Open curiosity rang in his tones but the official replied bruskly:
“Nothing. We’ll go over the other empty houses on the block later. It’s all right.”
“What’s this we’ve been hearing about a strange man who scared the Goddard lad in this very court not two weeks ago?” McCarty asked as they approached the sidewalk once more.
Bill Jennings looked uncomfortable.
“There was no strange man got between these gates while I was on!” he averred defensively. “It must have been some butler or houseman that works on the block, trying to play a joke on the little feller. It was a week ago Saturday that he raised the rumpus about it but there wasn’t any sign of the rough-looking kind of guy he described when Mr. Trafford and I looked, and we went over every foot of the courts.... There’s Mr. Orbit motioning.”
It was to the inspector and his deputies, however, that Orbit beckoned and when they had crossed to him he asked with grave concern:
“Is it true that Horace Goddard cannot be found? One of the maids from next door told Jean, and said that you had been notified, but I couldn’t believe it! Trafford came to my house yesterday afternoon, though, inquiring for him—but I forgot, McCarty and Riordan were present. Is it possible that the little boy hasn’t been seen since?”
“Not so far as we’ve been able to discover,” the inspector responded. “It’s a pretty bad business. If he was a normal, healthy, mischievous kid we’d be apt to think he ran away, but from all accounts he was sickly and timid, not the kind to strike out for himself.”
“Horace is very nervous and highly strung, with remarkable artistic possibilities,” Orbit observed thoughtfully. “I’m immensely interested in him and my friend Blaisdell is of the opinion that he’ll become a great painter some day if his people don’t kill his aspirations by lack of sympathy; like a sensitive plant he needs encouragement, nurturing.—But what can have happened to him? If he isn’t with friends or relatives the child must have met with an accident! Has an alarm been sent out?”
“We’re trying every way to locate him. He used to run in and out of your house a lot, didn’t he? Did you ever hear him speak of any one he might have gone to now?” the inspector asked. “We know, of course, how disappointed he was when his father and mother wouldn’t let him go on a sketching tour with this Mr. Blaisdell you mention, but he seems to have got over it. Do you know if he had any boy friends his own age?”