“H’m!” remarked McCarty as Dennis shuffled his feet uneasily. “And what did you do after, Mr. Trafford?”
“I concluded that Horace had gone to see the artist who has been instructing him in drawing and of whom he is very fond; I could think of nothing else that would account for his disappearance, but it seemed probable some neighbor with a key to the Mall had entered just as he left so that the watchman need not have been called upon to open the gate for him.” The young man’s hands were clenching and unclenching nervously and beads of moisture stood out upon his forehead. “I therefore didn’t mention it to Mrs. Goddard before she went to the musicale but waited, believing Horace would return at any moment. When the afternoon grew late I searched the house again, questioned the servants, even went across the street to inquire at the Sloane house for him; young Mr. Sloane has taken an interest also in his artistic efforts and it is the only other house on the block he is privileged to visit by himself, since the Burminsters are still away. I—I met with no success!—If I had only given the alarm earlier!”
He was turning away with a groan when McCarty asked:
“Why didn’t you think to ’phone Blaisdell and ask if the lad had been there, Trafford?”
The wretched tutor stared and Goddard, who had been standing with his elbows on the mantel and his head in his hands, suddenly wheeled.
“How did you know Blaisdell is the artist who has been giving him lessons?” he demanded.
McCarty smiled.
“I heard him say himself that Blaisdell was going on a sketching tour next month and would take him, only you wouldn’t hear of it,” he explained. “The boy was wild to go along——”
“Mr. Blaisdell started yesterday,” the tutor interrupted. “I learned this when I telephoned to his studio this afternoon, as I did as soon as the idea occurred to me that Horace might have gone there. I forgot to mention it but my anxiety—! I feel criminally negligent in having taken the situation so easily!”
“Don’t the boy ever get a chance to play with other lads?” Dennis spoke for the first time, his tone filled with pitying contempt. “Couldn’t he have gone to the Park and then home to supper with one or another of them?”