The child was
abducted by the man who occupied this house, and who appears to have
watched him from an upper window, probably through a glass. This man
lured the child into the wood by blowing this bird-call; he met him in
the wood, and induced him--by some promises, no doubt--to come with him.
He picked the child up and carried him--on his back, I think--up to the
house, and brought him in through the front door, which he locked after
him. He gave the boy this clock and the bird-call to amuse him while he
went upstairs and packed his trunk. He took the trunk out through the
back door and down the garden to the shed there, in which he had a
motor-car. He got the car out and came back for the boy, whom he carried
down to the car, locking the back door after him. Then he drove away."
"You know he has gone," cried Mrs. Haldean, "and yet you stay here
playing with these ridiculous toys. Why are you not following him?"
"We have just finished ascertaining the facts," Thorndyke replied
calmly, "and should by now be on the road if you had not come."
Here the inspector interposed anxiously. "Of course, sir, you can't give
any description of the man.
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