Miss Loring spoke quickly: “Oh, I was so careful of her! I never let her out of my sight for a moment, but if I had known there was any danger of this sort, I should have been doubly careful! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“My own suspicions were not definite enough,” said Coe. “Nobody blames you, Miss Loring, you could not help it. In the crowd, the trick was easily turned. Now, Mrs. Powell, don’t cry so; you need fear no harm for your daughter, no bodily harm, I mean. She will likely be treated with greatest consideration and kindness,—but—”
“But I don’t understand,” Gerty looked doubtful,—“why should any one want to kidnap Elsie?”
“It’s a moil, Mrs. Seaman,” Coe said, shaking his long thatch out of his eyes. “I’m not yet discouraged, but I’m getting to see that we’re up against not only a very clever villain but an utterly unscrupulous one.”
“Aren’t all villains that?”
“Not entirely. Some draw the line at certain crimes. But this master-fiend, for that’s what he is—”
“Do you know him?” Gerty asked eagerly.
“No, I don’t! I know so much about him,—I’ve so many sidelights on him, so much evidence against him, and yet I lack the one connecting link that would give me his identity. I have my suspicions—but, oh, there were some things I wanted to ask Miss Powell!”
“Perhaps I can tell you, she talked over everything with me.”
“No; I only wanted her to tell me over again the little things she picked up that first morning at the Webbs. You know the white marks on the floor? Well, they’re explained. Miss Webb was in the room that evening, but it was before her brother came in, and she, foolishly enough! tried to conceal the fact, lest she be suspected of having Kimball Webb in hiding!”