of the men replied, and Dorothy, dazed at the situation, walked slowly to her own room.
Chapter VII.
Missing!
The next morning Leila Duane burst into Dorothy's room without the formality of knocking.
"What's the matter?" asked Dorothy, fixing her large, dark eyes on her friend's perturbed face. Dorothy's own face was not smiling. She looked a little pale, and seemed weary, as if she had passed a restless and wakeful night.
Leila looked at her silently for a minute.
"Dorothy," she began, "something strange has happened—at least, we don't know whether it's strange or not."
"Well, do you know whether it's happened or not?" questioned Dorothy rather satirically.
Whereupon Leila sat down on the edge of the bed and began to cry. "Dorothy, don't be frivolous," she sobbed. "It may be something awful. They can't find Mr. Arnold."
"Can't find Justin! What do you mean? Where is he?"
"Why, we don't know! Nobody knows. Only, he's gone."
"What nonsense, to get so excited over that! Justin's old enough to take care of himself. He's probably gone to New York to buy my wedding ring."
Leila got up to go away. "Dorothy," she said, "I advise you to stop talking like that, and I advise you to get dressed and come downstairs as soon as you can."
Dorothy rang for the maid, and proceeded to make a leisurely toilet. Though not given to questioning servants, she asked the girl what she knew about Mr. Arnold's absence.
"I don't know nothing, miss. I heard Peters say that Mr. Arnold wasn't in the house or on the place, but Driggs he told us all not to say a word to anybody, and, anyhow, I don't know nothing about it, miss."
"Never mind what Driggs told you,—you tell me all you know."
"Honest, miss, I don't know nothing."
"Then why is there such an excitement because Mr. Arnold has gone away early somewhere? Has he never done such a thing before?"
"I don't know, ma'am; I've not been here very long."
"What has Driggs to do with it, anyway? It's not his business to look after Mr. Arnold's movements. Why did he tell you not to say a word to anybody?"
"I don't know, miss, but he was that particular about it!"
"Well, you don't seem to know anything! Finish hooking my frock and let me go."
But before she left the room, Dorothy made another attempt.
"Cora," she said, coaxingly, "tell me what you know. I won't tell that you told me. I'm—I'm afraid to go downstairs."
"Well, Peters said,—but I'll be discharged if I tell you, Miss Duncan. Driggs said as how we should."
"Nonsense!" and Dorothy stamped her foot. "I tell you I won't let anyone know that you told me. Go on; what did Peters say?"
"He said as how Mr. Arnold has been gone all night, because his bed hasn't been slept in."
Dorothy turned white and leaned against the wall for a moment. Then she went to the mirror, scrutinized herself carefully, and turned to the maid.
"Do you think I look queer, Cora?"
"Not to say queer, miss, but sorta peakéd-like."
"Peakéd? I don't know what that means." And rubbing her cheeks, and forcing a smile, Dorothy went slowly downstairs.
She found everybody assembled in the living-room, with Miss Abby Wadsworth, as usual, conducting affairs.
Mrs. Duncan, with a very grave expression on her face, sat on a sofa, and made room for Dorothy by her side. The girl felt her mother's arm go round her, and she sat quietly, listening with the others.
"I can't understand it," Miss Abby was saying. "Peters, at what time did you go to Mr. Arnold's room this morning?"
"Shortly after nine o'clock, ma'am."
"Why did you go?"
"Well, ma'am, you see, Mr. Arnold always rings for me promptly at eight-thirty. And this morning he didn't ring, and I waited and waited until after nine, and then I made bold to go and tap at his door. I knocked three times, and he didn't answer, so I ventured to try the door. It wasn't locked, and I went in. Mr. Arnold wasn't there, and his bed hadn't been slept in. The covers were folded just as I always turn them down for him every night. His clothes were not about, and there was no sign of anybody."
"But this is very strange," pursued Miss Abby, quite as if it were Peter's fault. "Why should Mr. Arnold sit up all night?"
"I don't know, ma'am. But if he did do that same, where is he now?"
"He must be somewhere about the place," said Miss Abby decidedly. "Of course there is an explanation. He may have gone for a walk late last night, and have fallen or met with some accident."
"Excuse me, ma'am," said Driggs, "but he couldn't get out of the house."
"Why couldn't he?" inquired Mrs. Duncan.
"Because," explained Driggs, "Mr. Arnold always turns on the burglar-alarm himself every night; and I turn it off every morning. When I look at it in the morning, ma'am, the indicator would show if it had been tampered with during the night."
"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Crane, with interest.
"Yes, sir; and if a window or door had been opened during the night while that there alarm was set, there'd have been a ringin' of electric bells all over this house, a-makin' such a din as nobody could have slept through. No, sir, that alarm wasn't touched from the time Mr. Arnold put it on last night, till I put it off this morning. And between them times, they wasn't no door nor window opened or shut in this whole house. Therefore, I says Mr. Arnold must be in the house, because he couldn't get out."
In his intense earnestness, Driggs had almost forgotten his servility of manner, and, looking straight at Mr. Crane, spoke as man to man, in the face of a great mystery. Then he turned his gaze to Miss Wadsworth, and, though she also was mystified, she nodded her head in corroboration of Drigg's statements and his conclusion therefrom.
"It is so," she said. "Justin has often explained to me how perfectly the alarm works, and how impossible it is to open an outside door or a window without starting the bells to ringing."
"Might it not be temporarily out of order?" suggested Mr. Crane, who had constituted himself Miss Abby's right-hand man and chief adviser.
"It never has been, sir," volunteered Driggs, "since I've been here, and that's nigh on to forty years. I come here a young man, when Mr. Justin was a baby; and his father was a crank, if I may say it, about burglars. He had all the wiring done and the alarm put in in his day; and, following his orders,
