CHAPTER XXIIA FEARFUL LOSS
Randyproceeded on his way, chirp and chipper and whistling a careless tune. There was so much to feel proud and happy over as to present and future prospects, that all of life seemed to him to be gilded with sunshine.
Randy had been to the studio of Mr. Randall once before. He knew the location generally and had no difficulty in finding the house where the professor’s agent lived. Its lower part was occupied by a woman who rented out the rooms above. She was scrubbing out the little front hall as Randy appeared.
Randy stepped past the woman and ascended the stairs. If he had chanced to look behind him as he left the street, he might have made out two men dodging after him. They were the twain who had just recently attracted the attention of Vic and aroused the suspicions of Pep.
All unconscious of being followed, Randy proceeded to the second story of the old house.The rear room of that floor was a large glass-roofed apartment. It had been once used as a photograph gallery. It was now being utilized not only as a living room by Mr. Randall, but also to develop and perfect the films he had brought back with him from over a year’s travel and adventure.
Randy knocked at the door of the room, but no attention was paid to the summons. He waited a minute or two and knocked again. There was still no invitation to enter. Randy held his ear close to the door.
“There’s surely someone in there, for I can hear hard breathing,” he declared. “Maybe Mr. Randall is asleep.”
Randy tried the door, and the knob turned readily in his grasp. It was quite late in the afternoon, but by no means dusk yet. However, the slanting glass roof had inside screens to exclude the sunlight. These had been pulled close. They were made of thin cambric and while they were thin and did not entirely shut out the light, they shadowed the interior and for a moment caused Randy to make out his surroundings imperfectly.
Then he saw that someone was lying on a couch set in an embrasure in the wall. Randy approached the recumbent figure. He made outthe man he had come to see. Mr. Randall was apparently asleep, and the youth touched his arm.
“Mr. Randall, it’s a messenger from Professor Barrington,” he announced.
The sleeper roused up, turned over, and blinked his eyes in a tired, bothered way at Randy. The latter became concerned at once. The man appeared quite ill. His face was flushed and his eyes watery. As he sat on the edge of the couch he moved to and fro. His hand rubbed his brow in a confused, unsteady way. Then, as he gave a lurch forward, Randy sprang to his side and eased him back on the pillow, the man gasping painfully. His hands were hot as fire and he lay there panting weakly.
“It’s another attack of the old fever coming on,” voiced the sufferer, faintly. “You see, I had a hard tussle of it. The Esquimaux got me just in time. Did you say Professor Barrington sent you?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Randy, “and I’m going straight back to tell him how sick you are. He never dreamed it and I know he will be very anxious about you.”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” said Mr. Randall. “I’ll soon get over it. Feel very much prostrated, though. I—I wish you would tell ProfessorBarrington to bring a doctor with him. And—on the table. That package. Just take it to him, will you? I’ve got the film in shape. He’ll find directions for the shade and color effects in the envelopes inside.”
“You mean this?” inquired Randy, as he moved towards the table where lay an oblong package.
His fingers tingled as he placed them upon this. The great film! The thought filled the impressible Randy with an awed sense. Here was the great photo production secured at the cost of so much money, patience, intelligence and peril!
Just then the patient uttered a sharp cry and started up on the couch, his eyes wild looking, his hands waving about excitedly.
“It’s blinding me—the sun shining on those icebergs!” he shouted out. Then he shivered. “The cold—the cold!” he added. “Seventy-two below at noon! I’m perishing!”
“He’s out of his mind—he’s delirious,” exclaimed Randy, very greatly alarmed. He replaced the package on the table and hastened down the stairs. The woman below was just wiping off the stone sill of the street doorway.
“Quick!” he spoke—“the gentleman upstairs is dangerously ill.”
“I knew that,” interrupted the woman. “I wanted to bring him hot tea when I was cleaning up his room just now, but he said it was nothing.”
“He is in a fever and out of his head,” said Randy. “Could you go up and stay with him till I come back and watch him to see that he does himself no harm? I must fetch a doctor at once.”
“Surely I’ll attend to him,” responded the woman, readily.
“Where can I find the nearest doctor?” inquired Randy.
“There’s none very near here that I know of,” said the woman. “The way we do is to go to the nearest drug store.”
“Keep a watch on Mr. Randall,” was Randy’s hasty direction, and he bolted through the open doorway for the street.
He almost ran into two men who stood at one side of the steps as he flew down them. They must have overheard his conversation with the landlady of the house, was the thought that flitted through Randy’s mind. He was so intent on calling aid for the sufferer, however, that he paid no particular attention to the men.
Randy ran all the way to the drug store, two squares distant. Its proprietor stared ratherwonderingly at the breathless, excited boy who dashed into the place precipitately.
“Mister, will you call the nearest doctor, quick!” panted Randy.
“Urgent case?” questioned the druggist.
“Yes, sir, very much so,” declared Randy. “It’s right on this street—No. 217.”
“Mrs. Dean’s? I know the place,” nodded the druggist. “You had better wait till I see who I can get,” and the speaker hurried to the telegraph booth.
Randy was on pins and needles of suspense. He knew that Professor Barrington would never forgive himself if anything happened to his faithful agent through any real or seeming neglect. The druggist had to make several calls on the telephone before he found a doctor at home.
“I’ve caught Dr. Rolfe at home,” he advised Randy as he came out of the booth. “He says he’ll come at once. His office is a mile away, though, and it will probably be fully fifteen minutes before he shows up.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Randy, gratefully. “I must hurry back,” and he bolted out.
He was dreadfully stirred up and anxious as he ran up the steps of the house he had recently left. The stairway was dark and shadowy. Someone coming down them half-way up jostledviolently against Randy. The latter supposed it was some roomer in the place. Then, as he reached the upper hall, he almost bolted into the landlady. She had just come up the rear stairs from the kitchen, it appeared, and she carried a basin of steaming hot water in her hands.
“Oh, it’s you?” she hailed. “I was just bringing the doctor some boiling water he ordered. You got him here very quick; didn’t you?”
“What doctor?” bolted out Randy.
“The one you went for. He got here ahead of you. I took him up to the studio and he sent me for this.”
“The doctor—here?” cried Randy. “That is impossible! The doctor the druggist telephoned for lives a mile away and couldn’t possibly get here inside of the next fifteen minutes.”
“I don’t understand—” began the landlady, but Randy darted past her.
“Something’s wrong,” he faltered, as he crossed the threshold of the studio. “See,” he added to the landlady—“there is no doctor here.”
“Why, I left him here not two minutes since,” declared the woman, staring about the room and almost dropping the basin she carried in her sheer amaze and bewilderment.
Randy’s quick eyes swept the room with aswift, comprehending glance. Mr. Randall lay quiet as if exhausted on the couch where Randy had seen him last. Except for him and themselves the apartment held no occupant.
Suddenly Randy uttered a startled cry. It was a fairly terrified one, shocking afresh the already disturbed nerves of the landlady.
“Where is the package that was on that table?” he cried, wildly.
“Eh—oh, yes, I noticed it when I went for the hot water. It’s gone; isn’t it?”
“Gone—it’s been stolen!” shouted Randy, almost overcome by the discovery. “Oh, I see it all. It was no doctor whom you saw.”
“But he said he was,” declared the landlady. “He said he was sent for. He even mentioned Mr. Randall’s name and—”
Randy did not wait to hear the rest of the sentence. He was out of the room, down the stairs, and out upon the street in a flash. The worst of fears appalled him.
“Those two men!” he faltered, gazing up and down the deserted street. “They must have followed me! They overheard me and one of them impersonated the doctor. They are gone and with them,—oh the fearful loss!—the great film!”