Sam looked dismayed. If Jack had left the ship to return to the hotel an hour before, then he should have reached there ages ago. He was not likely to linger, either, considering how anxious he was to observe Jarrold’s movements. What could be the explanation? Was he hurt or injured, or was some plot in execution against him?
But Jack had no enemies in the world so far as Sam knew, and certainly he had none in Kingston, where he was an utter stranger. Was it possible that Jarrold—but no, that sinister personage had been quietly seated at a table in the hotel garden till the time he drove off with his niece.
Feeling puzzled and depressed, Sam went ashore once more and called up the hospitals, in the belief that his chum might have been injured. But nobody even remotely resembling Jack had been seen there. Nor did his search in other quarters result any more favorably. At length Sam went back to the hotel in the vain hope that Jack might have been delayed in some way, and that they had passed each other.
But no trace of his chum did he find there, either. The lad made a miserable pretext of eating lunch and then set out on his search again. By this time he was absolutely certain that harm of some sort had come to Jack.
As he was leaving the hotel gates, he almost collided with a figure just coming in. He greeted the newcomer with a cry of joy. In the mood he was in, Sam longed for someone in whom to confide his fears about Jack.
“Why, what is the matter?” demanded the other as Sam exclaimed,
“I am glad I met you. I’m in great trouble. It’s about Jack. He left here to go to the ship. He was summoned there by telephone. But on his arrival at the dock, he found that the message was either a mistake or a wilful hoax.”
“So?” said the aviator softly. “Go on, my young friend.”
“That much I found out by inquiry at the ship after I tired of waiting for him to return.”
“Yes, and then?”