g-point. It was evident at once that there was nothing
to do but let him take his time and get the story out the best he could.
After all, immediate action had never helped matters in this affair of
Kastle Krags. There had been a grim finality about everything that had
occurred. Those who were gone had not been brought back by prompt
search.

He did not respond to any of the ruses so often used to get a colored
man to talk--scorn or incredulity or sternness. He was aware of nothing
but his own terror, and the image in those fear-widened eyes no man
could guess.

"You say a telegram came for him, Wilkson?" I asked gently. "Some one
phoned it in?"

"De phone bell rung, jus' off de su'vant's rooms," he explained. "It was
a message fo' Majo' Dell. 'Get him up to get dis telegram,' some white
gen'lman said, so I done went to get him up. He ain't in his room. Bed
not been slept in. I called and no one answered. Den I ask Mrs.
Gentry--she saw him go down the hall hour ago, all dressed, and seen him
turn in yo' room----"

"He's not here. He hasn't been here." I slipped on a dressing-gown
and slippers, then stood a moment with Wilkson in the darkened hall.
It was curious that the housekeeper should have made such an odd
mistake--thinking that Dell had turned into my door. Perhaps at the
distance she had observed she confused the door either to the right or
left with mine.

There was no need for panic yet. Any one of a dozen things might have
explained his temporary absence from his room in the dead of night. He
might be in the room to my right--Fargo's room--in some conference with
his friend. Yet there was no light under the door.

I knocked loudly. Fargo called sharply from his bed.

"Have you seen Major Dell?" I asked.

"Dell? No! Good Lord, he hasn't disappeared, too?"

"We can't find him." I heard Fargo spring from his bed, and I turned to
the room to my left. Yet in an instant I remembered and halted on the
threshold. This was Nealman's room, dark and chill with shadows. I
scratched a match and lifted it high.

But no one was here. My voice rang with a hollow sound back to me. Our
shouts had aroused Nopp, and in a moment he came out in the hall to join
us. I think Nopp was a steadying influence on us both. He walked, rather
than ran, he was perfectly composed, wholly himself, and his voice when
he spoke was low and even. Yet there was no tone or note of an attempt
to belittle our alarm. He acted as I have seen