There had been a stunned silence. And in that silence, it went on. Student after student popping out of existence in what seemed to be a chain reaction.
He wasn't aware when Dr. Grant vanished. All he knew was that when at last he was alone he looked toward the podium and the professor was also gone.
He kept waiting to go himself. When he didn't, he lost the fear that had rooted him to the spot, and rushed to the exit where he at first tried to break down the door and make his escape, then subsided into pounding and shouting for help when he realized his physical strength was insufficient for the job.
Questioning didn't bring out any additional fact, nor alter any statement. There had been no sound to the vanishing, no movement of the person that could be considered significant, no flashes of light, no strange odors. Nothing.
Fred Grant got the flash on his hot rod radio on the way home from high school.
At the end of the report Fred wrote down Mark Smythe's address on a scrap of paper, and drove home to be with his mother. It was three days before he could get away.
On the morning of the third day, his aunt Emily arrived to take charge of things, and he was able to slip away. He drove immediately to Mark Smythe's address. It was one of the better class rooming houses near the campus. The land-lady wasn't going to let him in nor announce him until he explained he was the son of the professor who had vanished. She immediately swung to the other extreme and didn't bother to find out if Mark wanted to see him.
"My father was your teacher," Fred said.
"Oh? Come on in."