Callahan stood facing the newcomer, dismay slowly blotting out the pleased expression on his face. Was this more trouble? Was ever a man so followed by bad luck? What was going on in this old house, anyway?
“What’s your trouble?” Callahan was once more the boss contractor.
“I can’t find Jim. He was with me, and we were sizin’ up the room, figurin’ on how she would tear apart. I was at one end and Jim at another, near a closet. I saw him go in. Then I heard a funny noise, sort of groan, and when I turned around—Jim wasn’t there!”
CHAPTER XI
Callahan Collapses
“Nonsense!” snorted Callahan, chewing on the end of his cigar. “He’s probably downstairs.”
“No, sir, I looked! Jim ain’t so well. He’s been sick, and this is the first time he’s been out on a job in quite a while,” the workman said. “He’s a swell feller. I’ve known him a long time. I’m afraid he’s hurt.”
“How could he be hurt? He hasn’t even begun to work. Show me the room you were in.” The contractor spoke disgustedly.
They all started for the room across the hall. The men were in various kinds of working clothes, one or two wearing ordinary business suits. These were the better class, who needed the work. Then there were regular house-wreckers in stout shoes and overalls. As a background there were the girls in their smart riding habits and bright scarfs following Callahan, whose cigar was now reduced to a soggy brown mass.
In the room from which the man Jim Danton had disappeared was a conglomeration of furniture. Old chairs and a rickety table piled in a group in one corner, a huge wicker clothes hamper that had been turned upside down, perhaps in the hope that Jim would fall out.
The girls could not suppress a giggle, it was so silly, and some of the men snickered too. But Jim was nowhere to be seen.