The Last Woman

"Why, my Thomas car--the one that took Patricia away, you know--has been found somewhere in the streets of New York, deserted, apparently. I can't understand it. They identified the car by the number, you know. When I told Sally what had been said to me, she immediately had a spasm of fear lest the accident reported to have happened to Morton might have been Patricia, instead. I thought I'd ask you about it; that's all."

"Wait a minute, Jack. Just let me think, a minute; then I'll answer you."

Duncan put the receiver down on the table, and crossed the room. He found it difficult to grasp the situation. Until that moment, it had not occurred to him that Patricia might have been the one to find Morton, or Morton's body, at the scene of the wreck. He had forgotten that she must have passed that way within half an hour from the time of the piling of the steamer upon the mass of sharp stones. Presently, he returned to the telephone, and told his friend all that he knew about the circumstances, and all that he had done since Thompson and he came away from the scene of the wreck.

"But I don't see what your Thomas car has got to do with it," he concluded. "Your man Patrick was driving it, wasn't he? I know he was. He used to be with Langdon, you know. He isn't a chauffeur, but he's a lot more competent to be one than half the men who are. I say, Jack, have Sally call up Patricia, right away. You--"

He heard a click over the wire which told him that connection was cut off; and after that he paced the floor again, wishing and hoping for the ringing of his telephone-bell.

"We are coming to the city at once," Gardner told him, when at last it did ring, and Duncan had taken down the receiver. "What the devil is the matter with everything, anyhow? You had better hump yourself, Duncan, and get busy. I don't believe that Morton was hurt half so badly as you and Thompson seemed to think. Anyhow, the only way I can see through it all is that Patricia was the one who found him. But, even so--"

"Hold on a minute, Jack. You are getting too swift for me. What did Sally find out when she telephoned to Patricia?"

"Oh! Didn't I tell you that? Patricia hasn't been home, at all. They thought, at Langdon's, that she was here. She certainly hasn't shown up there. And you say that Dick has disappeared, after leaving his gore spread all over the place where his car was smashed. And, then, my car is found somewhere down there, abandoned. I can't make it out, at all. Sally is sure that something dreadful has happened. We're starting now. Sally won't wait another minute. I'll see you as soon as I get into town."