“Searched?” echoed McCarty.
“Yes. The man pressed Horace back against him with one hand over his mouth and felt in all his pockets with the other, but he took nothing and never uttered a word! My little son was too startled to struggle at first, and all at once the man released him—and disappeared!”
“Did the boy have any money with him?” Dennis could contain himself no longer.
“Three or four dollars, I believe, but the man left it untouched.” Mrs. Goddard’s eyes shifted to those of the questioner. “It was quite dark there in that narrow space between the two houses, but Horace saw the face which bent down over his distinctly and he said the man was an utter stranger whom he had never seen in the Mall before; rough, unshaven and desperate looking!”
“Which way did he go?” McCarty took up the interrogation once more. “Was it down the alley to the street or up in the open court behind the houses?”
“How could the child tell?” Goddard interjected before his wife could speak. “It was almost dark and he was terror-stricken!”
“Horace told us that the man ran toward the rear and disappeared in the shadows of a doorway at—at the left,” Mrs. Goddard replied, as though her husband had not spoken.
“At the left, facing the rear of the houses on the north side of the way?” McCarty was thinking rapidly aloud. “That’ll be Parsons’ house then!—Why didn’t you want us to know this, Mr. Goddard?”
“Because it can have no possible bearing on the disappearance of our son yesterday!” Goddard retorted hotly. “He ran home immediately and told us, and I instituted a thorough search without delay, but the watchman could find no trace of the fellow and insisted he had admitted no one that day through either gate who resembled Horace’s description. The Parsons’ servants had seen nothing of him and he has not reappeared since, although a strict watch was kept. It is madness to suppose that Horace left this house of his own accord to meet the fellow, when he stood in mortal terror of him—!”
“Not unless he met him accidental-like and got waylaid a second time!” Dennis broke in irrepressibly. “There’s no telling what he was after if ’twas not money, but if he was crazy and the boy put up a bit of a struggle—!”