CHAPTER I

A FRIGHTENED SINGER

“Hello, Larry, just the chap I want to see!” greeted Paul Rosberg, one of the oldest reporters on the New York _Leader_, as a tall, good-looking young fellow came into the city room one September afternoon. “I’ve been hoping you’d show up.”

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Larry Dexter, the “star” man on the _Leader_, when it came to solving strange cases and mysteries. “Do you want the loan of five dollars, or has your typewriter gone out of commission?”

“Neither,” replied Paul Rosberg, with a smile, though he knew Larry would oblige him were it necessary. For Larry Dexter had a natural talent for machinery, and often adjusted the “balky” typewriters of his fellow reporters. Also, he would lend them cash when they were temporarily embarrassed, not to say broke. For Larry had made considerable money of late, especially in solving the big bank mystery, and he was always willing and ready to lend to his less fortunate brethren.

“Then, if it isn’t either one of those things, I can’t imagine what it is,” went on the young reporter, as he sat down at his desk. The city room was nearly vacant, all the other reporters having gone home. For the last edition of the _Leader_ was off the presses, and work for the day was over, the sheet being an afternoon one.

“I want you to do me a favor,” went on Mr. Rosberg, who was considerably older than Larry, and, as he spoke the man began reaching in his various pockets as if searching for something. “You haven’t anything on for to-night, have you?”

“No, I’ve been out on a Sunday special story, and I’ve cleaned it up. It didn’t take me as long as I expected, so I thought I’d come back to the office to see if Mr. Emberg had anything else for me.”

“You’re too conscientious Larry; altogether too fussy,” spoke his companion. “But I’m tickled to pieces that you did come in. I was hoping you, or some of the other obliging lads would, for I’m stuck on a night assignment that I don’t want, and it comes at a bad time. There, cover that for me, will you?”

He handed Larry two slips of pasteboard, theater tickets, as was evident at first glance.

“Hum!” mused Larry as he looked at them. “Farewell appearance of Madame Androletti, eh? I wonder how many ‘farewell’ appearances she’s had? This must be about the forty-ninth. She’ll soon finish up at this rate. ‘Grand concert and musicale,’” he went on reading. “Musicale with a final ‘e’ no less. In the new Music Hall, to-night, too. I say, Mr. Rosberg, what does it mean, anyhow? Do you want me to go to this concert with you?”

“No, Larry, I want you to cover it for me. Report it, if you like that better. Say, look here, old man” (Larry was not an old man by any means, but the term was used as a friendly one), “this is my wedding anniversary to-night, and I promised my little lady that I’d come home early to a supper celebration she’s gotten up. Then, at the last minute, the editor wants me to cover this concert. Seems as though Madame Androletti has some pull with the paper, and wants a representative at her concert, though I don’t see why the morning paper reporters wouldn’t do as well.

“But, as you know, I’ve been doing theatricals and musicales for this sheet for some time, and they want me to cover this. Not that I need to do it personally, but they expect me to look after it. Now, I don’t want to go, and that’s why I’m asking you to cover it for me.”

“But look here!” cried Larry, lamely accepting the tickets which the other held out. “I don’t know anything about music. That is, not enough to report a concert. I like it, and all that, but I don’t know how to grind out that stuff about high notes, coloratura work, placement, ensemble, vocal range, and all that sort of thing, that I see in your accounts of musical doings every once in a while. I’d make a mess of it.”

“That’s all right, Larry,” spoke the musical critic. “I’ve thought of that. I’ll do all the fancy ‘word-slinging.’ I’ll write the story to-morrow morning. All I want you to do is to go there and bring me back a program. You can ask the leader of the orchestra if it was carried out. He’ll jot down the names of any extra numbers the madame may have sung as encores. Then it will be up to me. I know nearly all the concert pieces anyhow, and I can fix up an account.

“Just you keep your eyes open, size up the crowd, watch how the lady sings, get me a few notes about her bouquets and all that, and I’ll do the rest. It won’t be the first time I’ve written about a concert without being there.”

“But,” objected Larry, “I won’t know whether she’s singing good, bad or indifferent.”

