I thought for a minute, then said, "Suppose it was Nestor. How did he get her away? It's a cinch he didn't just scoop her up in broad daylight and go trotting off with her under his arm." "Precisely what I was thinking," the Duke agreed. "There was no scream or disturbance of that kind. Could he have lured her away, do you think?" "Possible, but not likely. Little girls in New York are warned about that sort of thing from the time they're in diapers. If she were five years old, it might be more probable, but little girls who are approaching eight are pretty wise little girls." "It follows, then, that she went somewhere of her own accord and he followed her. D'you agree?" "That sounds most reasonable," I said. "The next question is: Where?" "Yes. And why didn't she tell her mother where she was going?" I gave him a sour grin. "Elementary, my dear Duke. Because her mother had forbidden her to go there. And, from the way she was talking, I gather the mother had expressly directed her to stay away from the river." I looked back over the retaining wall again. "But it just doesn't sound right, does it? Surely someone would have seen any sort of attack like that. Of course, it's possible that she _did_ fall in the river, and that this case doesn't have anything to do with Nestor at all, but--" "It doesn't feel that way to me, either," said the Duke. "Let's go talk to the mother again," I said. "There are plenty of men down there now; they don't need us." The woman, Mrs. Ebbermann, had calmed down a little. The police surgeon had given her a tranquilizer with a hypogun, Officer Ramirez was getting everything down in his notebook, and his belt recorder was running. "No," she was saying, "I'm sure she didn't go home. That's the first place I looked after she didn't answer when I called. We live down the block there. I thought she might have gone home to go to the bathroom or something--but I'm sure she would have told me." She choked a little. "Oh, Shirley, baby! Where are you? Where _are_ you?" I started to ask her a question, but she suddenly said: "Shirley, baby, next time, I promise, you can bring your water gun with you to the park, if you'll just come back to Mommie now! Please, Shirley, baby! Please!" I glanced at the Duke. He gave me the same sort of look. "What was that about a water gun, Mrs. Ebbermann?" I asked casually. "Oh, she wanted to bring her water gun with her, poor baby. But I made her leave it at home--I was afraid she might squirt people with it. But I shouldn't have done that! She's a good girl! She wouldn't squirt anybody!" "Sure not, Mrs. Ebbermann. Does Shirley have a key to your apartment?" "Yes. I gave her her own key, a pretty one, with her initials on it, for her seventh birthday, so she wouldn't have to push the buzzer when she came home from school." "Where's your husband?" I asked taking a look at Ramirez' notebook to get her address.