LOST AND FOUND
In a few moments Ursula was back at work on the dolls, all trace of
tears banished from her pretty face. Josie was preparing to go out,
declaring she must purchase a pot of glue--that she could not dress
dolls without glue. In reality, she was going to call on the chief of
police. Ben came running in, cheeks rosy, eyes shining and pockets
bulging with money collected from patrons to whom he had delivered
parcels.
“Sis, where’s Phil?” he cried, “I got a pink sucker for him.”
“Philip! Why, I thought he was with you,” said Ursula, looking up from
her work.
“No, he didn’t go with me. It was so cold an’ he was so stuck on that
doll baby. I reckon he’s up in the tea room. Phil, oh Phil!” he called.
There was no answer. Irene was sure he had gone with his sister and
Mary Louise thought he had gone with Ben.
“Maybe he went home,” suggested Ben. The Elletts lived in a tiny
apartment across the street from Mr. and Mrs. Conant.
“But he knew we were to have tea here,” objected Ursula, who had turned
deathly pale. “But maybe you had better go see, Ben, and oh, please
hurry!”
“Sure I will, Sister, you needn’t get scairt. Phil ain’t far away. I
reckon he’ll turn up before I get to the corner an’ I’ll have the run
for nothin’--but I ain’t mindin’.”
“Dear Ben!” Ursula smiled on the sturdy boy, in spite of the nameless
terror that possessed her soul in regard to the little brother.
“If only I didn’t know that Fitchet was in Dorfield!” Ursula whispered
to Josie.
“Well, maybe it’s a good thing you do know it,” said Josie. “Everybody
turn in and give a good hunt through the shop.”
Mary Louise and Elizabeth, with the other girls helping, had already
looked high and low, under the bed in Josie’s room, behind an antique
high-boy for sale in the shop, and had even shaken the draperies lying
across a table and peeped in a carved Florentine chest.
At first it was more or less a game all were playing, as they were
sure the little fellow was somewhere in the shop, but as a thorough
search did not reveal him, the matter began to take on a more serious
tone and the game was changed.
Without a word, Josie hurried to her old friend, Chief Lonsdale.
Quickly she told him her errand.
“Stout woman, about thirty-five, abnormally small feet, always carries
her head on one side and has a way of zigzagging when she walks.”
“You have seen her then?” laughed the chief.
“No, but that is the way Ursula Ellett describes her.”
“What color hair?”
“She didn’t say, but you know and I know and the wig maker knows that
the color of hair doesn’t cut much ice. Anyhow, please keep your eyes
open for this person, who goes by the name of Fitchet at home and is a
trained nurse.”
The chief promised and rang for a plain clothes man to get immediately
on the job, while Josie hurried back to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.
Ben had returned and reported no sign of his little brother at their
home. Darkness had set in and snow had begun to fall like a fine
powder. Ursula sat like a statue, dolls piled around her. She looked up
as Josie entered and tried to smile. Josie reported that she had set
the police on the track of Fitchet and if it could be possible that she
had anything to do with the disappearance of little Philip she would be
found forthwith.
“What could she want with him?” Josie asked. “Not that he isn’t wholly
desirable and lovely, but would that be anything to the type of woman
Miss Fitchet seems to be?”
“I don’t know, but Mr. Cheatham is capable of any villainy and not
above any small meanness. I must get out on the street and help hunt my
darling,” cried Ursula.
“No, my dear, you must stay right here. It is very cold and you are so
wrought up you could do no good. The boy will be found in no time and
you must be ready to hold him in your arms when he gets back,” declared
Josie.
“I’ll go mad waiting here, doing nothing,” wailed Ursula.
“Well, do something then,” suggested the practical Josie. “Put the
dolls that have been dressed in their boxes and pile them up in the
back of the shop. All on that table are done.”
