Justin has kept the thing up, and has added a good many new contraptions as fast as they were invented. No, sir, wherever my master may be, and whatever his reason for hiding, he's in this house! 'Cause why? 'Cause he couldn't get out, without either turning off that alarm or raising a clatter; and neither of those things was done."
"Then he must be in the house," said Mr. Crane. "This is a large and rambling structure. May he not have gone into some one of the smaller rooms, and perhaps suffered from some kind of a seizure or stroke?"
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Miss Abby. "Do you mean that Justin may be alone and unconscious, perhaps suffering, under this very roof?"
"I only mean that it might be so."
"Then let us have a thorough search made," said Miss Abby excitedly. "Peters, you know which rooms Mr. Arnold would be likely to go into—go and search them all, at once. Take some of the other servants to help you. Go all over the house, into every nook and cranny."
Peters departed, though the expression on his face showed that he hardly thought this solution of the mystery probable.
"It isn't like Mr. Arnold," began Ernest Chapin, speaking slowly, "to go into any unused room so late at night. As you know, Miss Wadsworth, Mr. Arnold is most systematic in his habits. After turning on the alarm, he invariably goes directly to his room and to bed."
"That is so," agreed Miss Abby; "but as we have to face an unusual state of things, we must admit that Justin departed from his regular systematic procedure, and we must assume an unusual occurrence of some sort."
"But it all seems so ridiculous," spoke up Dorothy; "I'm sure Justin has only gone out for a walk or a ride, and will bob in at any minute. He might have started out after Driggs took off the alarm."
"But his bed has not been slept in," Miss Abby reminded her. "Peters says he thinks Justin did not go to his room at all, as his brushes and things have not been touched since Peters arranged them for the night."
"There seems to be nothing the matter except that Justin didn't sleep in his own room," said Dorothy. "I don't think that's anything to make such a fuss about. He must have gone to New York, or somewhere, late last night, after the rest of us had all gone upstairs. Then, as he knew he couldn't get in this house during the night, he stayed in New York and he will come home on an early train."
Mabel Crane looked at Dorothy steadily. At first the girl did not see her, then when she became aware of the close observation, she flushed crimson and buried her face in her mother's shoulder.
"Who saw him last?" inquired Fred Crane, suddenly.
Dorothy lifted her head and stared at the speaker. Then she glanced round the room. Everybody was looking at Crane as if waiting for him to answer his own question.
Chapter VIII.
The Search
"Why, I don't know," said Miss Wadsworth at last; "it must have been some of the servants, I suppose. Let me see, we ladies all went upstairs about midnight, and I suppose you men went to the smoking-room—didn't you, Mr. Crane?"
"Yes; and we stayed there, I should think, some fifteen or twenty minutes. There were only Arnold, Mr. Chapin, and myself. The night before, Gale and Crosby were here, and we had a merrier time. But last night we weren't very gay, and I went upstairs, I should say, about twelve-thirty."
"That's right," said Mr. Chapin; "we went upstairs at half-past twelve. When I left Mr. Arnold, he said he would make his tour of inspection of the house, as he always did, set the alarm, and then turn in. He must have done this, for he came upstairs not more than ten minutes after I did."
As Ernest Chapin said all this, in a slow, clear, and careful voice, he looked straight at Dorothy. The girl understood perfectly that he intended to say nothing of the scene on the little balcony, or of Mr. Arnold's appearance. She realized that he was doing this to screen her from possible unkind criticisms, for while Justin Arnold's whereabouts remained a mystery, it would be unpleasant to have a lovers' quarrel affect the question.
Dorothy was grateful to Mr. Chapin for this consideration, and as of course it was assumed that all the ladies had gone straight to their rooms and stayed there, no further questions were asked about it.
But now that it was acknowledged that the disappearance was a mystery, every one began to feel a vague uneasiness that was appalling because of its very vagueness. The facts were so few and so contradictory: Justin Arnold was missing; he could not get out of the house, and yet he was not in the house. That was the case in a nutshell.
Peters returned from his search of the rooms, and announced that there was no sign of the missing man, and no sign of anything unusual or strange in any room.
"When did you see Mr. Arnold last, Peters?" inquired Mr. Crane of the valet.
"When I laid out his dinner clothes, sir; or, rather, when I attended him as he dressed for dinner."
"He seemed the same as usual?"
"Just the same, sir. I've been with Mr. Arnold for nearly ten years, and he's always been the same. A kind master, but not given to talking to his servants. As, indeed, why should he? But some masters chat a bit now and then. After Mr. Arnold went down to dinner, I put his things in order, turned down his bed, and laid out his night things, and that always ends my duties for the day. Mr. Arnold never requires me when he goes to bed. He says it only bothers him to have me about then. So my evenings are my own."
"And when do you go to Mr. Arnold's room of a morning?" Mr. Crane had taken upon himself the right to institute this investigation, and asked his questions with the air of one in charge of a case.
"I never go, sir, until Mr. Arnold rings," Peters answered; "but he always rings for me at half-past eight This morning he didn't; and as it was the first time such a thing had ever happened, I was surprised. I waited and waited, and then, something after nine o'clock, I went to his room, and found he hadn't been there all night."
"He may have been there," objected Mr. Crane. "Well, sir, if he was, he left no trace. Not a brush was touched, or anything on his dresser, or in his bedroom or bath-room. Of course he may have been in the room and gone away again, but he didn't sleep there last night. And"—Peters paused impressively—"he isn't in this house now, sir. I'll swear to that. I took two of the footmen, sir, and we've scoured the whole house, and there's no sign of Mr. Arnold anywhere."
"Of course there isn't!" exclaimed Dorothy. "He wouldn't go and hide in some cupboard, and, if he had a stroke of apoplexy or anything, he couldn't have disappeared after it. I tell you he went out for some perfectly sensible reason, and he'll come back when he gets ready. I don't care anything about your burglar-alarm! If it's so clever and ingenious, he probably had some equally clever way to turn it off and on as he chose."
"But, Miss Duncan," said Driggs respectfully, "besides the burglar alarm, every door and window is fastened on the inside. The doors have heavy bolts and chains, and the windows have patent fastenings. These were all intact this morning, when I came downstairs."
"All but one, Driggs," said Dorothy, smiling. "The one Mr. Arnold went out at couldn't have been fastened this morning, although you think it was."
Driggs said
