“Who carried him out?”
“Why, the men from the hospital who were sent for.”
“What floor?” demanded Ned, a thought he did not care to put into words coming to his mind.
“Third floor,” replied Peter. “I stood out there, looking around, when the chair was brought down on the freight elevator.”
Greatly to the amazement of the boys Ned darted away. In a minute he stood before the clerk’s desk.
“Will you have a boy show me to Lieutenant Gordon’s room?” he asked.
“Certainly,” was the reply, “but you won’t find him in. There have been repeated inquiries, for him this afternoon.”
“Has any one been to his room?” asked Ned.
“Yes, but it is locked and the key is not here. I was up on that floor about five o’clock, when the hospital people took a man out of the room next to his, and his door was locked then.”
Ned stood for a moment in deep thought, hesitating, wondering if the clerk was a man to be trusted in a great emergency.