"I am," declared Neale. "Only, let's get down to facts. Who saw them last and where?"
He listened seriously to the story. His remark at the end might not have been very illuminating, but it was sensible.
"Well, then, if Mrs. Kranz and Joe Maroni saw them last, that's the place to start hunting for the kids."
"Didn't we go there?" demanded Ruth, sharply. "I have just told you—"
"But you didn't find them," Neale said mildly. "Just the same, I see nothing else to do but to make Mrs. Kranz's store the starting point of the search. The whole neighborhood there should be searched. Start running circles around that corner of Meadow Street."
"Didn't Luke and I go as far as the canal!" and Ruth was still rather warm of speech.
"But I guess Neale is right, Ruth," Luke put in. "I don't know the people over there or the neighborhood itself. There may have been lots of hiding places they could have slipped into."
"It's the starting point of the search," Neale declared dogmatically. "I am going right over there."
"Do get out the auto," cried Agnes, who had uncanny faith in the motor car as a means of aid in almost any emergency. "And I'm going!"
"Let's all go," Cecile Shepard suggested. "I think we ought to interview everybody around that shop. Don't you, Luke?"