The Safety Pin

Front matter

THE MYSTERY STORIES OF

J. S. FLETCHER

"Mr. Fletcher is a master of plot, and he never goes beyond the bounds of reason in its procedure and development. He, moreover, can write the English language as a vital means to the end both of narrative and description, and he never fails to show that he is its master. It is therefore a pleasure to read his stories, not merely for their entertaining qualities, but also for the agreeable appeal of their manner and their style."

Chapter I.

THE SAFETY PIN

CHAPTER I

THE THIRTEENTH CLIENT

S, then three and twenty years old, had been in practice as a solicitor for precisely six months, and, probably because he had set up in his own native city of Southernstowe, the end of that period found him with exactly twelve clients on his roll. His line was the eminently safe one of conveyancing, and the clients were profitable ones; he knew enough of his profession to know that his first half-year's experience was satisfactory and promising. Another fledgling, lower down the street, a former fellow-articled clerk, admitted at the same time as himself, who had gone in for police-court practice, was doubtless having livelier times, but not making so much substantial gain; his office perhaps, was more crowded, but Shelmore preferred the dignified quiet of his own, wherein he and his clients talked of nothing less important than the transference or acquisition of real estate.

In a youthful fashion he was somewhat proud of that office. At the street door there was a beautiful, highly polished brass plate, engraved in the very best of taste: Francis D. Shelmore. Solicitor. At the head of the stair leading up from it there was a smaller one, similarly inscribed, on an oak door: within that door, in the dark room liberally provided with all the proper show of papers, parchments, and japanned tin boxes, sat Shelmore's one clerk, an astute, sharp-eyed, precocious youth named Simmons Hackdale; within an inner door, duly covered with green baize, sat Shelmore himself, in a private office very neatly and tastefully furnished and ornamented.

Whenever one of the twelve clients came, Shelmore was always busy, and the client was kept waiting a little, the time of waiting being adjusted by the clerk in accordance with his own estimate of the client's value and importance. But in plain truth Shelmore had a lot of time on his hands, and it was a good deal to his credit that he spent some of it in improving his own knowledge of law, and some in giving a gratuitous course of legal education to his—unarticled—clerk.

Shelmore, having been a bit of a precisian since boyhood, kept exact hours. He arrived at the office at exactly ten minutes to ten every morning; at ten minutes to five every afternoon he prepared to leave it. He was preparing to leave it now—a certain Wednesday afternoon in the last week of what had been an unusually fine September. He had tidied up his desk and put away his books and assumed his hat and overcoat; his umbrella, tightly rolled, stood ready to his hand; close by it lay the Times, neatly folded, to be carried home to his aunt, Miss Olivia Chauncey, with whom he lived, in an old-fashioned house in the oldest part of Southernstowe. He stood by the window, fitting on his gloves with meticulous precision; thus engaged, he looked out on the scene beneath and in front; he had gone through that performance every afternoon for six months; it would not have disconcerted him if he had been assured by some infallible prophet that he would go through it every afternoon for many and many a long year to come. It was all part of what he wished and liked—a well-ordered, calm, systematic, life-routine, in which to-morrow should be as to-day.

Yet, at that very moment, had Shelmore but known it, things were stirring close by, which were not according to any routine of his, and were going to break in upon the regularity of his daily life. As he stood there, looking unemotionally out of the window, he saw something which, if it did not exactly excite him, at any rate interested him. The block in which his office was situate was a corner one. It commanded views of a good bit of the centre of the old city, and in particular a full prospect of the front of the ancient Chancellor Hotel. And what interested Shelmore was the sudden appearance of a girl at the entrance of the courtyard of the Chancellor—a girl who for a second or two stood on the curb, looking doubtfully and enquiringly around, as people look at unfamiliar things and scenes. She was a tallish girl; she was slim and willowy; he had a convinced idea that she was young and pretty; she was smartly dressed; she was a stranger. He wondered about her without knowing why he wondered: then, as he saw her look round again, hesitate, and suddenly cross the street in his direction, he formulated a theory.

"She's in some perplexity," mused Shelmore. "Wants to know something."

The girl disappeared from view amongst the folk on the sidewalks, and Shelmore, the last finger of his gloves being adjusted, picked up the neatly rolled umbrella and the equally neatly folded Times, and prepared to quit the scene of his daily labour. But before he had opened the green baize door, he heard voices in the clerk's room. He paused: the green baize door opened, and Simmons Hackdale's sharp-eyed face appeared and his hand held out a card.

