“Has anything happened?” he asked, as he hurried across the grass. “Did May fall out? Why, where is she?” he asked, seeing Nan wheeling the empty carriage.
“Oh, Richard!” sobbed Mrs. Bobbsey, “the little one is gone—kidnapped!”
“No! It isn’t possible! Under our very eyes! How could it happen?” Mr. Bobbsey asked.
“I don’t know,” his wife said. “But she’s gone. The old woman must have sneaked up between the time the children left the carriage to get the cookies and the time they went back.”
“Then she must have been hiding around here, waiting for just such a chance,” declared Mr. Bobbsey. “This is too much! I must notify the police at once. An alarm must be sent out and we must get on the trail of this person. I believe she is crazy! She ought not to be allowed at large with a baby!”
“Will she—will she hurt Baby May?” asked Flossie, alarmed by her father’s excitement.
Then, as his wife made him a signal to be more careful, so as not to frighten the children, Mr. Bobbsey said:
“Oh, no, I don’t believe the old woman will hurt May. She must love her a great deal to want to take her away. But anybody who will leave an infant on the steps in a thunder storm shouldn’t be allowed to have charge of children. I’ll get the police after her at once.”
It was one thing to speak about getting the police to work, but it was quite another thing to do this. In the quiet little hamlet of Pine Hill there were no regular police officers—only a constable or two and a justice of the peace.
“But Jim Denton is pretty smart,” said Mr. Meekin, when he and his wife had been told of the terrible happening. “I had a horse stolen once, and Jim got it back for me in less than a week. I’ll telephone him.”