“Why, nothing much—as yet,” Tom said. “That is, I think nothing more than a simple accident has happened, if, indeed, it is anything more than that he has delayed to talk to some friends.”
“Would he delay this long?”
“I don’t know.”
“And then, Tom—bless my spectacles! what of that cry we heard? Could that have been Mr. Nestor?”
There! It was out! The suspicion that Tom had been trying to keep his mind away from came to the fore. Well, he might as well race the issue now as later.
“I’ve been thinking of that,” he told Mr. Damon. “It might have been Mary’s father calling for help.”
“But we looked, Tom, near the trees, and couldn’t discover anything. If he had been calling for help—”
Mr. Damon did not finish.
“He may have fallen from his wheel and been hurt,” said Tom, as he turned the electric runabout into the highway that Mr. Nestor would, most likely, have taken on his way from Shopton. “Then he may have called for help, and some autoists, passing, may have heard and taken him away.”
“Yes, but where, Tom? Whoever called for help was taken away, that’s sure. But where?”
“To some hospital, I suppose.”
“Then hadn’t we better inquire there? There are only two hospitals of any account around here. The one in Shopton and the one in Waterfield. My wife is on the board of Lady Managers there. We could call that hospital up and—”
“We’ll look along the road first,” said Tom. “If we begin to make inquiries at the hospitals there will be a lot of questions asked, and a general alarm may be sent out. Mr. Nestor wouldn’t like that, if he isn’t in any danger. And it may turn out that he has met an old friend, and has been talking with him all this while, forgetting all about the passage of time.”
They were now driving along the highway that led from the little suburb where Mr. Nestor lived, to the main part of Shopton, just beyond which was Tom’s home. This section was country-like, with very few houses and those placed at rather infrequent intervals. The road was a good one, though not the main-traveled one, and Mr. Nestor, as was known, frequently used it when he rode his bicycle, an exercise of which he was very fond.
As Tom and Mr. Damon drove along, they scanned, as best they could in the light from the young moon and the powerful lamps on the runabout, every part of the highway. They were looking for some dark blot which might indicate where a man had fallen from his wheel and was lying in some huddled heap on the road. But they saw nothing like this, much to their relief.
“Do you know, Tom,” said Mr. Damon, when they were nearing the town, and their search, thus far, had been in vain, “I think we’re going at this the wrong way.”
“Why, so?”
“Because Mr. Nestor may have fallen, and been hurt, and have been carried into any one of a dozen houses along the road. In that case we wouldn’t see him. We’ve passed over the most lonely part of the journey and haven’t seen him. If the accident occurred near the houses his cries would have brought some one out to help him. He is well known around here, and, even if he were unconscious and couldn’t tell who he was, he could be identified by papers in his pockets. Then his family would be notified by telephone.”
“Perhaps you are right, Mr. Damon. We may be wasting time this way. What do you suggest?” asked Tom.
“That we don’t delay any longer, but call up the hospitals at once. If he isn’t in either of those he must be in some house, and in such condition that his identity cannot be established. In that event it is a case for the police. We haven’t found him, and I think we had better give the alarm.”
Tom Swift thought it over for a moment. Then he came to a sudden decision.
“You’re right!” he told Mr. Damon. “We mustn’t waste any more time. He isn’t along the road he ought to have traveled in coming from my house to his home—that’s sure. But before I call up the hospitals I want to try out one more idea.”
“What’s that, Tom?”
“I want to go to the place where we heard that cry for help.”
“Do you think that could have been Mr. Nestor?”
“It may have been. We’ll go and take another look around there. Some man was evidently hurt there, and was taken away. We may get a clue. The lights on the runabout will give us a better chance to look around than we had by the little pocket lamp. We’ll try there, and, if we don’t find anything, then I’ll call up the hospitals.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE LONG NIGHT
With the speedy runabout it did not take Tom Swift and Mr. Damon long to reach the place where the Air Scout had been grounded a few hours before, and where they had heard the cry for help. All was as dark and as silent as when they had been there before.
But, as Tom had said, the lights from his electric runabout would give a brilliant illumination, and these he now directed toward the clump of trees whence the cry for help had seemed to come.
“Doesn’t appear to have been visited by any one since we were here,” remarked Torn, as he observed the marks of the new automobile tire in the dust. “Now we’ll look about more carefully.”
This they did, but they were about to give up in despair and start for the nearest telephone to call up the hospitals, when Mr. Damon gave an exclamation.
“What is it?” asked Tom.
“Something bright and shining!” said his companion. “I saw it gleam in the light of the lamps. You nearly put your foot on it, Tom. Just step back a moment.”