"Young lady," said Simmons, laconically. "Wants to consult you."

Shelmore took the card mechanically and stared at the neat script. Of course this was the girl he had just seen from his window. And this that he was staring at would be her name—Miss Cynthia Pretty, St. Meliot's, Camborne. Camborne!—Why Camborne was a good two or three hundred miles away, in Cornwall! What … he suddenly looked up, nodded at his clerk, and drawing off his gloves and removing his hat, turned to his desk, as to a refuge. But being there again, his eyes went to the door …

He got a general impression of Miss Cynthia Pretty as Simmons Hackdale showed her in. She was tallish, and she was slim and willowy, as he had thought at first, and she was undeniably attractive. He was not sure whether her hair was gold—deep gold—or whether it wasn't a bit reddish; he was uncertain, too, about her eyes, whether they were blue or whether they were violet—anyway, the lot of her, put together, lighted up the office. And she was young—perhaps nineteen, perhaps twenty; he couldn't tell; certainly she was very young. And suddenly he felt very young—and a little small himself. For at sight of him, Miss Cynthia Pretty let out an involuntary exclamation.

"Oh!" she said, pausing between the door and the desk. "Are—are you the Mr. Shelmore whose name is on the door, downstairs? You are? Oh! Well, you look so awfully young to be a solicitor. And it's a solicitor I want."

"Perhaps I'm older than I look," answered Shelmore, recovering his wits. "And I assure you I'm very wise! Will you sit down and tell me——"

His client dropped into the easy chair to which he pointed, and let her hands fall together in her lap. She gave him another critical inspection.

"You look a bit clever," she said. "And anyway you're a man and a lawyer, and that's what I want. I'm in a mess, Mr. Shelmore!—at least, I don't know what to do. As you see from my card, my name's Pretty—Cynthia Pretty. I live near Camborne, in Cornwall. I'm half-proprietor of a famous tin mine there. The other half belongs to my partner, Mr. James Deane. Mr. Deane is also my guardian and trustee and all that sort of thing, under my father's will, because, you see, I'm not yet of age—I'm only nineteen. I'm telling you this as a sort of preliminary to the really important business. Well, that's just this—Mr. Deane and I have lately been travelling about. Not together—separately. He's been in the North of England—he's fond of old places; antiquities and so on. I've been staying with an old school friend at Bath. Mr. Deane and I arranged to meet here, at the Chancellor Hotel, Southernstowe, to-day—this afternoon, to be exact. We were to stay here a few days, to look round; then we were going on to Dover, and to the Continent—Holland and Belgium, and perhaps Germany. Well, I got here, not half-an-hour ago, from Bath, with all my luggage, and drove straight to the Chancellor. They'd got a room booked for me right enough—Mr. Deane booked it when he arrived here on Monday—that's day before yesterday. But Mr. Deane himself isn't there!—he's clean disappeared!"

"Disappeared!" exclaimed Shelmore. "How? Why?"

"Don't ask me," replied his caller. "I don't know! That's what the girl clerk in the office, across there, says. The landlord wasn't in, and I couldn't get much out of her—she isn't very brilliant or illuminating. But that's what she says—that Mr. Deane came there on Monday, some time, and disappeared mysteriously during Monday night, and they've never seen him since. And—and I thought I'd better consult somebody at once, and so I came out and looked about for a solicitor, and I saw your name, and—well, that's just where it is."

"How old is Mr. Deane?" asked Shelmore.

"Sixty-three last June," answered Miss Pretty.

"Any reason why he should disappear?"

"Goodness, no! What reason should there be?"

"Not knowing him, I can't say. Any financial reasons?"

"Mr. Deane's a wealthy man. He and I, as partners, are both wealthy."

"Any domestic troubles, now? Is Mr. Deane married?"

"He's a widower. His wife died when I was a little girl."

"Any sons or daughters?"

"He's neither. I've heard him say that he hasn't a relative in the world."

"A contented sort of man?—No worries?"

"I should say, having known him all my life, that Mr. Deane hadn't a care or a trouble. He's a very sunny-natured, bright-tempered man."

"And you can't think of any reasons whatever why he should disappear?"

