Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth

children. Fancy going out into the world under the impression that you can always have your own way! Would anything be more likely to lead to disaster? But let us return to Miss Ball. If she left Deep End at the end of a fortnight, where did she go? Did she again leave no address?”
    Frank nodded.
    “According to the Craddocks she just burst into tears one day and said the children were too much for her and she would like to go at once. So she packed her bag, and he drove her in to Dedham, where she took a third-class ticket for London, and that was that. She didn’t leave any address, because she said she hadn’t made up her mind what she was going to do, and she would write to her friends when she had. He said he pressed her, but she wasn’t very co-operative. From which I gather she had given him to understand it wasn’t his business. I got the impression that they hadn’t liked Anna any more than she liked them. But having seen the children, I don’t imagine they will find it at all easy to replace her.”
    “Are they trying to replace her?”
    “Mr. Craddock said so.”
    Miss Silver knitted in silence for a moment or two.
    “Had Mrs. Craddock nothing to say?”
    He laughed.
    “Very little. I should say that the spirit was more or less broken. One of those little tired women.”
    “And Mr. Craddock?”
    “An eye like Jove to threaten and command. Very Jovian altogether. A brow and a good deal of hair. Looks like a tall man till he stands up. Quite a presence. The serious crank with Views and a belted blouse. Mrs. Craddock merely wrapped in the common domestic overall.”
    After a slight pause Miss Silver said,
    “Life must be very hard for her, poor woman. Has she no help at all?”
    “A daily was spoken of.”
    “They should certainly try to get someone who would live in. You say Mr. Craddock mentioned that they were trying to do so?”
    “He said they were advertising, but it was so difficult to get someone to come to the country.” He hesitated for a moment, and then went on. “As a matter of fact they seem to have had someone since Anna Ball, but she didn’t stay.”
    “They would not, I imagine, advertise under their name. A box number would be more usual. Mrs. Dugdale takes the Daily Wire. If a previous advertisement appeared in that paper and was answered by Anna Ball, it is quite likely that they will use the same medium again. It would, I suppose, be possible for you to ask the Daily Wire to let you know if they receive any advertisement from the Craddocks, and to supply you with the box number allotted to it.”
    His lazy gaze became a very direct one.
    “You mean we might send someone down there?”
    “I mean that I might go myself.”
    No one who knew Frank Abbott would have suspected him capable of the vehemence with which he said,
    “No!”
    “My dear Frank!”
    The vehemence persisted.
    “Why on earth should you? The whole thing is dead and done with. Anna Ball went there in November, and stayed less than a fortnight. She didn’t leave an address, and she hasn’t written to Thomasina. Repetition of her conduct when she left Mrs. Dugdale.”
    “She meant to write to Thomasina Elliot. She left a trunk with her. Miss Elliot informs me that it contains all her winter clothes. She had only a suit-case with her, and we are now in the third week of January. I should like to satisfy myself that she really did leave Deep End.”
    Frank made an impatient gesture.
    “Oh, she left all right. I didn’t only see the Craddocks, you know. I went the round of the Colony, just in case Anna had told anyone what she was going to do. They had all seen her, but it doesn’t seem to have got much farther than that. The Miss Tremletts, who do folk-dancing and handicraft, said she was very unresponsive. Miss Gwyneth Tremlett, who has a hand-loom, offered to teach her weaving, but she would have none of it. One Augustus Remington, a piece of whimsy who embroiders pictures on satin, stigmatized her as