Chapter 8

Surprisingly, it was Aunt Jenny who rose to the occasion and Dolly who went to pieces. Even George Weaver, when told that Dinky had disappeared from the house, was calm. He said he would call the state troopers and follow the rest of them to the Winsted home.

Aunt Jenny saw to it that Tom Sanders and Dan Hallbrook were both notified, and they were all ready to go in a matter of minutes. The Country Club dance was momentarily halted while onlookers watched the beautiful young girl in green having hysterics in the middle of the dance floor. It was not until her mother spoke sharply that Dolly regained some control and allowed herself to be led from the club with Tom Sanders' arm about her.

"Poor George, poor George," Dolly moaned, wringing her hands.

"We'll do all we can for him," her mother assured her. "Has that nice Joe Hamilton gone home? I didn't see him and I didn't want to wait."

Dolly seemed to calm down at once. "I don't know where he is and I don't care."

Shirley sent their battered sedan racing out into the road and saw behind her the headlights of the truck as the two "cavaliers" left the ball in Cinderella fashion.

When they arrived at the house Mrs. Jameson had apparently lit every lamp in the place. Even as they came in the driveway Mrs. Jameson punched on the bright porch light before she opened the door. Shirley automatically glanced up at the window of the room where Dinky slept. The white curtains, like a signal of distress, fluttered outside.

Mabel Jameson looked white and tired but controlled. She explained that after talking to Jenny early in the evening, she had picked up a piece of needlework and must have dozed off while she was sewing. It had been after ten when she found he was gone.

"It was not your fault," Jenny assured her friend. "Dinky may just have wandered off in the moonlight. We may find him any minute."

"But he was kidnapped," Mrs. Jameson wailed.

"I doubt it very much," Jenny said, and added dryly: "Nobody would want to kidnap Dinky."

George Weaver came in just then, announcing that the state troopers were on the way. Meanwhile, they wanted him to bring a picture of Dinky down to the barracks and to make a formal statement to the lieutenant in charge. Shirley went with him into Dinky's room and took the silver-framed photograph of the child from his dresser. It struck her that something was missing from the room, but it took her a few minutes to realize that it was the Teddy bear.

For some reason this was reassuring. It seemed to her that no kidnapper would be bothered with a child's worn-out toy. On the other hand, if Dinky had wandered off by himself, he most assuredly would have taken his stuffed pal along with him. She said as much to George, who was not reassured.

"I don't know," he said slowly, his face white and drawn with anxiety. "Dinky is a mighty loving child, and they know I would give up my life as well as my shop and everything I possess just to have him back."

Shirley thought he might be going to break down, but George, with a heroic effort to appear normal, continued:

"I blame myself for this. I have left the boy with others far too much. If he is lost or hurt, I have only myself to blame."

Shirley could only pat his shoulder sympathetically.

Downstairs a few minutes later, George repeated his self-reproach to Jenny Winsted and Mabel Jameson. Both women refused to allow him to take the blame, Mrs. Jameson insisting that it was her fault. Aunt Jenny, even while she was reassuring George, was thinking of the Staffordshire dog and blaming herself for Dinky's disappearance.

"Why don't we do something?" Dolly demanded. "There's no sense standing around just talking about it."

"There's no use going out looking for him," George said. "The state troopers will send experienced men to do that. But I do have to report to the barracks, and I would be pleased if someone came with me."

"Of course I'll come," Dolly said at once. "Give me your scarf, Mums." She disappeared out the door, and George, clutching the silver-framed photograph, followed her.

Shirley felt strangely let down. She had always heard that in a kidnapping the period of waiting for news was the most nerve-wracking. At the same time, she dreaded to hear the telephone ring. She almost panicked when a bell did ring before she identified it as the doorbell.

When she opened it, four stalwart young men in uniform stood outside. They were equipped with powerful flashlights, and behind them she saw the state troopers' car already floodlighting the immediate area around the house. They asked to be shown to the boy's room first of all, and Shirley was relieved when Tom Sanders, who had just started downstairs, offered to show it to them.

Shirley wandered back into the living room, where Mabel Jameson and Aunt Jenny sat side by side, each seeming to derive some comfort from the other's presence. A second later Dan Hallbrook, standing in the doorway, motioned for Shirley to join him in the hall.

"I have an idea," he said in a low voice. "But I don't want to get your aunt and Mrs. Jameson too excited about it. When I took Dinky with me that morning, he seemed particularly thrilled by the maintenance station. He asked if he was big and strong enough to get a job there. I humored him, of course-the poor little tyke-because I thought he wanted to get money for his piggy bank. Could be he's gone there."

"What else did he say?" Shirley demanded. The maintenance station, she knew, was only about a mile down the road, but it was a frightening walk for a child even on a brightly moonlit night. Still, anything was better than just waiting.

"He didn't say much of anything else," Dan replied, obviously trying to remember. "Mainly he asked questions about the machinery and what it was used for. He even asked about that little tool shed and if anybody lived in it. Why don't we take a nice slow ride down the road? Perhaps Dinky is wandering around there. If he sees the truck, he may decide not to walk any farther."

The four state troopers clattered briskly down the stairs. While two of them went in to talk with Jenny and Mrs. Jameson, Tom Sanders led the other two around the house until they stood directly beneath Dinky's window. As Shirley followed Dan toward the truck, she heard one of them sing out:

"No marks of a ladder! And no footprints!"

