“You don’t know?” cried Ken.
The man shook his head in complete ignorance. “I’ll faint,” cried Jack, falling back in his chair and pretending that he was actually fainting.
“Tell me what it is all about,” asked the government agent. “I don’t even know what you are talking about.”
“And we thought that you could give us the solution,” commented Jack. “Now what are we going to do?”
“Will you please let me in on it?” Mr. Wilson asked for the second time.
“It’s like this,” began Paul, again explaining the whole thing, this time for the benefit of Mr. Wilson. “About ten days ago, Ken’s little sister, Betty, disappeared. Jack happened to find her all the way out on Leonard Street. Questioning her, he found that a man had bought her candy, taken her for a walk and left her there after he gave her a blank white card.”
“May I see the card?” asked Mr. Wilson.
Paul took it out of his pocket and showed it to him. The agent glanced at it and then said, “Go on.”
“Well, several days later there happened to be a fire on Water Street and I rushed into the building. To make the story short, inside that burning house I found another white card, an exact duplicate of the first one.”
“What?” asked Mr. Wilson, his curiosity now aroused. “And then what?”