“We must proceed with caution,” he told Mr. Blake. “It’s our job to see that the girl isn’t hurt—”
“And that she’s returned to her own people,” his partner added. “Where can we get hold of them?”
That proved to be the big question. A minister somewhere in West Virginia was pretty vague. But it was enough to trigger the field office there into action. An ordained minister by the name of Valentine ought not to be hard to find.
Mr. Blake was ready to leave. He said he would get back to the office and set the machinery in motion. Meantime Peter decided to call up Washington, since every case investigated in the field had to be supervised and coordinated from FBI headquarters there.
“We’ll get fast action on this,” he promised a short time later, returning from the telephone booth just outside the waiting room.
Judy could see how difficult it was for him to move about with the heavy cast on his shoulder, but the urgency of his case seemed to give him new strength. She turned to Irene, who still seemed a little baffled by all that was happening, and said, “Poor Peter! I know how much he wants to get out there in the field, as he calls it, and do the investigating himself, but he can’t. We mustn’t let him try until he’s stronger.”
“Is Clarissa in danger? I don’t understand what’s going on at all,” Irene admitted.
“None of us do. But we have to find out. There seems to have been a plot to kidnap some actress. It sounds like something out of one of my stories,” Dale said, “but I’m afraid it’s only too real.”
He glanced at the sleeping baby he was holding, and Judy knew what he was thinking. Until Clarence Lawson and his ring of criminals were caught, none of them could be sure who his next victim would be.
“Peter’s afraid they’ve snatched Clarissa, thinking she was Francine Dow. I don’t know how a thing like that could happen. Why would she have gone with them without a protest? Let’s go back over everything that happened,” Judy suggested. “Mr. Lenz knows something—”