“No trouble about that,” spoke the other. “Madame Androletti always sings well. I’ve heard her.”

“But won’t Mr. Emberg object?” asked Larry, naming the city editor.

“No, I’ve fixed it with him. I asked him if I couldn’t get some one to cover the concert for me, on account of my celebration to-night, and he said it was up to me. So I’ve drawn you. Pshaw, Larry, it’s easy! Anybody who can solve a million-dollar bank mystery the way you did, can surely cover a simple concert.”

“But it’s so different,” objected the young reporter.

“Not at all. It just needs common sense. Go ahead now, cover it for me,” and with this Mr. Rosberg hurried out of the room, leaving Larry standing there, holding the two concert tickets.

“Take some one with you--your best girl,” the older reporter called back, and he caught the elevator, and rapidly descended to the street.

“Well, I guess I’m in for it,” mused Larry, as he looked at the tickets in his hand. They were choice seats, he noted, and, had he been obliged to buy them, they would have cost five dollars. That was one advantage of being a reporter.

“Take my girl with me,” went on the young reporter. “Well, why not? I wonder if Molly Mason wouldn’t like to go?” and Larry’s thoughts went to the pretty department-store clerk, who had helped him solve the million-dollar bank mystery. “I’ll call her on the ’phone. She can’t have left the store yet,” he went on. A few minutes later he listened to her rapturous acceptance.

“Oh, Larry!” she exclaimed, “of course I’ll be _delighted_ to go. I’ve just got a new dress, and, oh, it’s awfully nice of you to ask me, I’m sure.”

“I’m being nice to myself,” answered Larry. “All right; I’ll call for you about eight.”

And so that was how, a few hours afterward, Larry rolled up to the modest apartment house where Molly Mason lived, the young reporter arriving in a taxicab.

“Oh, what luxurious extravagance!” exclaimed Molly, as she sank down on the cushions. “Why did you do it?”

“Oh, as long as I’m going to report a swell concert I might as well do it in style,” replied Larry. “I hope you’ll like it.”

“Oh, I know I shall!” she exclaimed.

An usher showed them to their seats. The hall was beginning to fill, and Larry and his companion looked around curiously, not that Larry was not used to the members of “swell” society, for his duties had often taken him among them, and he had come to have rather a common regard for that class of persons.

But to Miss Mason it was a dream of delight, as, on her slender wages, she seldom got a chance to attend expensive amusements, for she had to help support her family. The audience was a rich as well as cultivated one, as Larry soon saw.

“There, I forgot to get programs!” he exclaimed, after he and Molly were comfortably seated. “I’ll go back and get a couple. I won’t be a minute.”

She nodded brightly, and resumed her gaze about the rapidly-filling theater. From the depths back of, and under the stage, could be heard the mysterious, and always thrilling, sounds of the orchestra tuning up.

As Larry picked up two programs from the table in the lobby he saw a tall, large man, conspicuous in a dress suit, with some sort of ribbon decoration pinned to the lapel of his coat, enter the rear of the auditorium. The man stood gazing down over the heads of the audience with sharp and piercing eyes, that seemed to take in every detail. He looked to be a foreigner, an Italian, most likely.

“Some count or marquis,” thought Larry as he looked at the man’s decoration, noting that it was a foreign one. “It’s queer how they like to tog themselves out in ribbons and such things.”

The young reporter was about to return to his seat with the programs when he noticed two young Italians in one of the rear rows of the hall. They had turned, and were gazing at the large man in the dress suit. Most of the men in the audience were similarly attired, but the two Italians in the rear, though well dressed, did not have on the clothes that fashion has decreed for such affairs.

It was, therefore, somewhat to Larry’s surprise, that he saw the evidently titled and cultured foreigner make an unmistakable signal to the two men. The big man raised his right hand to his right cheek, with the fingers and thumb spread out. He held it there a moment, and, taking it away, brought it back again, as though to indicate the numeral ten.

As Larry watched, he saw the taller of the two men hold up one finger. Apparently satisfied, the big man turned aside, and approached an usher.

“At what time does Madame Androletti make her appearance to-night?” he asked, with a foreign accent.

