"Unless," he told Mr. Damon, "the people which ran down Mary's father didn't know about our hospital."
The reply from the institution in Mr. Damon's home town was just as discouraging as had been the answer from Shopton. At first, when Tom inquired, the head nurse had said there was an accident case at that moment being brought in. Tom was all excitement until she went to inquire the name and circumstances, and then he learned that it was the case of a little boy who had fallen downstairs at his home and broken a leg. There was no record of any one answering the description of Mr. Nestor having been brought in that evening.
"Hum! This is getting to be mysterious," mused Tom, as he came out of the booth. "What shall we do—go back and tell Mrs. Nestor and Mary, or communicate with the police?"
"Why not try the Alexian Hospital?" asked Mr. Damon. "That's away over in Centerford, to be sure, but it's more likely to be known to passing tourists than either of our institutions around here, especially if the autoists were strangers."
"That's so," agreed Tom. The Alexian Hospital was operated under the direction of the Brothers of that faith, and was well known in that part of the state. Often cases of persons who had been injured by passing automobiles had been taken there for treatment, for, as Mr. Damon had said, it was well known, and Centerford was the nearest large city.
"I can just about see how it happened," said Tom. "They ran Mr. Nestor down, and stopped to pick him up after they heard his cries for help. And the Alexian Hospital was the first one they thought of. We should have called that up first."
But once more disappointment awaited the young inventor and his friend. Word came back over the wire that no accident case, which bore any resemblance to Mary's father, had been brought in.
"Well, I'm stumped!" exclaimed Tom. "What shall we do now, Mr. Damon?"
"Much as I dislike it," said the eccentric man who was too much worried, now, to do any "blessing," which was his favorite expression, "I think we ought to communicate with Mrs. Nestor. She will be very anxious."
"I guess we'll have to," said Tom. "But wait! I'll call up my house first, and see if he has gone back there."