"Did you see him get on?"
"Yes. Yes; I did. I happened to be looking out the window----"
"Did he get on alone or did he have someone with him. Quick!"
"He got on alone."
No flicker of change showed in Dr. Stone's face, but Captain Tucker was
staggered. Joe was suddenly wan and bleak. Had they followed the trail
this far only to have it fail them. And then, abruptly, the police
captain was pounding the grille of the ticket-window with a huge fist.
"What time does that train make Peekskill? In twelve minutes? Get that
key working. I want that man with the cut lip held. If he doesn't get off
the train have it searched. Give me that telephone."
The captain called Peekskill police. Presently they were out on the
platform and he took off his cap and fanned his face. Green signal lights
blinked out of the darkness down the right of way.
"Doctor, what did he do with the boy?"
"Perhaps he did nothing," the doctor said quietly.
Joe stiffened with new hope. That tone of his uncle's--? But the captain,
brooding, was lost in his own thoughts.
"There's a slant to this I don't understand," he said slowly. "That boy
was kidnaped in broad daylight. Snapped out of his own yard. How could a
stranger have brought him through a village where he was known? How could
he have been taken past his own house out to the road?"
"I have been thinking about that," Dr. Stone admitted. The blind face was
again intent. "Suppose we go back to the house."