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62 "Yes. I'd like to have a further talk with that agent before we set out to make other inquiries."

This Tom was able to bring about some time later that day. The agent informed the lad that Mr. Raymond, contrary to his expectations, had arrived only the day before. Where he had been delayed since arriving in Europe was not made clear.

"But was my father in the building at the time the shell struck here?" asked Tom. "That's what I want to know."

Of this the man could not be certain. He had seen Mr. Raymond, he said, an hour or so before the bombardment, and the inventor was, at that time, in his room. Then he had gone out, but whether he had come back and was in the house when the shell struck the place, could not be said with certainty.

But if he had been in his apartment there was little chance that he had been left alive, for the explosion occurred very near his room, destroying everything. Tom hoped, later, to find some of his father's effects.

"There is just a chance, Jack," said the inventor's son, "that he wasn't in his room."

"A good chance, I should say," agreed the other. "Even if he had returned to his room, and that's unlikely, he may have run out at the