d.

CHAPTER VIII

WHERE IS MR. RAYMOND?

Tom Raymond, having gone through a hard school since he began flying for
France, soon recovered almost complete mastery of himself. The first
shock was severe, but when it was over he was able to think clearly.
Indeed the faculty of thinking clearly in times of great danger is what
makes great aviators. For in no other situation is a clear and quick
brain so urgently needed.

"Well, I'm sure of one thing, Jack," said Tom, as they walked away from
the fateful ruins. "Of those we helped carry out none was my father. He
wasn't among the injured or dead."

"I'm sure of that, too. Still we mustn't count too much on it, Tom. I
don't want you to have false hopes. We must make sure."

"Yes, I'm going to. We'll visit the hospitals and morgues, and talk with
the military and police authorities. In these war times there is a
record of everybody and everything kept, so it ought to be easy to trace
him."

"He arrived all right, that's settled," declared Jack. "The agent's
record proves that."

"Yes. I'd like to have a further talk with that agent before we set out
to make other inquiries."

This Tom was able to bring about some time later that day. The agent
informed the lad that Mr. Raymond, contrary to his expectations, had
arrived only the day before. Where he had been delayed since arriving in
Europe was not made clear.

"But was my father in the building at the time the shell struck here?"
asked Tom. "That's what I want to know."

Of this the man could not be certain. He had seen Mr. Raymond, he said,
an hour or so before the bombardment, and the inventor was, at that
time, in his room. Then he had gone out, but whether he had come back
and was in the house when the shell struck the place, could not be said
with certainty.

But if he had been in his apartment there was little chance that he had
been left alive, for the explosion occurred very near his room,
destroying everything. Tom hoped, later, to find some of his father's
effects.

"There is just a chance, Jack," said the inventor's son, "that he wasn't
in his room."

"A good chance, I should say," agreed the other. "Even if he had
returned to his room, and that's unlikely, he may have run out at the
sound of the first explosion, to see what it was all about."

"I'm counting on that. If he was out he is probably alive now. But if he
was in his room--"

"There would be some trace of him," finished Jack.