Chapter XVI. The Long Night - Page 2

his heart.

There was nothing to do but to get back in the runabout and make all speed for the nearest telephone, and Tom Swift lost little time in doing this. They found a drug store which was open a little later than usual, and at once Tom went into the booth and called up the Shopton hospital. He was well known there, as he and his father were liberal supporters of the institution, which was a private affair. Many of Tom's men were treated at the dispensary, and, as accidents were of more or less frequent occurrence at the works, the young inventor had frequent occasions to call up the place.

"Mr. Nestor would ask to be taken there, as it's nearest his home--that is, if he was able to speak," Tom said to Mr. Damon, who agreed with him. There was a little delay in getting the hospital on the wire, but when Tom had it, and was talking to the superintendent, he was rather surprised, to tell the truth, to be told that Mr. Nestor had not been brought in.

"We haven't had any accident cases all day, nor to-night, Mr. Swift," the superintendent reported. "Was this some one special you were inquiring about?"

For Tom, determining not to give Mr. Nestor's name, except as a last resort, had merely inquired whether any recent accident cases had been brought in.

"I'll let you know later, Mr. Millard," he told the superintendent, not exactly answering the question. He hung up the receiver, and, opening the door of the booth, said to Mr. Damon: "He isn't there."

"Then try Waterfield," was the suggestion; and Tom did so, though he could not imagine why an injured man, such as Mr. Nestor might prove to be, should be taken as far as Waterfield, when the hospital at Shopton was nearer.

"Unless," he told Mr. Damon, "the people which ran down Mary's father didn't know about our hospital."

The reply from the institution in Mr. Damon's home town was just as discouraging as had been the answer from Shopton. At first, when Tom inquired, the head nurse had said there was an accident case at that moment being brought in. Tom was all excitement until she went to inquire the name and circumstances, and then he learned that it was the case of a little boy who had fallen downstairs at his home and broken a leg. There was no record of any one answering the description of Mr. Nestor having been brought in that evening.

"Hum! This is getting to be mysterious," mused Tom, as he came out of the booth. "What shall we do--go back and tell Mrs. Nestor and Mary, or communicate with the police?"

"Why not try the Alexian Hospital?" asked Mr. Damon. "That's away over in Center-fiord, to be sure, but it's more likely to be known to passing tourists than either of our institutions around here, especially if the autoists were strangers."

"That's