Rob was quite jubilant on our return trip and declared that the fish came too easily and too plentifully to make it real sport, but I felt that I had another grudge to be charged up to the fateful family.
We found Silvia pale from anxiety, Beth in tears, and Diogenes loudly clamoring for “Tolly.” We learned that the afternoon before, Silvia and Beth had gone with the landlady for a ride, leaving Diogenes in Ptolemy’s care, but on their return at dinner time, Diogenes was playing alone in the sandpile.
Nothing was thought of Ptolemy’s absence until bedtime, and they had then sent out searching parties to the woods and the lake shores. Finally it occurred to Beth that he might have gone to join Rob and me, so they sent the messenger to investigate.
“He must be lost in the woods 107 somewhere,” said Beth tearfully, “and he will starve to death.”
Rob actually touched her hand in his distress at her grief.
“Ptolemy is too smart to get lost anywhere,” I declared. “He knows fully as much about woodcraft as he does about every other kind of craft. He’s one of his mother’s antiquities personified. But haven’t you been able to find anyone who saw him after you went for your ride?”
“No; even the hotel help were all out on the lake.”
“And he left Diogenes here, absolutely unguarded?”
“Well!” admitted Silvia, “he tied Diogenes to a tree near the sandpile.”
“Then he must have gone away with malice aforethought,” I said, “and Diogenes is the only one who knows anything about his last movements.”