Clarke naturally tore the letter open with quaking fingers and read:
“Mrs Clark: Do not look for your nurse and baby. They are safe in our possession, where they will remain for the present. If the matter is kept out of the hands of the police and newspapers, you will get your baby back, safe and sound.
“If, instead, you make a big time about it and publish it all over, we will see to it that you never see her alive again. We are driven to this by the fact that we cannot get work, and one of us has a child dying through want of proper treatment and nourishment.
“Your baby is safe and in good hands. The nurse girl is still with her. If everything is quiet, you will hear from us Monday or Tuesday.
“Three.”
The letter was correctly done, properly paragraphed, punctuated, and printed with a fine pen in a somewhat laborious simulation of writing-machine type. It also bore several markings characteristic of the journalist or publisher’s copy reader, especially three parallel lines drawn under the signature, “Three,” evidently to indicate capitals. The envelope was the common plain white kind, but the sheet of paper on which the note had been penned was of the white unglazed and uncalendared kind known as newsprint and used in all newspaper offices as copy paper. Accordingly it was at once suspected that the kidnapper must have been a newspaper man, printer, reader, or some one connected with a publishing house.
The Clarkes recalled that the nurse had been alone the preceding Friday evening and had been writing. Evidently she had prepared the note at that time and had been planning the abduction with foresight and care. People at once reached the conclusion that she was one of the agents of a great band of professional kidnappers. Accordingly every child and every mother in the city stood in peril.
To indicate the nature of the official search, we may as well reproduce Chief of Police Devery’s proclamation:
“Arrest for abduction—Carrie Jones, twenty-one years of age, five feet two inches tall, dark hair and eyes, pale face, high check bones, teeth prominent in lower jaw, American by birth; wore a white straw sailor hat with black band, military pin on side, blue-check shirt waist, black brilliantine skirt, black lace bicycle boots, white collar and black tie.
“Abducted on Sunday May 21, 1899, Marion Clarke, daughter of Arthur W. Clarke, of this city, and described as follows: twenty months old, light complexion, blue eyes, light hair, had twelve teeth, four in upper jaw, four in lower jaw, and four in back. There is a space between two upper front teeth, and red birthmark on back. Wore rose-colored dress, white silk cap, black stockings, and black buttoned shoes.