CHAPTER X

THE TORN NOTE

Only a word from Detective Nyler to the hotel clerk was needed to enable Larry and his friend to visit the room of the man who had disappeared so suddenly.

“It’s just as he left it,” remarked the officer, when they stood in the apartment.

“How do you know?” asked Larry.

“Because, after I found out I’d been fooled I made it my business to come in here, and not a thing has been changed. You see, Parloti’s week isn’t up for a few days yet, and, as he has paid for the room, they can’t very well put his things out. I even spoke to the chambermaid, and asked her not to sweep or dust; I thought we might like to look around.”

“That’s good,” commented Larry. “But how did you know he’d gone down the fire-escape?”

“I’ll tell you. It’s simple enough when you know how. After I saw him come in the hotel, and go up in the elevator, presumably to his room, I got rid of my disguise as a seller of papers. I had been in the hotel lobby, and that’s how I happened to see Parloti. When I thought he was safely settled in his room, I came up to mine.”

“Yours?” asked Larry in surprise. “I didn’t know you had a room here.”

“Yes, I hired one a few days ago. It’s right across the hall from Parloti’s, and I’ve been keeping tabs on him, but up to the time he left I hadn’t been able to get anything on him.

“As I said, I went to my room, which was just across the corridor from his. By standing on a chair, and looking through the transom over my door, I could see into his room, and, owing to the fact that his transom was opened, and that there is a large mirror in his room, I had a good view of everything he did.

“I satisfied myself early last night that he was doing nothing more than reading, and then I sat down to wait. In a little while I heard his door open, in response to a knock. I looked out and saw a messenger boy standing there with a telegram. Parloti was quite excited when he read it a little later, and I watched him pace up and down his room. Then I sat down to await developments, but I had a hole in my door, through which I could see when his opened.

“I felt that I had him safe, for I knew he couldn’t come out without me seeing him. His room has but one door, though he has a connecting bath, and a small dressing-room. But they can only be entered through his apartment.

“Well, after sitting there for a while, listening for his door to open, and taking occasional glances through the hole in my door, I thought I’d take another transom-look. I did, and I saw that he wasn’t there. I waited some time, and he did not come from either of the other rooms. Then I got suspicious.

“With a skeleton key I went in his apartment. He had left, and the open window at the fire-escape, and some marks in the dust on the iron platform, showed me plainly enough how he’d given us the slip. Of course I got busy at once, but I couldn’t get a trace of him. The fire-escape that he went down lands in a little alley, seldom used, and he could travel along that, after dark, and get out on the street without being seen. Oh, he fooled us all right!”

Larry said nothing for a few seconds after the detective finished his narrative. Then he asked:

“Did you look for that telegram?”

“I did, but I couldn’t find it. He must have taken it with him.”

“Couldn’t you get a copy of it at the office? You know, telegraph companies make a copy of every message that comes over the wires.”

“Yes, I know that, but this wasn’t a regular message. It must have been written by some of Parloti’s friends, who just stepped into a district messenger office and had it delivered by a boy. That is often done.”

“If we could only find that note!” exclaimed Larry, “it might give us a clew to the whole mystery.”

“It might,” agreed the officer, “but it’s gone.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, over the transom I saw Parloti tear it up, and put the pieces in his pocket. He took it away with him. He isn’t such a dunce as to risk leaving evidence like that behind.”

“I suppose not,” said Larry, “especially as it was probably a message telling him to skip. If we only had it! I wonder if, by any possible chance, he could have dropped pieces of it when he went down the fire-escape? It was pretty windy last night, and some of the scraps might have blown out of his pocket, especially in going down a fire-escape ladder.”

“Well, it’s worth looking into,” assented Detective Nyler. “Here, you’re younger than I am, Larry, climb down the escape, and look about on the ground. You may find something.”

It did not take the young reporter long to do this. But his careful search was not rewarded by so much as a fragment of paper that was of any service. He did find a receipted hotel bill that Parloti had evidently dropped from the window, or that had fallen from his pocket, but this was all. There were no pieces of a torn note to help solve the riddle.

Larry climbed up the fire-escape to the room again. Then he and the detective went carefully over the apartment. It was evident that Parloti had left in haste, for his clothing was scattered about, showing that he had hurriedly packed some and left the rest behind.

“What sort of a coat did he have on when he tore up the note and put the pieces in the pocket?” asked the young reporter, as he looked into a closet containing several suits that the Italian had left.

“Well, it was what some people call a smoking jacket, though I never could understand why a man couldn’t smoke just as well in an ordinary coat as in one of those fancy ones. It was a smoking jacket, and----”

The detective stopped suddenly, for Larry was taking from a closet the very jacket in question. The young reporter held the garment up in one hand, and, with the other, he began exploring the pockets on either side.

“Here’s something!” he cried, as he pulled out some torn fragments of paper. “Maybe it’s the note.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the detective. “I am a dumb one! Say, I never stopped to think that Parloti wouldn’t make a getaway in his smoking jacket. He had that on when he got the note. He tore the paper up, and stuck the pieces in the pocket. I saw him do that. Then I sat down to watch. When I looked again he was gone. And I just passed over that jacket in the closet as if it didn’t amount to anything. Say, put me back in the baby class, will you?” he asked Larry. “I don’t belong on the police force.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the young reporter. “Any one would make that mistake, and it was only by luck that I happened to think of it. But maybe, after all, this isn’t the note we want.”

“We can soon tell,” said the detective, clearing a space on the bureau.

Together they began fitting together the pieces of the torn note. It was very soon evident that it was not all there.

“He took most of it with him,” said Mr. Nyler. “Even in his hurry he thought of that. He must have reached his hand in the pocket of this jacket, and grabbed up the pieces as he was leaving. But he did not get them all.”

“There are only a few words I can make out,” said Larry, “and they don’t seem to be connected. This is the best we can do.”

They peered at the pieces of the torn note. The words that confronted them were these:

boy ocated come ot.