“Now here comes the queer part of the story. It seems that Sheldon and his wife live on the third floor of a tenement in northern Lynn. Their dining room has one window, which leads to a fire escape. He and his wife were at supper about halfpast six — in other words, a little more than half an hour from the time the baby disappeared from the Blake home.
“After awhile they heard a noise — they didn’t know what — on the fire escape. They paid no attention. Finally they heard another noise from the fire escape — that of a baby crying. Then Sheldon went to the window and opened it. There on the fire escape was Baby Blake. How he got there no human being knows.”
“I know now,” said The Thinking Machine. “Go on.”
“Puzzled and bewildered they took the child off the iron structure, where only th
