Leaving all this behind, the boys hastened to the hotel, where they were again disappointed, for Browning was not there. They looked at each other helplessly.
“Something serious has happened to him,” asserted Frank. “I feel it—I know it!”
“He is to blame for it all!” exploded Jack petulantly. “If he had not taken a nif, and posted off by himself, you’d never run into that joint where you had the scrap. If he’s been knocked down, and robbed, and murdered, he brought it on himself.”
Frank was beginning to feel miserable. He went to his room, where he paced up and down. Then he stole out of the hotel, all by himself, and started back along the route over which he had followed Bruce that morning. Down in the midst of the Elysian Fields he paused, and sat down, all alone, at a table, where he ordered a drink of ginger-ale, and sat sipping it.
Frank had about made up his mind to go to the authorities, and report that the big Yale man was missing. He hated to do it, but he feared he was making a mistake in neglecting to do so. As he sat there, several persons brushed past his table. Who had dropped a slip of paper upon it, he could not tell, but he found it lying there before him.
Merry picked it up. There was writing upon the paper. It said:
“Come to the Theater of the Republic. I will meet you there. I am watching Mart Brattle, and do not wish to leave him.
Browning.”
Frank gave a great jump. He bent over, and examined the writing.
“Browning’s hand!” he exclaimed. “This is from him, but how did it get here?”