"Not one! Not the ghost of a reason! I know he was looking forward awfully keenly to this tour on the Continent. And, the last letter I had from him—here, in my bag—he promised faithfully to be waiting for me at the Chancellor to-day at four o'clock. He's the sort of man who's most punctil- ious about appointments. And I'm just certain, Mr. Shelmore—there's something wrong."

Shelmore picked up his hat.

"I'll go across with you to the Chancellor, Miss Pretty," he said. "I know Belling, the landlord—we'd better see him at once."

"He was out when I was there," remarked Miss Pretty. "And I don't see what he can know about it any more than that Mr. Deane's not there since Monday night."

"Mr. Deane may have left a message with him of which the girl in the office knows nothing," suggested Shelmore. "Anyway, Belling's the man—and there he is just going in."

He led his new client through the courtyard of the old hotel, and past the office to a private room, wherein the landlord, a cheery-faced, middle-aged man, was just taking off his hat and overcoat. He made Miss Pretty a polite bow and gave Shelmore a comprehending nod.

"I've just heard of Miss Pretty's arrival and her enquiries about Mr. Deane," he said, drawing chairs forward for his visitors. "I see you've not been long in seeking legal advice, miss!—but let's hope there's no need for that. Still, it's a fact, Mr. Shelmore, I don't know anything about Mr. Deane. He's not here—and I don't know where he is."

"Just tell me what you do know," replied Shelmore. "Miss Pretty is naturally anxious about him—she's afraid something may have happened."

"Well, sir, Mr. Deane looked to me the sort of man who could very well look after himself," answered the landlord, as he took a seat opposite his callers. "But I'll tell you everything I know. Mr. Deane arrived here, from London, I understood, on Monday afternoon, about four o'clock. He booked a room for himself—number seven. Then he booked a room for his ward, Miss Pretty, who, he said, would be here on Wednesday—number eleven. Here, of course, is Miss Pretty, and the room is all ready for her. But where's her guardian? Well, all I can tell is this:—Mr. Deane's luggage was taken up to his room. He went up there himself, and had some tea sent up. He came down to dinner at seven o'clock, and dined—in just the usual fashion. After dinner, he came to me in the bar-parlour and asked if there was any particular amusement in the place. I told him we'd just opened a new Picture-House, the first thing of its kind ever known in Southernstowe, and that it was well worth seeing. He said he'd go. He went. He came back about ten o'clock, or a little after. He asked me to join him in a drink. He had a whisky and soda in this very room—Mr. Deane sat in that very chair you're in, Mr. Shelmore. We talked about the Picture-House, and the money there was in that industry nowadays. Then he observed that he'd seen a very handsome lady at the Picture-House, who occupied what, he said, was evidently a place of honour, and seemed to be some local celebrity. I told him that that would be Mrs. Champernowne, the Mayor of Southernstowe. He was much interested in that. He said that though he'd heard of ladies being mayors before, he'd never actually seen one in office. I told him that Mrs. Champernowne was a very smart, clever woman, proprietress of one of the biggest businesses in the city, that since her coming to Southernstowe twenty-odd years ago, she'd always taken a vast interest in civic affairs, and that this was her second year of office as Chief Magistrate. We talked a while about women's share in politics and municipal life, and then about eleven o'clock, he said he'd get to bed. We said good-night at the foot of the stairs—and that, Mr. Shelmore, was the very last I saw of him! Never seen, nor heard of him since!"

"But—your people?" suggested Shelmore.

"Ah, to be sure!" asserted Belling. "The chambermaid—she saw him last."

"Under what circumstances?" enquired Shelmore.

"Well," replied the landlord, "a few minutes—perhaps ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after he'd gone upstairs, he rang the bell for her, and asked for a glass of hot milk. She came down and got it for him; when she went back with it, Mr. Deane, according to what she told me next morning, was in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, sitting in an easy chair and reading a book. He asked her to bring him some China tea and a dry biscuit at seven o'clock sharp next morning. She bade him good-night and went away, leaving him there sipping his hot milk, and reading his book—and there you are!"

"There he was—late on Monday night—anyway," remarked Shelmore. "Well—but let's get to seven o'clock, Tuesday morning. What about that?"

