“Who did?” demanded the amazed Theresa.
“The man who took the basket and stole Bubby Creamer.”
“What ever are you saying, Dot Kenway?”
So Dot told her all that she had seen of the strange transaction.
“Why, that was the laundryman, of course!” declared Tess. “The baby is not stolen at all—at least he never meant to take it. I know the laundryman, and he’s got seven children of his own. I don’t believe he’d steal another.”
The whole neighborhood was aroused. Agnes ran out into the yard to learn what the trouble was, and Tess and Dot, with great verbosity, related their version of the occurrence.
“Oh, children! we must tell Mrs. Creamer,” Agnes said. “Of course the laundryman wouldn’t have stolen the baby! He thought the basket held the wash and had been put out there for him.”
She ran across the yard and swarmed over the fence into the Creamers’ premises like a boy. Flying up to the group of lamenting women on the porch, she exploded her information among them like a bomb.
“Telephone to the laundry and find out if the man has got there yet,” suggested one woman.
But Agnes knew that Mrs. Creamer’s was one of the first places at which the laundryman stopped. He did not get back to the laundry until near noon.