The Millionaire Baby | Page 2

more
millions than I shall ever see thousands, unless I am fortunate enough
to solve the mystery now exercising the sympathies of the whole New
York public.
You have all heard of this child under another name. From her birth she
has been known as the Millionaire Baby, being the direct heir to three
fortunes, two of which she had already received. I saw her first when
she was three years old--a cherubic little being, lovely to look upon and
possessing unusual qualities for so young a child. Indeed, her
picturesque beauty and appealing ways would have attracted all eyes

and won all hearts, even if she had not represented in her small person
the wealth both of the Ocumpaugh and Rathbone families. There was
an individuality about her, combined with sensibilities of no ordinary
nature, which fully accounted for the devoted affection with which she
was universally regarded; and when she suddenly disappeared, it was
easy to comprehend, if one did not share, the thrill of horror which
swept from one end of our broad continent to the other. Those who
knew the parents, and those who did not, suffered an equal pang at the
awful thought of this petted innocent lost in the depths of the great
unknown, with only the false caresses of her abductors to comfort her
for the deprivation of all those delights which love and unlimited
means could provide to make a child of her years supremely happy.
Her father--and this was what gave the keen edge of horror to the whole
occurrence--was in Europe when she disappeared. He had been cabled
at once and his answer was the proffered reward with which I have
opened this history. An accompanying despatch to his distracted wife
announced his relinquishment of the project which had taken him
abroad and his immediate return on the next steamer sailing from
Southampton. As this chanced to be the fastest on the line, we had
reason to expect him in six days; meanwhile--
But to complete my personal recapitulations. When the first news of
this startling abduction flashed upon my eyes from the bulletin boards,
I looked on the matter as one of too great magnitude to be dealt with by
any but the metropolitan police; but as time passed and further details
of the strange and seemingly inexplicable affair came to light, I began
to feel the stirring of the detective instinct within me (did I say that I
was connected with a private detective agency of some note in the
metropolis?) and a desire, quite apart from any mere humane interest in
the event itself, to locate the intelligence back of such a desperate crime:
an intelligence so keen that, up to the present moment, if we may trust
the published accounts of the affair, not a clue had been unearthed by
which its author could be traced, or the means employed for carrying
off this petted object of a thousand cares.
To be sure, there was a theory which eliminated all crime from the

occurrence as well as the intervention of any one in the child's fate: she
might have strayed down to the river and been drowned. But the
probabilities were so opposed to this supposition, that the police had
refused to embrace it, although the mother had accepted it from the first,
and up to the present moment, or so it was stated, had refused to
consider any other. As she had some basis for this conclusion--I am
still quoting the papers, you understand--I was not disposed to ignore it
in the study I proceeded to make of the situation. The details, as I ran
them over in the hurried trip I now made up the river to ----, were as
follows:
On the afternoon of Wednesday, August sixteenth, 190--, the guests
assembled in Mrs. Ocumpaugh's white and gold music-room were
suddenly thrown into confusion by the appearance among them of a
young girl in a state of great perturbation, who, running up to the
startled hostess, announced that Gwendolen, the petted darling of the
house, was missing from the bungalow where she had been lying asleep,
and could not be found, though a dozen men had been out on search.
The wretched mother, who, as it afterward transpired, had not only
given the orders by which the child had been thus removed from the
excitement up at the house, but had actually been herself but a few
moments before to see that the little one was well cared for and happy,
seemed struck as by a mortal blow at these words and, uttering a
heart-rending scream, ran out on the lawn. A crowd of guests rushed
after her, and as they followed her flying figure across the lawn to the
small copse in which lay hidden