"Seven o'clock Tuesday morning, the chambermaid took up the tea and biscuits," continued Belling. "There was no response to her knock, so she went into the room. There was no one there. She thought Mr. Deane had gone to the bathroom, so she set down the tea and went away. But presently she took hot water there. Still he wasn't there. And—we've never seen or heard of him since. As I said before, the last person who ever saw him in this house was the chambermaid, late on Monday night, when, apparently, he was about to get into bed—ready for bed, anyway!"

"Did the chambermaid notice if the bed had been slept in?" enquired Shelmore. "I mean—on Tuesday morning?"

"Oh, yes! I asked her about that. It had. Certainly it had—I went up there myself afterwards and saw that it had."

Shelmore glanced at Miss Pretty. She was listening intently to the conversation, and already a puzzled look was fixing itself on her face. Suddenly she put a question to Belling, in prompt direct fashion.

"When did you first miss my guardian?" she asked.

Belling gave Shelmore a smile which seemed to suggest that a man would more readily understand the situation than a woman.

"Well, miss," he replied, turning to his questioner, "probably not until the morning was well advanced. We had a good many guests in the house yesterday morning, and I was very busy. It was, I should say, about eleven o'clock before it suddenly struck me that I hadn't seen Mr. Deane about. Then I made enquiry of the chambermaid, and heard all that I've told you. She, of course, thought the gentleman had risen early and gone out for a walk before breakfast—so many gentlemen do."

"That means that his clothes had gone with him!" said Miss Pretty, sharply. "He wouldn't go out in his pyjamas! But—did no one see him go out?"

"Yes," observed Shelmore, rising from his chair, "that's it!—did no one see him go out? Because—he must have gone out between last thing at night and first thing next morning. But there's only one thing to do. Belling—we shall have to consult with the police. I see your telephone's in the corner. You don't mind if I ring up the City Hall? There's no time to be lost in an affair of this sort."

He crossed over to the telephone … within a couple of minutes he turned to his companions. "That's all right," he said. "Mellapont's coming over himself—Superintendent Mellapont."

Chapter II.

CHAPTER II

WHAT ABOUT THE BED?

T presently strode into the landlord's private parlour a man, who, had he been in plain clothes instead of in a smart, tightly-fitting, black-braided blue uniform, would have been set down by nine people out of ten as a Life-Guardsman in mufti. A very tall, heavily-built man, with a keen, determined face, he turned a sharp, enquiring glance on Miss Cynthia Pretty in the same second wherein he nodded, half-carelessly, to Belling and Shelmore.

"Evening, Mr. Belling—evening, Mr. Shelmore," he began. "What's all this?—gentleman disappeared from the Chancellor? This young lady's guardian, eh? Yes?—well. What are the surface facts, now?"

He dropped into a chair and sat, listening attentively, while Shelmore briefly explained matters. Then he turned alertly on the landlord.

"Why didn't you put yourself in communication with me, Mr. Belling, as soon as you missed this gentleman?" he asked, with something of judicial severity in his tone. "It's a good deal more than twenty-four hours since you missed him, and this is the first I've heard of it!"

Belling spread out his hands and shook his head.

"That's all very well, Superintendent," he retorted, "but if you'd been in this business as many years as I have, you'd know that hotel guests do strange things! The only notion I had at first was that this gentleman had gone out for a walk, gone further than he intended, got breakfast somewhere, and would turn up for lunch at the usual time. I took the trouble to go up and look at his room, and saw that the bed had been slept in—that confirmed my first idea. Then, later, when he didn't come in, and as the day—yesterday—wore on, I got another idea—that Mr. Deane probably had friends in the neighbourhood, and had gone to breakfast with them, and was staying on for the day with them. As the day passed, I got more certain that the second was the right idea—friends. You see——"

"A moment," interrupted Mellapont. He turned to Miss Pretty. "Has your guardian any friends or acquaintances in Southernstowe or neighbourhood?" he asked. "I mean—to your knowledge?"

"To my knowledge, no," replied Miss Pretty. "Indeed, I'm quite sure he hadn't. Mr. Deane had never been in Southernstowe before Monday, and he knew no one here, nor near here. We talked a good deal about Southernstowe when we were making our holiday plans. He wanted to see the Cathedral, and the old walls, and the old churches and houses here—if he'd known anybody here or hereabouts I'm confident he'd have mentioned it. I know this—he'd never been in this part of England before."

