His mother turned the key in the padlock on the outside of the barn door. As the door opened and the Curlytops went in, they were greeted by barks of welcome from Skyrocket, by mews from Snuff and Turnover, the cats, by chattering from Mr. Jack, the monkey, and by shrill cries from Mr. Nip, the parrot, who called as loudly as he could:
"They're all here but Top," said Mrs. Martin. And as the Curlytops looked around the barn they saw that this was so. Top was not in sight.
"Here, Top! Top! Top!" called Teddy, and he whistled. Mr. Nip also whistled, as loudly and clearly as the little boy himself. But there was no answer from his pet trick dog.
Janet ran over and looked in the box where Top always slept on a piece of carpet. The box was empty.
"Where do you s'pose he can be?" she asked her mother.
"That's what we must find out," was Mrs. Martin's answer. "We must look all through the barn. There are several places where he may have gotten out—or been taken out," she added a moment later.
It was Teddy who finally discovered the open window by which it was thought someone had entered the barn and taken Top out. The window was near the stalls used by the horses before Mr. Martin bought an automobile. In a corner, at the left of the stalls and too high from the floor of the barn for Top to have reached, even in his best jump, was a swinging window. This was open, as Teddy found, and when his mother and Janet came at his call, Mrs. Martin saw that the bolt had been broken.
"That is how it happened," she said. "Someone opened that window from the outside last night, crawled in, and took Top away. The dog himself could not have gotten out of that high window. Someone must have taken him."
"But wouldn't he bark and bite them?" asked Janet.