UNDER SUSPICION.
"Well, I've had an adventure on the road just as Grace hoped I would," was Richard's mental comment, as he lay back in the car seat. "So I'll have something to write home after all. But I don't care particularly to have any more such happenings."
For though Richard had taken the whole affair rather coolly he now found that it had been more the excitement than aught else that had kept him up, and he was beginning to feel the full force of a most uncomfortable shaking up.
But this feeling, bordering upon nervous prostration, was not confined to the boy alone. Every one of the passengers, most of whom had escaped without a scratch, were decidedly ill at ease.
It was not long ere Richard thought to take a look through the train for Mr. Joyce.
"He may have got aboard without my seeing him," he said to himself.
And leaving his baggage piled up in the seat, he made the tour from one end to the other and back.
He was unsuccessful. It was as if the leather merchant had disappeared for good.
"Hope he turns up," thought the boy. "If he doesn't what am I to do with his baggage? I don't know where he lives and—Hold up."
He suddenly thought of Mr. Joyce's card, which that gentleman had given him, but a hasty and then a thorough search convinced him that the bit of pasteboard was no longer in his possession.