Dan had spoken of driving slowly, but to Shirley, huddled beside him on the seat of the cab, the trip seemed interminable. It was like living in a nightmare. In spite of their efforts to go ahead, an invisible force seemed to be drawing them back. Perhaps because the moonlight was very bright, the shadows of the hedges on either side of the road seemed particularly black and menacing.

Dinky had stoutly asserted that he "wasn't afraid of nothing." But how large must these black shadows seem to a child? Several times Shirley, peering ahead, thought she saw the small figure trudging with determination down the road just ahead of them. Yet when the truck's headlights reached the spot, there was nothing. Somewhere a fox barked mournfully, and Shirley thought of all the lost children who had wandered off into the darkness of night and been found too late.

The blue neon lights of the maintenance station suddenly came into view. To eyes accustomed to the semidarkness they seemed brilliant. In their radiance, the piles of cinder blocks and lumber that were to be used in the construction of the building could be seen clearly. Huge rolls of fencing lay scattered about and, although the whole area had an eerie, deserted air, Dan assured Shirley that there was a night watchman on duty. As they drove over the rough, uneven ground, Shirley identified Dinky's "little house"-the tool shed that had so intrigued him.

Dan drove around the side of the maintenance station to the door of the one room that was finished. There was a faint light inside. It was dim indeed compared to the battery of neon bulbs that spread like a canopy above the unfinished roof. Shirley and Dan were out of the truck in a second. In answer to their knock a rotund, bespectacled man with his vest hanging open appeared in the doorway.

"What do you want this time of night?" he asked. "This here's a maintenance station and we don't allow no trespassers."

Dan explained their mission, and the man became instantly sympathetic. He inquired as to Dinky's appearance and the length of time he had been gone from home and the possible distance he might have traveled. Shirley was hopeful and could not help but break in on the conversation.

"Have you seen him? Do you think you might have seen him?" she asked anxiously.

The watchman's eyes noted her Indian costume and feathered headdress. But he did not seem any more surprised to see an Indian maiden who had been riding in a dump truck than he had been to see the truck itself.

"Nope. I ain't seen your little boy. I ain't seen nobody at all."

Shirley felt her heart sink so low that she thought it surely must have reached her heels. She turned dispiritedly back to the truck, and after Dan had thanked the watchman, he came and stood beside her.

"Well, I guess that's that," he said in a flat voice. "It was a good idea while it lasted. Only it turned out to be no good. I guess we'd better leave this business to the state troopers and wait for them to call us."

Shirley, looking dully at the outline of the tool shed a short distance away, nodded her head in agreement. Dan was right, of course.

"The tool shed is locked up tight every night, if you're thinking about that," Dan said. "It isn't like that old icehouse we tore down. There are no holes to crawl through."

"I'll just walk around it anyhow," Shirley said without hope. "I wouldn't feel right if I didn't at least look."

Her soft moccasins made no sound as she advanced toward the little house, avoiding the sharp stones that were scattered here and there. The shed looked like a veritable fortress, but its peaked roof did suggest a house, one it would be fun for a youngster to imagine as his own. She made no effort to be quiet, and as she started to circle the shed there was a small whisper of sound as if a nocturnal animal were padding quietly about. She rounded the corner and her spirits gave a sudden leap.

"Dinky," she whispered, not trusting her eyes, but still afraid she might startle him if it were indeed the child. "Dinky, we miss you. We want you to come back home. Please, Dinky, oh, please."

For a second there was no answer. Then a small white face peered at her from the other side of the shed. Shirley advanced slowly, afraid that he might run and fall on the uneven ground. But suddenly the child's whole figure came around the corner and he advanced toward Shirley with open curiosity.

"What's that you got on your head?" were his first words. "It makes you look like an Indian."

With a laugh that was almost a sob, Shirley tore off her headgear and placed it on the boy's head. It was too big for him, but she managed to secure it behind his ears. His Teddy bear was still clutched in his arms, and in his pajamas and feather headgear, Dinky presented a strange appearance indeed. With a cry of joy Shirley swooped him up in her arms and started to run back to the truck.

It was a little while before they could get under way. Dan roused the watchman again and asked to use the telephone. He called the state barracks first and reported that the child had been found. George Weaver was still there, and Dan assured him that the boy was not hurt. Then he called the Winsted home and repeated the glad news to Jenny. He could hear her relaying the information to Mabel Jameson.

When they were finally driving back along the road, Shirley managed to ask in a casual voice:

"How did you get out of the house, Dinky?"

"Just walked out the door," Dinky informed her. "I was going to wait until morning and then ask a man for a job."

Dan suppressed an exclamation of dismay.

"But Dinky, I told you, you would have to eat your cereal and drink your milk so you'd be big and strong...."

"I'm big and strong now," Dinky interrupted. "But nobody knows I am. I guess if I got a job on the highway they couldn't call me Dinky no more. They'd have to call me by my real name."

"Nobody will ever call you Dinky again, Richard," Shirley promised.

"I could have a little house, like the one where you found me," the child said. "And maybe a dog, too. And I wouldn't have to say please or thank you to anybody." His voice trailed off and his head, resting against Shirley's shoulder, seemed to grow heavier.

By the time Dan carried him into the house, Dinky, now Richard, was sound asleep.

"There's one thing I know," Dan growled at Shirley just before they went inside. "This boy has got to have a dog-not a stuffed one or a china one, but a real live pooch!"