Tom did so, and the eccentric man, with another exclamation, this time of satisfaction, reached down and picked something up from the dusty road.
“It’s a watch!” he exclaimed. “A gold watch! And it’s been stepped on, evidently, or run over by an auto. Not much damaged, but the case is a bit bent and scratched. It’s stopped, too!” he added as he held it to his ear.
“What time does it show?” asked Tom.
“Eight forty-seven,” answered Mr. Damon, as he consulted the dial. “Why, Tom, that was just about when we heard the cries for help!”
“Yes, it must have been. Let me see that watch.”
No sooner had the young inventor taken the timepiece into his hands than he, too, uttered a cry of amazement.
“Do you recognize it?” asked Mr. Damon, in great excitement.
“It’s Mr. Nestor’s watch!” cried Tom. “He must have fallen here, and been hurt. It was Mr. Nestor who cried for help, and who was taken away by the autoists. They’ve probably taken him to some hospital. There’s been an accident all right.”
Tom and Mr. Damon were of one mind now in thinking that Mr. Nestor had met with some mishap on the road—an automobile accident most likely—and that he was the person who had called for help.
“If they had only answered when we hallooed at them,” said Tom, “we wouldn’t be in all this stew now. We could have told the strangers who came to his aid who he was, and we might even have taken him to the hospital in the airship.”
“Well, it’s too late to think of that now,” returned Mr. Damon. “We had better get into communication with him as soon as we can, and then send word to his wife and daughter. I hope he isn’t badly hurt.”
Tom hoped so, too, with all his heart.
There was nothing to do but to get back in the runabout and make all speed for the nearest telephone, and Tom Swift lost little time in doing this. They found a drug store which was open a little later than usual, and at once Tom went into the booth and called up the Shopton hospital. He was well known there, as he and his father were liberal supporters of the institution, which was a private affair. Many of Tom’s men were treated at the dispensary, and, as accidents were of more or less frequent occurrence at the works, the young inventor had frequent occasions to call up the place.
“Mr. Nestor would ask to be taken there, as it’s nearest his home—that is, if he was able to speak,” Tom said to Mr. Damon, who agreed with him. There was a little delay in getting
the hospital on the wire, but when Tom had it, and was talking to the superintendent, he was rather surprised, to tell the truth, to be told that Mr. Nestor had not been brought in.
“We haven’t had any accident cases all day, nor tonight, Mr. Swift,” the superintendent reported. “Was this some one special you were inquiring about?”
For Tom, determining not to give Mr. Nestor’s name, except as a last resort, had merely inquired whether any recent accident cases had been brought in.
“I’ll let you know later, Mr. Millard,” he told the superintendent, not exactly answering the question. He hung up the receiver, and, opening the door of the booth, said to Mr. Damon: “He isn’t there.”
“Then try Waterfield,” was the suggestion; and Tom did so, though he could not imagine why an injured man, such as Mr. Nestor might prove to be, should be taken as far as Waterfield, when the hospital at Shopton was nearer.
“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 Center-fiord, 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.”
But Mr. Nestor had not done this, and Mrs. Baggert, who answered the telephone, said Mary had been calling frantically for Tom, as her mother was now on the verge of complete collapse.
“No help for it,” said Tom, ruefully. “We’ve got to tell ’em we have no news, and can’t find him.”
And, hearing this, Mrs. Nestor did collapse, and a doctor was called in.
Thereupon Tom, who with Mr. Damon had gone back to the Nestor home, took charge of matters, sending for Mrs. Nestor’s sister to come and stay with her and take charge of the house.
“You’ll need some one to stay with you,” he told Mary.
“Yes, I shall,” she admitted, trying bravely not to give way to her emotion. “Oh, Tom, I wish you could stay, too. I’m sure something dreadful must have happened to poor father. Please stay and help us find him!”
“I will,” Tom promised. “As soon as your aunt comes I’ll take Mr. Damon home, and then I’ll give the rest of my time to you.”
And this Tom did, sending word home that he would remain at the Nestor’s all night and part of the next day.
Tom got but little sleep that night. He communicated with the police and saw to it that a general alarm was sent out. He called up all hospitals within a radius of fifty miles, but could get no trace of any injured man whose description resembled that of Mr. Nestor.
“What can have happened?” asked Mary tearfully.
“Well, the way I figure it out is this,” said Tom. “Your father left my house soon after Mr. Damon and I did in the Air Scout. Mr. Nestor was riding his bicycle, and he must have been run into by an automobile. That is how his watch was damaged and that was when Mr. Damon and I heard the cries for help.”
