"Why, no," said the older man apologetically. "You see, I got here just in time for the train, and failing to find the young lady in the station where we had agreed to meet, I took it for granted that she had used the extra time in driving about to see a few sights in the city, as I suggested, and had somehow failed to get back in time. I couldn't understand it because she had been quite anxious to get home to-night. I could have caught the train myself, but didn't exactly like to leave her alone in a strange city, though, of course, it's perfectly safe for a steady girl like that. Afterward it occurred to me that she might have gotten on the train and perhaps I should have done so too, but there was really very little time to decide, for the train pulled out two minutes after I reached the station. I waited about here for a time, and then went over to the Continental, where my sister is stopping, thinking I would ask her to stay in the station and watch for the young lady and I would go home; but I found my sister had run down to the shore for a few days; so I had something to eat and while I was in the dining-room your telegram came. I was hoping somehow you had seen Miss Hollister, or had word from her, and it was all right."
One could see the poor man had no conception of what was due to a lady in his care, and Graham looked at him for a moment with rage, wishing he could take him by the throat and shake some sense into him.
"Then you don't know that she's been kidnapped and the police are out on track for her?" said Graham dryly.
"No! You don't say!" exclaimed Barnard, turning white and showing he had some real feeling after all. "Kidnapped! Why—why—how could she? And she's got those notes! Why, Graham! You're fooling! Why, how came you to know?"
Graham told him tersely as he walked the man over to the telephone booths, and finished with:
"Now, you go in that booth and phone your Government man, and I'll call up police headquarters and see what's doing. We've got to work fast, for there's no telling what may have happened in the last three hours. It's up to us to find that girl before anything worse happens to her."
White and trembling Barnard tottered into the booth. When he came out again the sleuth-hounds of the Secret Service were on the trail of Shirley Hollister's captors.
CHAPTER XXIV
The car that was bearing Shirley Hollister through the lonely wooded road at a breathless speed suddenly came to a halt in the rear of an old house whose front faced on another road equally lonely. During the brief time that they had been in the woods, the sky seemed to have perceptibly darkened with the coming evening.
Shirley looked about her with increased fright. It was almost night and here was her prison, far from town or human dwelling place. Even the road was at some distance in front of the house, and there were more woods on either side.