“You could not be mean,” said Mrs. Everest. “You are very generous and very sensible. Well, to continue. Barry was greatly excited, and didn’t want to trouble you in the affair, so he enlisted my aid and my husband’s. Then, too, he wanted to catch the would-be kidnapers, and he was afraid you would not wait for them as we have done. It was sorry work, in a way, but both my husband and Barry said that anyone bad enough to carry off a child should be caught and shut up.”
“So you have been playing detective?” said the Judge, and his eyes sparkled with interest and a slight inclination to tease.
“Yes, dear Judge, amateur detectives. We did nothing to entice to crime. We merely waited. I knew, Barry knew, my husband knew, Roblee, your coachman, knew, Mrs. Hume knew. Cracker, the naughty Cracker, was merely told to watch certain people, and he has been scorching up and down this avenue like a thing possessed. We did not call in the aid of the local police or the New York police till the last day or two. Two young newspaper men here have helped us wonderfully. One of them guarded Jennie.”
“Jennie!” exclaimed the Judge.
“O, yes; I forgot to say that she had to be told, too. Those scamps found out that she slept in the room with Bethany and had charge of her, so they tried to become friendly with her in order to get information from her. One of them came here one day in the guise of a workman.”
“Who came?”
“One of this gang of miscreants. He rang the bell, walked in, said he was a workman come to do the window shades in the attic. Jennie went up with him, and when he got in the attic she found there weren’t any shades to mend; they were all in order. He laughed and said he had come to the wrong house; then he rather made friends with her and said he was a stranger in the city. He wished she would show him about a little. Would she take a walk with him the next afternoon?”
“She did not go, of course?” said the Judge.
“She did,” said Mrs. Everest, reluctantly; “she mistook her instructions. We would not have had her go with him for the world; but you may be sure she did not go alone.”
“Why did you not stop her, if you did not wish her to go?” inquired the Judge, slightly wrinkling his forehead.