CHAPTER XVIII

THE DESERTED ROOM

“Well, this looks like a street that would have lots of factory chimneys on it,” said Larry the next morning, as he stood at the head of a busy thoroughfare. “Tenement houses, too. Lots of ’em, and, very likely, furnished rooms and boarding places. This is the most promising place I’ve struck yet.”

In accordance with a sort of plan he had formed, Larry first located the largest cluster of tall chimneys. Then he picked out a tenement house, and went at once to the rear of it, where he knew there would be outside stairways, as is always the case.

“I want a view from there,” he said.

No one interfered with him, or spoke to him, as he made his way through the hall. Children swarmed about, as they always do in these places. The advent of strangers into a tenement house was too common to excite observation. For were not inspectors of one sort or another always coming in, or rent collectors, or the man who collected installments on the furniture?

So, instead of bringing out a curious crowd, the entrance of a stranger into a tenement of the common kind was more apt to send the dwellers into their rooms, behind locked doors. For it is often convenient to pretend to be out when the rent collector, or installment man, calls.

But Larry cared little for what the people did. He wanted to get a view from the rear of this tenement. Then, if it was at all promising, he could begin to make inquiries.

And to Larry’s delighted surprise the view, while a most gloomy one from a scenic standpoint, was just what he wanted. As he looked from the topmost rear porch of the tenement, he could see little else but chimneys, tall stacks and short ones, big and little--a veritable forest of brick and sheet-iron stacks.

“Well, this is the best place I’ve struck yet!” the young reporter exclaimed. “Now to make some inquiries.” He knew two ways of doing this--both good. One was to interview the children, and the other was to apply at the nearest small grocery.

For, if you ever want to know anything that has happened in a tenement, ask the children about it. If that doesn’t give you the information, try the grocery.

Larry began his inquiries at the grocery first, and the keeper of it, a shrewd Hebrew, had the history of every family in the neighboring tenement down “pat.” It was part of his business, for he did a big credit trade; that is, big in the number of persons he trusted.

Yes, there were in the building several Italian boys of the age of the one Larry sought. But whether they were strangers from New York, the grocer could not say. There were suspicious looking men, too. There always were, but who could say they were the ones wanted. Then Larry got down to “brass tacks,” as he called it.

“Do you happen to know whether there is a boy held captive in a rear room of the tenement?” asked Larry.

“A captiff! Vor why should I?” exclaimed the Hebrew with a shrug of his shoulders. “I haf not zeen him. I know not.”

“I’ve got to make a sort of house-to-house canvass,” thought Larry. “Let’s see. How can I do it? Guess I’ll be a sort of inspector for the time being. I’ll be looking for sick children. That will be a safe play. I’ll use my fire badge.”

He had one that he had used to gain admission inside the fire lines in New York. Pinning this on his coat, the young reporter started to knock on doors in the tenement, beginning on the second floor, for from the lower rear rooms no view of the chimneys could be had, and it was on this view that the young reporter relied.

His harmless masquerade as an inspector of sick children worked well. Most of the youngsters were at school, but there were plenty at home, and many were ill. Larry pretended to make notes about them, and some women took him for a doctor.

One poor mother demanded medicine for a sick baby, and Larry’s heart was sore at the misery he met with. In one case he gave a half-starving woman money enough for a week’s food at least, and so, though he had no right to assume the character he did, there was no harm in it, and eventually good came of it.

But he was not meeting the success for which he hoped. Inquiry after inquiry he made, but he did not find a trace of the stolen boy. He got to the top floor. Some of the apartments were vacant; the tenants had been dispossessed, Larry was told. There was but one set of rooms left at which to inquire, and these were on the rear of the house.

“This is my last chance!” thought Larry. “But still there are other tenements, and other places where there are many chimneys. I’m not giving up yet.”

He knocked. The door was opened by a woman, who eyed him suspiciously.

“I am inspecting for sick children,” said Larry, the phrase he had been using. “Have you any?”

“I have no children. There are none here. Go away!”

“Have there been any?” asked Larry in desperation, slipping his foot in the crack of the door, so that it could not be closed. “I’m looking for an Italian boy, about ten or twelve years old. Have you seen one--in company with some men?”

The woman started. She looked more closely at Larry.

“Maybe you was a detective?” she asked quickly.

“Well, sort of, if you like to call me that,” admitted the young reporter, his heart beating suddenly with new hope. “Why?”

“Come in,” she said, and Larry entered the squalid apartment.

“You was looking for this Italian boy, yes?”

“I am!” cried Larry. “Tell me quickly, have you seen him? Was he here?”

“Sure he was here, but he has went.”

“Gone? When?”

