“Then your theory is rubbish. How could they hold him against his will?”
“I don’t know—but I shall find out! Good-night.”
CHAPTER V
ELSIE MAKES INQUIRIES
Elsie Powell’s nature was generous. She gave of herself to all with whom she came in contact, and gave freely and willingly; time, thought, and sympathy as well as more material gifts. Her disposition was so free from selfishness that not always did she sufficiently guard her own interests.
But when need arose, she promptly rose to the occasion.
And the morning after the day which was to have been her wedding-day, she awoke with a saddened heart but a mind alert and ready to plan and execute action of some sort that should bring about the end of her troubles. She wasted little time in grieving,—indeed her mental attitude was that of dumfounded amazement rather than grief.
Lying in her pretty room, partly dismantled by reason of her anticipated flight from it, she sized up the situation to herself.
“If I go to pieces,” she mused, “it will do no good, and will be small comfort to me. Therefore, I will brace up, put my wits to work and do my part toward solving the mystery. And I’ll do more than any fool detective. I never had much opinion of their cleverness, anyhow. To begin with, they’d never dare suspect Henrietta Webb, and if they did, she’d pull the wool over their eyes. But she can’t bamboozle me, and I’m going to start out by assuming that in some mysterious way she has hidden Kim and means to keep him hidden until I marry somebody else,—which, of course, she thinks I’ll do, in order to get my inheritance. But I shan’t! How would I feel, married to John Doe, and then have Kimball come home and look at me reproachfully! Not much. If I don’t marry Kimball Webb, I marry nobody at all,—and that settles that!”
Her decision arrived at, Elsie hopped out of bed, and dressed and went to breakfast quite as usual.
“Why, Elsie,” exclaimed Gerty; “you needn’t get up! I’ll look after everything,—I suppose there will be reporters and, later on, callers in shoals—”