Callahan Collapses
“Nonsense!” snorted Callahan, chewing on the end of his cigar. “He’s
probably downstairs.”
“No, sir, I looked! Jim ain’t so well. He’s been sick, and this is the
first time he’s been out on a job in quite a while,” the workman said.
“He’s a swell feller. I’ve known him a long time. I’m afraid he’s hurt.”
“How could he be hurt? He hasn’t even begun to work. Show me the room you
were in.” The contractor spoke disgustedly.
They all started for the room across the hall. The men were in various
kinds of working clothes, one or two wearing ordinary business suits.
These were the better class, who needed the work. Then there were regular
house-wreckers in stout shoes and overalls. As a background there were
the girls in their smart riding habits and bright scarfs following
Callahan, whose cigar was now reduced to a soggy brown mass.
In the room from which the man Jim Danton had disappeared was a
conglomeration of furniture. Old chairs and a rickety table piled in a
group in one corner, a huge wicker clothes hamper that had been turned
upside down, perhaps in the hope that Jim would fall out.
The girls could not suppress a giggle, it was so silly, and some of the
men snickered too. But Jim was nowhere to be seen.
“Here’s where I last saw him standing. Right here; but he wasn’t there
when I looked.” The man who had been about to begin work with the missing
Jim indicated the far end of the room.
Callahan strode over with Napoleon-like firmness. A door was closed,
there; a closet door. With a huge red hand the contractor grasped the
knob and wrenched it open. There was an expectant silence, then Callahan
took a step forward to see better. The closet was empty!
The group pressed nearer. Three sides of dark wood but nothing more. The
contractor thumped the walls vigorously.
“You’re crazy, man!” he said to the puzzled wrecker. “Jim never
disappeared from here.”
“Well, he disappeared from some place. He’s not here now,” insisted the
friend of Jim.
Callahan was clearly disgusted. Just when everything seemed to be going
well at last, something new had to crop up. What silly persons these men
were. Like a bunch of sheep. Because a few not too intelligent Negroes
claimed they had seen a ghost, these men, who ought to have more sense,
were already showing signs of fright because one of their group could not
be found. The contractor pulled his battered gray hat down over one eye
and produced a new cigar from an apparently endless supply. Then began
the slapping of his pockets for matches. He looked vaguely at Sim as
though remembering that she had come to his rescue before, but this time
she stared back at him uncomprehending.
Callahan went to the head of the stairs and shouted over the banister.
“Danton!” he called, his powerful voice booming through the house. “Jim
Danton!”
But not even an echo answered him and, giving the cigar a vicious bite,
he strode over to the window. “Hey, you, Danton, come here!” he shouted,
but the result was the same as before.
“Maybe he got sick and started home,” timidly suggested Sim in a voice
that sounded ridiculously small after the Gargantuan tones of Mr.
Callahan.
“Oh, no, miss,” answered the worried worker. “He couldn’t go back till
the truck came to take him and all of us out the main road. He lives too
far. Besides, this job meant a lot to Jim. It’s the first work he’s had
in months.”
There was a discontented murmur growing among the men, and Arden could
see the man whom Titus Ellery called “Nick” circulating among them and
saying something in an insistent low tone. They were talking in a little
group near the door of the room while Callahan questioned Jim’s
particular friend more closely.
Arden stepped to the open door of the closet and peered inside. Then she
stooped down, and when she straightened up again she held up a small
grimy object.
She turned and faced the awe-struck company, for what she was displaying
was a glove such as workmen wear, of a dull white color with a dark-blue
knitted band at the wrist.
“That’s his glove!” exclaimed the man near Mr. Callahan. “I was with him
when he bought the pair. Jim said his hands were soft from not working in
so long; he needed gloves.”
At this discovery the men who had been talking quietly now showed open
revolt. One fellow dropped a crowbar he had been carrying. It fell with a
crash and seemed to startle them all into activity.
“Not quitting, are you?” the contractor asked, sneering. “Fine bunch of
men, you are!”
“We sure are quitting, Mr. Callahan! We don’t mind ghosts; but when a man
disappears in broad daylight, that’s too much.” It was the sinister Nick
who spoke. Arden thought he seemed pleased at his announcement.
The men near by shook their heads in agreement, and some put on their
coats as they prepared to leave.
The weary Callahan sank helplessly down on a pile of boards and pushed
his hat back on his head. This, surely, was the last straw! The men
straggled out of the old house. The girls followed them. In a little
while the contractor also came out.