“Two days ago. I am sure he is the one what you is wantin’. He was a quiet little feller an’ he was much afraid of the young mans who had him. The little feller, he cry lots. I hear him in the nights, but I dast not do anything. I am afraid. I am afraid efen now to speak mit you, but if you are a detective, you know--you will not let harm come. But he is gone, that little feller, an’ the ones who had him.”

“Where have they gone?” exclaimed Larry.

“I doan’t know.”

“Where were they? In here?”

“No; but you should listen. There is two back rooms on this floor that are not in with mine. They rent separate. Comes here some time ago a boy and two young mans. The boy is sick, I t’ink. He says nothing. I see them go in the back rooms, for the agent of the house leaves mit me the keys yet. I open the rooms for them. I say to one of them: ‘That your boy, mister?’ What he say? Ha! He say to me to keep still, an’ not bodder him. I keep still, but now they are gone, I speak. I am sure something is wrong.”

“And so am I!” cried Larry. “Oh, but I’m too late! Look, is that the boy?” and he showed her a picture of Lorenzo.

“That is him! That is him!” she cried. “Oh, the poor little feller. Who is he?”

“Never mind that now,” spoke Larry. “I’ll tell you later. But where did they go? Did no one see them? Can I have a look in the rooms?”

“For sure you can. I have the keys from the agent of this house. But I know not when those two go--the boy and that man with the bad eyes. One man is only here one day. In the night they go. Listen, detective man: The boy he is never allowed to go out at all. He is kept in the rooms by the bad man. Sometimes another comes--another man--an’ he stays while the first one goes out to buy things to eat; but not much, mind you. Never do they leave that boy alone.

“Sometimes I listen in the nights, and I hears him cry, so sad like. For many years I am sorry that I haf no childrens of my own, but when I hears this boy cryin’, I am glad, for I would not like that one of my little ones should suffer so. Oh, it was sad!” and her honest eyes filled with tears.

“Why did they leave so quickly?” asked Larry. “Did any one scare them away?”

“I know not. Listen, you: One night I hear a noise in the hall, a sort of crying noise. I peek out of my door, and I see them leading the little boy away.”

“Why didn’t you say something--stop them?” cried Larry. “That boy was stolen from his mother! I have been looking all over for him!”

“Stolen! Oh, what a shamefulness! But I did not dare stop them. Listen, you: I live here all alone, and there were two evil men with that boy. In the darkness of the night they took him away, and he comes not back. The rooms are empty.”

“Took him away!” cried Larry softly. “I’m too late! Now I may never find him.”

He thought rapidly for a few moments.

“Let me see the room where he was held a prisoner,” he requested of the woman.

“For certainly, yes,” she assented. “I show you.”

Taking a key down from a nail on the wall, she led the way to a sort of passage at the end of the hall. It appeared that when the tenement was built a mistake had been made and two rooms, intended to go in with the apartment which the woman rented, had been shut off from the others by a wall. These rooms later were fitted up to accommodate two persons. There were a bedroom and a kitchen, with a small bath attached.

“And it’s here Lorenzo was held a prisoner!” exclaimed Larry, as he entered the deserted room which, the woman said, had been used by the boy. The place was not clean, and it was in disorder. The bed was not made, and there were scraps of food all about.

“Poor little feller!” murmured the sympathetic woman.

“Yes,” agreed Larry. “Oh, if I could only have found him before! But perhaps it’s not too late yet. If I could only find some sort of a clew to where they have gone! But I’m all at sea again.”

He gazed about the room. There was little that seemed to offer any hint as to where the men had taken the stolen boy. The kidnappers would see to that. And yet they might have overlooked something--something that would tell Larry what he wanted to know.

“They must have found out that he dropped the letter from the window,” thought the young reporter. “That probably gave them a scare, and they lit out. Tell me,” he said to the woman, “was one man, who led the boy away, tall and big?” and he described Parloti.

“No; he did not look so,” she replied: “They were both small men.”

“The two whom Parloti signaled in the theater,” decided Larry. “His tools. He makes them do all the risky work. But what is his object? Why is he delaying? Why doesn’t he come out in the open, and demand the money or a share in the property as the price for returning the boy? I can’t understand it.”

Larry walked back and forth in the deserted room. The woman opened a window to air the place. A little breeze sprang up and blew about the litter on the floor. A piece of paper landed at Larry’s feet.

Idly he picked it up. At once he knew it for the same kind of wrapping paper on which Lorenzo had written his letter. Larry turned the scrap over. To his surprise, it showed writing.

There, as if it stared up at him, he read this:

You Ron Lorenzo.

“By Jove! Maybe this means something!” cried the young reporter.