"That seems to settle your second theory, Mr. Belling," remarked Mellapont. "But you were about to observe——"

"I was only going to say that Mr. Deane's absence seemed to fit in with what he'd told me about his ward coming," said Belling. "He'd said that Miss Pretty wouldn't arrive until Wednesday afternoon. Very well!—he'd until Wednesday afternoon to do as he liked—no engagement that could keep him in. What more likely than that, if he had friends—I say if, mind you—in this place or neighbourhood he should stop with them until it was time to meet Miss Pretty. I think I was justified in thinking that. I've often had gentlemen come here, book a room, have their luggage put in it, stroll out to see somebody, and never come back for one, two, or three days. That's what I thought about this case—gone off to see somebody, and stopped."

"Theory!" said Mellapont. "Now let's get down to plain fact. The plain fact is that Mr. James Deane was in his bedroom, number seven, at the Chancellor Hotel at eleven o'clock on Monday night, and that at noon next morning he was gone. Now then, when did he go? Monday night or Tuesday morning? Mr. Belling!—let me have a word or two with the chambermaid we've heard about—fetch her in."

Belling left the room, and Mellapont, with a glance at the door, bent forward to Miss Pretty.

"Would your guardian be likely to have a good deal of money on him?" he asked, quietly. "Ready money?"

"Yes!" replied Miss Pretty, promptly. "He would! He'd have a lot on him. You see, we were going on the Continent. Besides, he always had a lot of money on him when he was travelling about—I've travelled with him before, often."

"And valuables, now? Watch, chain—that sort of thing?" suggested Mellapont. "Good jewellery?"

"He'd a lot of very valuable jewellery on him," said Miss Pretty, "it was rather a weakness of his."

"Hm!" murmured Mellapont, with a glance at Shelmore. "Ah!—it's as well to know that much, eh, Mr. Shelmore? Monday, as you'll remember, was quarterly fair-day, and there are always some queer characters about, and they hang on in the place until late next morning. However—but here's the chambermaid."

Belling came back, ushering in a young woman who looked curiously and enquiringly at the people awaiting her, but chiefly at the Superintendent, who, on his part, gave her a keen, appraising glance as if estimating her quality as a reliable witness.

"Mary Sanders," said the landlord. "She it was who saw Mr. Deane last."

"Just so," assented Mellapont. "And that was—what time, Mary?"

"Just after eleven o'clock, Monday night, sir," replied the chambermaid, readily.

"When you took him some hot milk, saw him evidently ready to go to bed, and got his order for tea at seven o'clock next morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"And at seven o'clock next morning, when you went, he wasn't there?"

"No, sir."

"So he never drank the tea you took up?"

"Oh, no sir!—the tea was never touched."

Mellapont became silent and remained silent for a full minute. The chambermaid, a self-possessed, alert-looking young woman, watched him steadily. Suddenly, he bent forward, looking hard at her, and whispered rather than spoke his next question.

"What about the bed, Mary? What about the bed?"

The chambermaid started and flushed a little.

"What—what do you mean, sir?"

"I mean—had the bed been slept in, Mary!—had the bed been slept in? Come, now, with your experience as a chambermaid, eh? But—I see you've got some idea of your own on this very important point. Out with it, Mary."

The chambermaid smiled a little, glancing covertly at her master.

"Well, sir," she said. "I certainly did think something when the gentleman didn't come in before breakfast, and I'd looked more closely round the room and more particularly at the bed. I think he'd got into bed, but he hadn't stopped in bed! I think he'd got out again pretty quick."

Mellapont slapped his hands on his knees and looked slowly and significantly from Belling to Shelmore and from Shelmore to Miss Pretty.

"She thinks he'd got in bed and had got out again pretty quick!" he said in a sort of dramatic stage-aside. "Ah! And what made you think that, Mary?" he went on, turning again to the chambermaid. "You have reasons?"

"Well, sir, when I looked more closely at it, the bed didn't look to me as if it had been slept in all night," answered Mary. "There was just one dint in the top pillow. The sheets were quite straight and uncreased. It was just as if the gentleman had got into bed, bethought himself of something, got up again, and never gone back."

Mellapont slapped his knees again.

