“He calls us children,” said Pee-wee.
“Now that you speak of it,” said Warde Hollister, “it seems funny that he should have gone right into stores in Bridgeboro.”
“Parents should be warned against letting their children go into candy stores,” said Roy.
The next day it appeared that the doctors of Bridgeboro were not quite equal to coping with poor Blythe’s case, and the Bridgeboro Record stated that a specialist from New York had been summoned to determine whether the desperate scoundrel was feigning unconsciousness in order to baffle the authorities. It appeared that not only thugs and bandits, but occasionally a surgeon who knew his business, came from New York.
And then something happened....
CHAPTER XXIX
A DISCOVERY
The doctor from New York discovered something which the eagle eye of Detective Ferrett had not discovered. And which the Bridgeboro doctors had not discovered. It was nothing new. It was just two or three tiny cracks in the skull of the fugitive criminal, not far from the rapidly healing cut which he received in his deed of heroism. It might have been two or three years old, the doctor said. He seemed keenly interested in it.
As a consequence of this, Detective Ferrett and a young doctor from the hospital called at the homes of several of the older scouts and questioned them about Blythe’s demeanor at camp. The boys had tried to tell the detective of their companion’s peculiarities but he had not condescended to listen. He listened now. And the outcome of all this business was another article in the Bridgeboro Record:
CRIMINAL TENDENCIES CAUSED BY CRACKED SKULL?