“Good God!” I began, but the Chief held up a warning finger and glanced at the door. I went on more quietly: “Do you mean to say it’s some sort of a gigantic gang of—of——” I couldn’t finish.
“White slavers? No-o, I don’t think so,” he answered. “Though I tell you, we don’t know.”
He paused at this and sat thinking for so long that impatience got the better of me, and I urged him to go on and tell me what they did know.
“Well, here’s the situation,” he said at last. “These girls have disappeared in New York, in Atlantic City, in Jersey towns and in Long Island, and two of them in Philadelphia. But most of them in New York. They have disappeared while shopping, while calling, while going to or coming from the theater, some of them on their way to hotels, and so on. Moreover, from what we can gather, it looks as if they actually were engaged in these innocent pursuits. I mean, these were not ostensible occupations to cloak escapades or elopements.
“Therefore the evidence points overwhelmingly to the fact that the disappearances were unwilling ones. So far as we can tell, none of the girls, or very few of them, were engaged in love affairs of a serious nature. So much for that.”
Suddenly the Chief made a wry face and the stubbly fingers ran through his hair rapidly two or three times. “As we haven’t been able to find out anything definite, we have had to fall back on deduction, which hasn’t taken us far. But perhaps we have learned something from it.
“You see, none of these girls were much in the public eye. At the time they disappeared, they were on the most ordinary and quietest of errands. But, in the vast majority of cases, the errands were planned at least two days in advance. That’s all we know.
“Perhaps that doesn’t tell us much and perhaps it does. It is possible, of course, that they were drugged in some way, by people on the watch in public places. I mean without regard to their identity. On the other hand, it looks as if most of the abductions must have been planned in advance, with a foreknowledge of the girls’ movements.
“You know as well as I do, that it isn’t so simple to drug and kidnap a person in broad daylight, or, at least, in a public place. These were not the type of girls to be easily drawn into a more secluded place with strangers, whether male or female, even if the girls were alone. Do you see what I mean?”
“You mean spies in their homes? Servants?” I began.