"It is odd," said Langdon, thoughtfully.
"You notice," bellowed Mr. Trinkle, "that no young man disappears who isn't a physical Adonis, do you? No thin-shanked, stoop-shouldered, scant-haired highbrow has yet vanished. You notice that, don't you, Sayre? Open your mouth and speak! Say anything! Say pip! if you like—only say something!"
The young man nodded, bewildered, and his mouth remained open.
"All right, all right—as long as you do notice it," yelled the city editor, "it looks safe for you; I guess you both will come back, all right—in case any of these suffragettes have become desperate and have started kidnapping operations."
Langdon was rather thin; he glanced sideways at Sayre, who wore glasses and whose locks were prematurely scant.
"Go on, William," he said, with a crisp precision of diction which betrayed irritation and Harvard.
Sayre examined his notes, and presently read from them:
"The fourth and last victim of the Adirondack wilderness disappeared very recently—May 24th. His name was Alphonso W. Green, a wealthy amateur artist. When last seen he was followed by his valet, who carried a white umbrella, a folding stool, a box of colours, and several canvases. After luncheon the valet went back to the Gilded Dome Hotel to fetch some cigarettes. When he returned to where he had left his master painting a picture of something, which he thinks was a tree, but which may have been cows in bathing, Mr. Green had vanished. . . . Hum—hum!—ahem! He was young, well built, handsome, and——"
"Kill it!" thundered the city editor, purple with passion.
"But it's the official descrip——"