"What have you found, Bev?"
"Nothing," said the boy, moodily. And poor Matty had
to confess that she had hardly more to tell.
They came into the house by the lower entrance, that
they need not attract their mother's attention. But she
was on the alert. Even Horace and the younger children
knew by this time that something was wrong.
Horace's story about the strange man and papa was the
last news of papa. Papa had not been at the bureau. The
bureau people waited for him till two, and he did not
come. Then Stratton had come round to see if he was to
keep open any longer. Stratton had told Mrs. Molyneux
that her husband had not been there since church.
Where in the world was he?
Poor Mrs. Molyneux had not known where to send or to
go. She had just looked in at the Doctor's, but he was
not there.
Tom had appeared first to her tedious waiting. Tom
would not tell her, but he even went and looked in on
Newspaper Row, which he had been abusing so. For Tom's
first thought was that a formal information had been
lodged somewhere, and that his father was arrested.
But Newspaper Row evidently was unsuspicious of any
arrest.
Tom even walked down to the old jail, and made an
absurd errand to see the Deputy-Marshal. But the Deputy-
Marshal was at his Christmas dinner.
Tom told all this in the hall to Beverly and to
Matty.
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