A little later, Koku and Eradicate having been sent to the house to tell Mrs. Baggert to telephone out to the works in case Tom arrived home, Mr. Swift, Ned, and Mr. Damon faced each other in the private office of the missing young inventor.
“What’s all this about Tom not being found?” Mr. Damon wanted to know.
Quickly Ned told what had happened—that he had seen Tom outside the big fence, that the young inventor was expected to call on Mary, and that he had not appeared at the young lady’s house.
“And since then we can’t find a trace of him,” concluded Ned.
“Well, what I heard a little while ago may serve as a clew,” stated Mr. Damon. “Let me see now, where shall I begin?”
Ned was so impatient that he felt like telling the odd man to put on plenty of steam and begin anywhere that would give news of Tom.
But the “blessing man,” as the old colored servant called Mr. Damon, must do a thing in his own way or not at all, and he was not to be hurried. So, having marshaled in his own mind what he wanted to say, he began:
“I have been away on a business trip and I only arrived home at two o’clock this morning. I got off the sleeper at the station, and, feeling hungry, I went into one of those lunch wagons across the street to get a bite to eat before going home and to bed.
“Well, while I was eating in this lunch wagon, and I must say the cook has a very clever way of frying eggs—while I was there two men came in—no, it was three men—wait a moment now, I can’t quite be sure of that,” and to Ned’s exasperation Mr. Damon began examining his own recollection to make sure whether it was three or two men.
“Now I remember!” he exclaimed triumphantly, to Ned’s great relief. “First two men came in, and then, later, a third. The first two were queer individuals—I thought they might be criminals, ‘stick-up men,’ you know, and I guess the fellow who ran the lunch wagon did, also, for I saw him slip his revolver out from a drawer and put it near the gas stove where he could get it in a hurry.