“Oh, do you think he was badly hurt?” asked Mary.
“No, I don’t,” and Tom answered truthfully. “The voice sounded as though he was in pain, certainly, but it was strong and vigorous, and not at all as though he was dangerously hurt.”
“And what do you think happened to him after he was hurt?” asked Mary.
“The autoists took him away,” decided Tom. “In fact, we heard the machine go, but of course we never connected the call for help and what followed with your father. The autoists took him away.”
“Where?”
“I should say to some hospital. Perhaps a private one of which we know nothing, and which may be near here. I’ll get a full list from the Board of Health tomorrow. Or it may be that the autoists, seeing the damage they had done, took your father to the home of one of themselves, and summoned a doctor there.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Well, they may have been so frightened they didn’t realize what they were doing, or they may have thought he would get better treatment in a private house, if he were not badly injured, than if he should be taken to a hospital. It may have been that one of the persons in the auto was a physician, and wished to try his own skill on the man he had hurt.”
“You make me feel more comfortable, Tom,” said Mary. “But, even supposing all this, why couldn’t they telephone to us that my father was all right? He always carries an identification card with him, and if he were unconscious it could be ascertained who he was.”
“That’s what I can’t understand,” said Tom frankly. “It puzzles me. But we’ll find him—never fear!”
And so he kept on with his telephone inquiries, while a physician and her sister ministered to Mrs. Nestor. The night was very, very long, and no good news came in.
CHAPTER XVII
SILENT SAM
Slowly the dawn broke through the mists of darkness, and made the earth light. The sun came straggling in through cracks in the shutters in the home of Mr. Nestor, the gradually increasing gleam paling the electric lights, in the glare of which Tom Swift, Mary, and her aunt sat, waiting for some word of the missing man. But none came.
“What shall we do now?” asked Mary, as she looked at Tom.
“Oh, there’s lots to do,” he said, trying to make his voice sound cheerful. “We’ll be busy all day. I sent word to have one of my touring cars ready to hurry to any part of the country the moment we should get word from your father.”
“And do you think we shall get word, Tom?” the girl went on wistfully.
“Of course we shall!” he cried. “Word may come in at any time. Now get ready, eat a good breakfast, and then you can go with me as soon as we hear anything definite. Come, we’ll have breakfast!”
“I can’t eat a thing!” protested Mary.
“Oh, yes you can,” said her aunt, who was a cheerful sort of person. “I’ll see about getting something for you and Mr. Swift, and see that your mother is all right.”
She left the room to give orders to the servant about the meal, and returned to say that Mrs. Nestor was sleeping quietly. She had been given a sedative. Mary managed to eat a little, and she
gave Tom the address of several friends who were called up in the vain hope that, somehow, Mr. Nestor might have gone to see them.
“Tom, what do you really think has happened?” asked Mary again, as they sat facing one another in the library, during a respite from the telephone.
Tom Swift repeated, to the girl his theory of what had happened with an assumption of confidence he did not altogether feel.
His prediction of a speedy end to the suspense did not come true that day, nor for many days. No news was heard of Mr. Nestor. After the first day, when there was no information and when no reports came of any one of his description having been hurt in an automobile accident or having been taken to any hospital, the police started an energetic search.
The authorities in all near-by cities were notified, and all thought of keeping from the public what had happened was given over. Tom’s story, of how he and Mr. Damon had heard the cry for help on the lonely meadow, was printed in the papers, though the young inventor did not say that he had been out trying his new aeroplane. That was a detail not needed in the finding of Mr. Nestor.
But Mary’s father was not found. The mystery regarding his disappearance deepened, and there was no trace of him after he had left Tom’s house that eventful evening. Persons living along the roads he might have taken in riding his bicycle were questioned, but they had seen nothing of him, nor were they aware of any accident. Tom’s testimony and that of Mr. Damon was all the clue there was.
“I don’t believe he’s dead!” stoutly declared the young inventor, when this dire possibility had been hinted at. “I believe the persons who were responsible for the accident are afraid to reveal his whereabouts until he recovers from possible injuries. You’ll see! Mr. Nestor will come back safe!”
And, somehow, though her mother was skeptical, Mary believed what Tom said.
The search was kept up, but without result, and Tom aided all he could. But there was not much he could do. The police and other authorities were at a total loss.
In the intervals of visiting Mary and her mother, and doing what he could for them, Tom worked on his new motor. He knew that he was on the right track and that all that was needed now was to make certain refinements and adjustments in the apparatus he had already constructed, so that it would operate more quietly.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 279