"We must do that, of course. It's only eight o'clock, and we're ready to start now. Come ahead."
They sent their luggage to their homes and took a taxi for the Crane town house, on upper Park Avenue.
By good fortune, Mr. Crane was at home and received them in his library. They had asked to see him alone, giving no names.
"My stars, if it isn't the wanderers returned!" exclaimed their host, as he entered and saw the two. "Where's my boy? Hiding behind the window curtain?"
But the expression on his visitors' faces suddenly checked his speech, and turning pale, Benjamin Crane dropped into the nearest chair.
"What is it?" he whispered, in a shaking voice. "I know it's bad news. Is Peter——"
"Yes," said Shelby, gently, but feeling that the shortest statement was most merciful. "The Labrador got him."
By a strange locution, Labrador, as we call it, is spoken of up there as The Labrador, and the phrase gives a sinister sound to the name. It personifies it, and makes it seem like a living menace, a sentient danger.
"Tell me about it," said Benjamin Crane, and his tense, strained voice told more of his grief than any outburst could have done.