“Six dollars and seventy-five cents. I am teaching him to keep a budget and he carefully puts down whatever he spends each day.”
“Little and red-headed, wasn’t he, with a narrow chest and spindling legs—”
“Riordan means is he small for his age and kind of delicate looking?” McCarty amended hastily, glaring at the tactless interrogator. “How was he dressed when you last saw him and what’s missing from his things?”
“He wore a brown pedestrian suit and brown shoes and golf stockings,” the tutor answered. “He had a plain platinum wrist watch on a leather strap and a gold seal ring with the family coat of arms. Nothing else is missing except a brown cloth cap with the manufacturer’s name, ‘Knowles,’ inside. Before communicating with you, Mr. Goddard and I telephoned to every hospital in the city, fearing that some street accident might have occurred, but no child whose appearance tallied in the least degree with his had been brought in. The only remaining possibility is that he is being detained somewhere for a ransom.”
“Have you any other reason for thinking the lad may have been kidnapped?” McCarty turned to Goddard. “Know of anybody with a grudge against you or your family? Had any threatening letters?”
“Great heavens, no!” The bereaved father raised his head. “Horry is a little chap for fourteen, looks nearer twelve in fact, and Mr. Trafford usually accompanies him when he leaves the Mall, but he begged so hard to go to Blaisdell’s studio by himself that I allowed it, though it was against his mother’s wishes; I wanted him to be manly and self-reliant, and the Madison Avenue cars pass Blaisdell’s door near Fiftieth. I thought it was perfectly safe, but he may have been watched and marked by some criminal as a victim for kidnapping.”
“That don’t explain how or why he passed out of one gate or the other with not one on the whole block seeing him.” McCarty shook his head. “You say you’re wishful to avoid notoriety, or I’d advise you to report the lad’s disappearance to the Bureau of Missing Persons and let the investigation take its regular course, but there’s a chance still that he’s not been kidnapped nor yet met with an accident. ’Twas for Riordan and me to try to locate him and get him back without having the newspapers getting out extras that you sent for me to-night?”
Dennis caught his breath audibly at this highly irregular supposition, but Goddard nodded eagerly.
“That’s it, exactly! It would kill Mrs. Goddard to have the press make a sensational case of this while there is the slightest hope that Horace may be restored to us without publicity. You’ll do what you can? I’ll pay anything, a fortune, to have my son again, safe!”
“We’ll do our best, Mr. Goddard,” McCarty rose. “If we’ve no news for you by morning can we have a word with Mrs. Goddard then?”