“Koku,” he called to the giant, “you and Rad hurry out to my laboratory and look for Mr. Newton. He may be in one of the bedrooms, asleep.” “Asleep, Tom, after that explosion?” exclaimed Mr. Swift incredulously. The telephone receiver had been hung back on the hook, so Mr. Newton heard none of this talk. “It doesn’t seem possible,” Tom had to admit to his father; “but still I can’t account for Ned’s disappearance in any other way. He was dead tired and he may have slept through the fire and explosion. We’ll soon find out. I wish I could go and take a look for myself.” “No, you stay here!” his father ordered. “Obey the doctor’s advice. Koku and Rad will find Ned if he’s to be found.” The giant and negro came back soon, to report that there was no sign of Ned in the laboratory. “Perhaps he may have returned home by this time,” suggested Mr. Swift. “Better call up and find out.” “There is just a bare possibility—” said Tom musingly, as he reached for the ’phone, “there is just a bare chance that Ned took the midnight train for New York to get the selenium.” “Took the midnight train to get selenium!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “What do you mean?” “Well, I needed some more sensitive selenium for my—for my—new experiment,” Tom said, knowing his father would understand he was speaking of the talking-picture machine. “Ned knew about it and planned to go after it to-day. When he left me last night he may have decided suddenly to keep right on to New York. I think I’ll tell his father that.” “Do you really believe it, Tom?” “No, Dad, I don’t. But I don’t want Mr. Newton to give up hope until I can get on the job myself and help hunt for Ned. Even at that there is a bare chance he did go to New York. I’ll suggest that to his father.” Mr. Newton received this ray of hope gratefully and Tom was glad he had thought of it, though he knew it was only a shadow. If Ned really had taken the midnight train, which was possible, there ought to come a message from him soon reporting on the selenium matter. Also, Ned, being a home-loving young man, would naturally be expected to send word to his family about his return. “It will only hold matters back for a short time at best,” said Tom to his father. “But I didn’t imagine my laboratory was burned enough to destroy the bedrooms. Do you think there is much more damage, Jackson?” “Not to your laboratory,” was the reassuring reply. “You see, after the explosion the flames shot up at the back before we knew it, and the draft sucked them in through the bedroom windows. So the upper part of the place was worse burned than the lower. But Ned Newton was not in there.” “I’m glad of that,” Tom said. He was beginning to feel the strain of what he had gone through, and he was glad when, a little later, Mary Nestor and her father motored over to see him. Mr. Nestor had some time before taken a long trip North for his health, a trip that had greatly improved his condition.