The Mystery of the Disappearing Dogs. Arthur Hammond

we can’t afford to offer a big reward.”

      There was some murmuring at this, as the gangs began to argue about whether it would be any good trying to track down the dogs through an advertisement in the papers, and once more it was the Professor who settled things.

      “I vote we do put an ad in the papers,” he said quickly. “We’ve got to do something to try and help find the dogs, and a dollar for each paper isn’t very much. The Annex Gang’s got over fifteen dollars in its treasury, and we’ll pay for an advertisement for both dogs if the Spadina Gang hasn’t got any money collected. We can offer a small reward, too. It only needs to be a couple of dollars. All in favour, put their hands up.”

      He stuck his own hand up and Fatty and Red and Red’s Sister copied him. Then the leader of the Spadina Gang put his hand up too.

      “We’ll get up a collection tomorrow, to pay our share,” he said. “We’ll pay the same as the Annex Gang pays.”

      At once, all the other members of the Spadina Gang put their hands up too, followed by Blackie, who was still doubtful about it doing any good. The vote was unanimous.

      “Right!” the Professor said. “Let’s do it now, then. If we phone an advertisement in right away, we might even be able to get it printed in tomorrow morning’s Globe and Mail We can phone the same ad in to the Star and Telegram tomorrow morning, after we’ve seen whether the first one gets any results.”

      He led the group of boys and girls along to the corner of the street, a few yards away, where there was a phone booth just across from the subway entrance. After he had made up a short message, describing the two dogs and offering a small reward, he went inside the phone booth, looked up the number of the newspaper in the phone book, and then closed the door of the booth to shut out the noise of the busy stream of traffic. The other members of the two gangs gathered round outside the booth, peering in through the glass sides.

      The Professor put his dime in the slot, dialled, and then waited as the number rang. Then they saw him begin to talk, stop to listen, and then talk again. After another period of listening, he put the phone down slowly and looked at it, frowning. Still frowning, he turned and opened the door of the phone booth and stepped outside.

      The others gathered round him anxiously.

      “What did they say?” Fatty asked. “Did you get the advertisement in the paper for tomorrow?”

      The Professor shook his head. “We were too late for that,” he said. “They won’t be able to print it until the day after tomorrow. But there was something else very strange.”

      “What?” Red’s Sister said. “What was strange?”

      The Professor shook his head from side to side in bewilderment, then looked at her and frowned again.

      “When I told the woman who’s in charge of the advertisements that I wanted to put in one about a lost dog she was very surprised. She asked me if this was some kind of game.”

      “Game?” Red’s Sister echoed. “Why did she say that? What’s a game about losing your dog?”

      The Professor shook his head again. “When I asked her what was wrong with an ad for a lost dog, she said ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just peculiar, that’s all. Until a couple of days ago, we’d carried hardly any advertisements for lost dogs for months. Now, suddenly, in the last few days, we seem to have had dozens of them!’ ”

      He paused for a moment, then went on. “It seems that a lot of other people have suddenly started losing their dogs, too—all over town!”