Oh, cute story but I know how terrifying it is when they escape. When I was a little girl my dwarf hamsters which were two females, I was told, had babies and they were so small that they escaped through the bars of their cage one night and ran around the floor in my room. It was a long night.
And, a few months ago my old Syrian hamster escaped and crawled under the floor boards. My partner got furious as he thought it would chew through cables and I was devastated because I though I would never see him again.

My advise is: hamsters are mostly active during the night or late evening, so you are lucky to catch him if he moves around.
Every night I opened the door every tenth minute to see if I could spot him anywhere and one night about 9 o'clock, I opened the door and he sat in the middle of the floor and totally freezed when he saw me.. I bet he was thinking "she can't see me, she can't see me, I don't want to go back". Hehe

So far, I think, you have been very lucky when you have cats as well.