  “Nonsense!” snorted Callahan, chewing on the end of his cigar. “He’s probably downstairs.” “No, sir, I looked! Jim ain’t so well. He’s been sick, and this is the first time he’s been out on a job in quite a while,” the workman said. “He’s a swell feller. I’ve known him a long time. I’m afraid he’s hurt.” “How could he be hurt? He hasn’t even begun to work. Show me the room you were in.” The contractor spoke disgustedly. They all started for the room across the hall. The men were in various kinds of working clothes, one or two wearing ordinary business suits. These were the better class, who needed the work. Then there were regular house-wreckers in stout shoes and overalls. As a background there were the girls in their smart riding habits and bright scarfs following Callahan, whose cigar was now reduced to a soggy brown mass. In the room from which the man Jim Danton had disappeared was a conglomeration of furniture. Old chairs and a rickety table piled in a group in one corner, a huge wicker clothes hamper that had been turned upside down, perhaps in the hope that Jim would fall out. The girls could not suppress a giggle, it was so silly, and some of the men snickered too. But Jim was nowhere to be seen. “Here’s where I last saw him standing. Right here; but he wasn’t there when I looked.” The man who had been about to begin work with the missing Jim indicated the far end of the room. Callahan strode over with Napoleon-like firmness. A door was closed, there; a closet door. With a huge red hand the contractor grasped the knob and wrenched it open. There was an expectant silence, then Callahan took a step forward to see better. The closet was empty! The group pressed nearer. Three sides of dark wood but nothing more. The contractor thumped the walls vigorously. “You’re crazy, man!” he said to the puzzled wrecker. “Jim never disappeared from here.” “Well, he disappeared from some place. He’s not here now,” insisted the friend of Jim. Callahan was clearly disgusted. Just when everything seemed to be going well at last, something new had to crop up. What silly persons these men were. Like a bunch of sheep. Because a few not too intelligent Negroes claimed they had seen a ghost, these men, who ought to have more sense, were already showing signs of fright because one of their group could not be found. The contractor pulled his battered gray hat down over one eye and produced a new cigar from an apparently endless supply. Then began the slapping of his pockets for matches. He looked vaguely at Sim as though remembering that she had come to his rescue before, but this time she stared back at him uncomprehending. Callahan went to the head of the stairs and shouted over the banister. “Danton!” he called, his powerful voice booming through the house. “Jim Danton!” But not even an echo answered him and, giving the cigar a vicious bite, he strode over to the window. “Hey, you, Danton, come here!” he shouted, but the result was the same as before. “Maybe he got sick and started home,” timidly suggested Sim in a voice that sounded ridiculously small after the Gargantuan tones of Mr. Callahan. “Oh, no, miss,” answered the worried worker. “He couldn’t go back till the truck came to take him and all of us out the main road. He lives too far. Besides, this job meant a lot to Jim. It’s the first work he’s had in months.” There was a discontented murmur growing among the men, and Arden could see the man whom Titus Ellery called “Nick” circulating among them and saying something in an insistent low tone. They were talking in a little group near the door of the room while Callahan questioned Jim’s particular friend more closely. Arden stepped to the open door of the closet and peered inside. Then she stooped down, and when she straightened up again she held up a small grimy object. She turned and faced the awe-struck company, for what she was displaying was a glove such as workmen wear, of a dull white color with a dark-blue knitted band at the wrist. “That’s his glove!” exclaimed the man near Mr. Callahan. “I was with him when he bought the pair. Jim said his hands were soft from not working in so long; he needed gloves.” At this discovery the men who had been talking quietly now showed open revolt. One fellow dropped a crowbar he had been carrying. It fell with a crash and seemed to startle them all into activity. “Not quitting, are you?” the contractor asked, sneering. “Fine bunch of men, you are!” “We sure are quitting, Mr. Callahan! We don’t mind ghosts; but when a man disappears in broad daylight, that’s too much.” It was the sinister Nick who spoke. Arden thought he seemed pleased at his announcement. The men near by shook their heads in agreement, and some put on their coats as they prepared to leave. The weary Callahan sank helplessly down on a pile of boards and pushed his hat back on his head. This, surely, was the last straw! The men straggled out of the old house. The girls followed them. In a little while the contractor also came out. |
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