“Do you suppose brigands attacked him?” asked Patty, her eyes wide open with fear and wonder.
“No, dearie; not that. But it’s a strange story you tell, and I can think of only one explanation. Rest here, and don’t think about it for five minutes, till I return.”
Mrs. Ponderby hurried away, and was back again in less than five minutes.
“It’s as I thought,” she said. “That train you took from Florence is really in two sections. That is, half of its cars are for Venice, and half for Milan. At Bologna, the train is divided and sent in two directions. You see, Bologna is the southern point of a triangle. From there, one travels northeast to Venice, or northwest to Milan. Those two cities form the other two points of the triangle. So, when the train was divided at Bologna, some cars, including the one your father was in, went on to Venice; while other cars, including the one you were in, branched off to Milan, and here you are.”
Patty cogitated on this.
“Then,” she said, “when father tried to return to our car, our car wasn’t there.”
“Exactly; it had already been detached and sent to Milan.”
“Could father find this out?”
“Oh, yes; from the train guard. But he should have taken his seats in a car for Venice in the first place.”
“We were put in our places by the man from the hotel in Florence,” declared Patty, “so it wasn’t father’s fault at all.”