"Admirable!" he exclaimed. "Admirable! Mr. Deane went to bed and immediately got up again! Now Mary, you're evidently a girl who keeps her eyes open.When you took Mr. Deane his hot milk where did you set down your tray?"

"On the dressing-table, sir, close by where he was sitting in an easy chair, reading."

"Did you notice anything on that dressing-table? You did, of course. What, now?"

"Well, sir. I couldn't help noticing—they were there in the middle. A gold watch and chain, a diamond pin, and some rings—diamond rings, I think."

"He wore two diamond rings—valuable," murmured Miss Pretty.

"Just so," said Mellapont. "And now, Mary, were these things on the dressing-table when you went in next morning?"

"Oh, no, sir!—there was nothing there! Except brushes and combs and that sort of thing. No valuables, sir."

Mellapont turned and nodded two or three times at Shelmore.

"Nothing could be plainer," he said in a low, confidential voice. "Mr. Deane got up, dressed himself, even to the putting on of his jewellery, and went out—that night! Mary!"

"Sir!"

"I take it that you have charge of the corridor, or passage, or whatever it is, in which the bedroom number seven is situate?"

"Yes, sir. It's the first floor. There are six rooms—numbers three, five, seven on one side; four, six, eight on the other."

"What time did you go off duty that night?"

"Usual time, sir—half-past-eleven."

"Now, then!—did you ever see Mr. Deane leave his room?"

"No, sir—certainly not!"

"Supposing he'd wanted anything after you went off duty—who'd he have got it from?"

"Kight, the night-porter, sir. Any bell from the bedrooms is answered after eleven-thirty by Kight."

Mellapont turned to Belling with a wave of his hand.

"Now—Kight!" he commanded. "Kight!"

Belling nodded to the chambermaid.

"Send him here, Mary," he said. "At once."

When the chambermaid had gone, silence fell in the private parlour. It was largely caused by the behaviour of Mellapont, who folded his arms across his broad chest, turned his face towards the ceiling, and fixing his eyes on some real or imaginary spot, seemed to lose himself in profound meditation. He only came to earth again when a stockily built man in a green apron entered the room and looked enquiringly at Belling.

"The Superintendent wants to ask you a question or two, Kight," said the landlord.

Mellapont turned on the night-porter—less critically than on the chambermaid. He put his first question with seeming carelessness.

"You're on duty from eleven-thirty to seven, aren't you, Kight?" he asked.

"No, sir! Eleven o'clock at night to eight o'clock in the morning."

"Half-an-hour's difference one way and an hour's the other, eh? All right!—anyway, you were on duty on Monday night?"

"As usual, sir."

"Do you know Mr. Deane—the gentleman in number seven?"

"Yes, sir. Saw him say good-night to Mr. Belling when he went upstairs Monday night."

"Did you ever see him come down again that night?"

"I did not, sir."

"Nor early next morning?"

"No, sir."

"Never saw him at all during the night?"

"Never set eyes on the gentleman, sir, after I saw him go upstairs."

"Could he have come down and gone out without your seeing him?"

"It's hard to see how he could, sir. In fact, in an ordinary way, impossible."

"Why, now?—why impossible?"

"Well, sir, the guv'nor there'll understand. You see, this old courtyard outside makes a sort of main passage through the house, from front to back. There's a front entrance to it, as you know, into the High Street; there's a back entrance into Sepulchre Alley. Both entrances are closed at eleven o'clock, when I come on duty: it's my first job to close them. Half-way up the courtyard I've a little room, the door of which is always open. If anybody wants to get in during the night—late travellers, motorists, cyclists, and such-like—they have to ring me up from outside. Same way, if anybody wanted to go out, I'd have to open a door for 'em. Though to be sure there is a way out without bothering me if anybody knows it."

"Ah, there's a way out without bothering you, is there, Kight?" said Mellapont. "And what's that, pray?"

"Well, sir, in our back entrance into Sepulchre Alley there's a sort of wicket door in the big one. It's just kept on the latch. Anybody inside the hotel can let himself out by that door. But—he couldn't get in without ringing for me."

Mellapont turned to Shelmore with a convinced nod.

"Mr. Deane let himself out by that door!" he said. "Good! Now—when? Kight!"

"Sir?"

"On Monday night, between eleven o'clock, and up to Tuesday morning at eight o'clock, were you ever away from your little room in this courtyard? Gone away in any other part of the house?"