OUR SERIAL STORY TRIPPED AT LAST.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 200, 10 August 1911, Page 9

OUR SERIAL STORY TRIPPED AT LAST.

BY HEADON HILL. CHAPTER XXI. THE UPTURNED BOAT. (Continued.) The first intimation that it was njot so was when he entered the breakfasts room the next morning. Harold was invariably down before him, but today he was not there, and the doctor had hardly seated himself at the table when the parlormaid appeared—not at all perturbed, for irregularities are the order of the day and night in a medical household.

“Doctor Harold isn’t at home, sir,” she a Trounced. “He didn’t answer when I took .hris shaving water to his door, so a quarter of an hour Later I knocked again, and went into the room. He wasn’t there, and the bed bad not been slept in.” For Doctor Chetwynd, too, the news sounded no immediate note of alarm. “Was he sent for last night after I went across to Beacon Towers?” he asked, running over in 'his mind the several patients who might have made a sudden demand on the services of the firm. But the answer was in the negative. The maid was certain that no one had been to the house—at any rate before the cook and she had gome up to bed at ten o’clock, and if there had been a later visit they would have known of it. The night bell rang into their room. “A'll right, Mary; he must have been strolling in the garden and somebody came along for him,” said the doctor, falling to on his breakfast with the zest of a healthy appetite. “You might just see, though, if any one of his caps is missing from the ball stand.”

The girl was back directly with the information that a cap was missing—a “large-checked double-ender,” as she described it, “with flaps for the ears.” None of his walking-sticks were gone. “Humph, that explains it then,” said the doctor. “He’ll turn up presently, I expect, as hungry as a hunter. Cook had better stand by to do some more rashers and brew some fresh coffee.” But when the maid had retired, and while he finished his break fl st. the doctor had time more closely to analyse the lists of the patients on tire books, and he could not think of one who was likely to have required attention. Stil'l, he had no misgivings, for a doctor’s life is studded with unexpected emergencies, ajid there were a thousand and one accidents that might have taken Harold afield and 1 kept him out of his bed'. The only strange thing was that if tliere had been an accident in the neighborhood the news of it had not reached' him simultaneously with that of his son’s absence. 11l tidinigs fly fast in the country, and any happen! nigs of the night were usually brought by the milkman-. When the doctor had 'finished his meal he went into th® surgery and discovered that the bilack bag in which Harold carried his instrnmenrts was in its accustomed' place, which rather discounted tiro theory of his having been called to an accident. Narrowing his .researches still further, the doctor deduced! from the fact tliat no walking-stick had been taken that he had not toft the house in the expectation of going very far on foot, while all idea of his having been summoned to any of the outlying villages was precluded l by the fact that the dbg-cart and horse had not been reported as away from "home. To make quite sure the doctor went out to the stable and found the groom-gardener busily curry-combing his cliarge. The matter was settled beyond doubt. If Harold had gone to see a patient, that patient dwelt within a short radlius, neither the dog-cart nor a walking-stick having been requisitioned to aid him In •reaching his destination. Probably an unexpected event had taken place in one of the fishermen's families in the village street. Doctor Chetwynd returned to the surgery, and! presently the early patients who got their advice and physic cheap by calling for them began to trickle in. For the most part they belonged' to the fishing industry and to the small tradesmen—the class to 1 whose exigencies the doctor attributed Harold's absence. But though he questioned them all, without giving his reasons, he could hear of no interesting occurrence or grievous accident to account for the puzzle which with the lapse of every minute was growing more inexplicable. The old ; man knew that his son’s thoughtful j care for Inim would have prompted him to send a message home if he 'had been unduly detained. Hiis advice was tendered with unwonted' snappiness that day. The departure of the last of the consultants at half-past ten found him really anxious at last, and in two minds how to map out the rest of his morn/ing's work. In the ordinary course he would have started out on foot to make a few visits among the better-class patients in the village, but there was no serious illness just then in Porthruan. and he was loth to leave the house with the irritating Little mystery of Harold’s absence unsolved. He had just decided to wait half an hour when Bob Laingston tapiied at the door and entered with less than hiis custom ary west-country leisu relines.'’.

“Beg ptirdon, sir. but I'd hoped to find Master Harold here.” he said, gazing anxiously round and twirling his cap in fingers that twitched nervously. Doctor Chetwynd also noticed that his healthy tan was several paler than usual. “What do you want him for?” he asked sharply, to hide the vague uno.asines* with which ’-lie lad had infected him. “I don't want him. dr—leastways not. for inysvii. ' B-.b replied. “But I allowed to find him here so as to make sure he was all right. My boat Las Wb Found drifting bottom uppard- in the bay by the coastgua rd.' ’ t/L’.j be Continued).