He had just signed his name for the forty-ninth time and laid his pen down with an impatient sigh of relief when the telephone on his desk rang. He hesitated. Should he answer it and be hindered again, or call his secretary and let her attend to it while he slipped away to his well-earned respite? A second insistent ring, however, brought him back to duty and he reached out and took up the receiver.
"Is this Mr. Sidney Graham? Long distance is calling!"
The young man frowned impatiently and wished he had sent for his secretary. It was probably another tiresome confab on that Chicago matter, and it really wasn't worth the trouble, anyway. Then a small scared voice at the other end of the wire spoke: "Is that you, Mr. Graham? Well, this is Carol. Say, Mr. Graham, I'm afraid something awful has happened to Shirley! I don't know what to do, and I thought I'd better ask you." Her voice broke off in a gasp like a sob.
A cold chill struck at the young man's heart, and a vision of Shirley battling with the ocean waves was instantly conjured up.
"Shirley! Where is she? Tell me, quick!" he managed to say, though the words seemed to stick in his throat.
"She's down at Washington," answered Carol. "Mr. Barnard phoned her last night. There was something special nobody else could take notes about, because it was for a Government contract, and has to be secret. Mr. Barnard asked her to please go and she went this morning. Mother didn't like her to go, but she addressed a lot of postal cards for her to write back, and one came postmarked Baltimore in this afternoon's mail, saying she was having a nice time. But just now a call came for mother to go to the telephone. She was asleep and George was crabbing so I had to come. It was a strange man in Washington. He said he had just found three postal cards on the road addressed to mother, that all said 'Help! Quick! Two men were carrying off Shirley and please to phone to the police.' He took the postals to the police station, but he thought he ought to phone us. And oh, Mr. Graham, _what shall I do_? I can't tell mother. It will kill her, and how can we help Shirley?"
"Don't tell mother," said Graham quickly, trying to speak calmly out of his horror. "Be a brave girl, Carol. A great deal depends on you just now. Have you phoned Mr. Barnard? Oh, you say he's in Washington? He was to meet your sister in Baltimore? He _did_ meet her you say? The postal card said she had met him? Well, the next thing is to phone Mr. Clegg and find out if he knows anything. I'll do that at once, and unless he has heard that she is all right I will start for Washington on the next train. Suppose you stay right where you are till half-past five. I may want to call you up again and need you in a hurry. Then you go back to the cottage as fast as you can and talk cheerfully. Say you went to take a walk. Isn't Elizabeth with you? Well, tell her to help keep your mother from suspecting anything. Above all things don't cry! It won't do any good and it may do lots of harm. Get George off by himself and tell him everything, and tell him I said he was to make some excuse to go down town after supper and stay at the telephone office till ten o'clock. I may want to call him up from Washington. Now be a brave little girl. I suspect your sister Shirley would tell you to pray. Good-by."