“At nine, first, and then at ten,” was the answer, and Larry was at once struck with the answer. The singer came on at ten, and ten was the numeral the big man had signaled to the others. What could it mean? Larry wondered.

“Very good,” answered the foreigner, as he turned aside, and went out into the lobby, with a hasty glance toward the two in the rear seats. Larry saw them both nod their heads.

“Well, I don’t know that it concerns me,” mused the young reporter, as he returned to his seat. “It looks rather odd, but I guess I’ve got so that I’m looking for mysteries in everything. I’ve got to get out of the habit.”

He looked at the program, after handing Molly one, and noted that the cause for the long wait between the two appearances of the singer was because of a heavy orchestral number coming in between her first and second selections. After that she was to sing several songs in succession.

“I’m going to watch when she comes on at ten,” said Larry to himself.

The concert soon began, with an overture, and Larry found himself enjoying it, even though he knew little about classical harmony. Molly was in raptures, for she had a natural taste for music that Larry lacked, and she had taken a number of piano lessons.

“It’s grand!” she whispered to him.

Madame Androletti came on for her first number, being loudly applauded. Larry made some notes, that he might give Mr. Rosberg an intelligent account of the affair, and then gave himself up to the rapture of the music.

The orchestral number followed, and then, as the hour of ten approached, Larry found himself wondering what would happen. The musicians tuned their instruments for what was to be one of the chief vocal numbers, and there was a hush of expectancy.

The curtains and draperies parted and Madame Androletti came on again, bowing with pleasure at the applause. Larry found himself watching her curiously. Then he turned and cast a hasty glance to where the two strange men had been seated. They had left the hall.

“That’s strange,” mused Larry, and then turned back, for the singer was beginning her song, her exquisite voice filling the big auditorium.

She had not sung half a dozen words, throwing into them all the dramatic force of which she was capable, before Larry, who was watching her closely, saw a strange change come over her.

She stepped back, evidently in fear, and then her hands went up over her eyes, as though to shut out some terrifying sight. At first the audience thought it was all part of her acting--though the song did not call for that sort of stage “business.”

A moment later, however, showed the mistake. For Madame Androletti ceased singing, and the strains of the orchestra came to an end with a sudden crash.

The singer cried out something in Italian. What it was Larry did not know, but he could tell, by her tones, that she was frightened.

An instant later she swayed, and she would have fallen to the stage had not her maid and her manager sprung from the wings and caught her.

“Curtain!” Larry heard the manager call quickly, and the big sheet of asbestos slid slowly down. The audience was in an uproar, though a subdued one, and there was no sign of panic.

“She’s fainted!” was whispered on all sides.

Before the curtain was fully down Larry looked under it, and he had a glimpse of the eyes of the stricken singer peering out. And there was fright in them--deadly fright.

Like a flash Larry turned and looked back of him, for it was at some distant point in the hall that Madame Androletti was gazing.

The young reporter saw, standing at the head of an aisle that led directly to the center of the stage, the decorated foreigner who had signaled to the two men the hour of ten. And it was but a little past that now.

This man stood there in plain view, his eyes fixed on the slowly falling curtain that was hiding the frightened singer from view, and on his face was a mocking smile. Then he turned and walked slowly from the place. No one but Larry seemed to have noted him, as the eyes of all others were turned on the stage.

“Oh, what was it?” gasped Molly Mason, clinging to Larry’s arm. “Something has happened! She must be ill!”

“I think she has fainted,” said a lady sitting next to Larry’s companion. “Singers often do so from stress of emotion, or from the heat and strain. She has only fainted. She will probably be all right in a little while.”

The orchestra, in answer to a signal from the conductor had swung into a gay number. The curtain had fallen, concealing what was going on behind it.

“It was a faint--just a faint,” every one was saying.

But Larry Dexter thought:

“It was more than a faint. If ever there was deadly fear on a woman’s face, it was on hers. There’s something going on here that the audience knows nothing about, and I’m going to have a try at it. That big man, and those two others are in it, too, I’ll wager. Maybe I’ve stumbled on something more than just an assignment to cover a concert.”

After events were soon to prove Larry Dexter was right.