“I’m pretty sure Kim will turn up at the last minute,—I think he’ll break loose, whoever’s holding him—”
“What makes you think he’s held, Elsie?” asked Gerty, curiously.
“What else could keep him?” and Elsie looked her wonderment.
“Lots of things. Suppose he went somewhere,—he must have gone somewhere, you know,—and met with a fearful accident. He may be in some hospital,—”
“By Jove, that’s so!” interrupted Whiting. “Shall I round ’em up, Elsie? That would make a heap better case than—mysterious disappearance.”
“I don’t know,” Elsie hesitated. “Yes, Fenn, if there’s time, do that. But I’ll go right on planning our immediate schedule. I must do it,—it will save all sorts of awkwardness.”
Whiting attacked the list of hospitals, and the others waited on Elsie’s will. Both Gerty and Mrs. Powell adored Elsie, and as they were at their own wits’ end, they were only too willing to be guided by her ideas.
“Perhaps he had a stroke or something, and lost his mind and climbed out of a window,” suggested Gerty, who was unable to keep from surmising.
“He couldn’t,” said Elsie, shortly. “His game knee wouldn’t let him get out of a window,—and his are on the third story, and they were all closed, except for a few inches at the top.”
“Well, maybe he squeezed through, and injured himself so, that they took him to a hospital.”