“Where did you take them?” inquired Tom—“I mean where in Springville?”
“To the edge of a little city park,” replied the chauffeur. “They made me stop there to hide all later trace, I surmised; but it was none of my business as long as I got my pay.”
“Didn’t you notice the boy they had with them?”
“I did,” answered the chauffeur. “He was quite stupid like, as if he’d been doped. I suspected things weren’t all straight and regular, but the man I heard called Brady kept telling me he was a runaway lad who had made all kinds of trouble and disgrace for his people.”
Tom thanked the man for the information he had imparted, and at once took the trolley for Springville, which was about twenty miles distant. When he arrived he had no definite plan of action outside of going straight to the local police in an effort to interest them in his story.
“I’ll look around a bit first, though,” Tom decided. “I may accidentally run across some hint or clew that may help me.”
Tom strolled about the place, his eye on the alert. He had a faithful mental picture of the ill-favored fellow he had caught spying on Harry Ashley at Rockley Cove, and was sure he would recognize the rascal on sight.
He put in two hours in a stroll into such parts of the city which he fancied a man like Brady would choose in seeking a refuge. He chased down two or three persons a view of whose backs suggested the man for whom he was looking. He had paused at a street corner as a great jangling of bells and the shouts and hurryings of the crowds suggested some pending excitement.
“It’s a fire,” someone shouted, and pointed at dense volumes of smoke a few blocks away.
Tom started to cross the street in that direction.