The minutes dragged into hours and there was no news. Mr. Bill dropped into a troubled doze and woke to find himself in another day. He went drearily back to the hotel. Joe was furious because he had fallen asleep over his strange new dreams. Granny, with a face that was gray and worried, instead of happy and rosy, was talking to him and to Norah Lee. The Boy Scout was splashing in the bathroom.
"You heard anything?" demanded Granny as Mr. Bill entered.
Before he could answer, the telephone rang sharply. Joe and Mr. Bill dashed to answer it, but Joe caught the receiver. He pushed Mr. Bill away.
"Yes," he said impatiently through the transmitter. He waved his hand to them. "It's Tess!" he cried chokingly. "Yes, Tessie! Where are you?" He listened eagerly. "Where are you?" he demanded fiercely. "Where—" He shook the instrument and turned to them in exasperation. "Isn't that the limit? Central broke the connection before Tessie could tell me where she was."
"What did she say?" demanded Mr. Bill.
"She said she was all right, and that Granny wasn't to worry. She isn't coming back for a while. She's going to hide until Pitts comes and straightens everything out. She said Granny wasn't to worry, nobody was to worry." But Joe looked worried. "Do you suppose she did get away?" he asked Mr. Bill. "Is this message a plan to call off the police?"
Mr. Bill had taken the receiver from Joe and was calling Central and ordering her for heaven's sake to get a move on and trace the call she had just given them. Several days later, it seemed to all of them, Central reported that the call had come from a pay station. Hadn't they heard the nickel drop? Central couldn't say which pay station. She would try and find out if they wanted her to, she added obligingly.
"You'd better!" advised Mr. Bill. "And immediately!" He swung around and faced the others. "We know she's alive and well. That's something! Did she talk as if she were frightened?"
"No," remembered Joe. "She said she would have called before but she fell asleep. She said she was awfully tired."
"She wouldn't have fallen asleep if she had been frightened," Norah said with a wise nod of her head.