“I can’t tell you. It is all a hopeless jumble.”
“Come!” said the younger man encouragingly. “Comfort yourself with the idea that your son is alive, at any rate.”
“But how can I be sure, even of that?”
Average Jones glanced at a copy of the advertisement which he held. “I think we can take Mr. Morley’s word so far.”
“Even so; fifty thousand dollars ransom!” said the minister, and stopped with a groan.
“Nonsense!” said Average Jones heartily. “That advertisement counts for nothing. Professional kidnappers do not select the sons of impecunious ministers for their prey. Nor do they give addresses through which they may be found. You can dismiss the advertisement as a blind; the second blind, in fact.”
“The second?”
“Certainly. The first was the clothing on the shore. It was put there to create the impression that your son was drowned.”
“Yes; we all supposed that he must be.”
“By what possible hypothesis a boy should be supposed to take off coat and waistcoat and wade off-shore into a winter sea is beyond my poor powers of conjecture,” said the other. “No. Somebody ‘planted’ the clothes there.”