“No, not a horse this time. It’s worse—a little baby,” said Mr. Meekin. “Didn’t they tell you at the post-office, where I telephoned to you?”
“No, they didn’t say what it was. Just said something was missing over here and for me to hurry. I did, as soon as I could get a bite to eat. But what do you mean—a baby taken? Is it lost?”
“Worse’n that, Jim,” said the farmer. “It’s a kidnapping case. You want to do your best on this!”
“I will,” promised the constable. “Tell me all about it.”
“I’ll let Mr. Bobbsey do that,” said Mr. Meekin. “It’s his baby; or at least he and his wife took care of it. And it was stolen out of the carriage, right in my yard, Jim, with folks on the side porch. Greatest mystery we ever had here! The children left the baby a moment and—”
“Say, I thought you were going to let Mr. Bobbsey tell the story,” remarked Jim, with a smile, as he looked at his watch. “If this is a kidnapping case the sooner we get on the trail and chase after the kidnapper the better.”
“That’s right. You tell him, Mr. Bobbsey,” begged Mr. Meekin. “I get so excited thinking about it that my tongue runs away with me.”
Then the story was told, the Bobbsey twins telling their share in the sorrowful affair of how Baby May was stolen right out of her carriage, when she was left alone but for a moment.
“Hum!” remarked Constable Jim Denton, when the story was finished. “It is very strange. I’ll take a look at the place.”
“You won’t find any clews there, because we looked,” said Bert, with a very grown-up air.