“Why, when I put them to bed.”
Peter made a quick investigation, and reported that no one had entered the children’s room except Judy and himself.
“What about their clothes?” he asked. “Are any of them missing?”
“They must be wearing their snow suits,” their mother began.
“And why not, on a nice snowy morning?” asked Peter. “It looks to me as if they just got up early and ran out to play.”
But Helen Riker still wouldn’t believe they hadn’t met with some disaster.
“If they’ve decided to track those robbers down by themselves,” she wailed, “some real harm may come to them.”
“I’ll see that it doesn’t,” promised Peter.
Judy made three phone calls. Then she and Peter put on coats and boots and began an exploration of the neighborhood. The new snow helped, and they soon discovered that Penny and Paul had left a path from the house to the barn and then across the shortcut to the North Hollow road.
Judy’s friend and nearest neighbor, Holly Potter, reported that she had seen the children a half hour or so earlier. They were on their way toward the new housing development, she thought.