Only let it be said that she survived—that when Mr. Donalds rushed out of his house on East Seventy-Fourth Street, Miss Mackellar was still breathing. He had at first intended to take her with him, to identify persons and places, but even he could see the uselessness of doing so. She was in no condition to identify anything. She was beginning to rave about the child’s having been carried off by a tiger; so he left her behind.
Like a stone from a catapult he shot out of his house and down the street toward the park. He had no intention of allowing the police to interfere with his private affairs. He believed he knew very well who had stolen the child, and why.
“Very well, madam!” he said to himself. “We shall see!”
III
Mr. Donalds knew that the child would suffer no bodily harm, and he was confident of his ability to snatch her away from contaminating moral influences before serious injury to her character could result. Mr. Donalds never failed. If he did not always accomplish exactly what he set out to do, at least he did something else which seemed to him just as good.
He knew that in this case he would succeed, as usual, and therefore he was able to devote his mind to being angry. His fury rose within him like steam, actually seeming to inflate him, so that he bounced rather than walked. A short, stoutish man he was, with a pale Napoleonic face and a piercing glance—a man of tremendous energy and determination.
Sometimes, however, he was a man of too little patience and deliberation. This morning, for instance, although he had thought to take his hat and his walking stick, he had forgotten to change his slippers. He was wearing red morocco slippers that came up over the ankle, and not only were they conspicuous, but they were too thin for outdoor walking.
However, it was not his way to turn back, and forward he went. He entered the park and proceeded direct to the spot where Miss Mackellar said she had last seen the child. He looked for clews. There were none.
He followed the course which the nursemaid had pointed out to Miss Mackellar, and in due time he arrived at another entrance. There was a cab stand here, in which stood one taxi, with the chauffeur standing beside it, leisurely surveying the world in which we live. Mr. Donalds approached him.
“See here!” he said. “Did you happen to see a red-haired woman and a child in a pink hat come out of the park near here?”