"If it comes to a question of ghosts, miss," said a tall, lanky man, "I don't believe in 'em myself. But when a man is snatched away, you might say, right from under your nose, why, that's something different."
"Could it not very well be," asked Sim, "that this Jim Danton might have gone to some other part of the house without telling any of you, and have been hurt there?--his hammer may have slipped and hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious. That could have happened."
"And he may be up in one of the old rooms now, injured, suffering," added Terry.
"This certainly is getting interesting, to say the least," spoke Dorothy. "I must give you girls credit for getting up some good theatrical effects in this mystery. That's quite a mob scene," and she pointed a rather languid finger at the group of workers.
"Don't make fun, Dot," said Terry in a low voice. "This may be serious." Dot was inclined to be theatrical at the wrong time.
Arden still held the center of the stage. She felt the need of prompt, effective action.
"Well, let's go make another search," she proposed. "And don't waste time."
"We'll do that with you," said a young fellow. "But Jim didn't go to any isolated room and hit himself on the head with his hammer. In the first place, he didn't have any hammer. He was using a crowbar."
"That's right," came in a murmur, a proper mob-scene murmur, Dorothy thought, though she did not dare mention it.
"And in the second place," went on the same young fellow, "he was in that closet. I saw him go in."
"And nobody saw him come out, and there isn't even a rat-hole in that closet yet," declared another. "We haven't started ripping there."
It looked as though the fear and mystery would start all over again. But Arden was not going to give up.
"That's the idea!" boomed Mr. Callahan. He was getting hopeful once more. "The girls'll put you fellows to shame! Let's all go in."
The Hall was quickly invaded with more persons than it had housed in many a long day. On the two lower floors no work of demolishing the place was visible. The men had first started tearing out the top or fourth floor. It was from the third floor that Jim Danton had disappeared.
"I wonder how much longer Mrs. Howe is going to leave some of her possessions in here?" said Sim as they reëntered the big lower entrance.