Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/33

Rh "No reference ever made by him at all to either name—Alan or Conrad?"

"No, father."

"No reference either to any one living in Kansas, or to a town there called Blue Rapids?"

"No, father. Who is Alan Conrad?"

"I do not know, dear. I never heard the name until to-day, and Henry Spearman had never heard it. But it appears to be intimately connected in some way with what was troubling Uncle Benny yesterday. He wrote a letter yesterday to Alan Conrad in Blue Rapids and mailed it himself; and afterward he tried to get it back, but it already had been taken up and was on its way. I have not been able to learn anything more about the letter than that. He seems to have been excited and troubled all day; he talked queerly to you, and he quarreled with Henry, but apparently not about anything of importance. And to-day that name, Alan Conrad, came to me in quite another way, in a way which makes it certain that it is closely connected with whatever has happened to Uncle Benny. You are quite sure you never heard him mention it, dear?"

"Quite sure, father."

He released her and, still in his hat and coat, went swiftly up the stairs. She ran after him and found him standing before a highboy in his dressing room. He unlocked a drawer in the highboy, and from within the drawer he took a key. Then, still disregarding her, he hurried back down-stairs.

As she followed him, she caught up a wrap and pulled it around her. He had told the motor, she realized now, to wait; but as he reached the door, he turned and stopped her.