Larry Dexter's Great Search Part 34

Larry did not know what to do. It was a curious state of affairs. He had been so sure of uniting Mr. Potter and Grace, but now all his plans had come to nothing. Then, too, there was the paper to be considered. Mr. Emberg would expect him to send in the story of the mysterious disappearance of the hospital patient. Yet Larry did not like to leave Grace while he went to telephone. He was in a curious predicament.

"We will send out a general alarm if we do not find him soon," the superintendent went on. "Occasionally delirious patients wander from the wards while the nurses are temporarily absent, but they are always found hiding in some part of the hospital. We have not yet completed the search. Only once in a great while do they get outside the inst.i.tution. Yet Mr. Potter may have."

"Then we may never find him again," spoke Grace.

"Don't worry," Larry advised, as cheerfully as he could. "He'll come back."

"I'll never see him again!" and Grace was on the verge of tears.

"Oh, this is terrible!"

Just then there was heard a confusion of sounds in the corridor outside of the superintendent's office. The latter went to the door, and through the opened portal Grace and Larry heard some one exclaim:

"He's come back!"

"Maybe that's him!" cried the reporter.

The superintendent returned to his office.

"I have a pleasant surprise for you," he exclaimed. "The patient has come back. He says he went out to a telephone."

"Is he--is he all right?" asked Grace.

"Better than ever. The little trip seemed to do him good. Here he is."

He threw open the door he had closed. There, standing in the corridor, was the man Larry had known as Mah Retto--the man he believed was Mr. Potter. The patient was smiling at the reporter.

"There is your father, Grace," said Larry.

The girl gave one look at the man confronting her. She seemed to sway forward, and became deathly pale----

"That is not my father!" she cried, as she fell in a faint.

CHAPTER XXIX

IN HIS ENEMIES' POWER

"Quick! Catch her!" cried the hospital superintendent, springing forward, but it was Larry who put out his arms and kept Grace from falling to the floor.

"Here, nurse," called one of several physicians who had gathered in the corridor when the news spread that the missing patient had returned. "Look after her, please. Carry her into the receiving room."

"Who is she?" asked the patient, who had caused such a stir, and to whom no one seemed to be paying any attention in the excitement caused by Grace's swoon. The man had not caught a good look at the girl.

"She is Grace Potter," replied Larry, glancing curiously at Mah Retto.

"Grace Potter? Hamden Potter's daughter?" The man seemed greatly excited.

"Yes. She came here expecting, as I did, to meet her father. I thought you were Mr. Potter. She says you are not."

"No, I am not," replied the man.

"Then who are you? Where is her father? You know! I am sure of it!"

Larry was upset over the mistake he and the detective had made.

"I did know where Mr. Potter was," and as he made that answer Retto gave every evidence of being under a great strain. His hands shook with more than the weakness of his illness. He was paler than the white hue caused by his confinement in the hospital.

"Why? Have you lost track of him?"

"I am afraid so. Listen, young man, perhaps you can help me. Let us get to some place where we can talk. I have strange news for you."

"Then you know me?" and the young reporter looked somewhat surprised.

"I couldn't very well help it, with the way you have kept after me lately. But we have no time to lose. Something most unexpected has happened. Mr. Potter is in the hands of his enemies!"

"Then he is found?"

"Yes, in a way, but he might better be lost!"

"What do you mean?"

"Come in here and I will tell you."

Retto led the way to a small room off the main corridor.

"What does this mean?" asked the hospital superintendent.

"I will explain later," replied Retto. "Just now it is very necessary that I have a talk with this young man."

The superintendent turned away and Retto closed the door. He sat down in a chair, and Larry could see that he was trembling from weakness.

"I must talk quickly," he said, "for I am still very ill. I made a desperate effort to go out in order to get in communication with Mr.

Potter. I mailed him a letter and then called him up on the telephone----"

"Then you know where he was!" burst out Larry.

"I did, but I do not now. Listen, and don't ask too many questions yet. All will soon be explained, if it is not too late. I am Mr.

Potter's friend. He took me into his confidence when he found it necessary, for very strong reasons, to disappear. I agreed to help him and do exactly as he wanted me to. He has been hiding across the Hudson River, outside of the legal jurisdiction of New York State. I was in touch with him by telephone and otherwise up to the time of my accident on the pier. Since then, of course, I have not been able to hold any communication with him. As soon as I had the chance, which came for the first time to-day, I got out and called him on the telephone. I was told by the man, with whom he had been staying, that, about an hour ago, some men came and took him away."

"Some men took him away?"

"Yes. Men whom I recognized, by the description, as his enemies--as men who have an interest in getting Mr. Potter into their power. He has been trying all this while to keep out of their way. Now they have him!"

"But what's to be done?" asked the young reporter.

"I don't know," replied Retto, hopelessly. "Everything was going on all right until those horses knocked me down."