LITMIR.BIZ

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feet, and nobody I know could do it with a baby in his arms, particularly when the snow was there and everything was so slippery a person could hardly hold on.

      “It seems that then Sheldon made inquiries of some of his neighbors, occupants of the house, but no one could throw any light on the subject. He did not tell them then of the baby, indeed, never told them. First, from the fine quality of the clothing, there had been an idea in his mind that the baby was one of a well-to-do family, and he remained quiet that night hoping that next day he might be able to learn something and possibly get a reward for the return of the child. He had given up the problem of how it got where he found it.”

      Hatch paused a moment and lighted a cigar.

      “Well, next day,” he went on, “Sheldon and his wife both saw the newspaper account of the mysterious disappearance of Baby Blake. The photographs of the missing child convinced them that Baby Blake was the child they had—the child they had really saved from death. Then came the question of returning the child to its home or turning it over to the police.

      “Instantly the fact that a threat had been made to kidnap the child and a demand for ten thousand dollars made was borne in on Sheldon he became frightened. Remember he had a bad record. He was afraid of the police. He did not believe that he—however innocent he might be-could go to the police, turn over the baby and make them believe the strange story. I readily see how some wooden-headed department officials would have made his life a burden. I know the police. It is ninety-nine dollars to a cent they would have made him a prisoner and perhaps railroaded him for the kidnapping.”

      “Yes, I see,” interrupted The Thinking Machine.

      “So then he and his wife tried to devise a method of getting the baby back home. They thought of all sorts of things, but none satisfied them entirely. And they were still debating this point and considering it when your advertisement promised immunity. As a matter of fact it scared Sheldon. He imagined that you knew, and knew if he were even remotely connected with the matter it would get him in trouble. Then he resolved to take the baby back home on the promise of immunity.”

      There was a little pause. The Thinking Machine sat staring steadily at the ceiling.

      “Is that all?” he asked at last.

      “I think so,” replied Hatch. “And now how—how in the name of all that’s good or evil did that baby disappear from the middle of its own back yard and then suddenly appear on a fire escape three blocks away, to be taken in by strangers?”

      “It’s quite the most remarkable thing I have ever come across,” The Thinking Machine said. “A balloon anchor, which picked up the child by its clothing, through accident, and then dropped it safely on the fire escape might answer the question in a way. But it does not fully answer it. The baby was carried there.

      “Frankly I will say that I could see no possible explanation of the affair until the day you and I were talking to Mrs. Blake and I stood looking out of the library window. Then it all flashed on me instantly. I went out and satisfied myself. When I returned to the library I was satisfied in all reason that Baby Blake was dead; I had had such an idea before. I was firmly convinced the child was dead when I put those advertisements in the newspapers. But there was still a chance that he was not.

      “Several seemingly unanswerable questions faced me when I found the end of the baby’s footprints in the snow. I instantly saw that if the baby had made those tracks it had been lifted suddenly from the ground, but by what? From where? How had it been taken away? The balloon I could not consider seriously, although as I say it offered a possible solution. An eagle? I could not consider that seriously. Eagles are rare; eagles powerful enough to lift a baby weighing thirty pounds are extremely rare, practically unknown save in the far West; certainly I never heard of one doing such a thing as this. Therefore I passed the eagle by as an improbability.

      “I satisfied myself that there were no other footsteps save the baby’s in the yard. Then—what? It occurred to me that someone standing on the little box might have reached over and lifted the child out of its tracks. But it was too far away, I thought, and if someone did stand there and lift the child that someone could not have leaped from that box over the stone wall, which was approximately a hundred feet away in all directions.

      “I saw the stone ten feet away. Could a man stand on the box and leap to the stone? Generally, no. And from the stone, where could he have gone? Obviously nowhere. I considered this matter not minutes, but hours and days, and no light came to me. I was convinced, though, that the box was the starting point if the baby had made the tracks. I was now fairly certain that the baby did make the tracks. He wanted to get out in the snow, was left alone, opened the front door and wandered out.

      “Then it all occurred to me in a new light. What living animal could have stood on the box and lifted the child clear four feet away, then leaped from there to the stone, and from the stone where? The clothes line is eight feet or so from the stone. It is a pretty sturdy rope and capable of bearing a considerable weight, supported as it is.”

      He stopped and turned his eyes toward Hatch, who listened eagerly.

      “Do you see it now?” he asked.

      The reporter shook his head, bewildered.

      “The thing that lifted Baby Blake from the snow stood on the box, leaped from there to the stone, from there to the clothes line, along which it climbed to the end. From the wooden support at the end it is a clear distance of fifteen feet to the nearest thing—the swing. This thing made that leap, climbed the swing rope, disappeared into the trees, moving through the branches freely from one tree to another, and dropped to the ground nearly a block away.”

      “A monkey?” suggested Hatch.

      “An orang-outang,” nodded The Thinking Machine.

      “An orang-outang?” gasped Hatch, and he shuddered a little. “I see now why you were positive the child was dead.”

      “An orang-outang is the only living thing within the knowledge of man which could have done all these things—therefore an orang-outang did them,” said the other emphatically. “Remember a full-sized orang-outang is nearly as tall as a man, has a reach relatively a third longer than a very tall man would have, and a strength which is enormous. It could have made the leaps and probably would have made them rather than step in the snow. They despise snow, being from the tropics themselves, and will not step in it unless they are compelled to. The leap of fifteen feet to the swing rope from the clothes line would have been comparatively easy, even with a child in its arms.

      “Where could it have come from? I don’t know. Possibly escaped from a ship, because sailors have strange pets; might have gotten away from a menagerie somewhere, or a circus. I only knew that an orang-outang was the actual abductor. The difficulties of a man climbing the fire escape where the baby was found were nothing to an orang-outang. There it would have merely been a leap up of five feet.”

      The Thinking Machine stopped as if he had finished. Hatch respected this silence for a moment, but he had questions yet to be answered.

      “Who wrote the kidnapping letters demanding money?” was the first.

      “You found him—Charles Gates,” was the reply.

      “And the letter written after the abduction demanding twenty-five thousand dollars?”

      “Was written by him, of course—but this was a bluff. This poor deluded fool imagined that someone would actually go out and toss $25,000 on a trash-heap where he could find it, and then he could escape. That was his purpose. He knew nothing of the whereabouts of the baby. He beat his wife when he found, instead of money, I had put some good advice in the newspaper bundle for him.”

      “But the stocking in his room, and your question to Miss Barton?”

      “This man did write a letter threatening kidnapping before the baby disappeared. It was perfectly possible that after the kidnapping he stole the little stocking and two or three other things from the laundry, for Miss Barton noticed they were missing,

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