Chapter IV


The little Syrian baby had disappeared. Nobody had reckoned with the
soft guile of a race as supple and silent as to their real intentions
as cats. There was a verandah column wound with a massive wistaria
vine near the window of the baby's room. The little nurse girl went
home every night, and Jane Riggs was a heavy sleeper. When she had
awakened, her first glance had been into the baby's crib. Then she
sprang, and searched with hungry hands. The little softly indented
nest was not warm, the child had been gone for some hours, probably
had been taken during the first and soundest sleep of the household.
Jane's purse, and her gold breast pin, had incidentally been taken
also. When she gave the alarm to Von Rosen, a sullen, handsome Syrian
boy was trudging upon an unfrequented road, which led circuitously to
the City, and he carried a suit-case, but it was held apart, by some
of the Eastern embroideries used as wedges, before strapping, and
from that came the querulous wail of a baby squirming uncomfortably
upon drawn work centre pieces, and crepe kimonas. Now and then the
boy stopped and spoke to the baby in a lovely gentle voice. He
promised it food, and shelter soon in his own soft tongue. He was
carrying it to his wife's mother, and sullen as he looked and was,
and thief as he was, love for his own swayed him, and made him
determined to hold it fast. Von Rosen made all possible inquiries. He
employed detectives but he never obtained the least clue to the
whereabouts of the little child. He, however, although he grieved
absurdly, almost as absurdly as Jane, had a curious sense of joy over
the whole. Life in Fairbridge had, before birth and death entered his