Part 35 (1/2)

”I am with you there, Aggie,” admitted Neale. ”I guess this is a serious affair. The Gypsies are in it.”

Between the two, the boy and the girl told Mr. Pinkney all about the silver bracelet and the events connected with it. The man listened with appreciation.

”I don't know, of course, anything about the fight between the two factions of Gypsies over what you call Queen Alma's bracelet--”

”If it doesn't prove to be Sarah Turner's bracelet,” interjected Agnes.

”Yes. That is possible. They may have just found it--those Gypsy women.

And the story Costello, the junkman, told us might be a fake,” said Neale.

”However,” broke in Mr. Pinkney again, ”there is a chance that the bracelet was given to Tess and Dot for a different purpose from any you have suggested.”

”What do you mean by that?” asked Neale and Agnes in unison.

”It is a fact that some Gypsies do steal children. Now, don't be startled! It isn't commonly done. They are often accused without good reason. But Gypsies are always more or less mixed up with traveling show people. There are many small tent shows traveling about the country at this time of year.”

”Like Twomley & Sorber's circus,” burst out Agnes.

”Smaller than that. Just one-ring affairs. And the shows are regular 'fly-by-nights.' Gypsies fraternize with them of course. And often children are trained in those shows to be acrobats who are doubtless picked up around the country--usually children who have no guardians.

And the Gypsies sometimes pick up such.”

”Oh, but, Mr. Pinkney!” cried Agnes, ”we are so careful of Tess and Dot. Usually, I mean. I don't know what Ruth will say when she gets home to-night. It looks as though we had been very careless while she was gone.”

”I know what children have to go through in a circus,” said Neale soberly. ”But why should the Gypsies have selected Tess and Dot?”

”Because, you tell me, they were playing circus, and doing stunts at the very time the Gypsy women sold them the basket.”

”Oh! So they were,” agreed Agnes. ”Oh, Neale!”

”Crickey! It might be, I suppose. I never thought of that,” admitted the boy.

He was carefully running the car while this talk was going on. He soon drove past the Poole place and later stopped at a little house where the constable lived.

Mr. Ben Stryker was at home. It was not often that automobile parties called at his door. Usually they did not want to see Mr. Stryker, who was a stickler for the ”rules of the road.”

”What's the matter?” asked the constable, coming out to the car. ”Want to pay me your fine, so as not to have to wait to see the Justice of the Peace?”

He said it jokingly. When he heard about the missing Kenway children and of the reason to fear Gypsies had something to do with it, he jumped into the car, taking Mr. Pinkney's place in the front seat beside Neale.

”I've had my eye on Big Jim Costello ever since he has been back here,” Stryker declared. ”I sent him away to jail once. He is a bad one. And if he is mixed up in any kidnapping, I'll put him into the penitentiary for a long term.”

”But of course we would not want to make them trouble if the children went to the camp alone,” ventured Agnes. ”You know, they might have been hunting for the two women who sold them the basket.”

”Those Gypsies know what to do in such a case. They know where I live, and they should have brought the two little girls to me. I certainly have it in for Big Jim.”

But as we have seen, when the party arrived at the spot where the Gypsies had been encamped, not a trace of them was left. That is, no trace that pointed to the time or the direction of their departure.

”Maybe these Gypsies did not have a thing to do with the absence of Tess and Dot,” whispered Agnes.

”And maybe they had everything to do with it,” declared Neale, aloud.

”Looks to me as though they had turned the trick and escaped.”