“What’s the new trouble in Riverside Park?” asked Vance casually.
Markham frowned.
“Nothing that need bother us now. A kidnapping, in all likelihood. There’s a brief account of it in the morning papers, in case you’re interested. . . .”
“I detest reading the papers.” Vance spoke blandly, but with an insistence that puzzled me. “What happened?”
Markham drew a deep breath of impatience.
“A child disappeared from the playground yesterday after talking with an unknown man. Her father came here to solicit my help. But it’s a job for the Bureau of Missing Persons; and I told him so.—Now, if your curiosity is appeased——”
“Oh, but it isn’t,” persisted Vance. “I simply must hear the details. That section of the park fascinates me strangely.”
Markham shot him a questioning glance through lowered lids.
“Very well,” he acquiesced. “A five-year-old girl, named Madeleine Moffat, was playing with a group of children at about half past five last evening. She crawled up on a high mound near the retaining wall, and a little later, when her governess went to get her, thinking she had descended the other side, the child was nowhere to be found. The only suggestive fact is that two of the other children say they saw a man talking to her shortly before she disappeared; but, of course, they can give no description of him. The police were notified, and are investigating. And that’s all there is to the case so far.”
“ ‘Madeleine.’ ” Vance repeated the name musingly. “I say, Markham; do you know if this child knew Drukker?”