“Yes,” said Mr. Phelps again, wondering what was the intent of this peculiar interview.
“Then you’re the man I’m after,” declared the stranger, “and I’m obliged to tell you, sir, that you are under arrest.”
“For what offence?” enquired Mr. Phelps, rather amused at what he considered a good joke, and thinking that it must be a case of mistaken identity somehow.
“For kidnapping little Mary Brown,” was the astonishing reply.
“Why, we didn’t kidnap her at all!” exclaimed Patty, breaking into the conversation. “The idea, to think we would kidnap a baby! and anyway her name isn’t Mary, it’s Rosabel.”
“Then you know where the child is, Miss,” said the man, turning to Patty.
“Of course I do,” said Patty, “she’s upstairs asleep. But it isn’t Mary Brown at all. It’s Rosabel,—I don’t know what her last name is.”
Mr. Phelps began to be interested.
“What makes you think we kidnapped a baby, my friend?” he said to their visitor.
The man looked as if he had begun to think there must be a mistake somewhere. “Why, you see, sir,” he said, “Mrs. Brown, she’s just about crazy. Her little girl, Sarah, went out into the woods this afternoon, and took the baby, Mary, with her. The baby went to sleep, and Sarah left it lying on a blanket under a tree, while she roamed around the wood picking blueberries. Somehow she strayed away farther than she intended and lost her way. When she finally managed to get back to the place where she left the baby, the child was gone, and she says she could see a large automobile going swiftly away, and the lady who sat in the front seat was holding little Mary. Sarah screamed, and called after you, but the car only went on more and more rapidly, and was soon lost to sight. I’m a detective, sir, and I looked carefully at the wheel tracks in the dust, and I asked a few questions here and there, and I hit upon some several clues, and here I am. Now I’d like you to explain, sir, if you didn’t kidnap that child, what you do call it?”