Her reply was a decided "No"; that she had been waiting in that same room for several minutes and had seen no one.

This staggered him.

It was as if his wife had dissolved into thin air.

True, she might have eluded him by slipping out into the hall by means of door two at the moment he entered door one; and alert to this possibility, he hastened back into the hall to look for her.

But she was nowhere visible, nor had she been observed leaving the building by the man stationed at entrance A.But there was another exit, that of B.Had she gone out that way?
Mr.Ransom had taken pains to inquire and had been assured by the man in charge that no lady had left by that door during the last ten minutes.