Lay low till I get back.
Scoop.
I went suddenly happy. For Scoop was alive. He was up to some scheme. He had a reason for vanishing.
Thinking that he might show up in time for breakfast, we set a plate for him. But only the three of us shared the meal. Then we went to school. The teacher wanted to know where Howard Ellery was. But no one could tell her.
It came noon. And Scoop hadn’t returned.
Stopping in at the hotel on the way to school, I found Uncle Sam Tomlinson fretting over the absence of his star guest.
“Has he gone back to Chicago?” I inquired.
“How do I know whar he’s gone to?” the [[196]]other scowled. “He was here at ten o’clock last night. But he hain’t been seen since. An’ my wife says as how his bed is jest the way she made it up yesterday.”
I ran to the near-by garage. Gennor’s red roadster was in storage. This proved that its owner hadn’t left town.
But where was he? And, more important in my mind, where was Scoop?
The school bell summoned the three of us to our books. But the pages might just as well have been printed in Chinese for all of the understanding that we got out of them that afternoon.