It was dawn before he could spare a precious moment to go to Anita Lawton. On his arrival he found her pacing the floor, wringing her slim hands in anguish.
“He is dead.” She spoke with the dull hopelessness of utter conviction. “I shall never see him again. I feel it! I know it!”
“My dear child!” Blaine put his hands upon her shoulders in fatherly compassion. “You must put all such morbid fancies from your mind. He is not dead and we shall find him. It may be all a mistake––perhaps some important matter concerning a client made it necessary for him to leave the city over night.”
She shook her head despairingly.
“No, Mr. Blaine. You know as well as I that Ramon is just starting in his profession. He has no clients of any prominence, and my father’s influence was really all that his rising reputation was being built upon. Besides, nothing but a serious accident or––or death would keep him from me!”
“If he had met with any accident his identity would have been discovered and we would be notified, unless, as in the case when he was run down by that motor-car, he did not wish them to let you know for fear of worrying you.”
Blaine watched the young girl narrowly as he spoke. Was she aware of the two additional attempts only the day before on the life of the man she loved?
“He merely followed a dear, unselfish impulse because he knew that in a few hours at most he would be with me; but now it is morning! The dawn of a new day, and no word from him! Those terrible people who tried to kill him that other time to keep him from coming to me in my trouble have made away with him. I am sure of it now.”
The detective breathed more freely. Evidently Ramon Hamilton had had the good sense to keep from her his recent danger.