“I didn’t quite finish the school girl I was dressing,” said Ursula,
beginning mechanically to sort out the dressed dolls. “I mean the one
little Philip liked so much. Why, I can’t find her! Where can she be? I
left a needle sticking in her apron. She must be in this pile--No, she
is gone! Strange!”
“Well, there is one thing that is not gone,” said Josie suddenly making
a dive under the table where the young seamstresses had been so busy
plying their needles, “and that’s Phil’s muffler and mittens. And
here’s his cap! Bless me, if there isn’t his overcoat under that pile
of scraps!”
Ursula caught the little red mittens and held them to her aching heart.
“Philip! Philip! My precious baby!” she moaned.
Josie straightened up and smiled down on Ursula.
“Did you girls look in every crack and cranny of the shop and tea room?”
“Every one,” declared Elizabeth, who was preparing to go out on the
street and aid in the search for the lost child.
“Are you sure?”
“I can’t think of any spot we have not searched,” answered Mary Louise,
whose eyes were brimming over in sympathy for the sorrowing Ursula.
Josie stood in the middle of the shop and into her eyes came the
strange dull look she often had when she was “picking up a scent” as it
were.
“Philip missing--also the blue-eyed, yellow-haired doll he admired so
much,” Josie muttered.
“Ye-es--an’ I went an’ called him a sissy,” sobbed Ben, who suddenly
realized that things looked pretty serious.
“He wouldn’t go out in the cold, hunting his sister or brother, without
his overcoat and mittens,” Josie murmured. Then she lost the strange,
dull look in her eyes and, giving a short laugh, she snapped: “That kid
is in this Higgledy Piggledy Shop!”
“Well, he must have made himself mighty little,” said Mary Louise.
“I’m going home and get Danny. He’s working on some blue prints this
afternoon. Danny will help us. Irene, if you come now I can take you
home. I’ll bring my car up the alley. It is too blizzardy for you to
think of going home in your chair.”
Irene could let herself down the little dumb-waiter, converted into
an elevator, and when Mary Louise would bring her car close up in the
alley the lame girl would by the aid of crutches swing herself from
chair to car.
“Oh, thank you, my dear,” replied Irene, “but I can’t think of going
until Philip is found. The snow is so dry I am sure I can get my chair
through it. You go and get Danny, though. I know he will be helpful.”
At the mention of Irene’s going, Josie walked to the little door which
opened on the elevator shaft. As she started to open it Mary Louise
called to her:
“Irene is not going yet, Josie!” thinking that Josie was preparing to
assist the lame girl.
“I have an idea she is going pretty soon,” Josie answered. She flung
open the door and then began to laugh.
“Come here, Ursula! All of you come here!” she called softly.
The girls and Ben hurried to the rear of the store, Ursula running
like the wind. Lying on the floor of the tiny elevator was little
Philip. He was fast asleep and clasped in his arms was the blue-eyed,
fluffy-haired doll with the ruffled apron, Ursula’s needle sticking in
it. It was lucky it had stuck in the apron and did not find its way
into little Philip.
The child made a beautiful picture at which the girls gazed breathless.
“Poor lamb, he’s playing papa,” said Josie softly and Philip stirred in
his sleep, restless from the light turned on him, and then he opened
his violet eyes.
“I ain’t a sissy, Ben,” he declared, “but this little doll baby had the
tummy ache an’ I hadter take her off an’ put her to sleep. She likes
this little bitsy house an’ I reckon The Lady in the Chair ain’t a
mindin’ if I borrow it from her.”
When everything settled down and the Higgledy Piggledy Shop was cleared
of its visitors and helpers and Josie was left alone she got Chief
Lonsdale on the telephone.
“Hello, Chief,” she said, “the little boy is found and the fat woman
with the little feet and head on one side had nothing to do with his
disappearance, but Captain, I wish you would have Clancy look her
up all the same and kind of keep an eye on her while she stays in
Dorfield. You can do that for me, cannot you, Captain?”
“All right!” boomed the captain. “What you say goes.”