“I—I see,” said Claire, striving to speak naturally. “I—I'll go back to father now. I can't leave him alone very long, anyhow. I'll tell him what has happened, and—and he'll decide what to do. You'll look after Hawkins, won't you, Mrs. Hedges?”
“You run along, dear,” said Mrs. Hedges reassuringly. “Who else but me has looked after him these ten years?”
Claire ran from the room and down the stairs, and out to the street. The one thing left for her to do was to reach home and get to the telephone—get the Bayne-Miloy Hotel—and John Bruce. Perhaps she was already too late. She ran almost blindly along the street. Her intuition, the foreboding that had obsessed her so heavily all evening, was only too likely now to prove itself far from groundless. What object, save one, could anybody have in obtaining possession of the traveling pawn-shop, and at the same time of keeping Hawkins temporarily out of the road? Perhaps her deduction would show flaws if it were subjected to the test of pure logic, perhaps there were a thousand other reasons that would account equally well, and even more logically, for what had happened, but she knew it was Crang—and Crang could have but one object in view. The man was clever, diabolically clever. In some way he was using that car and Hawkins' helplessness to trap the man he had threatened. She must warn John Bruce. There was not an instant to lose! To lose! How long ago had that car been taken? Was there even a chance left that it was not already far too late? She had not thought to ask how long ago it was when Mrs. Hedges had heard the car leave the garage.
It had never seemed so far—just that little half block and halfway along another. It seemed as though she had been an hour in coming that little way when she finally reached her home. Her breath coming in hard, short gasps, she opened the door, closed it, and, with no thought but one in her mind, ran across the room to the telephone. She remembered the number of the Bayne-Miloy. She snatched the telephone receiver from the hook—and then, as though her arm had suddenly become incapable of further movement, the receiver remained poised halfway to her ear.
Doctor Crang was leaning over the banister, and looking down at her.
With a stifled little cry, Claire replaced the receiver.
Paul Veniza's voice reached her from above.
“Is that you, Claire?” he called.
“Yes, father,” she answered.
Doctor Crang came down the stairs.