.”

“What a selfish fellow I am!” Andrew remarked, as they seated themselves at a small table in the luncheon room.  “Here have I been bothering you about my affairs, and all the time you have had this thing on your mind.  Berners, I want you to tell me something.”

“Go ahead,” the Duke answered.

“Have you any idea in your head that Ronald has come to any harm at the Red Hall?”

The Duke shook his head.

“No!” he answered decidedly.  “Frankly, if he had been there with Forrest alone, that would have been my first idea, but with your brother there, and the Princess, it is impossible to suspect anything, even if one knew what to suspect.  The only possible clue as to his disappearance which is connected in any way with the Red Hall is that I understand he was paying attentions to Miss Le Mesurier, which she was disinclined to accept.”

Andrew nodded.

“I think,” he said, “that is probable.”

“On the other hand,” the Duke continued, “Ronald isn’t in the least the sort of man to make away with himself or hide, because a girl, whom he could not have known very well, refused to marry him.”

“Have you seen anything of the Princess in town?” Andrew asked, a little irrelevantly.