WHERE IS MOTOR MATT?
Matt and Carl did not occupy the same apartment in the hotel. Their rooms were adjoining, but there was no means of communication between them save by way of the hall.
On the night the mystifying event happened, Carl went up to his room a few minutes after Matt had sent down for the ice water. He tried Matt's door, but it was locked. In answer to his rap Matt called out a cheery good-night, and Carl went on to his own quarters and tumbled into bed.
The ringing of the breakfast bell always got Carl up on the jump. With the morning, he was up with the first beat of the clapper and scrambling into his clothes.
As he passed Matt's room on his way down he tried the door. Usually Matt left the door ajar when he went to breakfast, but this morning it was closed. Carl found it locked. He was about to rap and get his chum up, when he thought how tired he must have been the night before, and turned away.
"Matt has peen vorking like a horse," he said to himself, "und he has der righdt to shleep a leedle late on Suntay morning. I von't make some disturpances mit him. Ven he geds t'roo snoozing he vill come down."
Carl ate his breakfast, missing his chum sadly during the meal. Across from him at the table sat a young fellow who seemed to be a newcomer—at least, Carl had never seen him about the hotel before.
He had a freckled face and red hair, and the clothes he wore were almost painfully new. He ate slowly and seemed to be watching the chair in which Matt usually sat.
"For vy you look like dot at der blace next py me?" inquired Carl curiously. "You don'd got a mortgage on it, meppy?"