when the door burst
open and Mrs. Haldean entered the room, followed by Mrs. Hanshaw and the
police inspector. The former lady regarded my colleague with a glance of
extreme disfavour.

"We heard that you had come here, sir," said she, "and we supposed you
were engaged in searching for my poor child. But it seems we were
mistaken, since we find you here amusing yourselves fiddling with these
nonsensical instruments."

"Perhaps, Mabel," said Mrs. Hanshaw stiffly, "it would be wiser, and
infinitely more polite, to ask if Dr. Thorndyke has any news for us."

"That is undoubtedly so, madam," agreed the inspector, who had
apparently suffered also from Mrs. Haldean's impulsiveness.

"Then perhaps," the latter lady suggested, "you will inform us if you
have discovered anything."

"I will tell you." replied Thorndyke, "all that we know. 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. You have no clue to his identity, I
suppose?"

"We have only his footprints," Thorndyke answered, "and this fluff which
I raked out of the barrel of his latchkey, and have just been examining.
From these data I conclude that he is a rather short and thin man, and
somewhat lame. He walks with the aid of a thick stick, which has a knob,
not a crook, at the top, and which he carries in his left hand. I think
that his left leg has been amputated abo