The only information to be obtained from the people of the house was derived from the servant who waited on the lodgers.  She had opened the door to a boy from the street, who had left a letter for “the young woman who lived on the second floor” (the part of the house which Mrs. Clements occupied).  The servant had delivered the letter, had then gone downstairs, and five minutes afterwards had observed Anne open the front door and go out, dressed in her bonnet and shawl.  She had probably taken the letter with her, for it was not to be found, and it was therefore impossible to tell what inducement had been offered to make her leave the house.  It must have been a strong one, for she would never stir out alone in London of her own accord.  If Mrs. Clements had not known this by experience nothing would have induced her to go away in the cab, even for so short a time as half an hour only.

As soon as she could collect her thoughts, the first idea that naturally occurred to Mrs. Clements was to go and make inquiries at the Asylum, to which she dreaded that Anne had been taken back.

She went there the next day, having been informed of the locality in which the house was situated by Anne herself.  The answer she received (her application having in all probability been made a day or two before the false Anne Catherick had really been consigned to safe keeping in the Asylum) was, that no such person had been brought back there.  She had then written to Mrs. Catherick at Welmingham to know if she had seen or heard anything of her daughter, and had received an answer in the negative.  After that reply had reached her, she was at the end of her resources, and perfectly ignorant where else to inquire or what else to do.  From that time to this she had remained in total ignorance of the cause of Anne’s disappearance and of the end of Anne’s story.

VII

Thus far the information which I had received from Mrs. Clements—­ though it established facts of which I had not previously been aware—­was of a preliminary character only.

It was clear that the series of deceptions which had removed Anne Catherick to London, and separated her from Mrs. Clements, had been accomplished solely by Count Fosco and the Countess, and the question whether any part of the conduct of husband or wife had been of a kind to place either of them within reach of the law might be well worthy of future consideration.  But the purpose I had now in view led me in another direction than this.  The immediate object of my visit to Mrs. Clements was to make some approach at least to the discovery of Sir Percival’s secret, and she had said nothing as yet which advanced me on my way to that important end.  I felt the necessity of trying to awaken her recollections of other times, persons, and events than those on which her memory had hitherto been employed, and when I next spoke I spoke with that object indirectly in view.